10.5: Run Spore in OS X 10.5.2

Sep 10, '08 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: ~Coxy

While Spore (the full game, not Creature Creator) states that it require OS X 10.5.3, it's possible to get it running on OS X 10.5.2. I thought that I'd try to get it to run under 10.5.2 first in case it was possible, so I wouldn't need to upgrade. Unfortunately, 10.5.3 and later breaks compatibility with Starcraft, Diablo and some other older games on Nvidia 8x00 graphics.

Here's how I got it running in 10.5.2:

  1. Insert the CD, then using Terminal or something that can see invisible files, copy the whole contents of the CD to your hard disk, to somewhere like /Spore/.
  2. Navigate to /Spore » SPORE(TM) Install.app » (Control-clcik and Show Package Contents) » Contents » Resources.
  3. Open tgInstall.plist in your favorite pure text editor. Comment out the $INSTALLVOLUME line, as shown below:
    <key>InstallVerify</key>
    <array>
    <!--<string>$INSTALLVOLUME/installer/INSTALLDATA.tgz=6352d7a8f78e9750444ba8aa26806a7201dd66fb</string>-->
    </array>
  4. Find and replace $INSTALLVOLUME throughout the whole document with /Spore (or the full path to wherever you copied the contents of the disc).
  5. Change the MinimumSystemVersion so that the "string" line reads 10.5.2.
  6. Install the game!
After installation, you've got one more change to make. Go to /Applications » SPORE » SPORE.app » (Control-click and choose Show Package Contents) » Contents and edit Info.plist. Change the MinimumSystemVersion "string" entry like so:
<key>MinimumSystemVersion</key>
<string>10.5.2</string>
It's working fine for me on 10.5.2 with an 8800GT video card, but your mileage may vary, of course.

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