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Assist => Support => Assist Support => Topic started by: xic on Monday, July 07, 2025, 06:40:55 AM

Title: Assist for Mac 11.7. / Big Sur
Post by: xic on Monday, July 07, 2025, 06:40:55 AM
Hey y'all,

I used to play AAO about two decades ago (and loved it) and I’m thinking of getting back into it. I have an older Mac (32-bit), but when I tried to run Assist after downloading it, I got a message saying ā€œ25Assist needs to be updated.ā€

Is there anyone who can help me figure out what I should do next?

Thanks a lot!
Title: Re: Assist for Mac 11.7. / Big Sur
Post by: teddy_grizzly_bear on Monday, July 07, 2025, 07:26:56 AM
Unfortunately, short of running through a VM, you're not going to be able to run this on a modern(ish) MacBook.

There was also big pop up before you downloaded the MacOS client that informed you of this.

There are quite a few threads on the forums about this. But the TLDR is that the game itself was compiled as a 32 bit application and MacOS Catalina (10.15) and up only support 64 bit applications. And since we don't have the source code for the game, we can't recompile it as a 64 bit application.
Title: Re: Assist for Mac 11.7. / Big Sur
Post by: xic on Monday, July 07, 2025, 13:02:50 PM
Hi and thanks for your response.
you're right, there was a pop-up. I actually didn't ignore it, I guessed my old Macbook would be "old enough" - it's 2013.
I got another one, an even older one, but I can't boot it unfortunately. :(

Title: Re: Assist for Mac 11.7. / Big Sur
Post by: teddy_grizzly_bear on Monday, July 07, 2025, 14:32:22 PM
Hi and thanks for your response.
you're right, there was a pop-up. I actually didn't ignore it, I guessed my old Macbook would be "old enough" - it's 2013.
I got another one, an even older one, but I can't boot it unfortunately. :(


Compared to this game, a 2013 birth means a young child :)

With that said, if you're going to be having to emulate anyway, you're probably better off using the newer machine.
Here's some reference materials:
https://aao25.com/forum/general-chat-90/how-can-i-download-aa-2-5-on-apple-m3-max-sequoia-15-4/msg110844/#msg110844
So it's certainly possible! Just quite a bit more complicated than would be ideal.