James Nimmo

Making Age of Mythology work in Parallels

Now I’m not a gamer, but I do like to have the occasional multiplayer game of Age of Mythology or Age of Empires. When I purchased the upgrade to Parallels 4 earlier in the year I was disappointed to find Age of Mythology wouldn’t run on it.

You wil get the error message “This graphics card is not supported by Age of Mythology”, etc.

I did some research and found a forum post by awittenauer which pointed me in the right direction. By copying existing GFX files and modifying them so that AoM would recognise the Parallels Video Driver, I was able to get it working easily. I imagine this process should work for other games if you are receiving a similar message.

AOM Parallels Screenshot

  1. First, download my Parallels GFX Config Files
  2. Unzip and copy the contents into the gfxconfig folders of your game. In my case this was C:Program FilesMicrosoft GamesAge of Mythologygfxconfig   &   gfxconfig2.
  3. You should now be able to run the game.

If you are still having trouble getting it working, or want to add support for different resolutions, open up the parallels.gfx file in Notepad. Here you can customise resolution options etc.

Please let me know how you get on! Thanks again to awittenauer for the idea..

James

35 responses to “Making Age of Mythology work in Parallels”

  1. Sam Avatar
    Sam

    Thank you James, it worked for me. Except that on my 15″ 1440×900 native display when I select that resolution in the AOM options it still does not fill the whole screen (leaving about 5cm around all sides black). I wonder why that is…

    Reply
  2. James Avatar
    James

    Thanks Sam, that’s frustrating. What version of Parallels are you running? In the VM configuration in the video tab there is a checkbox ‘adjust the host computer’s screen resolution in full screen’, which is unchecked on mine; could be another setting to try changing?

    Reply
  3. stb Avatar
    stb

    thanks for this patch!
    i`m now running age of mythology in windows 7.
    no problems so far

    Reply
  4. Eric Avatar
    Eric

    Thanks so much. I found my old Age of Mythology disc today and after many feelings of nostalgia, I wanted to play it.. but since the last time I played it(5 years ago.. O.O), I had gotten a Mac, and after installing it on Parallels, it wouldn’t work. After much frustration, I found your solution. Now I may indulge in delicious childhood memories of playing this game for 8 hours every day when I got home from school.

    Reply
  5. cory Avatar
    cory

    Do you have something that will work for the Titans expansion, I have been looking everywhere online and cannot find a solution.

    Reply
  6. James Avatar
    James

    Hi Cory, this works for Titans expansion for me, have you tried it out? Cheers

    Reply
  7. Rob Avatar
    Rob

    So, I am running Parallels 5.0 and your patch worked great to get the game running (my son will be so happy). The problem I am having is that the VM window is automatically resizing to about 1/4 of the full monitor size. I have looked for the box in the VM configuration window noted above but I can’t seem to find it. Any chance someone can give me a little more direction?

    Thanks

    Reply
  8. Rob Avatar
    Rob

    Oh yeah, we are still running XP on our machine in case that matters.

    Reply
  9. James Avatar
    James

    Hi Rob, have you tried putting Parallels in full screen mode?
    I haven’t actually tried this out in Parallels 5, I should probably do that sometime and see if I can work out how to fix it

    Reply
  10. Will Avatar
    Will

    Sam-
    To get it full screen in nice resolution all you have to do is first make Parallels full screen. Then once you have AOM(x) running go into options check the Play in Window option and then set the resolution to 1600x1200x32. For Some reason AOM(x) can’t handle widescreen resolutions very well. This should put AOM in the highest possible res on your screen.

    James-
    Thank you for the gfx files!

    Reply
  11. Roger Avatar
    Roger

    Hi, I unziped the files in the folders and I am getting am error (failed to initialize) when I try to run the game.
    My resolution is 1280×800.
    How can I run this game in this resolution?
    thanks

    Reply
  12. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    Great patch thank you so much!!!

    Reply
  13. Sesary Avatar
    Sesary

    Thanks so much, I can now run my AOM at last! I had been working around a solution for a while. This was so easy!
    Thanks again.

    Reply
  14. Patrick Avatar
    Patrick

    Amazing =)

    I’ve been searching the net for a few hours now, such a simple fix but so effective. Sham about the widescreen incompatibility but apart from that = Amazing.

    Reply
  15. Aaron Avatar
    Aaron

    Nice solution, thanks! I’ve experienced two problems with it under Parallels 6, though still playable.

    1. A device lost, such as by pressing Ctrl-ESC and then going back into the game causes AoM to crash.
    2. Click and drag doesn’t draw the selection rectangle, though troops still get selected as if they were.

    By the way, you can get widescreen resolutions by adding xres and yres to the shortcut you use to launch it. For example:

    “C:Program FilesMicrosoft GamesAge of Mythologyaomx.exe” +noIntroCinematics xres=1680 yres=1050 bpp=32

    Reply
  16. Pingu Avatar
    Pingu

    Thank you so much! It works with Parallels 6 :).

