Blog - Microwave

How I remade Kitties

2026-10-17T00:00:00+00:00

Introduction to Kitties

Kitties is an app I made in Swift to learn about macOS app development. It is pretty simple, all it does is ask some APIs for a picture of a cat.

Introduction to the problem

I started making Kitties during summer. I've finished the first release, even though I wasn't fully pleased with it. I sent that release to my friend to test it, and also include as a freebie with their app - Google Balls Swift Port. Straight away I started working on the 1.1 release of Kitties. I've asked my friends to make translations, I added another API to get another cat in the app, I also tried to implement image downloads. One day I wanted to move on to something diffrent, and come back to Kitties another day. I've deleted XCode off my mac, pushed Kitties to GitHub, and removed its source code off my mac. I pushed it to GitHub, should be alright, right? WELL NO! I didn't stash the commits, so what I commited is the Initial commit XCode makes when setting up a git repo for the project. Recently, the same friend, that got the first release of Kitties as first, tried Hackintoshing their main desktop. I've asked them "have you ran Kitties on it yet?" So, they ran it, and I've asked them "Why don't you run the newer version? I've no build of it, but the source code is there." They've downloaded the source code, open it in XCode, and what did they see? The hello world app XCode generates as the basic project. Original Kitties source code became lost media.

What to do now?

Thankfully, I was doing a lot of screenshots during development, which I sent to my friends. From a few of them, I've managed to get MOST of Kitties 1.1 source code. I also had some screenshots of Kitties 1.0 code, so I could also glue them together with my memory into a remake of 1.0. But I met a problem, I didn't have Rory's API code entierly screenshoted.

As you can see on the picture above, in ONE screenshot I had almost the entire codebase. I also had a screenrecording of the app after I implemented the API calls, in which the code for Gary and Goober API calls is visible. I would love to put it here, but it doesn't want to embed, so here's a screenshot of the exact moment in the video with the code:

Well, there's no Rory's code, what will I do? Well, that's the moment when this innovative feature of your brain comes to the rescue, it is called memories. I remember that Rory API calls were just a copy of Gary ones but of course the link changed. Well now this is done. Oh wait, these APIs return completly diffrent JSONs. Well this is a problem. How did I solve it? Let's take a look at both previous screenshots again.

Can you see this sidebar? It shows your code but tiny. Now you might ask me, how the hell did you read code from that. Well it's simple, I didn't. Let's look at the structure of the code there, and the API code from the 2nd picture. What can we deduce? We have 2 very similair blocks of code, that's the Gary and Rory API calls. Below we have the line "#Preview { ContentView() }", then what appears the be a struct declaring the structure of the JSON, and again 2 similair blocks of code, that's the error codes. For some reason I made seperate error codes for Rory and Gary APIs, something I fixed in the 1.1-remake. Okay we know the structure, what does it solve? Well as I said, we can see Gary and Rory API calls are almost identical, so I could just copy the code for Gary API and change the URL. But wait in the 2nd screenshot we can see the struct have 2 values for JSON, and the sidebar appears to be showing only one. Now we can blame my laziness. Instead of figuring out how to convert between Rory's ID parameter and Gary's Number, I've decided to only use one parameter they shared, so the url, and decided to figure out it later. Only missing thing from code was the download button, but that was as easy as copying the Randomize button, check for the button styles that were on Kitties 1.1 screenshots on Apple Docs, and looking for download icon in the SF Symbols app, yes the button did originally just randomize, I have that engaved in my memory very well.

Only thing left were the translations, I had them lying around Discord just like the code screenshots, so it wasn't a problem.

Kitties 2.0

Upcoming Kitties 2.0 release is more of what Kitties 1.1 was supposed to be if I would finish it originally. It has gotten a brand new icon, about it later. Part of 1.1 was also supposed to be image downloading, did I manage to implement it in the end? NOPE. It was the only moment when Apple Docs and online resources weren't helpful. I was managing to get the image to download to user's Downloads folder, but it was being saved as a .tmp file with a very temporary name, it was as simple as renaming it manualy to get the proper image, but I did not like that at all. So I scrapped downloading, well you still can also download them, as I provide you with the original URL in the app, which I was going to do no matter if downloading gets implemented, this URL showing is something I came up with for Kitties 2.0. One thing, you really should play around with the UI, even a bit aggressively.

