AFAIK, indeed only the Mac version plays CD music; there is a combined DOS/Mac CD version, which has the audio tracks, but the DOS version will not play them.

Yes, I continued investigation and I noticed that Mac version also has better graphics (640*480) :
https://forum.dune2k.com/topic/26865-warcraft … ns-mac-version/
https://imgur.com/a/SR4Yu#0

I created a topic on Blizzard forums asking for Mac re-using for the future GoG version instead of the DOS one :
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/bnet/topic/20771216934

They won't, because it's far easier to wrap the DOS version with DOSBox than get the PowerPC Mac version running on current machines.

The Mac graphics for Warcraft 1 look like someone just took the low-res DOS graphics, and upsampled it with a nice interpolation filter. In reality it was probably the other way around - DOS graphics are downscaled Mac graphics, but I wonder if some graphical modes of DOSBox can mostly close that gap.

Text rendering is different, I don't think it's just a downscale/upscale, it's another build with its own version if you look at the Credits. There is also a video on YouTube showing an integration with the 'System 7' Mac OS, the options for example is the OS UI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6OyO8NIlIY

The solution would be to take the root build, not trying to make a Mac emulator, if they can find this one somewhere..

But I also fear it was some third party / licensed work, maybe there would also be right issues or other problems due to not having Blizzard directly involved in it.

Danicela wrote:

The solution would be to take the root build, not trying to make a Mac emulator, if they can find this one somewhere..

GoG pretty much never releases "new" builds or has any access to source code, they just make the old builds playable on current systems. Any changes they do make are usually community-sourced, like combining multi-disk resources into single files for sierra's games or ddraw/ipx wrappers like they used for Diablo.

dr_st wrote:

The Mac graphics for Warcraft 1 look like someone just took the low-res DOS graphics, and upsampled it with a nice interpolation filter. In reality it was probably the other way around - DOS graphics are downscaled Mac graphics, but I wonder if some graphical modes of DOSBox can mostly close that gap.

It is well known and documented that the Mac version came out after the DOS version, and the graphics were upscaled by Blizzard in-house for the Mac port:

Well, "Your welcome!" from one of the Mac developers. […]
Show full quote

Well, "Your welcome!" from one of the Mac developers.

I don't think PC users will be drooling over Mac Warcraft, because
Warcraft was originally released for the PC about a year ago. The new Mac
version has some improvements over the PC version, however. The PC's
original 320x240 graphics have been touched up by Blizzard's artists for
the Mac version's 640x480 resolution. The unit pictures on the left of
the game screen are especially nice. [source]

jmarsh wrote:

They won't, because it's far easier to wrap the DOS version with DOSBox than get the PowerPC Mac version running on current machines.

First off, the Mac version is already included in the GOG build because they have put there the hybrid DOS/Mac CD release ISO. I was actually able to run it using the open source Mac compatibility layer called Executor. It works well save for the palettes which are most of the time displayed all wrong.

Executor does not require a version of MacOS or a Mac BIOS ROM to run. It's free and open source, and on top of that Warcraft does not require PowerPC Mac emulation, 68k (which is what Executor emulates) is sufficient for good performance even when you run the DOS version of Executor in DOSBox. If the palette problem was solved (which I gather is somehow related to fade-in and fade-out screen animations) then we'd have a valid, free way of running the Mac version on PCs.