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EVE on vanilla Wine on OSX, better than the official client (mostly)

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Deimos Ovaert
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2013-12-27 19:15:05 UTC  |  Edited by: Deimos Ovaert
Updated below

Like most of us Mac users, I'm not a huge fan of the cider implementation of EVE on Mac. It works, but it's missing some of the functionality of the native Windows client. I went in search of a better solution and with my Windows Offline EVE installer, this is what I've found.

First I headed for the old trusty Crossover Mac. I created a bottle and installed EVE and lo' and behold it worked great. I had "real" Mac fullscreen with finger swipes to change spaces working. \o/ I could also change from fullscreen to windowed mostly successfully (75% of time or so). \o/ Now the downside, CPU utilization went up to over 115% from 60-70% for the cider implementation. /o\

Next I headed for vanilla WINE via Macports. I found that it worked very similar to Crossover Mac, except for one thing: CPU utilization was in the 65% range @ 60fps! Trying 1.7.8 and 1.7.9 didn't change this much, but both of those versions had some kind of weirdness in the FPS being locked at 30fps until I changed a graphics setting, like change interval from "one" to "two" or from "two" to "one" after which it would go to 60fps as well.

The one downside of native WINE is that it seems to degrade EVE Voice quality pretty signifcantly and drops the connection to the EVE Voice server on a regular basis.

In summary, WINE 1.7.7+ seems to work better than the cider client with Mac like spaces integration for fullscreen with the caveat that EVE voice seems marginally usable.

I'd /really/ like to see who's interested in either getting the fullscreen from WINE 1.7.7+ into cider (looking at CCP) or fixing EVE Voice under vanilla (community).

My rig: late 2013 15" MBP/NVIDIA 16GB, Mavericks 10.9.1

More info as requested.

1.7.10 Update
It seems that the 1.7.10 WINE release has addressed most of the issues with 1.7.7-1.7.10. I'm not seeing crashes when switching from full-screen to windowed mode and EVE Voice seems to be working better. I'll update as I test more.
Manssell
OmiHyperMultiNationalDrunksConglomerate
#2 - 2013-12-28 01:39:34 UTC
This is really cool. Thanks Deimos for doing this. I've wondered if using one of the other wrappers would work better than cider, hell they would almost have too.

I try'd using Wine to get one of the Total Wars to work on my Mac, but frankly ever since I stopped taking computer science classes at uni decades ago I'm just now a computer user and not a "programmer". So I never got it to work. Yea, I know you don't have to be a "programmer" to do this, but outside of Adobe and Apple's pro apps, any program that gets too technical makes my eyes roll up into my head and forces me to chug vodka and cry. But knowing they exist made me think that they must work better.

I also wonder if the "mac freeze" will still happen under Wine or Crossover? I've always had a strong feeling that Cider is exasperating a problem in the client so it shows up more on the Mac.
Deimos Ovaert
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2013-12-28 13:50:59 UTC
I've had zero freezes under vanilla WINE (but I have had a couple of crashes, mostly due to fullscreen and full-size window switching) and it's feels superior enough to the cider (official) EVE client that it is my default client now.

Being able to 3 finger swipe between fullscreen EVE and your browser or a second account is just so useful. Also, since you are running the native Windows client you don't have any weirdness about the size of some of your windows and the like that are there for the Mac client.

Now, if I can just get the EVE Voice issue resolved and/or talk CCP into updated their cider to something 1.7.6+

It really is cake to setup and try:

1. Install Macports
2. Install wine-devel (this will take several hours due to dependancies)
3. Download the EVE Offline Windows installer (do this while wine-devel builds)
4. Go to a terminal and type: 'wine EVE_Online_Intaller_####.exe'

Start playing EVE.
Nicemeries
#4 - 2013-12-30 10:43:41 UTC
So essentially this creates a better experience than the official CCP Mac cider version? I use 3rd party voice comms anyways, so not to fuzzed about eve voice.

I was wondering before I try this, if you experience less heat as well? If I run eve with 1 client it is not unusual to get 100 dregees Celsius despite max fan speeds.

Cheers
Deimos Ovaert
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#5 - 2013-12-30 14:09:37 UTC
Nicemeries wrote:
So essentially this creates a better experience than the official CCP Mac cider version? I use 3rd party voice comms anyways, so not to fuzzed about eve voice.

