switching to a mac

[FuriousD]

switching to a mac

I just got my college computer, an i book g4, which will assume all my computing needs. my question for any other mac users on the forum is what do you do about stashing items. is there any way to do it myself or do i need someone to go on open with me? I want to continue playing sp but may not be able to if i can't store my items

 

[ZeratulsAvenger]

I just got my college computer, an i book g4, which will assume all my computing needs. my question for any other mac users on the forum is what do you do about stashing items. is there any way to do it myself or do i need someone to go on open with me? I want to continue playing sp but may not be able to if i can't store my items

What I did was just became very selective with what I kept, and if I did need to mule anything over I would make a game on open on one computer, and join it with another and swap as I wanted.

I believe on the ATMA FAQ's there is a mentioning of someone developing a Mac version of ATMA, but it is far from being done as far as I know. Might be able to look into that, for the future at least.

 

[abarlament]

What I did was just became very selective with what I kept,

Shoot... I keep most everything that looks good to me. Everything with leech I keep, same with +skills. ATMA doesn't have a limit does it?

 

[ZeratulsAvenger]

Shoot... I keep most everything that looks good to me. Everything with leech I keep, same with +skills. ATMA doesn't have a limit does it?

No, but it's currently only for Windows. Well perhaps it has a limit, but nothing you would reach, I would imagine.

Quote from the ATMA website

Q: Is ATMA available for the Mac?
No. Some guy was working on ATMAc for the Mac, but I have no idea what stage it is at. Anyone willing to donate a Mac for ATMAc development will have a happy Doc personally working on it.

 

[Twoflower]

but there s no atma for mac so far

it s realy best to become aware of what is worth keeping and what isnt if you realy wanna keep everything, you ll have to mule whit 2 computer on a LAN, go to open bnet ( wouldnt recomend this ) or start copying save games.

 

[Cattleya]

You can use fast user switching (and two user accounts) to mule items. You just start up a TCP/IP game in the first account, switch over to the second account, start up the game, and join the TCP/IP game you just started. Then you just switch back and forth between the accounts to mule the items. It can be a pain, but it works without spending any more money and you can do it without a second person.

If you haven't bought Microsoft Office for your laptop yet, you could consider spending a little more for the professional edition to get Virtual PC and run ATMA that way. Of course, I wouldn't go that route unless you have other PC stuff you want to be able to run. (Oh, the irony of buying Virtual PC from Microsoft so I could use Corel Office. )

 

[Ragnarod]

I don't want to get your hopes high, but the other day I came across this post, that was when I seriously started considering getting myself a mac

 

[FuriousD]

thanks for the advice, but i think i might have to turn my single player conquests into untwinked only on the new machine

 

[DurfBarian]

If you haven't bought Microsoft Office for your laptop yet, you could consider spending a little more for the professional edition to get Virtual PC and run ATMA that way.

Since you're a student you might be able to get a really good deal on Office 2004 Pro from your school bookstore. It will NOT be fast at all (in fact I recommend installing Virtual PC and then installing Win 98 or 2K on top of that, instead of XP) but for ATMA it's enough.

The FUS method is kind of a chore, but it certainly does work. So that's another option.

 

[corax]

omg durf r avatar stealerer


mac = j00 sux n00b

 

[OCAU_MIKLE]

Mac hey..... My suggestion, install gentoo linux. Then under wine you may run everything including ATMA fine .

- ocau_mikle

 

[DurfBarian]

omg durf r avatar stealerer

What are you talking about? I made this thing, lo those many moons ago, for BigBadBob.

mac = j00 sux n00b

Dude, go update your virus definitions or something.

 

[OCAU_MIKLE]

Dude, go update your virus definitions or something.

I'll second that!

- ocau_mikle

 

[Howitzer Al]

Cattleya and Durf are 100% correct. I used the fast user switching method for quite a while. It's a minor pain, but effective. I eventually got VPC and put Windows 2000 on it. Much easier, and ATMA runs pretty well. A little sluggish at times (mainly when opening larger stashes), but well worth it. And with VPC you can set up network folders to directly access folders on your Mac. I have drive Y: set up to point to the Save folder on the Mac--direct access to my current character.