Desigining a new Icon

Now to the app's icon. I wanted to make it a bit better. Here's the first idea I had: I really like the idea, but it looked HORRIBLY on small scale, and on MacOS Tahoe (and so earlier macOS, because XCode will render a .icns for them based on how the icon displays on Tahoe) I think I might reuse the idea for when I make a Libadwaita port for Linux.

The final Kitties 2.0 icon was pretty simple. Let's go back to the cat's head and remake it. Also why not base it on one of my cats, instead of the Twemoji cat. I'd say it looks way better. I fixed up the colors in Icon Composer, played A LOT with the background color. And the final icon for Kitties 2.0 looks like this: It's cute, I'd say. I also had an idea for the icon for macOS lower than Tahoe. Here's a sketch of it: And here's a trial of making it in Figma: Well, you will rather not see it in Kitties 2.0, but meybe???

Thank you!

Thank you for reading this blog post! I hope you will try out Kitties when 2.0 releases for macOS or when I will port it to Libadwaita.

Welcome to my blog

2026-10-03T00:00:00+00:00

This is my Blog! Once again, a warm welcome! On this blog you can read about weird shenanigans I do, but not only. I will also post here guides, and my thoughts.

The Sims 2 on Apple Silicon

2026-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

Introduction

Since I got my M4 Mac mini I wanted to run Sims 2 UC on it. Tried a lot of things, different WINE forks or front-ends, Windows 11 and Linux VMs on VMware Fusion... Most of them failed or the game ran poorly, but eventually I did it.

This tutorial will show you how to run The Sims 2 on Apple Silicon using WINE. Some steps presented here were made with Bourbon/Whisky in mind but the tutorial also works with Crossover!

NOTICE

If you use a lot of mods, and/or play with big hoods (big families, generation gameplay, etc.), this guide will not work for you. The reason is file descriptor limit that UNIX-like systems like MacOS or Linux use. Technically speaking file descriptor limit tells the system how many files can be loaded, it technically can be risen (MacOS on my Mac mini returns that the hardware limit [the actual maximum] is unlimited) BUT it MIGHT cause some issues, like making your system unstable. If you will be rising the file descriptor limit YOU ARE DOING IT AT YOUR OWN RISK. Be aware that with better hardware development and system updates the file descriptor limit will grow, meaning one day it might not be an issue unless you really force it.

Update 14th August 2026

On frankea's Whisky version 3.6.1, overrides in winecfg section clear when running the game, so instead use the option inside of Bottle configuration in Whisky. If you will get "Direct3D returned an error: D3DERR_INVALIDCALL! The application will now termiate" error during the loading screen try removing the config folder from the game's folder in documents. You can also enable performance mode in Bottle configuration.

Installation

1. Get the game's files on your Mac.

Do it however you want, if you are a Legacy Edition player then I can't help you, but I am guessing you would just install the game over Windows version of Steam or EA App running on WINE.

2. Install your preferred WINE front-end.

I've used Bourbon because Whisky is no longer maintained. Well, Bourbon isn't either BUT it uses a newer version of WINE, and has Liquid Glass UI. Most likely there might be a new Whisky/Bourbon fork at the time of you following this tutorial. (Now I recommend you use [Whisky fork by frankea]((https://github.com/frankea/Whisky), the game runs better than when I made this tutorial on Bourbon, also on it you can launch the game withh DXVK, but well some graphics are broken, one of them is that the loaded lot and everything on it is invisible)

3. Create a new Bottle and install the game.

Each WINE front-end will be different, some might not even have bottles, just be sure to use a separate Bottle/Prefix for The Sims 2, as its fixes might break other games. Make sure DXVK is disabled, if you get a dropdown list for Graphics, select Wine, WineD3, or Auto.