I was wondering before I try this, if you experience less heat as well? If I run eve with 1 client it is not unusual to get 100 dregees Celsius despite max fan speeds.

Cheers


Yes, I believe the experience is better than the official cider client with the exception of EVE Voice. Now, my tests have not been exhaustive, but I have played my "workflow" which is mostly centered around NPC Null living and everything that entails, solo and small gang PvP, etc.

Heat was very bad on Crossover, but it is similar or lower under vanilla WINE than the official client.

All the minor issues aside, the ability to Cmd-Enter to switch between fullscreen and full-size-windowed and also three finger swipe between fullscreen spaces made it completely worthwhile.
Nicemeries
#6 - 2013-12-30 18:01:55 UTC
Allright, as a complete noob at ICT stuff I'll try and set is up and to to verify it's a piece of cake:)

Will report later
Nicemeries
#7 - 2013-12-30 18:53:43 UTC
Deimos Ovaert wrote:
I've had zero freezes under vanilla WINE (but I have had a couple of crashes, mostly due to fullscreen and full-size window switching) and it's feels superior enough to the cider (official) EVE client that it is my default client now.

Being able to 3 finger swipe between fullscreen EVE and your browser or a second account is just so useful. Also, since you are running the native Windows client you don't have any weirdness about the size of some of your windows and the like that are there for the Mac client.

Now, if I can just get the EVE Voice issue resolved and/or talk CCP into updated their cider to something 1.7.6+

It really is cake to setup and try:

1. Install Macports
2. Install wine-devel (this will take several hours due to dependancies)
3. Download the EVE Offline Windows installer (do this while wine-devel builds)
4. Go to a terminal and type: 'wine EVE_Online_Intaller_####.exe'

Start playing EVE.



How do I "install" wine-devel ?
Deimos Ovaert
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#8 - 2013-12-30 20:55:44 UTC
Nicemeries wrote:


How do I "install" wine-devel ?


You'll need to read the Macports documentation, but the short answer is to do:

$ sudo port sync
$ sudo port install wine-devel

This second part can take hours, depending on the speed of your system and during that time is a good chance to download the EVE Windows Offline Installer.
Deimos Ovaert
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#9 - 2014-01-05 16:20:26 UTC
Update for WINE 1.7.10.

It looks like the CPU usage has dropped again(!) down to ~40% for a client at fullscreen on my rMBP and from my initial testing (1.7.10 just became available in ports), the EVE Voice issue seems better. Also, there were some fullscreen/windowed changes in 1.7.10 which appear to make the swap more stable.

I'll update this post after a bit more extensive testing, but if it is as good as I hope then there really isn't any reason to be using the cider client.
Dersen Lowery
The Scope
#10 - 2014-01-06 21:29:52 UTC
If this does work better, than I have a question for CCP: Is there any way for you guys to tell that the client is running on a Mac, or will Deimos and anyone who follows his lead be logged as a PC user?

Proud founder and member of the Belligerent Desirables.

I voted in CSM X!
Jack Bero
It Cannont Be Named
#11 - 2014-01-07 12:08:21 UTC
Hey guys. Just wanted to relay my experience with Wine 1.7.10. I have the exact same hardware as Deimos does. When I'm running Cider my Cider processes is always at 180-200%, my fans are humming and my temps are between 95-100C. But with wine installed as suggested here my Wine process is at 40% (60% if I turn up the quality of the graphics) and my temps seem to stay around 85C.

All in all it seems much snappier. In fact, I was able to run two clients. I could never do that with Cider and without full screen switching on one monitor it was useless. This is great. Now when I undock, there is a noticeable red warning light flashing. I wonder what other graphics elements I have been living without all this time?

Now... if only we could get EveMon running in Wine on a Mac. Smile
Deimos Ovaert
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#12 - 2014-01-07 15:38:09 UTC
Thanks for relaying your experience, Jack. It really is a better experience, isn't it?

