RealFlight Evolution - fully running on Apple M1 Mac via Parallels Desktop

[LaserGecko]

Hi everyone,

Since October, I've tried everything I can find to get RealFlight 9.5S, then Evolution running on my M1 Max MacBook Pro. They would both run, but only at Eli Field. Meanwhile, Native Mac and Windows emulated sims worked just fine. All of the .exe files are set to run in Safe Emulation mode and Run as Administrator. but any attempt to change Airports caused RF to crash. Tech support was no help, so don't waste your time.

I finally started going through every setting I could find in Parallels Desktop and discovered that the General -> Configure for option was not set to "Games Only". Shut down the VM, change that, and bam, now it's working. I haven't found anything to crash it yet, so it looks like the bug was centered on changing airports.

It's running in macOS 12.6 Monterey in Windows 11 Pro via Parallels Desktop.

Hope that helps someone else!

 

[Ryan Douglas]

Thank you for sharing! It would be great to hear from others who have attempted this and whether they had similar results.

 

[gjhclough]

I am hoping someone here can help get RealFlight Evolutions work on my M1 MacBook. It is driving me mad

Hardware: MacBook Pro / M1 Pro / 16GB
Software: Ventura 13.2.1 / Parallels 18.2.0 / Windows 11 Home 22000.1696

All software is fully patched to the latest versions.

I have set Parallels to run windows in "Games Only". The following files have been changed by selecting properties -> Change settings for all users -> Ticked "Run this program as an administrator". Clicked on the Change emulation settings button and selected "Safe Emulation".

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\bin\drivers.exe"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RealFlight Evolution\RealFlight64.exe"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RealFlight Evolution\Helpers\RealFlightHelper_Admin64.exe"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RealFlight Evolution\Helpers\RealFlightHelper64.exe"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RealFlight Evolution\Helpers\ShellRefresh.exe"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RealFlight Evolution\Helpers\BackupCommunicator\BackupCommunicator.exe"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RealFlight Evolution\DirectX\DXSETUP.exe"

I have rebooted both the Mac and Windows. Launched steam and Realflight looks like this.



I click on Play and get this...



Click on Yes, and get this...



After about 10seconds it returns to the first picture waiting for me to click on play again.

I don't have a windows PC, I am fully embedded into the apple architecture, so a bit pissed off that I have just paid £117 for some software I cant use.

Really hoping someone who has had success can give me a tip to try something else.

Many thanks

 

[gjhclough]

I have given up, I dont know how people have managed to get this working on an M1 Mac.

In the end I bought a refurbed Lenovo X280 for £150, and it works a treat. Bonkers really the I cant get it to work on a £1000 Mac, but works perfectly on an old £150 windows laptop

 

[Ryan Douglas]

Thanks for posting your results. Perhaps someone else will still be able to help at some point. From what I've gleaned over the years RealFlight on Parallels has typically been very hit or miss. Maybe that continues to be the case.

A minor point: I can understand being hopeful it would work based on others' results and being disappointed when it didn't in your case. However, I wouldn't call it bonkers that PC software designed only for Windows does in fact work on an inexpensive Windows system while not working in an environment for which it was not designed (i.e., emulation on a Mac), regardless of that system's price.

 

[tembit]

I updated my Windows 11 pro VM (parallels 18) to the latest build (windows insider beta channel) and installed RF evolution, and it ran without a hitch. I didn’t change any compatibility settings and I’m able to switch airports without it crashing. So far it runs very well and the performance seems to be better than 9.5.

 

[gjhclough]

Thanks for the update. I have now done the same (setup windows 11 home under the windows insider beta channel), made some significant progress. I can now get relalflight to run, yay

Only issue now is the Spektrum NX Wired controller is behaving really eratically. All the buttons look like they are mapped correctly. See below. However, moving switch D on the NX6 moves the rudder ! I cant fly any models as the controller just does really strange things. If I try to edit the assignments, the controller just assigns its own buttons before I can move anything.

It's late now, giving up for tonight. Will play again tomorrow but appreciate anyone who may have any tips.

Many thanks

 

[Bill Stuntz]

A word of warning to those of you using the Windows Insider versions: A couple years ago, I had forgotten that I was running an insider version of Win10. One day, I got an odd onscreen message to the effect that on such&such a date (that had passed 3 months before) my insider version would stop working. And it IMMEDIATELY stopped working. No access to admin functions, no program installation, no updates. No way to do an in-place upgrade to the release version from inside Windows. The only option was to boot from a WIn10 installer thumb drive & do a clean install of Win10 and reinstall all the software that I had installed over the years from scratch. All my personal data was still present in the Windows.old directory, but all the software was gone. It took me several days to get back to "normal" with most of the utilities/tools/software that I had collected over the years. My insider install had been an upgrade install that left all my installed software in place. It was a ROYAL PITA! I assume that something similar could happen eventually with the insider version of Win11.

