SteamEnabler for Mac

by Hexxeh on May.19, 2010, under Other

I present, SteamEnabler for Mac. This is basically what you saw in the previous post, except about a million times easier. Simply run the app, type in your username and select the game you want to install. The only catch is, that you need to have the GCFs for the game you want in your “Steam Content” folder; SteamEnabler does the rest. You’ll need to have installed Portal already for this to work, too. Some people running Leopard have had trouble running this, not sure why this is. Should work great on Snow Leopard, though.

The following games are currently available:

  • Team Fortress 2 – works very well
  • Counter-Strike: Source BETA – works, but you can’t connect to real servers, listen servers probably work
  • Day of Defeat: Source – lots of messed up textures, I’ve basically put this in to see if anyone can play around some more and get it working fully

I’d like to thank Nem for his fantastic HLLib library, which saved me lots and lots of time in putting this together. I’d also like to thank HubmaN for his help and advice on this.

Download: http://helium.hexxeh.net/SteamEnabler.zip


47 Comments for this entry

  • dgm

    thanks very much! I got it to work the first time, then trashed it and reinstalled using today’s TF2 update. (the first time I installed it was pre-update).

    but after that, it’s been crashing just when it finishes loading.

    tried setting all the graphics on low. No dice. any idea how to get it working again?

  • benjahm

    i keep getting this

    engine error
    “could not load library content”

    any ideas?

  • Kerio

    Works great here (snow leopard on late 09 macbook pro), thanks!

  • Livelikeasam

    Took the Counter Strike Source BETA GCFs from Windows, ran the app, launched it, when I tried to load any maps it would just crash at the end of loading, any ideas?

  • neoice

    I’m trying to use the TF2 files on a Macbook Pro 7,1. Can get in game and if Steam.app is running, view games online. I cannot use the overlay or join games, remote or local. Crashes right before the last load sequence.

  • Hexxeh

    Valve have broke the binaries for TF2 so you can’t connect to online servers, servers are rejecting the Mac versions of the binaries it seems now. :(

    My app is still working, it’s just that you’re using differing versions of the GCFs, and stuff is broken in newer ones. You can try running again each couple of days to see if Valve have fixed it, yet. :)

  • neoice

    would it maybe work on non-VAC servers?

  • netherblood

    Well, I installed TF2, CS:S and DOD:S.

    TF2 is crashing for me (as it was reported before).
    DoD:S is working PERFECTLY! No texture problems, but I just installed it, didn’t do anything more.
    CS:S BETA is working really well too, but I can’t connect to online servers (I already knew that because of the warning in SteamEnabler).

  • netherblood

    After last update, CS:S BETA started crashing as well after loading.

    Hopefully I saved my old GCF :)

  • netherblood

    I got TF2 working :)

    After a lot of messing up with an old TF2 non-steam patch I got it to work, now it doesn’t crash and I can actually play on all online servers ;)

    There is only a problem… I don’t know how I did it (rofl).
    I just started messing up stuff and got it working.

  • Clayton Walker

    Can I just copy the Team Fortress specific cfgs over, or do I need the windows specifics of the source models/materials as well? I mean, Portal already installed all of the cfgs with “2007″ in them, but do they work as well? Or do I only need to copy over the 3 Team Fortress cfgs?

    Because once the script gets to /source\ models.cfg/, it hangs. Doesn’t crash, but hangs.

  • Paul

    i read your how-to, and it said i need a lot of .gcf files. where would i find those?

  • jeronehmg

    crashed with engine error “could not load library client”. this is after copying the cfgs and running SteamEnabler.
    Oh well.
    10.6.3, MBP 15″, 2.8GHz, 4GB, mid-to-late 2009.
    Thanks anyway!

  • ninjabong

    Had issues up until today’s latest source mac binaries update, now TF2 is working! Has some issues, mostly the lack of mouselook, making it questionably useful for playing, but can connect to internet servers as well as run demos.

    Thanks!!!!

  • netherblood

    The new update is still crashing for me :/

  • solohck

    So you got the update through Steam for Mac, not a Windows update right? And did you re-run the script, or did it just work after the update?

  • mazungu

    crashes as soon as a server is done loading. :/ menu works good though :)

  • mazungu

    looks like steam kills it right before it connects

    [0x0-0x11a11a].com.valvesoftware.steam[3497] Game removed: AppID 440 “”, ProcID 3512

  • ninjabong

    Well today’s update bumped Mac TF2 version to 4218 and broke being able to play on internet servers due to invalid key, which in my experience is a client/server version mismatch issue so nonmac servers are unuseable until valve updates the pc side.

    Still no mouselook, which has me wondering if it’s something that’s getting sync’d from my pc version’s steamcloud settings since it’s too glaring not to be fixed. Demos and local server still working fine for me as is crafting.

    fwiw: my machine = 24″ iMac w/ x2600Pro

  • mazungu

    ill try to get where you are at, i think my gfc had messed up permissions from copying. redupmping..

