Tower!3D Pro - Running in a Virtual Machine

[MikeT]

Greetings fellow ATC Simulation enthusiasts and especially those who happen to be par of the Apple Eco-System.   Thought I would provide a post that may be of interest to those with Apple computers wishing to run this program inside a virtual machine rather than using Bootcamp to boot your Mac into a Windows OS.  

I am successfully running Tower3D Pro in a virtual Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit machine using Parallels Desktop. I went through the usual set-up problems experienced by many folk, including not being able to get Aircraft Colours to work until I read a post on this Forum describing how the installer for that program places the files into an incorrect directory.  Once that was rectified and also making sure that I run the program as Administrator, all seems to work, including Voice Recognition.

On the topic of Voice Recognition, I have noticed a couple of peculiar things......

First.....    Although I have read posts here that say that Voice recognition does not need to be turned on, I find I have to set Recognition to be turned on and always listening to man Voice Commands in the Tower 3D Program work.  Would love to hear form others if there is a more elegant solution that the one I am currently using.

Second.....   I cannot utilise the Left Shift key on my Mac keyboard to initiate voice commands.  Am not sure if this is an issue due to me running via a virtual machine and again, would be interested to hear from anyone who is using Bootcamp and successfully running this program to see if they also have this issue.

Thirdly....   The work around for the Left Shift key issue is to use an on screen keyboard and click the Left Shift on that with the mouse.  Not very elegant and as the keyboard floats over the top of all other windows, it wastes a bit of screen real estate.  But it does work.  Again I would welcome comments or suggestions around potential better solutions that people use to get voice commands working.

So let me know thought and opinions.  All input welcomed.

 

Edited August 3, 2017 by MikeT

[MikeT]

Update......   Have now managed to get the Voice Commands working without the need to have the Voice Recognition in Windows in listing mode.  The embedded recognition within Tower!3D seems to work just fine.   Now I have to find a way to use my normal keyboard Left Shift key in lieu of having to use the on screen one and the mouse for a Press to Talk function.

Edited August 4, 2017 by MikeT

[andrew777]

Great Mike,

I have posted a topic about an install of add-on in the wrong directory by default. When i corrected it, it worked right away. ;-)

Andre

[Blue.Box]

My experience report:

I'm living in the Apple Eco-System too. My computers are quite old, Mac Book Air from 2012, Mac mini from 2010. I'm not a gamer at all. When I discovered tower!3d pro I could't help myself but had to play it. My first idea was off course to try it on my Macs. I first had to learn about the virtual machines that are available. First I fiddled with VirtualBox, tried with several versions of windows to get them running but to no avail. With Parallels I managed to set up a virtual Windows 10. But when I finally had installed the game, it run with one frame per second or even less (on TIST!). Clearly an issue with the old hardware.

Next step for me was to buy a mini pc with a graphic card (Nvidia GT930M). That worked, but immediately put the graphic card to its limits. I had to switch off all graphic niceties. With that I had some nice gaming hours with LAX. But running Atlanta was not possible because the frame rate slowed down to one fps again, when the view was over the terminals.

So now I have what the dealer called a gaming pc with a GEFORCE GTX 1060 and tower!3d runs smoothly.

If someone manages to get this game decently running on a Mac with a virtual Windows, I am curious to know what Mac hardware is nessessary to do that.