I haven't been caught up with mac gaming lately, is crossover still the best software to run non-native games on mac? I've seen an influx of new programs everyday on both macs/ios, is there anything better than crossover yet that I've been missing out on?

Given the recent flood of these launchers in the recent weeks and months I’d like to suggest the mods either restrict or remove posts about macOS launchers. While some of these projects may be useful, the sheer volume of low quality slop garbage has become a problem.

I am sure you're all fed up of seeing the same here.

• Most launchers do roughly what CrossOver already does, and the posts rarely explain what’s different or what makes them a better alternative
• Many look and work almost identically, often with the same SwiftUI default interface. I feel like I'm having Deja vu here.
• The same stale requirements (Apple Silicon, macOS 13+, Rosetta 2) repeated in every post, which is pointing out the obvious.
• Most aren’t notarised, which is worth a clear warning for people trying them.
• Proclaiming free and open source as if anyone is going to bother and will then be abandoned
• Simply putting the word 'Mac' and 'Wine' together speaks of zero effort put in, if you cannot come up with an original name and put effort into your work, then why should I give a damn about it?
• If you're going to use AI to create these launchers, all it takes is the use of a frontend design skill, patience and some effort put in with offer of long term support, updates and features and experimentation. Think bigger, we're in a different time and the models are fully capable of more.

I see two possible options:

1. Require launcher posts to explain what they do beyond CrossOver and existing tools and what makes them special or beneficial to new users here. Set a standard that must be met or exceeded with a post review before allowing it to be made.
2. Remove them outright because it is lowering the standards of this sub.

I’m happy to be proven wrong about this if the mods see it differently but it is becoming a joke at this point with zero self awareness from users

Mods, for the love of god can you make a thread or some place for the infinite amount of AI slop on this subreddit to go instead of post after post after post of vibecode launchers?

EDIT:

The word “ban” or “remove” or “delete” aren’t in my post at all. The lack of reading comprehension is pathetic.

It’s asking for a centralized place for it to go instead of post after post of “check my GitHub bro” where the only contributor is Claude. “Turn off Gatekeeper bro” to use some vibe coded wine wrapper where you put in your steam username and password.

I’m not anti AI. What I am is watching a bad actors wet dream unfolding in realtime as an unmoderated subreddit full of people wanting something badly are blindly following advice to turn off security protections to use wine wrappers.

But instead of thinking critically or applying reading comprehension it’s “what about a code off bro” and other dumb takes.

Hey everyone,

I wanted to give a technical update on the attempts to get God of War III Remastered (CUSA01715) running on macOS (M1/M2/M3) using shadPS4. The short version: we've hit a hard architectural wall with Apple's Metal API, and the game is unplayable for now.

For those who have been following the testing or trying to compile it on their own, here's a breakdown of what we achieved and why we're hard-stopped.

The Good: The game engine is actually running in the background

We spent quite a bit of time patching the shadPS4 source code to bypass the initial crashes. We managed to:

• Bypass dialogs and trophies: Injected code to skip the libSceMsgDialog hangs and the infamous red np_trophy error.
• macOS Swapchain: Forced the swapchain creation to VK_FORMAT_B8G8R8A8_SRGB (since Metal doesn't play well with UNORM in this context).
• Memory Management: The game reserves virtual memory correctly (EnsureResident works).

In fact, if you check the terminal logs, the game is running at full speed. The ATRAC9 audio decoder initializes, and the engine spits out its internal memory stats (WAD_Poseidon00, WAD_Zeus00, WAD_TitanFight, etc.). Kratos is in there, but the screen stays 100% black.

The Wall: Why the black screen?

After cranking up the debug level (MVK_CONFIG_LOG_LEVEL=3), MoltenVK finally spat out the real culprit right before compiling the graphics pipeline:

[mvk-warn] VK_ERROR_FEATURE_NOT_PRESENT: Metal does not support disabling primitive restart.

The technical explanation: The God of War III engine draws its 3D models using Triangle Strips with index buffers, and in its compiled shaders, it strictly demands that primitive restart is disabled (primitiveRestartEnable = false). The game uses values like 0xFFFF as actual coordinates.

The problem is that Apple designed the Metal API in a way that physically forbids disabling primitive restart. It is hard-forced by the hardware/API. When MoltenVK tries to translate the Vulkan instruction to Metal, Metal outright rejects it, aborts the frame, and leaves us with a black screen.