    However, as with the post above, i’ve experienced some problems:
    1. Click and drag doesn’t show the selection
    2. The rectangle in the minimap doesn’t show

    How can i fix these video issues? 🙂

    Reply
  17. Hamza Avatar
    Hamza

    When I Run AOMX.exe It Gives an Error Initialization failed……….
    Please help ME…..
    I have a DELL OPTIPLEX GX520………

    Reply
  18. Jamie Avatar
    Jamie

    Just wanted to say thanks! This worked perfectly for me on my iMac 27″ Late 2009 model running Parallels 6.0.12106

    Reply
  19. Eric Avatar
    Eric

    Thanks James it’s running fine now (iMac 29″ / Parallels 7 / Windows XP).

    Reply
  20. J. D. Avatar
    J. D.

    Hi, I followed this tutorial and was able to play AOM jut one problem… the is a problem with the graphics because the floor, units and eveything is flashing different colours, really weird. It’s as if the video card was so crappy that it was not able to run the game properly everything is “chopping” all over the place.

    How can I fix this?

    Specs:
    Mac OS X, intel i7, Intel 3000HD graphics, running AOM in Parallels Windows Xp Service pack 3

    Reply
    1. James Avatar
      James

      Check if you’ve got Direct X enabled in the Parallels settings…

      Reply
  21. Paula Avatar
    Paula

    Thank you sooooooooooooo much ! :} You saved my game-day S2 kkkkkkk

    Reply
  22. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    Hey. Got it to work. Thanks so much. But any tips on changing the resolution? I’m looking at the code in notepad. I see the numbers that correspond to resolutions, but I don’t know what to do with it.

    Reply
    1. James Avatar
      James

      Hi Tim, in the parallels.gfx file change line 9 (1600x1200x32) to be the resolution you want.
      For example, my 24″ monitor runs at 1920×1080, so change it to 1920x1080x32) (the x32 on the end refers to 16 bit colour or 32 bit colour)

      Reply
  23. Andrea Avatar
    Andrea

    i love you 🙂 you saved my life .,,. it’s hard to live without aom .,.,

    Reply
  24. Daniel Avatar
    Daniel

    I cannot launch titans because of a initilization error, i just cant get my way around this, how do i bypass it?

    Reply
  25. GBF Avatar
    GBF

    Thank you! It worked! My bootcamp was only made so I could play aom with my friends, worth the $70.

    Reply
  26. Sprawling Avatar
    Sprawling

    There is just one problem, James. The mouse controls the configuration and Parallels. It’s crazy when you can’t run a game like it is suppose to be.

    The game has mouse scrolling problems, which may suggest lag or something. Please find a better configuration patch and tell us about it!!

    Reply
  27. Tomas Gil Avatar
    Tomas Gil

    For those who have problem with the resolution there is another way to fix it and it is creating a file in notepad and adding this

    xres=1440
    yres=900
    +noIntroCinematics

    u change 1440 and 900 to the numbers of you’r resolution
    Then save it with the name “user.cfg” without the quotes. Then copy to:
    C:Program FilesMicrosoft GamesAge of Mythologystartup
    or if you’r using windows 64 bit go to:
    C:Program Files x86Microsoft GamesAge of Mythologystartup

    James u can put this on your post so other people can see it easy. Am Runing Maverick on my macbook air and with this patch solved my graphics error and with the file i have mythology runing y full resolution.

    Sprawling: there is no problem with the mouse. u need to proper configure the mouse on parallels if u have an optical mouse u can conect ir en then in the virutal machine u get to work for windows like when u put an usb on it. If u are going to use ur pad u can go to devices in paralells en then external devices and check the pad work only for windows. u need just to proper configure parallels for gaming for gameing.

    Another solution is editing parallels.gfx with TextEdit or note pad and adding the line “AlwaysShowCursor=1” without the quotes and changing win32Cursor=0 the 0 to 1 and save the file and then save it again to the folder gfxconfig & gfxconfig2.

    Reply
    1. James Avatar
      James

      Thanks Tomas, will try that one next time

      Reply
  28. Nick Avatar
    Nick

    Hey so I am trying to follow the instructions but I got lost trying to find the gfxconfig folders any help will be appreciated.

    Reply
    1. James Avatar
      James

      Hi Nick – check out Tomas Gil’s comment, that might be easier than following my steps. Alternatively, have you checked both C:Program Files (x86) & C:Program Files for the Microsoft Games folder?

      Of course an easier option these days would be to look out for a copy of Age of Mythology Extended Edition on Steam, shouldn’t have to worry about resolution etc then 🙂

      Reply
  29. Daniel Avatar
    Daniel

    Hi, so I followed every step exactly as James said but in the AoM folder there is no gfxconfig folder to replace the files :(… any idea what can i do? I’m running Windows 7 on Parallels, also, I installed AoM through Steam. I tried to start the game by Steam and directly with the shortcut but nothing happens…

    Reply
    1. James Avatar
      James

      Hi Daniel, it sounds like people might be having more luck running AoM through Wine these days – save having to boot up another whole OS

      Reply
      1. Daniel Avatar
        Daniel

        Hi James, so I made it work. This is what I did (in Parallels). After waiting for the Steam software to install the “Redistributable Visual” (or whatever the name it is) with no success I cancel manually. Then, I uninstall what Steam couldn’t install. Reboot Windows and manually install the Visual C++ and it installed perfectly ! After that the game works perfect !

        So at the end is just a matter of finding a way to install that Visual C++ package that comes with the game manually and everything works perfect !

        Reply

Leave a Reply