Install Portal on Mac with Windows disc?!

[Apollo33]

Valve is really screwing Mac users that already owned Portal and other Steam games! Right now I have my Windows Portal disc that I can't install from—even though I'm sure it shares multiple GIGABYTES of data with the Mac version—AND I can't download from the servers because Valve made Portal free for everyone! They could have given people that paid for Portal and own Macs a few days to download their paid copies before all the freeloaders started destroying the servers. OR given us a way to install with the Windows disc! They would've saved SO much money on bandwidth, too. GRRRRRRR

EDIT:

Okay this is what I did to save a lot of time downloading. If you have a BootCamp partition with Portal already installed, then it's really easy. If you have Portal installed on another computer that you can copy from, then it shouldn't be bad either. If all you have is the Orange Box Discs, then you'd have to try someone's suggestion later in this thread of downloading steambackup.exe and extracting the GCF files from the SID files on the disc... and I have no idea how that works, especially since you'd have to use WINE to run the exe.

Okay so first you install Steam and start the Download/Install of Portal, so that the files for the game are created. Then stop the download. Now go to the Documents folder of your main user, and in there is a Steam Content folder. This is where the GCF files are stored. Then you just need to copy those same files from your Windows BootCamp partition or other Windows computer and overwrite the files that are there. Windows stores the files in "\Program Files\Steam\steamapps". After copying the files, go into Steam and right‐click on "Portal" and choose "Properties". Go to the third tab—Local Files—and click "Verify Integrity of Game Cache". Then you may have to resume the download, but on mine it started automatically. It'll download the little bit you're missing and then the game will be installed!

I should also note that my Windows Portal install was fairly recent and updated. So I can't say for sure what happens if you copy really old versions of the files like the originals from the disc. But I would guess/hope it can still figure out how to update them.

...So play it on your Windows OS computer. I don't see the problem here unless you don't have your Windows computer anymore in which case I completely understand. It's also kind of common sense that PC disks do not work in Apple computers.

[Apollo33]

Originally Posted by doomish

...So play it on your Windows OS computer. I don't see the problem here unless you don't have your Windows computer anymore in which case I completely understand. It's also kind of common sense that PC disks do not work in Apple computers.

My Windows computer is dead. And that's not common sense 'cause CDs and DVDs work fine in Macs.

[TrippleD]

Originally Posted by Apollo33

My Windows computer is dead. And that's not common sense 'cause CDs and DVDs work fine in Macs.

Yes but I would think a Game/Disc (or other Windows software) programed for a windows OS would not work on a Mac.

Originally Posted by Apollo33

My Windows computer is dead. And that's not common sense 'cause CDs and DVDs work fine in Macs.

CDs and DVDs are not game discs. Pull out your Portal disc right now and look at the front of it. It specifically says "PC DVD-ROM SOFTWARE" somewhere on it, and if not on the CD, it's on the box. That little box or line of text means that it won't work in a Mac at all.

[Apollo33]

You people aren't very specific about what you mean by "work." I can put in my DVD and see all the files. Many of the files needed for Portal—textures, game data, etc—are OS‐independent. All they'd need to do is write a Mac install script to copy the game data that it can from the Windows disc, and then download the rest.

I think that could easily bring the download size down from 4GB to under 1GB.

Originally Posted by Apollo33

You people aren't very specific about what you mean by "work." I can put in my DVD and see all the files. Many of the files needed for Portal—textures, game data, etc—are OS‐independent. All they'd need to do is write a Mac install script to copy the game data that it can from the Windows disc, and then download the rest.

I think that could easily bring the download size down from 4GB to under 1GB.

Except that the disc has all those files for the DirectX version or Portal. You need the OpenGL version, which is freely downloadable.

If the servers are busy, change yours to South Korea or Greenland. They generally work fine.

[Psygnosis]

So start the mac install, then stop it, then copy over the files from the disc into the portal directory, see if it cuts down on your install time. Or copy over the updated portal directory from your other computer.

[Apollo33]

Originally Posted by fortune82

Except that the disc has all those files for the DirectX version or Portal. You need the OpenGL version, which is freely downloadable.

If the servers are busy, change yours to South Korea or Greenland. They generally work fine.

Jeez you're right, they probably had to re‐encode all of their images and audio files and character models and AI from the DX version to the GL version

Thanks for the server suggestion though.


@Psygnosis

Good thought, but the files on the DVD are compressed in a strange format: *.sid, .sim, .sis.

[WinstonChurchil]

Why oh why? ...When Portal and the orange box were marketed, the Mac port was probably nothing more than a faint idea or a prototype somewhere in valve HQ.

Also, the files are packed within a windows specific installer - why create a mac installer in 2007 for something that didnt exist back then?

[The Comfy Chair]

Originally Posted by WinstonChurchil

Why oh why? ...When Portal and the orange box were marketed, the Mac port was probably nothing more than a faint idea or a prototype somewhere in valve HQ.

Also, the files are packed within a windows specific installer - why create a mac installer in 2007 for something that didnt exist back then?

Indeed, it's hardly surprising the disc doesn't work. It's akin to putting an xbox dvd into a ps2, sure the files are there and the storage medium is the same, but the important parts are wrong.

[Liag]

Originally Posted by Apollo33

Good thought, but the files on the DVD are compressed in a strange format: *.sid, .sim, .sis.

http://supportwiki.steampowered.com/...Backup_Feature

Download steambackup.exe and try to decompress them that way.

[Apollo33]

Originally Posted by WinstonChurchil

Also, the files are packed within a windows specific installer

That's weird, 'cause on my Orange Box Disc 1, I have a 5.7MB .msi file, and then 3.5GB of .sid files, which is Valve's proprietary storage format.

[Apollo33]

Originally Posted by Liag

http://supportwiki.steampowered.com/...Backup_Feature

Download steambackup.exe and try to decompress them that way.

Thanks but I think I'll just download Portal overnight and hope it finishes. I don't really trust the Mac Steam to figure out if the files from that old install are right or wrong and then to replace them as needed.

It just seemed like it would've been bandwidthally‐advantageous () for Valve to have made a small Mac install that could get all the game resource files that are still relevant from old discs and download only the new stuff.

[seseorang]

Just copy the GCF's over then verify the cache under Mac.. Theoretically, it should work. But I don't have a Mac to test this idea on.