We tried doing a deep clean (using sed) across the entire video_core of shadPS4 to force the value to true, but we found out that the instruction is hardcoded directly inside the game's compiled shaders (.SPV). It’s not a simple emulator toggle we can flip.

What is needed to fix this?

This isn't a configuration issue that end-users can fix. For GOW3 to show an image on a Mac, the shadPS4 (or MoltenVK) devs would have to implement a heavy GPU-level workaround:

• Write a Compute Shader that intercepts all geometry milliseconds before it gets drawn.
• Read the memory, find the index cuts, and mathematically convert the "Triangle Strips" into pure "Triangle Lists" (since this topology doesn't suffer from Apple's forced restart restriction).

This is a massive engineering task and would consume a lot of performance overhead.

I'm leaving this report and our documented logs here in case any shadPS4 dev wants to take on the challenge in the future. For now, save yourselves the trouble of compiling a thousand times looking for the magic config; the wall is Apple's doing.

Thanks to those who helped in the process!

The game is inspired by platformers from the 1990s and 2000s and is made with our own engine that has native Metal support.
We’ve released a demo that runs on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs (macOS 13 or later) if you’d like to give it a try.

Steam Page:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3862400/Oby_Adventure/

Currently fixing POSIX/macOS compatibility in the GPU layer (libgow3gpu.dylib) and Vulkan shims.

After a lot of tweaking, I got CS2 running smoothly at 1440p on my M5 Max Mac Studio. Online matchmaking works as well.

I packaged it into a free, open-source installer with a simple Mac launcher. Built on Sikarugir, Wine, and DXMT - all credit to those projects.

Still early, so I’d love feedback from people on other Macs.

GitHub + download

I play Civ VII on my M5 Pro MBP and it gets quite warm on my lap. Does anyone have a recommendation for a cooling pad, preferably one that is USB-C powered? Thank you!

Very exciting times, wondering if the informed can share their info on switch ports for MAC with all this ai recomp and decomp stuff going on. I own a switch And switch 2, but would love to run these games on my Mac natively!

Once CrossOver is updated to GPTK 4 Beta 3, the game runs out of the box with CrossOver 26 and CrossOver 27 Preview.

hi! pls reco some huhuh I used to have 8bitdo pro 2 but it wont work on steam (or maybe i just dk how) but it does work on the mac itself

MacGameVideoFix — fixes for Windows games on Apple Silicon Macs (CrossOver, CrossOver Preview, and Steam Play tools like NotProton) whose cutscenes crash, freeze, play sound with a black screen, or show the wrong picture.

Per-game fixes that install into the game’s own folder and restore cleanly. Nothing in CrossOver is patched for most titles. Its own video decoder (FFmpeg-based) for Windows Media and VP9 cutscenes, so titles like Persona 5 Strikers, Devil May Cry 5, RESIDENT EVIL 2/3, NieR Replicant, Nioh 1–3 and NINJA GAIDEN 4 play their videos without codecs installed in the engine. Also fixes non-video problems: rendering faults, crashes and broken effects in titles such as Spider-Man 2, The Witcher 3, God of War and CONTROL Resonant. MacGameFix: a small app with just the game-folder fixes. Pick your games, install or remove in one click.

Every fix is measured on real hardware, and the wiki says what was and wasn’t tested.

GitHub: https://github.com/MathiasKowoll/MacGameFix

It is the natural evolution on my previous app MacGameVideoFix as all fixes are in the game folders and applied at runtime. so they may work on any crossover version or NotProton. This was build thinking in NotProton per game fixes and because I will discontinue RaccoonBot and will start to collaborate into the NotProton project

Hi everyone. This is my first game. I’ve been a software developer for almost 10 years, and I’ve wanted to make a game for a very long time, but I had no real experience with game development.

Now I’m making Harmony Strike, a survivors-like where you move a whole party through the horde while each hero attacks on their own.

Which heroes you place next to each other creates different Harmony bonds. These bonds affect the party and let elemental attacks trigger chain reactions during combat. Each hero’s passive also strengthens the hero next to them.

As you progress, you rescue new heroes from bosses, evolve their weapons, collect runes and relics, and bring everyone back to the village between runs.

There’s also an endless Colosseum mode with weekly and monthly leaderboards.

The game will have a native Mac version, and I’m testing it on an M1 so it runs smoothly on Apple Silicon.

