homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Wings: Over Flanders Fields Windows 11 & WOFF/WOTR

Hi all,

At this time we have not yet tested WOFF or WOTR with Windows 11. So for the moment our recommendation is to wait until we have done so before you upgrade to Windows 11 if possible .

We hope to try WOTR and WOFF as soon as it's available officially to us.

Thanks Pol for this info. - also recommended is that Mac WOFFers (and WOTRers) for the time being stick either with WINE (skin/bottler) installs, or Win10-in-Bootcamp installs, of any recent vintage of WOFF (UE and later eds.). Will be a while before I test WOFF in Win11 on a Mac - for starters, I will try testing a standalone/clean install of Win11 with TPM disabled, so that I can "shoehorn" Win11 onto my Intel Mac hardware. For those on Macs and curious to experiment, recommended is to check over info. for how to disable TPM in Win11, as well as how to make a Win11 ISO.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Currently, the latest (M1 chip, ARM-based) Mac hardware only supports Win11 (and only the ARM variant of Win11) in virtualization software such as Parallels. Currently there is no Mac-hardware-installable version of the ARM-based Win11 available - only via virtualization - and support is still undetermined even regarding the virtualized version, on Macs. Previous Win versions that are x86/x64-based may only be installed up to the latest Intel-chip-based generation of Macs. This means that the x64 version of Win11, that is still the (common) branch of Win, going forward, and that may still support your various Win-based flight sims., on your Mac hardware - is installable (unofficially) only on Intel-based Macs, but will obviously never be installable on ARM-based (M1 and later generations of) Macs. Macs have now moved back to their own, proprietary processors, ARM-based -- and so Mac flight-simmers are unofficially back in the "dark ages" of Mac gaming, of the pre-Intel Mac era -- those old enough to remember should at this point think of PPC-era Macs ("Power PC" processors such as the 603, 604, 604e, etc., used also in some IBM servers I think and typical of beige-box computing of the 1995 to 2005 period).

I would rather
be a Mac unsupported,
Intel sinner than
a disenfranchised
armchair simmer,
huffing and puffing
as to why his hissy-fitting
Hisso SPAD-on-ARM
chip's prop - isn't
spinning.

Cheers all and happy tweaking of unsupported (x64) Win11/legacy Mac hardware combos.,
Von S

Further edit: According to the unofficial WineSkin continuation project page, for Macs, it seems that there will be support for some x86/x64 programs in WineSkin on ARM-based Macs, but it requires WINE engine WineCX20.0.4 (or later, the cx by the way probably referring to the "CrossOver" WINE project code) -- also required is installation of "Rosetta2" -- the other min. requirement is macOS ver. 11.x.x. Rosetta2 allows ARM-chipped Macs to run Mac-Intel-built programs (but not necessarily Windows-native Intel programs, which is of course a major problem if you want to install Win/Intel-based flight sims. on latest-generation Macs). Keep in mind that this is all obscurely experimental and I don't recommend betting on Windows flight-sim. stability, for now, if ever, on such obscure WINE/Win11 combos. - or even betting on loading your flight sims into a virtualized ARM-based Win11 install on the latest Macs and then hoping that the x86/x64 virtualization layer available inside the ARM-based Win11 environment will maybe support your flight sims. Much safer for now is to keep WOFFing in WINE on Intel Macs, or in Win10 in Bootcamp on Intel Macs.

Thanks VonS.

OK a quick update - WOFF and WOTR both seem to run fine on Windows 11 (well at least upgraded from Windows 10).
Of course would still need directX9 installed and the latest Windows 11 GPU drivers, and other hardware Windows 11 drivers where applicable.

I loaded Windows 11 this morning and have not encountered any of the difficulties I had when it was initially introduced. I did make sure to update my vid drivers to the latest win 10/11 and updated two patches to Windows 11 that are now available.

Thank you for your experiments with cutting-edge Microsoft software B_Beard. Theoretically, this means that we Mac heads will also be able to run WOFF/WOTR in WIn11 - the big magic trick will be to shoehorn Win11 (the x64 branch of it, not ARM branch) -- onto Intel-Mac hardware, since ARM-processor-based Macs (M1 and later) and virtualized installs of ARM-based Win11 on such Macs, as explained in my post above, will most likely not be WOFF/WOTR-friendly.

Those interested in purchasing Intel-based Macs are recommended to check over hardware offerings before the middle of 2022 or so -- after that point it is highly doubtful that Apple will continue putting Intel processors into Macs (which in turn throws the possibility of x64 Win11-on-Mac-metal out the window). I will eventually tinker with shoehorning of an x64 Win11 install onto one of my Macs, as an experiment - but it will be a while before I get to that (no pressing need for it).

Win10 is supported to about 2025 or so, and should be safe a bit after that too with various locks and tweaks implemented - as is the case with those still running Win7, so that is still the recommended install environment for WOFF/WOTR on Macs (Win10, or Win7 or 8.1, via Bootcamp; or in a Wine wrapper for those running WOFF/WOTR from the Mac OS X/mac OS side of things).

Carry on gents and happy flying,
Von S

Thanks for reporting in that Burning_Beard, same here, latest patches, latest NVidia driver and all good.