With the installation of MacOS Catalina 32bit application support is no more. PlayOnMac, Wine and Crossover all no longer function. Read on to find out how we got Championship Manager 01/02 working, all over again!
A couple of years ago we worked out how to get CM0102 working on Mac using PlayOnMac and Wine, with a little manual tinkering. This was an excellent solution as it was lean, fast, and importantly, free. With the advent of MacOS Catalina this solution stopped working, as did the commercial WINE wrapper Crossover. WINE is unlikely to be ready for full 64 bit support for quite sometime, Crossover may have a workaround in early 2020.
Here at MacRetro retro gaming is pretty much the only kind of gaming that we do, and although we do have a linux gaming machine in the house, playing on the tower both defeats the purpose of this domain, and doesn’t travel well either!
So we looked at the horizon, decided that there would not be a viable solution any time soon, so we came up with a new one. First we tried to run PlayOnMac inside a Linux Mint Virtual Machine. Not only did CM0102 not work, neither did anything else we tried to run.
Next we decided to try to run games natively inside a Windows XP virtual machine on Mac, pretty much every game other than CM0102 worked – until we realised why CM0102 was not loading, and that it was something that we’d had to fix when running XP all those years ago too!
We looked at two different pieces of software to run this in – we looked at VMware and at Parallels. We opted for the latter mainly because it has a nice and easy GUI to walk you through VM setup. We are using “Parallels Desktop Lite” which you can purchase through the App Store. It is more expensive than buying and renewing Parallels Destop Pro directly, but it does allow Parallels to be used on all of the machines in your apple account. If that was not important to us (it is), we’d have bought the Pro application instead. More detail on this another day.
So installing CM0102 in a Windows XP VM is pretty much the same as installing CM0102 on a windows XP machine way back then.
- Attach your CM0102.iso to the virtual CD ROM drive available in Parallels:
- Select your installation language:
- Watch your game install
- Right Click (or centre click) on CM0102 icon on desktop, and load the properties menu.
- Select the “Compatibility” tab in the dialogue box that loads:
- CM0102 will not load in Windows XP – set compatibility mode to Windows 95
- Play CM0102 on your MacOS Catalina Machine!
This is not the cheapest way of playing old windows games on Mac, and it is certainly not free. It is however very robust, and opens the door to other possibilities – the Tapanified CM0102 updates will work in this Windows XP VM, they did not work in the PlayOnMac solution. If you have not upgraded to macOS Catalina yet, you do have the option of remaining with your current PlayOnMac setup – but you will need to turn automatic upgrades off, and will not be able to upgrade your MacOS installation without breaking your setup.
If you are worried about whether this solution will work with your game, CM0102 or otherwise, then Parallels offer a 14 day trial of their software with no card details upfront – so give it a go. Oh, and in the interests of transparency, we have no relationship whatsoever, affiliate or otherwise with Parallels – and sadly we earn no money at all if you buy their software too. We’re just really excited about the Windows XP virtual machines that we’ve built using their kit!
Game On!!!!!
Jonny says
Hi there,
The beauty of ‘Play on Mac’ was that it’s free. Is there no free version for OS Catalina that will work?
MacRetro says
Hi Jonny,
Crossover 16 was released this week – which is good news. Once the enhancements from that have been worked back into the WINE codebase then a 64bit compatible version of POM will be available.
A couple of things though.
1. We experience much broader functionality in our XP VM than we ever did in POM. From a CM0102 point of view we can apply Tapani patches in our VM, that was not possible under POM.
2. Our testing of Age of Empires in Crossover 16 today did not render properly on screen.
So expect a bumpy road ahead while the architecture settles down.
John says
Hi, any luck getting it to work with crossover on Catalina? Was much easier without having to install Windows XP. If not, how can I get Windows XP?
Wayne Knox says
Stupid question – but do you need a copy of Windows (XP or similar) to make this work? If so, where best to find one?
MacRetro says
Hi Wayne,
Yes, you will need a copy of Windows XP for this to work (we couldn’t get Win 95/98 running well enough).
Dan says
I’ve set this up using the trial version of Parallels but I keep being asked to insert the game disc when trying to start a new game. Pretty sure I’ve followed all of the steps, anything I’m missing?
