Mac
This page is a small 'guide' for Mac users who may want educating on the subject of the Mac versions of Unreal Engine games.
Unreal
Ported by Westlake Interactive and published by [Macsoft], UT was never really finished in terms of patches, which makes network games incompatible with the Windows version. It also has a nasty bug that occurs on some graphics cards (mainly ATi models) that causes lighting to function incorrectly and having the general effect of making everything appear very dark. This makes it very difficult to see where the hell you're going on the darker maps. Obviously, software rendering mode doesn't suffer from this problem and is probably the only solution in such cases.
Patches
Unfortunately, there are only 2 available patches to the game. 224b1 and 224b7. Both are, as the version number suggests, still in the beta stage, and the beta7 requires that the beta1 be installed to function. AFAIK the latest Windows patch (226f) isn't compatabile with the 224b Mac patches, so as I said previously network play is broken between the two platforms. To obtain the Mac patches, have a look at Beyond Unreal's [Essential Unreal Files].
Return to Na Pali
RTNP is the Digital Extremes 'mission pack' for Unreal. This was never released on the Mac, and unfortunately, it's not actually a 'drop-in' modification (doesn't require the original Unreal to already be installed), and can't run at all on a Mac. It is possible, however, to use Unreal Tournament to run the game instead, using a modification called RTNP2UT. The mod is obtainable via fileplanet, a direct link to which is located on dinwitty's [Web Site]. If you go through the ordeal to download it you might also want to look at [this] thread on the BuF. Just FYI; in order to play the mission pack, you actually have to own it. The mod only contains a few altered .u files to enable play, it doesn't provide you with the maps or any other material so you need to get that yourself.
Editing: Maps & Mods
No UnrealED was released for the Mac. I go into more detail about it below.
Unreal Tournament
It has had it's fair share of problems (probably more so than the Windows version). After the initial release of UT for Windows, it was again decided to get some third party porters in to do the Mac version (which at the time was quite understandable, since the Mac has never been recognised as a great gaming platform, which indeed up until recently, was a well founded fact).
The job of porting it was given to Westlake Interactive yet again. The Publisher would also be Macsoft yet again, although at a later stage Infograms (AKA Atari), took over support for the Mac version, even though they originally had nothing to do with it.
Patches
The last official patch made available (in sync with the Windows version of the game) was version 436 (which should still be downloadable from [Atari's Support Site], or indeed from Beyond Unreal's [Essential UT Files] page). It squished numerous bugs, and even brought in some new ones (as most patches often do). However, there is still an extremely annoying bug I refer to as The Sound Bug that usually occurs on most Mac systems running the classic OS (OS 9.x or below). As far as I'm aware it doesn't occur hardly if at all if you use the prview versions of UT to run the game natively in OS X.
Although the intensity of the bug seems to vary depending on the system you use. For example you might be able to play the game perfectly for a short period of time without experiencing this problem, but it may become apparent after a few Map changes that music no longer plays, and sound effects don't seem to play at all, or if they do, the wrong sound plays and usually gets echoed to infinity (I find that the worst occurance of this is AS-Overlord, at the start). As I said there is no known fix for this problem, despite what Westlake have said in the past about using different versions of the Sound Manager. Unfortunately, they've now dropped support for the game altogether.
On another note about patches, there is some hope, mainly for Mac OS X users. I don't know the details of the problems Mac10 uses have with UT, other than that it appears to not work properly if at all (and as previously stated the sound bug I refered to doesn't seem to occur either). Anyway Westlake did start working on a OS 10 specific version of the game launcher, and released at least three preview versions of it. It was far from complete though, and they even said that because they were doing it in their own free time that it might never get finished... And low and behold, it didn't.
But Epic's Ryan Gordon, is (or rather was) attempting to make a Mac10 version of the game. I say was because on inspection of his site a while back he apprently found he'd have to completely rewrite something (the renderer I think?) because the code was so ancient and pretty crap. It was put on a backburner I think, and now doesn't look like it'll ever be finished. I wouldn't have thought there'd be any point myself, th egame's so old now, and Mac users of game are few and far between so, what's the point in wasting the time on it? Still if he does ever finish it, I've no idea if he'll be incorperating this into a [UTPG] patch or what. Although even UTPG seems to have burnt out now, what with them not having any updates in a long long time. Sounds like UT is pretty much a thing of the past now. However if nostagia is your thing, and you have OS 10, keep an eye on [this page] just in case Ryan ever does decide to finish it.
