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Tarlan
June 5th, 2005, 20:57
Is it possible to use FantaysGrounds on a Mac with a PC emulator software such as virtual PC or will that slow down the program too much ?

Ged
June 7th, 2005, 05:57
You could try how the demo version behaves with the emulator. The demo is based on version 1.01 and since then, the software has changed quite a bit, but the course of the changes has bees such that if the demo runs, the release versions should run better. Good luck and let us know how it went. :D

Tarlan
June 7th, 2005, 20:04
The problem is I have the demo but not the emulator. I was considering buying the emulator to run fantasy grounds (having tested it on a PC) but would like to know if it will work before purchasing this emulator ....

Maize
July 27th, 2005, 02:51
Okay, I'm using Virtual PC 6.1.1 with Windows 2000 Professional on Mac OS X 10.3.9 on a dual 1GHz G4 PowerMac with 1.5GB RAM and an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB video card. (Worth noting: Virtual PC 7 is supposed to improve graphics rendering speed. I don't know if it extends the DirectX support or not.)

Results:
1. I get the splash menu and click "Host Game as a Gamemaster".
2. I enter a username and gamemaster name and click "Continue".
3. I leave everything on the host options unchanged and click "Start".
4. I see the "Fantasy Grounds Please Wait..." screen.
5. The game returns, "CheckDeviceType failed! Error code 17" in a window labelled, "Could not initialize DirectX".
6. The application shuts down.

I get the same thing if I try to go to the locally-create-a-character screen. I didn't try the Join a Game option, as I didn't have a game address or alias to join.

So... it seems to be a no-go.

(Although you should put me down as another vote for a Mac version when considering the option. :) )

Belizan
July 27th, 2005, 03:42
Sounds like failure for DX-9 support. I presume FG grabs DX9 interfaces and can't find them in the VPC VM environment and therein gives up and dies. Check the features for VC7 on the Connectix site (still by Connectix, right?) and check if it support DX9[a,b,c] and cross check that with the requirements for FG.

Cantstanzya
July 27th, 2005, 04:09
Be sure you have DirectX 9.0c installed. It is the only way I could get FG to work on my PCs.

Maize
July 27th, 2005, 22:38
I just got home and checked it in dxdiag, and it's version 9.0c. :/

The problem is likely the card it emulates: an S3 Trio32/64 card with 4MB of VRAM (which is below the minimum required for Fantasy Grounds). Also in looking up similar errors in the VPC USENET group, it appears that it doesn't provide any 3D support at all, which causes most any game that requires it to fail.

I couldn't find any reference to what card VPC7 emulates. A little web searching suggests it might be a 16MB S3 Trio card with no 3D support. I don't know if that would be enough to make it work, but I doubt it.

Maize
July 27th, 2005, 22:40
Oh, to answer the Connectix question, no, VPC is now a Microsoft product. (They bought it from Connectix.)

In any case, it's certainly beneath the minimum listed system requirements for FG, which mention a 32MB video card, IIRC.