Dream Aquarium v1.1524 Forum

The application needs a file called gdiplus.dll in the .cxoffice/bottle/drive_c/windows/system32 directory

This file is not automatically included by the download. But you can find the gdiplus.dll using Google.

i tried in the mac version without results...may U help me?

I also tried adding gdiplus.dll to the correct folder.

I'm on a Mac running Crossover Games.

Dream Aquarium attempts to run and then exits with an error about not being able to open a Direct3D window.

Ok, I got it working on OS X (10.6.0) with Crossover 8.0:

First I added gdiplus.dll to the correct folder.

Then, I followed this Crossover tip:
In the winecfg control panel enable the virtual desktop and set the size of it to something smaller than your display resolution (i.e. 1024x768 or 800x600).

Edit: Unfortunately, I cannot seem to get it to register... I can use the separate enter serial number application but the main application/screensaver doesn't seem to recognize that the registration was successful.

I just installed it with the gdiplus tip and it seems to work great. I don't have a serial number to try out yet. I'm debating on whether or not to hold out for an official Mac version.

I actually own a copy (have a legit serial) because I bought DA back when I was using Windows, so I figured I had nothing to lose by messing around to get it to recognize the registration. I couldn't get DA to recognize that the serial had been entered even after running the Enter Serial Number program/application (I think the program would crash halfway through the registration process or whatever it was doing). In any case, I installed DA with the same serial number in VMWare Fusion, then went through the registry using regedit and searched for "Dream Aquarium" any key that looked important and was missing from the registry associated with my Crossover DA install, I recreated in Crossover. Unfortunately I didn't write down the specific keys but there were 3-4 if I recall correctly, that all had a value that looked like a hash or random set of letters/numbers/important-looking-string. After recreating those keys in Crossover, the full version of DA works perfectly (even better rendering than in VMWare and with much less CPU usage--low enough I could probably leave it running most of the time).

John wrote:

I just installed it with the gdiplus tip and it seems to work great.
I don't have a serial number to try out yet. I'm debating on
whether or not to hold out for an official Mac version.

Don't hold your breath. I've owned DA for 3 years now and the Mac version is still just a "maybe one day when I have time" thing. Alan (the developer) never committed to doing it for sure, only if he had time but he'd have to learn how to code for a Mac first (Objective C or whatever), etc. Dream Aquarium uses DirectX, which is Microsoft-OS-only, so he'd have to do a complete rewrite to port DA to OpenGL on Mac OS X.

Jessica wrote:

John wrote:

I just installed it with the gdiplus tip and it seems
to work great. I don't have a serial number to try out yet. I'm
debating on whether or not to hold out for an official Mac
version.

Don't hold your breath. I've owned DA for 3 years now and the Mac
version is still just a "maybe one day when I have time" thing.
Alan (the developer) never committed to doing it for sure, only if
he had time but he'd have to learn how to code for a Mac first
(Objective C or whatever), etc. Dream Aquarium uses DirectX, which
is Microsoft-OS-only, so he'd have to do a complete rewrite to port
DA to OpenGL on Mac OS X.

Yah, I'm not overly hopeful it'll be any time soon. On the developer's forums, he says/claims he had a Mac developer working on it, but he hasn't been heard from in some time. That seems just silly to me... if he is AWOL, then just find another one. It's not like there's a shortage of Mac developers.