Editing: Maps & Mods
It is not possible to make Maps or Mods if you have the Mac version of the game. That's because there is no UnrealEd for Mac, as nearly all Mac users who play UT are probably well aware of. There is also no UnrealScript compiler available, or indeed other less important tools that might have been useful such as a UMOD creation tool, even though Westlake had the kindness in their heart (/sarcasm) to create a tool to install UMOD files which comes with the 436 patch. Don't cry though, as there is a project called Seppuku (which literally translates as something like Suicidally Ambitious).
I expect a lot of people (including myself) felt it was highly unlikely the one guy (Paul Snively) would ever succeed in finishing the project. Still he slaved on, and seemed to run off at a tangent every time he made an update. In fact he seemed more interested in the development of the tools he was supposedly using to make this editor than he did the actual editor. I even asked him once how he was getting on, and he told me. After reading what he wrote, the phrases "beating around the bush" and "complete jargon" sprung to mind. The fact he seemed unable to tell me in simple laymans worried me.
More disappointing was his decision to make the editor cross platform, which seemed a bit of a risk-take considering it would double his work load (unless he got more people on the project, which he never did). Added to which his reasoning for doing so seemed pretty rediculous. It was something along the lines of that he didn't want to try and compete with the windows editor so he'd simply make a windows editor as well so there wouldn't be an competetion (don't hold me to that, but that sure as hell was what it looked like when I read it). He seemed to think it would make his life easier... By doubling his workload? Anyway, none of this really matters anymore. I first noticed in November 2005 that his site wasn't working. And it hasn't been ever since (what with it now being near the end of July '06 I doubt it'll be coming back).
And yet I noticed Paul talking bollocks yet again about something to do with Google a few months back (May I believe), so he's still around... Apparently though he's more interested in the numerous other projects that no-one's ever heard of rather than Seppuku. Oh not forgetting his day job, whatever that is. In other words, the suicidally ambitious Mac Unreal Tournament Editor has commited suicide.
Update March 2007: Still no website. It's been well over a year now, I think we can safely assume he's given up. Shame he didn't even bother to announce it anywhere, as it raises questions as to if he was actually just stringing everyone along this whole time.
UT 2003 & 2004
Both were released for the Mac. Not by Westlake either (hurray!). So I suspect there won't be any repeat performances of nasty unfixed bugs. Although still no UnrealED as of yet.
Patches
All patches should be available from Macsoft's support pages:
UnrealEngine3
As it's been pointed out by Uncommon, UnrealEd appears to be going to get a Mac release for the upcoming 3rd Unreal Engine, as mentioned [here]. Which is nice.
Although with the new revelations of the Mac Intel rigs, I suspect the chances are so high now Mac users will finally get UnrealED you might as well consider it a done deal... Apart from the minor problem that you'll have to buy a new Mac... Though I'm sure if you had enough money to get a G5 you'll certainly have enough laying around to buy a Mactel.
Unreal Tournament 2007 has yet to be announced for Mac I believe but it shouldn't be too far behind the PC release if Ryan Gordon has anything to do with it.
Other Games
There have been numerous other non-Unreal games released on the Mac that use the Unreal Engine. Details of exactly what games have been released can be found on the Unreal Engine Versions page, although as for which got Mac releases, some of the more popular titles include Deus Ex, Rune, Undying and even the newer XIII, and even Postal 2. None have a Mac version of the map editor available... there's a surprise.
Discussion
type4: If you have sound problems with the Mac Version of UnrealTournament, check out Applications/Utilities/Audio Midi Setup, and set Auto Output Format to 44100 Hz (that works perfectly for me, I'm using osX Tiger 10.4.5). Audio applications like Garageband may change this value for their own purpose to a higher value like 96000 Hz, which leads to no sound in some other applications.
Slim: Worth knowing, although I believe the sound bug that I mention in the article only occurs on OS 9 (or below), or when you're running classic mode on OS 10, and is unfixable. The troubles OS 10 users see are due to the fact the version of UT for X was never really finished and some people get trouble in all sorts of areas, including sound (while, for some reason, others don't). But I altered the article to mention the OS 9 bit anyway so thanks for bringing that up.
Slim: Seppuku is dead. It isn't offical but, meh, Paul doesn't seem to be going to mention is anywhere so I've done it for him.