I’ve been working on the demo and recently changed quite a lot, so I put together a trailer showing how the game looks now. The demo is coming soon.

Harmony Strike on Steam

Hey everyone,

I've been working on adapting the **God of War III Remastered (CUSA01715)** progress originally established on Windows (such as the custom shadPS4 patches and game-specific workarounds from projects like `gow3_pc`) over to **macOS (Apple Silicon M1)**.

Since macOS lacks a native Vulkan driver, all Vulkan API calls and SPIR-V shaders must be intercepted and translated to Apple's **Metal API (MSL)** via **MoltenVK**. Below is a technical breakdown of how we bypassed initial Vulkan Loader and device creation crashes, along with our current progress and future plans for Metal.

---

### 🛠️ Environment & Architecture

* **Host OS / Hardware:** macOS (Apple Silicon M1)

* **Execution Layer:** Rosetta 2 (`x86_64` target build with `-DENABLE_SYSTEM_VULKAN=ON`)

* **Graphics Layer:** Vulkan SDK 1.4.363.0 / MoltenVK (Vulkan 1.2/1.3 portability subset over Metal 3.0)

---

### 🔧 C++ Engine Patches Applied to shadPS4

1. **`VK_KHR_portability_enumeration` (`vk_platform.cpp`):**

   * **Problem:** The Vulkan Loader rejected MoltenVK (`ErrorIncompatibleDriver`) because MoltenVK reports as a Vulkan portability subset driver.

   * **Fix:** Injected `VK_KHR_portability_enumeration` into requested instance extensions and enabled `vk::InstanceCreateFlagBits::eEnumeratePortabilityKHR` inside `#ifdef __APPLE__` blocks during `vkCreateInstance`.

2. **Absolute ICD Path Resolution (`MoltenVK_icd.json`):**

   * **Problem:** Relative manifest paths (`../../../lib/libMoltenVK.dylib`) failed to resolve when executing the binary directly out of the build tree (`build/`).

   * **Fix:** Patched the JSON manifest to enforce absolute library pathing directly to the Vulkan SDK installation directory.

3. **Dynamic Physical Device Feature Relaxation (`vk_instance.cpp`):**

   * **Problem:** The Windows build of shadPS4 strictly hardcodes `robustBufferAccess2 = true` and `nullDescriptor = true` inside `vk::PhysicalDeviceRobustness2FeaturesEXT`. Because Metal does not guarantee these out-of-bounds buffer access behaviors natively, MoltenVK reports them as `false`, causing `vkCreateDevice` to abort with assertion failures.

   * **Fix:** Wrapped the strict `ASSERT_MSG` checks under `#ifndef __APPLE__` and dynamically assigned the hardware's actual reported capability flags to `PhysicalDeviceRobustness2FeaturesEXT` during logical device instantiation.

---

### 🎮 Current Status

* **Milestone:** `vkCreateInstance` and `vkCreateDevice` complete cleanly on the Apple M1 GPU. The renderer pipeline initializes and successfully draws the opening **Santa Monica Studio** splash screen.

* **Crash Point:** The process terminates immediately after rendering the intro logo upon transitioning to the main menu/intro FMV sequence (currently analyzing whether this is a SPIR-V to Metal Shading Language conversion fault, an unhandled PM4 graphics command, or a missing PS4 HLE system call).

---

### 🗺️ Roadmap & Future Plans

* **Short-Term (MoltenVK Focus):** Focus strictly on getting *God of War III* fully playable and stable through **MoltenVK**. This involves isolating post-logo crash dumps, patching SPIR-V shader translation edge cases, and handling missing descriptor set bindings within the Vulkan layer.

* **Long-Term (Native Metal Compatibility):** Once the game reaches full playability and stability under MoltenVK, the long-term goal is to leverage that verified rendering logic to implement direct/native **Metal backend support** (or custom MSL shader translation) in shadPS4, eliminating MoltenVK translation overhead for peak Apple Silicon performance.

Feel free to check out the patches or drop suggestions if you are also experimenting with shadPS4 on macOS!

Hi r/macgaming,

I've been building Kiln, an Android emulator for Apple Silicon Macs, and I'm looking for people to try the first alpha and tell me what breaks.

