Force fullscreen programs to open in a window.

Questions about Wine on macOS.
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hfacktor
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Force fullscreen programs to open in a window.

Post by hfacktor »

I have been trying to get Wine on macOS to open programs into a window on my desktop as opposed to launching and taking over the entire display. Most of these programs are 90s legacy games that don't have a native windowed mode.

The first suggestion I found when searching was to enable the "Graphics > Emulate a virtual desktop" via winecfg which I've done but it doesn't seem to have any impact whatsoever when launching these programs. They still immediately open in full screen and hijack control until you quit them. I'm hoping that perhaps there is some nuance with the "Emulate a virtual desktop" setting which I'm missing that might be able to be explained, as this solution sounds perfect for me, but I simply can't figure out how to get it to work as desired with my current usage. I've tried enabling the setting on both the Default Settings and creating an application specific rule for it, as well as trying a number of different emulated desktop resolutions but none seem to have any effect whatsoever when launching the program.

I'm not sure if it matters but I'm running Wine 5.0 on macOS Mojave 14.6. If anybody has any ideas they would be greatly appreciated.

Note: I've also tried various 3rd party solutions to launching a program in windowed mode (D3DWindower / DxWnd) but they seem to have their own issues and I haven't been able to find a reliable solution there. If anyone has a suggestion for a reliable 3rd party solution to create the same effect (launching a program through wine and having it be "fullscreen" in the emulator but show up as a window on my desktop) that would also help.
Gcenx
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Re: Force fullscreen programs to open in a window.

Post by Gcenx »

macdriver doesn’t support virtual desktop, you need to use X11 as the display driver to use a virtual desktop.
hfacktor
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Re: Force fullscreen programs to open in a window.

Post by hfacktor »

Perfect. Got it working well enough now.

Thanks for the response!
YWbhbXd8s83i2A
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Re: Force fullscreen programs to open in a window.

Post by YWbhbXd8s83i2A »

I've got the exact same issue. I need an app to run in macOS native fullscreen mode, not the legacy fullscreen mode (where there's no animation for control+command, there's no green button to maximize the app, picture in picture doesn't work, etc). The program has no settings for windowed mode. I've tried DxWnd, which didn't work, and Virtual Desktop from winecfg, which also didn't work. I'm using xquartz as the display driver.
Gcenx
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Re: Force fullscreen programs to open in a window.

Post by Gcenx »

YWbhbXd8s83i2A wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 12:41 pm I've got the exact same issue. I need an app to run in macOS native fullscreen mode, not the legacy fullscreen mode (where there's no animation for control+command, there's no green button to maximize the app, picture in picture doesn't work, etc).
You’d need to open a support ticket to request this functionality within the corresponding display driver. But considering the lack of macOS developers working on wine they have other priorities.
YWbhbXd8s83i2A wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 12:41 pm The program has no settings for windowed mode. I've tried DxWnd, which didn't work
I’ve use DxWnd and it worked just fine for older titles.
YWbhbXd8s83i2A wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 12:41 pm Virtual Desktop from winecfg, which also didn't work. I'm using xquartz as the display driver.
What do you mean Virtual desktop didn’t work?, when using the X11 display driver Virtual Desktop does indeed work. But requires XQuartz be installed.

The Mac display driver doesn’t support Virtual Desktop and the checkbox is disabled in the most recent versions of wine, these patches were also cherry picked for wine-6.0.2
YWbhbXd8s83i2A
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Re: Force fullscreen programs to open in a window.

Post by YWbhbXd8s83i2A »

You're right. Changing the driver to X11 worked. It still wasn't what I wanted. I'll try again with DxWnd, thanks for the tip.
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