P.S. FYI, I've installed/repaired/de-gunked/disinfected DOS/Windows on literally thousands of PC's since I started in the business in 1988. And none of the tricks I've learned over the years worked to recover my original configuration after the Win10 Insider version self-destructed.

 

[gjhclough]

Fantastic, everything works perfectly now

I thought it was about time that my MacBook Pro had a clean up anyway, so I wiped it, fresh install of MacOs Ventura, Parallels with Windows 11 Pro, Upgraded Windows to the insider Program, installed steam and RealFlight Evolutions inside windows. All works as it should. There was no need to amend any file properties. The NX6 controller works properly. All I need to do now is remap the controller to the button assignments I like to fly with.

I haven't done much testing yet. I have a MacBook Pro M1 Pro with 16GB memory. I put Parallels into Game mode, and changed the graphics setting to high in RF Evolutions, and it seems to work great so far. Will update if I spot anything.

Now for others, I can't say if the Windows Insider Program is a necessary step or not, I just replicated Tembit's environment and it worked for me.

For me the risk of having windows insider program is not an issue. I run all my apps in MacOs, just use Parallels for the occasional thing that only runs on windows, so not worried if I have to scrap the Virtual Machine and start again.

 

[Bill Stuntz]

Now for others, I can't say if the Windows Insider Program is a necessary step or not, I just replicated Tembit's environment and it worked for me.

For me the risk of having windows insider program is not an issue. I run all my apps in MacOs, just use Parallels for the occasional thing that only runs on windows, so not worried if I have to scrap the Virtual Machine and start again.

I assumed that you used the native Apple stuff for pretty much everything except RF. I'm glad everything is working for you. But I mostly wanted to inform Insiders of the potential risk. If I had been running the insider version in a VM instead of as my primary OS, I wouldn't have been so pissed off. This might not have been the correct thread for that warning, but I haven't seen anyone else talking about using the Insider software. And I feel pretty stupid for using it on my main machine.

 

[gjhclough]

Arggghhhhhhh

I don't know what is going on but this is driving me mad. All was working fine earlier. I had successfully mapped the switches as I like them, and flown several aircraft.

Now when I log back in to windows and RF Evolutions, all the buttons are incorrectly mapped. I went back to the default NX6 USB wired profile, and that is wrong too. The aircraft are unflyable. For example the rudder is now on a toggle switch.

I have gone into windows control panel and looked at the game controller for the spectrum radio, reset it back to defaults, but still no luck.

If I try to do what I did earlier and in RealFlight, edit the profile for the radio, I can't assign my own switches, as it looks like signals are being constantly fed from the transmitter, so as soon as I click on the "Input" box, it assigns a random switch. For example, clicking on Aileron, assigns button 0 FFS.

Nothing has changed from this morning, so I have no idea why it has stopped working.

Has anyone got any tips I can try please.

Many thanks

 

[jonoter]

I tried the DirectX11 beta, with Parallels 18, and it worked with no issues so far. I didnt change anything at all. I have Macbook Air M1, 8GB ram.

 

[gjhclough]

I tried the DirectX11 beta, with Parallels 18, and it worked with no issues so far. I didnt change anything at all. I have Macbook Air M1, 8GB ram.

Can I ask what controller you are using?

I have tried both an NX6 and an NX8, and no matter which version of RF Evolution, the controllers just do strange things. It is like it thinks it is mode 1 rather than mode 2, but the configure option won't let me set it up correctly, everytime I try to configure an axis or button, it defaults to button 0.

 

[gjhclough]

Brief update. Having no success with either an NX6 or NX8 via USB, I bit the bullet and bought the DX interlink controller.
Hey presto, everything works exactly as it should. The transmitters work perfectly on a windows laptop, so I cn only assume Parallels cannot recognise these NX controllers correctly.
If anyone else is struggling, just bite the bullet and buy the interlink controller.

 

[ScaleHeliPilot]

I'd love to just get the program to run on Parallels. Ridiculous. I added Insider. Nothing. I'm using the InterLinkDX controller. Nothing. Won't start.

 

[LarryBoyce]

I have been successful installing and running both 9.5s and Evolution with Parallels with Steam. I have used both the InterlinkDX controller as well as an Aerofly Ikarus controller. All of the native planes work fine and I can configure the controllers to work well. A problem I'm having is when installing custom airplanes the plane comes in and work, but no color scheme. Everything is white. The installation reports success, but when launching the plane there are several file not found messages for .tga and .dds files. I'm attaching a photo of the screen indicating the problem. It seems to have to do with the way Parallels creates drive\folder structure for Windows.
Has anyone else had this experience?