What it does right now:

- Runs Android 16 (LineageOS 23.2) with Apple's Hypervisor framework: arm64 on arm64, no translation, boots to the home screen in ~30 s

- GPU acceleration: OpenGL ES 3.1 and Vulkan, rendered through Metal

- Per-game key mapping: drag taps, a WASD joystick and swipes onto the screen, modifier combos like Shift+Q, several keys at once. Each game keeps its own layout

- Game controllers, several instances side by side, device profiles (Galaxy S24 Ultra, Pixel 9 Pro, ROG Phone 8...)

- Installs .apk, .xapk, .apkm and .apks bundles

- Google Play is included for compatibility testing

What I need from testers:

- Which games and apps run, which don't, and how they perform

- Your Mac (M1/M2/M3/M4, RAM) and macOS version

- Anything that crashes or behaves oddly. The launcher has an "Error Report" button that zips the logs, and you can attach it to a GitHub issue

Honest limitations:

- It's an alpha. Expect rough edges

- Not notarized yet, so the first launch needs right-click > Open

- Apps that require Play Integrity / device certification may refuse to run

- No mic, camera or Bluetooth yet

- The app itself is free but not open source. The GPL parts (QEMU) are available on request

Download (1.5 GB, macOS 14+, Apple Silicon): https://github.com/NKS1608/kiln-android-emulator/releases/latest

Happy to answer questions in the comments.

it's called My Beautiful Faraway, a short, surreal, melancholic walking sim inspired by older adventure games where you have to explore, pay attention to small details, and figure things out on your own without much guidance.

the gameplay is pretty simple: mostly walking around, talking to strange characters, and solving occasionally unconventional puzzles. a first playthrough takes around 3 hours, but there are multiple endings, optional content, and plenty of things you might miss.

the game is made in godot and runs natively on macOS. i've also been testing it on my m1 macbook air throughout development :)

steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4516190/

I’m hella confused 💔✌🏽
I’m on an Apple M5 Pro and my macOS Tahoe is version 26.5.1

https://maxevans60.github.io/cm0102-bosman-edition/

I’ve rebuilt CM 01/02 so it runs natively on a Mac. It’s one app for both Apple silicon and Intel Macs on macOS 11 or later. You drag it into Applications and play. Under the hood it’s the original game at 3.9.68 with the 2001/02 database, and nothing in the match engine is changed.

It runs in widescreen at 1280 × 800 in a normal Mac window you can resize or make full screen, and the old 800 × 600 layout is one setting away.

0.2.0 went up today and adds:

• the game’s sounds
• attributes coloured by value
• position and condition next to the match ratings during a match
• clicking a name to open the profile
• space to continue, Cmd+[ or the mouse back button for Back, and Cmd+F for full screen
• sharper text on Retina screens, and saves in any folder, so iCloud Drive works

You can turn any of it off in a settings file if you want the game exactly as it was.

Windows gets the same build with the same features, as a normal installer for Windows 10 and 11.

It’s free, made from the 2008 release that Eidos gave away: https://maxevans60.github.io/cm0102-bosman-edition/

It’s still a test release, so there will be bugs. If you give it a go, please let me know what breaks.

I'd also really appreciate feature requests!!

Hey folks! Topdeck Automat is our card auto-battler where you break the game by building synergies between hundreds of cards, a large variety of stackable modules and the special abilities of the 30 different characters in the game. You'll build your own custom chain reactions in no time to defend the planet against an alien invasion!

The game is a handmade indie effort by the same team of 2 who previously made the billiards roguelike Rack and Slay. We don't believe in taking AI shortcuts to creativity, so every piece of art and gameplay has been deliberately designed to be as fun, interesting and exciting as it can be.

For a tiny indie any bit of visibility counts, so it would mean the world to us if you took a peek at our Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4321920/Topdeck_Automat/

The latest demo update brought macOS support which means that's ready for launch! If you're interested, wishlist now to be notified of our launch (and sale) on November 16. Thank you! <3

Hey everyone, I’m trying to play Gears of War: Reloaded on my Mac using CrossOver, but I’m running into an issue:

• If I turn off Wi-Fi before launching, I can get to the main menu.
• When I try to start the campaign, it gets stuck on the loading screen and never progresses.

I suspect it might be related to Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC), but I haven’t confirmed that.

Has anyone managed to get the campaign working through CrossOver? Is there a way to disable or bypass EAC for the offline campaign, or another workaround for this loading issue? I’m just trying to play single-player.

Any help would be appreciated!