MacRetro says
Hi Dan,
Put your vm into windowed mode – on the top bar you should see a cd-rom icon. Mount your CM0102 iso there.
Amar says
Hi, I installed parallels however it has installed windows 10 and when I run CM0102, it starts but I only see the top left corner of the game in a maximised view.
I’ve tried changing a lot of the compatibility settings but nothing seems to change it.
Any tips?
Amar
Connor Smith says
No product key is working with my Windows XP home edition installation? What version of xp do I need and where can I find working product keys?
Tore says
Hi,
Turns out I only can see a quarter of my CM0102 screen when launching the game. I have done exactly what you have told me during this article. What is wrong?
filip says
I have the same problem
James says
go to parrallels settings, graphics, change to “scaled (best for legacy apps)” and then try again.
Joe says
Hi,
Download worked perfectly. Played the game for one season then got the dreaded not enough available system memory.
Is it possible to fix this?
Pieter says
The Appstore says;
“We could not complete the purchase.
Parallels Desktop can’t be installed on “Macintosh HD” because macOS version 10.14.6 or later is required.”
How can I solve this problem?
Mat says
I can start the game on Parellels free trial and play maybe one game before being told I cannot continue because there is not enough memory to save the game. This message is displayed within Champ Manager. Can you help?
James Kelsh says
I have gone through all the processes above, I can load the game but once I click start game it states not enough memory?
Ravi says
Hi,
I’ve followed the instructions above and the game loads up but only in a cropped window in the top right of the screen that I’m not able to do much with. Known issue?
Many thanks,
Ravi
Pedro says
I installed windows with Parallels and installed CM but when I try to start a new game I get a message which says there is not enough memory available. There is plenty of memory in my macbook but apparently the virtual machine is full, even though I only installed CM. Do you know how to fix this? Tks
kieran says
Stupid question – do you still need to buy the 01/02 CD-Rom? What is a .iso file?
MacRetro says
An .iso file is a disc image – you can download this free from champman0102 forum, no need to buy.
SL says
Hi, guys. You can install it with virtualbox – https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
This is free tool from oracle. For VMware or Parallels you need to pay.
Have a fantastic season! ]:->
TH says
Im really struggling installing this. Could you give a quick run through using this virtual box?
MacRetro says
We had this running in virtual box too – we struggled too much with optimising the vm and getting trackpad to work sensibly, which is why we opted for parallels instead.
Brian Horvath says
I was able to install parells and windows xp on mac os catalina. I can install and load Championship Manager. When I try to start a new game, however, i get a message that there is not enough available system to create the game. The error message is coming from Championship Manager itself. Any ideas?
MacRetro says
Hi Brian,
We’ve heard about this, but not seen it.
Two suggestions.
1. Look at the memory settings available to the virtual machine within parallels.
2. Try launching with the GDI executable instead.
Good luck!
Pieter says
Hello,
I have downloaded the game succesfully and it’s running on full screen.
However it gives a error when I try to safe a game. One possiblity is lack of storage, but I have 68gb left on my Mac. Anything wrong with the settings? I run on Windows 95 mode and tried both Run As An Administrator on and off. I run parallels 16.
Strangely I have it working and beging saved a few months ago, but I reinstalled Paralllels and Windows.
Hendrick says
Hi Macretro,
Thanks for your content, keep up the good work. I seem to be having a problem installing a particular patcher (Nick’s CM 01/02 Patcher, version 2.24) through PlayonMac. The game works, including Patch 3.68 and the October 2022 Database, but when I try to install Nick’s Patcher, I get an error message (POL: Wine seems to have crashed).
Would you any idea how to have the patch work?
Thanks!
site_admin says
Hi Hendrick,
WINE struggles with most of the unofficial patches – the only way I have had those running is using Parallels and a Windows XP virtual machine .
I’ve not tested in Crossover – though being built on WINE I’d expect them not to work there either 🙁
Hendrick says
Thanks for your reply! Ah I see – ah well, I’m having enough fun with the game as it is 🙂 Might give Parallels a go in the future. Cheers!