  • mazungu

    :/ same thing keeps crashing at thread 7

    Thread 7 Crashed:
    0 steamclient.dylib 0x1fede13f google_breakpad::ExceptionHandler::UninstallHandler(bool) + 133
    1 steamclient.dylib 0x1fedec1f google_breakpad::ExceptionHandler::WaitForMessage(void*) + 381
    2 libSystem.B.dylib 0x9549fa19 _pthread_start + 345
    3 libSystem.B.dylib 0x9549f89e thread_start + 34

  • Flynn

    So why is it that you don’t work at Valve?
    I mean, if you can sort this out after school why the hell can’t an entire company bring us TFC2 / CS:S on launch? :P

    Thanks man, you’re a hero- I hope this goes viral!

  • Slippy

    Because launching all of your titles at launch is a poor business decision. If you stagger your launches people are more likely to buy them all.

  • Roblabla

    i would love to see a GCFScape (like nem’s tool) but for mac. Please do so !!!
    Thanks
    robin the noob

  • Name

    Just thought I’d let you guys know ITS WORKING FINE AGAIN. As of last Portal update, the engine.dylib has been updated, and TF2 works online!

  • Roblabla

    Since portal update, I CANT DOWNLOAD IT (i used steam006mac) i get the servers busy thing :’(

    GCFSCAPE FOR MAC !!!!!

  • Desiree

    Wanted to say THANKS! Even though I have to run on all low settings (on a high-end MacBook Pro) to avoid FPS hiccups, it works and looks great.

  • Indy

    Is anyone else having problems connecting to the VAC server as of a few hours ago?

  • Keosakai

    Hey! last I checked day of defeat works perfectly. Just as good as tf2 (minus one bad textured tree)

    maybe we’ll see a mutliplayer relaese soon woth tf2, dod and css

  • Ron

    I tried to reinstall tf2 after i heard it worked again with newest versions of everything and now when i launch tf2 it shows the half life 2 background image in the main menu and crashes a few seconds after that.

  • John

    Could not load library error :/

  • John

    someone help please?

  • Alva

    When i try to run TF2, it comes up with this error:

    Error:could not load library client

    i tried to reinstall, i read the terminal as it installed and this is what came up:

    Install: 1
    Requested TF2, checking GCFs
    All GCFs found! Extracting…
    Extracting source 2007 mac binaries.gcf…
    Extracting source materials.gcf…
    Extracting source models.gcf…
    Extracting source sounds.gcf…
    Extracting source 2007 shared materials.gcf…
    Extracting source 2007 shared models.gcf…
    Extracting source 2007 shared sounds.gcf…
    Extracting team fortress 2 client content.gcf…
    Extracting team fortress 2 content.gcf…
    Extracting team fortress 2 materials.gcf…
    cp: root/tf/bin/client.dylib: No such file or directory
    cp: root/tf/bin/server.dylib: No such file or directory
    Moving new game files into place
    Adding desktop icon
    All done! You can now launch the game with the icon on your desktop.

    Do you see the
    cp: root/tf/bin/client.dylib: No such file or directory
    cp: root/tf/bin/server.dylib: No such file or directory

    plz help me!

  • Hexxeh

    This means your GCFs were too old, and likely pirated. I don’t support piracy, so I can’t help you. Go buy the game.

  • The Doktor

    I use cross-over and to my great annoyance GCFScape will not run correctly, under any bottles.

    Does this new programme allow me just to copy them or must I extract them as well?

    The Doktor

  • Hexxeh

    Just copy them over. I ported HLLib and HLExtract to do the job that GCFScape was doing. Dump them in your Steam Content folder and SteamEnabler does the rest.

  • Name

    i fucking love you. that is all. also, here is a thread about it, check it out!

    http://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/cbkfb/team_fortress_2_on_mac_working_as_of_most_recent/

  • cwook

    Now make Half-Life 3 for Valve, please.

  • Roblabla

    I lol’d at cwook.

    BTW : FOR GCFSCAPE, USE GCFEXPLORER HERE : http://cs.rin.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?t=44110
    It works under crossover better, since it doesn’t use .net

  • Sukid

    Well I was using this but now valve’s released the official port of tf2… I just downloaded it thinking the gcfs I transferred would mean it wouldn’t have that much to download, but now it just crashes every time I try to run it.

    Is that the problem or did valve just screw up?

  • minifraank

    Do this work for GMOD in any way? I have tried my best by renaming the “garrysmod content.gcf” to “counterstrike source beta content2″ and installed Counter Strike Source with SteamEnabler. I edited run.sh in the icon that came out, and renamed the “counterstrike source beta” folder (under account name) to garrysmod. But it goes to the loading screen, and then not more. But when i force shut down “hl2_osx” is says, when i get out,

    Engine Error
    Could not load library client

    Thanks. :D

  • loony636

    Is there any chance of applying this same technique to Left 4 Dead?

  • Hexxeh

    No to both L4D and GMod, there are no Mac binaries for those yet. The reason these three work, is because they already ship Mac binaries in them, even though they’re not playable by the general public yet.

  • Roblabla

    for l4d, crossover works very nice

  • cwook

    What are you working on next? I hope its the Source SDK for Mac!

  • Roblabla

    source sdk for mac has no mac binary but will probably be ported at a moment or another by valve.

  • robotman

    this is good for mac users for sure..

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