Alright so today I really wanted to replay Fallout 1, right? The classic. But uh, problem is I only got a Mac. And guess what? It never came out for Mac. Typical. Had to figure out how to make this old PC game run. After banging my head a bit, found two main ways: emulation or virtual machines. Went down both rabbit holes.
Going the Emulation Route First
Heard people talk about DOSBox for old games. Sounds like magic dust for ancient software. So, first things first:
- Grabbed DOSBox. Went searching, found one of those popular ports meant for Mac. Downloaded it, dragged it into Applications like any other app. Easy start.
- Hunted Down Fallout 1. Needed the actual game files. Dug through my old stuff, found an original CD. Yeah, physical media! If you don’t have one… well, maybe check some abandonware sites? Whatever. Copied the entire game folder onto my Mac desktop. Called it FALLOUT or something simple.
- Fire Up DOSBox. Opened it. Looks like a black terminal window. Scary but okay. Had to “mount” my game folder. Sounds complicated, but basically telling DOSBox where my game lives. Typed something like mount c ~/Desktop/FALLOUT and hit enter. Basically tricking the emulator into thinking my folder is a C: drive.
- Jumped Into the Drive. Typed c: and pressed enter. Now DOSBox thinks I’m inside that pretend C drive.
- Ran the Stupid Installer. Old games need installing inside DOS too. Found the * thing. Typed install and ran it. Followed the prompts on the black screen. Took forever, felt clunky.
- Tried Running It. After installing, tried typing fallout like the manual probably said. Haha! Crash. Or super slow. Or graphics messed up. Classic DOSBox fun. Messed with cycles (processor speed emulation). Kept pressing CTRL-F12 to speed it up slowly until it didn’t run like sludge or explode. Took like 10 tries.
Got it running eventually, sort of. It worked, but felt janky. Sound was weird. Mouse controls felt floaty. Wanted something smoother.
Switching Gears to Virtual Machine (Windows XP Style)
Figured, okay, maybe running a whole old Windows PC inside my Mac would be better. More overhead, but hopefully more stable.
- Picked My Poison: VirtualBox. It’s free and I heard it works. Downloaded it. Installed it. Normal Mac app install.
- Needed Windows. Big hurdle. Need a Windows license key and an ISO file (the CD image). Found an old XP disc and ISO file I had lying around from literally 20 years ago. Don’t ask me where you find this stuff. Legal gray area nightmare. Got the ISO file ready.
- Built the Fake PC. Opened VirtualBox. Clicked “New”. Made a new virtual machine. Named it “XP Fallout” or something. Choosed Windows XP (32-bit) as the type. Allocated memory – didn’t give it too much, maybe like 512MB? XP didn’t need much. Made a virtual hard drive, around 10GB, using the default settings.
- Fed it the Windows Disc. Went into my VM’s settings. Settings > Storage. Clicked on the empty CD drive icon. Picked “Choose a disk file…” and pointed it to my Windows XP ISO. Clicked Okay.
- Installed Windows XP. Started the VM. It booted straight into the XP installer. Sat through the whole thing – partitioning the virtual drive, formatting, copying files, all that ancient stuff. Entered my old key. Took ages. Had to install VirtualBox Guest Additions afterwards for better performance and mouse stuff. Restarted the VM.
- Installed Fallout Properly. Mounted my Fallout 1 CD ISO to the virtual CD drive just like I did with Windows setup. Went into “My Computer” in XP, saw the CD drive. Ran * or * properly. Installed to C: like normal. Much smoother experience than DOSBox installing.
- Fired Up the Game. Found the shortcut on the desktop or in Start Menu. Double-clicked. And boom! Ran perfectly. Sound worked. Graphics looked right. Mouse was crisp. Felt like I time-traveled my MacBook back to 1997. Exactly how I remembered it.
Which Way is Better?
Honestly?
- DOSBox: Quicker to start fiddling, less space. But getting it set up just right for Fallout is fiddly. Performance might be off. Sound glitches possible.
- Virtual Machine: TONS of Setup. Installing a whole OS? Jeez. Takes forever, eats hard drive space. BUT! Once it’s up, it just works. Game runs like it should, no compromises. Way smoother experience while actually playing.
For me, that nostalgia trip needed the real deal experience. Worth the hassle of setting up the whole virtual Windows XP machine. Clicking that icon and seeing the intro play flawlessly? Pure magic. Now if you’ll excuse me, I got some water chips to find.