Did you have much trouble getting WINE and EVE installed? My instructions aren't the clearest and are from the tinkerers point of view, so they likely have a lot of room for improvement.
Jack Bero
It Cannont Be Named
#13 - 2014-01-07 19:33:21 UTC
The instructions worked exactly as you said. In fact I have set this up on a second mac laptop. This one is an older 17" mbp. Similar results on that hardware along with being able to ratchet up the graphics quality.

I'll get some more game time in today. I'm still looking for a reason why cider is being used in the mac version? There must be a reason we are missing?
Rag Rean
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#14 - 2014-01-08 08:52:09 UTC
Does the Captain Quarter work ?
Jack Bero
It Cannont Be Named
#15 - 2014-01-08 11:43:33 UTC
I knew there would be something that didn't work. No, wine crashes when I try to enter the captain's quarters. Fortunately I haven't been in those quarters since the first week I started playing. :)

Is this a known issue or did you just guess it might not work?

On a side note, I did get the latest version EveMon to work in wine on my mac.
Rag Rean
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#16 - 2014-01-08 11:52:54 UTC
It's a known issue that Captain Quarter does not work with wine on Linux.
Amarisen Gream
The.Kin.of.Jupiter
#17 - 2014-01-08 12:43:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Amarisen Gream
While I await for Deimos's method to finish up installing Wine-devel

I"m going to see if wineskin works

looks like it is 1.7.8 on the Wine Version.

Will see!

+ Deimos
> could you provide a step by step guide to installing EVE this way. I couldn't find the offline installer of EVE. so have to use the installer. hope it works :D

thanks

++ Edit ++

Okay. Wineskin worked, but only if i ran it in test mode

Deimos's method works great - minus the fact that you can't use the CQ -

need to figure out apple scrip so don't have to go to terminal and type
"wine /path.to.eve"

"The Lord loosed upon them his fierce anger All of his fury and rage. He dispatched against them a band of Avenging Angels" - The Scriptures, Book II, Apocalypse 10:1

#NPCLivesMatter #Freetheboobs
Deimos Ovaert
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#18 - 2014-01-08 18:18:37 UTC
Amarisen Gream wrote:
While I await for Deimos's method to finish up installing Wine-devel

need to figure out apple scrip so don't have to go to terminal and type
"wine /path.to.eve"


I'm glad to hear that you were able to decipher the method for getting wine-devel installed from my loose process. It's interesting about Wineskin and adds some knowledge to our informal knowledge base.

On the AppleScript front, I use something like:

do shell script "/opt/bin/wine '~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/CCP/EVE/eve.exe'"

Your paths may be different and make sure to single ' the path to EVE if it has a space in it.

As a side note, if you happen to be running multiple clients then I've found that you can just put in a symlink to your EVE folder and it creates character specific cache directories and the like. Something like:

cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/CCP
ln -s EVE Deimos
wine ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/CCP/Deimos/eve.exe (or ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/CCP/Deimos/bin/exefile.exe)

P.S. I've also made a symlink to "Program Files", because I got tired of typing it.
cd
ln -s ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files pf
wine pf/Deimos/bin/exefile.exe
Amarisen Gream
The.Kin.of.Jupiter
#19 - 2014-01-09 05:44:04 UTC
Now >>> all we need is from CCP to look at this and go WTF! This works better than Cider (minus the whole CQ thingy)

Maybe I can talk to my bosses, and we can take this, and do a new bundle of EVE Online for mac, that doesn't have cider in it. + work on figure out what bugs are there, so we can try to fix them and provide more support to our mac gamers...

<<< Thats my dream for now. I would prefer a native client. but hey!!!

xoxo

"The Lord loosed upon them his fierce anger All of his fury and rage. He dispatched against them a band of Avenging Angels" - The Scriptures, Book II, Apocalypse 10:1

#NPCLivesMatter #Freetheboobs
Amarisen Gream
The.Kin.of.Jupiter
#20 - 2014-01-09 08:00:12 UTC
One problem I've come across with multiple toons.

It seems Deimos, that after I did what you said for creating multiple toon clients > my alts now hang up after a few minutes. The client becomes unresponsive and i have to force quit!

"The Lord loosed upon them his fierce anger All of his fury and rage. He dispatched against them a band of Avenging Angels" - The Scriptures, Book II, Apocalypse 10:1

#NPCLivesMatter #Freetheboobs
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