Porting Kit 6 Released!

Way faster then anticipated, but we had no choice :) In our last post we already explained the challenges we had with the situation between Porting Kit 6 en Porting Kit 5. So we decided to fix the biggest bugs and then just release it, and fix the smaller bugs in later releases. In this case we have at least a stable Porting Kit having all features in place. Lots and lots of new stuff and fixes. We will discuss the most important ones.

Banners!
Yeah, in my opinion more beautiful then the icons. Icons of course take more effort to adjust them in the Icon template we use, but banners are more popular. BUT no worries we have BOTH! When you go back to the Icon view, then all the ports have still cool icons. Also the new ones will keep getting their own icon (besides the banner).

D3D Metal (GPTK) support!
This opens a total new world for Apple Silicon Macs! Many, many, new game releases will work now with awesome performance on the Apple Silicon Macs. You will notice we have secretly added a lot of great new games impossible to port earlier and also only for Apple Silicon Macs (Sorry Intel Mac users :(). These game posts and more will come after this post!

GOG Account integration!!
Yes, something we waited for! No more need for downloading “offline backup setup files” anymore for the games in the game database! When you logged into the GOG integration, then Porting Kit will do all the download work for you! Its simply, next next finish and play!!

New Wineskin version 2.9.2.0!
New Wineskin version from 2.9.1.9 to 2.9.2.0 which is compatible with all the engines above CX23.0.1-wip (are not working with Wineskin 2.9.1.9). This means with this change ports shouldn’t be compatible with Mac OS High Sierra and Catalina anymore. However!! When an older engine is set on a game (CX21X and below) then Porting Kit will use Wineskin 2.9.1.9 automatically for High Sierra and Mojave users! So their is a fail-save builtin for these OS versions as long the older engines are set for these games. These will especially be GOG.com games. Steam/Ubisoft Connect/EA Desktop are already excluded for Mojave and High Sierra, these require at least Mac OS Catalina or up.

How update to Porting Kit 6?
Well, it should go automatically normally. Porting Kit will say there is a new update and you should restart/close when asked. If you somehow have any issues, simply redownload Porting Kit from portingkit.com and replace the old one.

Some Important Notes about Porting Kit 6 in it’s current state and config!
– In the config of PortingKit first Time: at the Steam integration when asked for steam account name, its asked for the account name not mail address. Also read exra instructions in steam itself.
– First usage of Porting Kit 6 when you go to the GOG account tab…depending on the size of your game library it takes some time before it shows the games in the library. It needs to cache it first. So give it some time. After the games info are retrieved, Porting Kit will from then on use the GOG integration in the GOG account tab and in the GOG sources and all games tabs.
– When you run into some weird issues, Clear all the caches using the Porting Kit tools in top bar.
– Contact us when your are into trouble and include logs and screenshots so we can fix stuff as soon as possible. Remember that we had no choice in releasing it quicker so it still contains some bugs which we intent to fix as soon as possible.

Most interesting changes up to 6.0.14:

• Introduction view from installer window should show properly for games with dependencies such as Steam
• Right click menu should work properly in GOG account and Steam account tabs
• If the GOG user mail changes, PK should show the login window
• Local apps should only try to load their banners once
• When in the GOG or Steam tabs, server apps should show their descriptions on click
• It should now be possible to create DOSBox ports from Wine ports by using the advanced installation
• Added initial Steam integration
• Added button to change the sorting of games and apps
• If a GOG port does not have a banner, the unknown port banner should be shown
• Adding install button to the right click menu of server games
• Adding extra message to the Introduction tab in case the user is installing a GOG game
• Removing ‘Show console logs on success’ from Preferences (should always do that)
• After right clicking a GOG app in the GOG account tab, the GOG ID should be shown
• GOG login window should appear in case two factor authentication is necessary
• GOG login window should remember the last used username
• GOG login errors should be shown to the user
• GOG ID should be recovered by URL in a much faster manner
• Main EXE of extracted GOG ports should always be detected automatically
• Changing tabs should clear the search bar
• Improving automatic detection of main EXE for GOG ports
• Banner and description should be preserved when a game is installed
• Updating preview pictures from themes
• Adding tooltip with the server/GOG app name
• Adding GOG login button
• Non-Advanced installations should work again
• GStreamer should only be installed once
• Adding GPTK requirements
• Updating default D3DMetal version
• D3DMetal should be downloaded without the need of a Developer Account
• Every Apple video card supports Metal, and should be identified as such
• Owned GOG games should require internet connection to download the installer
• List of GOG games should be cached
• GStreamer should be automatically installed in CX23.0.0+
• Adding GOG account tab which should load the user account games
• If the user downloads the installer of a game, and then installs the same game again, it should be reused if the user wants to
• Adding process that download GOG installer if GOG integration is enabled and the game is owned by the user
• If GOG credentials are no longer valid, PK should request them
• Adding option to Preferences to enable/disable the use of GOG integration
• Complete refactor in the login window
• Adding GOG.com integration view in the startup window
• If an installer is not recognized while adding an EXE to the library, a custom port should be created
• The user now can add an EXE as application, and PK will automatically detect which port it should install
• Adding GOG account integration
• After changing the image type (banner/icon), PK should prompt the user if they want to restart
• Removing Rankings tab
• Adding button to Properties window to change banner
• Local apps should have banners as well (still needs a fix)
• Server apps now are shown as banners
• Help tab split in Contact Us and FAQ tabs
• Header moved to the left side of the screen
• Advanced tools submenu expanded
• Application style completed remodeled
• Renaming ‘Themes’ tab to ‘Appearance’
• Adding a warning to the subtitle while installing winetricks
• PK should restart properly after installing an update
• Replacing ‘Preparing port…’ with ‘Pre-configuring port…’

Check out all the changes up here…

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Don’t you have Porting Kit yet? Download it quickly from the Porting Kit website here… and find the FAQ up here…

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