Porting Win VST to Mac not possible (was: Re: MAX/MSP Conversion Complete...)

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

> On 5 okt 2006, at 01.12, Krispen Hartung wrote:
>
>> Two things, on the wishlist...converting a PC VST to a MAC VST,

>> doesn't someone make an app that will make a pc VST work on a mac?  
>> I used to have a program that converted VST to RTAS, etc.


Very good questions! I'm not skilled in programming myself, so I  
asked Angus F. Hewlett because his company, FXpansion, makes the best  
converters between plug-in formats run on the same platform. Below  
you'll find his excellent answer (quoted with his permission).

Per



>> Per Boysen wrote:
>>
>>> Are there any plans for wrapping a Windows VST to work in a host on
>>> an Intel Mac?
>>>
>>> If that was possible, in OSX, I know it would be useful to many
>>> musicians, including myself.



> On 5 okt 2006, at 01.50, Angus F. Hewlett wrote:
>
>> If it was possible, we'd be on the case.
>>
>> Three problems:-
>>
>> --> WINE (the supporting technology that allows Windows apps to  
>> run on
>> Linux or OSX) is GPL open source.. as such it's hard to sell software
>> based on it. Codeweavers are able to do so because they struck some
>> kind
>> of deal with the main Wine developers (in fact, as I understand it, a
>> lot of the Wine devs work for Codeweavers).
>>
>> --> WINE wraps from Windows to the 'X Window' API (for those that
>> don't
>> know, X Window is the GUI and windowing system used by many Unix
>> systems). Whilst OS X does support XWindow, it doesn't really  
>> allow it
>> to be integrated in to apps using OS X's native windowing  
>> technologies
>> (Quartz, Quickdraw, Carbon, Cocoa etc.). There is a driver that  
>> allows
>> WINE to talk directly to Quartz, but it's very immature and buggy  
>> - it
>> won't be stable enough for commercial software any time soon.
>>
>> --> Even if those obstacles were to be overcome, there is the issue
>> that
>> WINE's Windows-compatibility is not 100%.. with an unpatched WINE  
>> app,
>> probably 80% of VSTs (generally smaller and simpler ones) will work
>> OK.
>> With a heavily patched WINE, it's possible to do a lot better -- but
>> Muse Research (makers of Receptor) have had good engineers working on
>> this problem for years and are still only up around the 95% mark.
>> That's
>> plenty good enough for Linux users, or for a preinstalled/approved
>> kinda
>> system like Receptor.. however it's my impression that 'works' means
>> something rather different to OS X users compared to Linux users..  
>> 80%
>> compatibility is nowhere near good enough for a commercial OS X
>> software.
>>
>> Hope this helps,
>>        Angus.
>>
>>


Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se (Swedish)
www.looproom.com (international)
http://tinyurl.com/fauvm (podcast)
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