4. Patch WINE.

DXVK doesn't work as of time of making this tutorial, and clean WINED3D does not either, so we will need to patch WINED3D. Download newest release of TS2D3DFIX from ttps://github.com/erfan2255/TS2D3DFIX/releases/ . Extract the downloaded .zip and run the .exe inside of the Bottle/Prefix you installed the game in. When prompted, select WineD3D 3.18 - Native Patches and hit Next. When the installation finishes, open WINE configuration utility (winecfg) and head to the Libraries tab. In the text box for new library overrides enter the following, while pressing Enter/Return after each one:

d3d10

d3d10_1

d3d10core

d3d11

d3d8

d3d9

ddraw

dxgi

wined3d

When entering ddraw and wined3d you might get prompted that overwriting these files might be risky, just press Yes to continue. Make sure that all of the rules that were entered are displayed as (Native, Built-in); if they aren't, change each one using the EDIT button.

6. Fix Family Portraits

Launch TS2D3DFIX.exe again. Now select "Fix Corrupted Family Thumbnails" and hit next. When prompted change C:\users\xdroid\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads to C:\users\[your mac username]\Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads. You can check [your mac username] by opening finder then from Menu bar choose Go > Go to Folder, then enter /Users , the folder with a house icon is your home folder, and its name is [your mac username].

7. Registry fixes

Open Registry Editor regedit.exe. From menu bar select Registry > Import from file. Now navigate where you have TS2D3DFIX files, and select "Enable Performance (csmt-on).reg" and hit Open. You can close Registry Editor.

8. Install Graphics Rules Maker

Download Graphics Rules Maker from https://www.simsnetwork.com/tools/graphics-rules-maker, and install it in the Bottle/Prefix in which you installed the game, then run it. From the game selection dropdown list choose The Sims 2 and press Auto-detect. UNCHECK Disable Sim Shadows - the game can render the Sim shadows properly so there is no need to disable them and install a Sim shadow fixing mod. Press Save Files… and if prompted about adding your GPU, you can select anything as the game will detect an NVIDIA GPU, not your Mac's GPU.

9. Link your Documents folder to the Bottle/Prefix (optional)

Open WINE configuration utility (winecfg). Head to Desktop Integration. Under Directories, select Documents, then hit the checkbox next to "Linked to:", now select your Documents folder on macOS, and press OK.

10. Test-run the game!

Launch the game, then after you get to the Main Menu close it. Now go to Documents/EA GAMES/The Sims 2/Logs, open [MAC_NAME]-config-log.txt and check if the game detects the graphics card in the Database. If not, add it to Video Cards.sgr. I won't be explaining here how to do it, there is a bunch of tutorials online you can search for to help you. One thing, Graphics Rules Maker won't work as it detects your Mac's GPU, not the WineD3D GPU.

11. Launch the game!

Launch the game, and load a hood. Then set all the graphics settings to the highest possible (take a look at the screenshots), you can always lower them if your game lags.

12. You are DONE!

The game is playable now, be aware that it might slow down while your computer is also compiling TS2's shaders.

Tips

When the game launches, move it to a separate Virtual Desktop from Mission Control, this is just to copy the MacOS behavior of putting Fullscreen apps in separate Desktops.

Bugs

Cheats console does not always render properly, sometimes you might not see what you are typing, because the Cheats console opens as a small rectangle that fits 0 text

When Cmd-Tabbing or sometimes when loading a Lot, the screen can be mostly black, expect for UI and few Objects, just move your camera around to fix it.

When Cmd-Tabbing, the game's window might show a while and disappear, just click on the desktop then right click Sims 2 icon on the dock, and select The Sims™ 2 (Name of the latest DLC)
When switching audio devices, your game might loose sound. You will need to relaunch it.

Future-proofing

Because Apple is discontinuing Rosetta, the future of this way of running TS2 on Apple Silicon is unclear. We might get open-source emulators like FEX or Box64 on Mac, or maybe a built in translation layer/emulator for x86(_64) in wine. If VMware improves DirectX support (so that this does not happen), or/and adds Vulkan (for running the game on DXVK without software rendering) support in the future, a better free alternative to running the game on Parallels will be VMware Fusion. We will see what the future brings.