 

[Dan334477]

If you are going to do the FUS method (like I do), make a system for your mule types. Have barbs be weapons and sorcs be class-specifics or something. Then name them stuff like "ExcUnqWpOne" and "EliteArmorTwo".

My two cents.

 

[addicted2macs]

I have used so many different muling methods over the years....

First method: Just sell everything and have crappy equipment all the time

Second method: Make TCP/IP games to mule items between two macs. Works great, but you've got to have two macs. It's also slow, and you begin to accumulate sooooo many mules.

Third method: Fast User Switching in OSX. This works fairly well (Make sure you've got RW access to all users on your save folder), but I found it slow and irritating. And you've still got the problem with organizing your mules.

Fourth method: ATMA on a PC, accessing your mac over the network
Yep, I broke down and grabbed a craptacular PC we were tossing at work and installed ATMA on it. I have a windows share on my OSX machine, and just access it on the PC when I wanna mule or move items. This is the best method I've found.

Fifth (untested) method: Virtual PC. I second the notion that you can probably get an incredible deal on a student version of MS Office Pro with Virtual PC. I have it installed on my mac at work, and it's great. I use it for all kinds of utilities that are Windows only. Haven't tried it with ATMA and Dii, but I have no doubt it would work fine.

 

[FuriousD]

thanks again for the tips. I may purchase office once i'm at school if I can get a good deal on it, but for now how do I do the FUS method?

 

[Dan334477]

Ok, first set some stuff up...(for the record I'm on OS X 10.3)

Click on the Apple Menu --> System Preferences --> Accounts and make a new user account (I'm assuming you have admin priv). I called mine "Mule".

Next, go to your Diablo Save folder (I'm not sure but I think all of your Diablo files should be in the Applications folder--mine are). Click on your Save folder and hit Command-I or File --> Get Info.

Go to ownership and permissions and go to details. Set everything to Access: Read and Write and then hit Apply to enclosed items.

(What you just did is allow the new user account you just made the ability to modify your diablo 2 saved files. You need to do this or else you'll end up accidentally duping items or having items disappear because they don't get saved.)

Everytime you create a new character, make sure to do that "Apply to enclosed items" step again.

Now, you start up a TCP/IP game on your main account. Then click on the top right corner (your username should be there). Select the new account you made and log in. Now start up diablo on the new account and join the game you made. You can now mule all you want to, and switch back and forth between accounts. Just make your you remember which account is hosting the game so you don't accidentally exit the game while you're muling, causing you to lose stuff.

If you've got more questions, email me at [email protected].

 

[VinKelRix]

VPC + ATMA works

Fifth (untested) method: Virtual PC. I second the notion that you can probably get an incredible deal on a student version of MS Office Pro with Virtual PC. I have it installed on my mac at work, and it's great. I use it for all kinds of utilities that are Windows only. Haven't tried it with ATMA and Dii, but I have no doubt it would work fine.

I have and it does work. One tip, keep your stashes on the mac, using the shared folder feature. I lost a lot of goodies to a Windows crash inside my virtual PC. The Mac OS is much more stable. Backing up the Mac is much simpler, especially using an external firwire drive and SuperDuper! I am running Windows 2000 since I do not like XP very much.

 

[Cattleya]

I have and it does work. One tip, keep your stashes on the mac, using the shared folder feature. I lost a lot of goodies to a Windows crash inside my virtual PC. The Mac OS is much more stable. Backing up the Mac is much simpler, especially using an external firwire drive and SuperDuper! I am running Windows 2000 since I do not like XP very much.

On some rare occasions I've had ATMA choke on larger stashes stored in a shared folder on my Mac (meaning opening the files corrupts them and makes them unusable.) So I keep my stashes on the Virtual drive, and then regularly copy them to a shared folder on the Mac to back them up.

The only other issue I have seen is that ATMA has been known to reset the file permissions on character files back to the default, so watch out if you have changed them from the standard to use the Fast User Switching method. (This isn't a problem if you haven't changed the file permissions in the first place, and if you have, you just need to make sure to reset them.)