[Guide] Easy & free alternative to running MapleLegends on M1/M2 Macs

Update (3/7/23):
New VM images uploaded for Mar 6 version. MapleLegends Update shortcut added to Desktop for easy future updates!

Update (3/3/23):
Sound might be muted in the VM. Unmute in the top right!

Update (2/28/23):
This guide was initially meant to cover M1/M2 Macs, but it now also supports Intel / X86 Macs as well.

Background
I have had a lot of issues trying to get Crossover setup on my M1 Macbook. It also seemed like a lot of people were experiencing similar difficulties. Parallels seemed to do the job but it's expensive. So I tried to come up with an easy & free alternative using UTM.



Step-by-step guide

1. Download UTM.dmg from their Github. Open it and drag the UTM app into your Applications directory.
   
   
2. Download and unzip the Ubuntu 20.04 image for Intel (X86) or Apple Silicon (ARM) with MapleLegends pre-configured (details below).
   
   
3. Open the Ubuntu 20.04 ARM.utm. In the UTM app, you should see Ubuntu 20.04 ARM on the left panel. Right click it and select Edit -> Network -> Random. This is to ensure that everyone is has a different hardware identifier when they login.
   
   
   
4. Start the VM.
   
   
5. Open the MapleLegends shortcut on the desktop. (It will likely flicker with a couple windows before actually starting the game, but no need to worry.)
   
   
6. Enjoy!

Technical details

• What are the pros/cons of this approach?
  Pros:
  - It's completely free forever
  - Works out of the box
  - HD resolution supported (1366x768)
  Cons:
  - (Apple Silicon ONLY) Some slight graphical lag. Still very playable!
  - You need 10GB of free space for the VM
  These issues may be fixed in the future after some more tweaking.

• Why don’t I hear any sound?
  Sound might be muted in the VM. Look at the top right menu bar and unmute.

• How can I patch my client in the future?
  Just open the MapleLegends Update icon on the Desktop and it will automatically update. If you're interested, the ~/wine/games/MapleLegends/Payload directory contains all the game files. It’s derived from the Wineskin so replacing this directory with the new client files is all that’s needed. You can delete the Payload folder and run the ~/wine/games/MapleLegends/Setup script to re-install the client.
  
  (I will also try to update the VM links with future client updates.)

• How does this work for Apple Silicon?
  M1/M2 Macs use a different CPU architecture known as ARM. In order to run MapleLegends and even Wine, your system needs a way to run X86 binaries. The only way to do this is through emulation, which is inherently slower. There are two emulation options: system (run an entire X86 Windows/Linux VM) or user emulation (run just the X86 process in an ARM system).
  
  In this case, we are doing the latter because system emulation is ungodly slow and because X86 Windows VMs don’t support any graphics with UTM/QEMU. The user emulator we use is called FEX-Emu (all the quirks you might see are likely related to the emulator). We can’t use box64 because M1/M2 Macs can’t run arm32 binaries.
  
  Lastly, we run a precompiled Wine appimage using FEX-Emu to run MapleLegends in the VM. Direct3D and all the graphics work because of paravirtualized graphics supported by UTM/QEMU called VirGL (only supported for Linux).

Linux gaming has come a long way and it’s getting better by the day. If you find any improvements or updates, send them over and I can update the guide.

 

Ah I think I know where that bug might be coming from...

Open Terminal and type `FEXConfig`. It should open a GUI and then go to the `Hacks` tab. Uncheck the following three:

• `x87 Reduced Precision`
• `Unsafe local flags optimization`
• `Disable PF calculation`

I was experimenting with trying to improve performance. It's a bit of tinkering around and there's probably some better settings.

 

I think performance suffers without the `x87 Reduced Precision. I would also play around with CPU -> Block Size (set to 50000).