Overview
This is a work in progress guide to help mac owners play the windows version of FORTS on Mac OSX using Wine.
Instructions
Firstly, you might find the easiest solution is Geforce Now
Otherwise, here are a couple of ways of getting Steam (Windows version) and Forts to run on your Mac.
Big thanks to Alex88 for providing the information.
Warning: This is an experimental guide, use at your own risk as Mac OSX is not officially supported. I have tested this on an old 2010 Macbook Pro running OSX Sierra and a 2013 iMac running Catalina. Let us know how it worked for you in the comments below, or on the Forts Discord.
1. Open Terminal window
2. Enter this command to install HomeBrew (This allows packages (Apps) to be installed and uninstalled via scripts):
It will ask you for your password.
It will then tell you what it’s going to install. It gave me a warning about installing older software.
Press return to continue.
It will install a bunch of stuff related to HomeBrew. Sometimes it will look like it’s stopped, but give it time. It took around 10 mins for me.
3. Once you’re back at the command line (HomeBrew says it was successful etc), enter this command next:
This one finishes pretty quick.
4. Then if you have a newer OSX (Catalina and up) enter this command:
or if you have an older OSX (up to but excluding Catalina) enter this:
This took about 10 mins as well.
It may ask for your password when installing xquartz and cask. This took an additional 10 mins to process.
5. Next enter this command:
This one is quick as well.
6. Finally enter this command:
What happens next depends on your version of OSX.
On older Mac OSX :
If asked, click on Install Wine Mono and Gecko.
The steam installer will appear. Just install it into the default location.
Click on finish and steam will update itself.
After that it will ask you to log in to Steam as per usual.
At this point I got an error about vulkandriverquery but ignored it.
Now Steam should boot. Before you start clicking on things you should go to the View menu and choose Small Mode. This stops all of the extra web based graphics stuff. You should see a list of your games and you can install Forts by right clicking on it in the list and choosing install.
At this point you should be able to play Forts!
If Steam crashes for some reason, and you end up back in the terminal, type this command to boot Steam again:
If you quit or reboot and want to play again, go into the Applications folder and run Wine-Stable, and in the window that appears enter the above command again.
Your done, have fun playing Forts on Mac OSX!
On newer Mac OSX:
OSX will probably tell you it doesn’t recognise Wine-Crossover. I left the warning window open, then went to System Prefs>Security/Privacy, clicked the lock and entered my password. Then clicked ok on the error, and in the security panel an option appeared to “Open Anyway”. I clicked this and the installer continued. You might have to click ok.
It finished installing, but was incomplete and didn’t start the Steam installer so I had to run the winetricks steam command again. This time the installer booted.
The steam installer will appear. Just install it into the default location.
Click on finish and steam will update itself.
After that it will ask you to log in to Steam as per usual.
Now Steam should boot. Before you start clicking on things you should go to the View menu and choose Small Mode. This stops all of the extra web based graphics stuff. You should see a list of your games and you can install Forts by right clicking on it in the list and choosing install.
At this point you should be able to play Forts!
If Steam crashes for some reason, and you end up back in the terminal, type this command to boot Steam again:
If you quit or reboot and want to play again, go into the Applications folder and run Wine-Stable, and in the window that appears enter the above command again.
Your done, have fun playing Forts on Mac OSX!
Known Issues
- You currently can’t host a game, but you can join other lobbies. We are looking into this.
- Steam/Wine/Forts will crash occasionally. Not much we can do about this.
- There is a newer version of Wine coming that may be more stable.
- There is another branch of Wine called wine-staging that may or may not work better for you. Try replacing wine-stable with wine-staging (make sure you uninstall the previous version first using the uninstall instructions below)
How to uninstall
To uninstall Wine and associated files, enter the following command in Terminal:
if you have a newer OSX (Catalina and up)
or if you have an older OSX (up to but excluding Catalina)