Migrating between macOS and Windows: Save Game Files?!?

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TJA 14 Aug, 2023 @ 8:27am

I originally played Steam Games on a Windows PC.
Then, I got away with my old Windows PC and continue to play some games on my Mac Mini M1.
I did not need to copy any files to the Mac, as far as I remember - the games had working cloud saves and this just worked.

But now, I have a Windows PC gain and installed Steam and some games. When I start Tomb Raider (from the latest Trilogy), there simply is no option to select "Continue"!

Even as "Cloud Status" is shown as "Up to date", there is not way to continue the game or load a save game file.

Any idea?

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Showing 1-9 of 9 comments

TJA 14 Aug, 2023 @ 8:30am

And, I also tried to copy the ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steam/userdata folder from Mac to PC, to no avail ....

Cathulhu 14 Aug, 2023 @ 8:40am

Have you made sure that those savegame files are actually compatible to the other OS? Try asking for details in the discussion hub of the game in question.

TJA 14 Aug, 2023 @ 8:47am

I hoped that there is a general recommendation about how to this and wether cloud save normally works between both platforms, as I seem to remember.

If this is rather game-depended, I will ask esp. for affected games - will check first the status of my favourite games :-)

Thanks, @Cathulhu

Last edited by TJA; 14 Aug, 2023 @ 8:56am

TJA 14 Aug, 2023 @ 9:32am

Now, it does not seem to be a game-specific problem!

The save files from clouds are named "*.macdat", which those directly from the PC are named "*.mdat"

All are shown as "lib compressed data" ...

I checked wether a simple rename could help, but then the "*.macdat" files will simply be loaded again from cloud. The situation seems the same for all games I tried.

I hope that someone reads this who already migrated between PC and Mac and has some experience.

Cathulhu 14 Aug, 2023 @ 9:54am

https://i.imgur.com/8vdHcTO.png
That are not even remotely the same names the Windows version uses. So it seems they are not compatible with each other and that it is a game specific problem.

TJA 14 Aug, 2023 @ 10:46am

Originally posted by Cathulhu:
https://i.imgur.com/8vdHcTO.png
That are not even remotely the same names the Windows version uses. So it seems they are not compatible with each other and that it is a game specific problem.

Now, the problem is that it worked when continuing to play the former Windows games on the Mac!

But it does not work back on Windows now.

I cannot believe that I am the first who tries that - also it's a real trap if it works one way but not back again!

Hopefully someone reads this who has an idea.

MeltedButter 28 Feb @ 3:23pm

Copy a checkpoint.dat file from Windows over the data file in a checkpoint.dat.bundle folder, and it works great!

I fired up a new game on Mac, saved at the first opportunity, copied the checkpoint.dat from Windows over the data file.

e.g. if you copied the checkout.dat file into your home folder on the mac, run

cp -i ~/checkpoint.dat ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/iCloud~com~505games~deathstranding/manualsave0.checkpoint.dat.bundle/data

and hit y to overwrite manualsave0.

76561199821356300 2 Mar @ 9:31am

клас

MeltedButter 2 Mar @ 9:26pm

Word of the warning - the Mac Director's Cut seems fine with any save files from the Steam Director's Cut, but the Steam Director's Cut does not accept the Mac save games out-of-the-box.