Single core score=130 vs 201 in m5 max (cb24)
Multicore score=1726 vs 2400+ in m5 max(cb 24) (m3 max score is 1630)
In gpu synthetic benchmarks its sits right in middle between base m5 pro and 32 core gpu m5 max.
In real world games its fps is lower in all three native games (cyberpunk,baldurs gate and as shadows)than mac . Source;Notebookcheck

Sevoflurane is a tool for running Windows Steam using CrossOver or its own bundled Wine (Dormison). It replaces Steam's Chromium UI running through Wine with WebKit running natively, and forwards your Steam notifications as macOS notifications. It also sets Discord Activity.

When used with the bundled Dormison, the new version can now also download and launch your macOS games, with working achievements, using Valve's existing SteamPlay compatibility tool. This is similar to NotProton.

How is it different from NotProton?

NotProton works by loading its library into Steam and patching CrossOver. Sevoflurane doesn't inject anything into Steam for Mac or patch CrossOver.

Games interact with the Windows client. This means Sevoflurane is doing the reverse of what NotProton is doing, where games interact with the Mac's Steam.

How is it different from CrossOver?

It can run games through CrossOver unchanged, or it can use its bundled Wine fork. If using the fork, you get resizable windows for most games, upscaling, Game Mode, mouse acceleration off, and FPS overlay.

Download and more info:

https://github.com/kageroumado/sevoflurane

The project is free. If a future Steam update breaks something, please open an Issue on GitHub.

Amanita Design recently announced Machinarium 2, a sequel to their venerable point and click adventure Machinarium. No release date mentioned. Steam store page shows a Mac version.

Many people who worked on the original are back to work on the sequel.

There's a trailer that shows off the distinctive artwork, though it possibly spoils a couple puzzles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqcglWA1pDo

Looking forward to it!

From Meredith:

"This Preview release includes an update to D3DMetal 4 beta 3 (available in Intel bottles only)."

Hello Mac gamers!

The latest GPTK beta lets us launch Witcher 3 Remastered without a patch, but DLSS, frame generation and ray tracing were still blocked in the settings.

I looked into it and found that the game disables these options when it detects Wine. So I made a small patch to remove those checks and use MetalFX through the DLSS upscaling and frame generation options.

I’ve tested it with Witcher 3 5.01, CrossOver Preview and GPTK 4 beta 3.

You can find the patch and instructions here.

You’ll need to run a script in Terminal—the instructions explain how. It backs up the original exe and includes a restore command. There’s also a technical write-up if you’re interested in the checks behind the issue.

Let me know how it runs on your Mac!

One note: the screenshots look a bit washed out because I captured them in SDR while the game was rendering in HDR.

Edit: A frame generation value of 1 in-game means 2× in DLSS terms.

vibe coded of course. Astra managed to get it to 60fps(not perfect, has drops with rain) and native screen resolution. Stoked to see it working, but mainly excited to use the DLC cars I never got!

M2 8GB RAM

The good news is that you can bypass the Microsoft Visual C++ error by simply launching the game from the .exe in Abiotic Factor/binaries/Win64 folder.

The bad news is that you can't play multiplayer since this launches the game through offline mode.

I also had to lower some graphic settings to stop the stuttering which seemed to help!

It's a universal binary for both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs.

https://store.epicgames.com/p/agent-a-a-puzzle-in-disguise-42fe5f

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?

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/

Can check it out here till its merged into the official repo!
https://github.com/DarthMDev/ssrecomp/tree/macos-port

Been building this on my own for a while. It runs Windows Steam games on Apple Silicon, and everything in the video is recorded on my MacBook Pro (M3 Pro).

New in this update:

• frame generation, Lethal Company goes from 48 to 118 fps
• ⌘Z rewinds the last few seconds (tested in Lethal Company so far, other DX11 games may work)
• translates a game's text right on screen, offline
• 4:3 stretched in CS2

Still rough in places. If you try it and something breaks, tell me which game and I'll look into it.

uncorkmac.com

Im playing risk of rain 2 for the first time with friends and the item textures, names, and descriptions are all mixed up. When I pick up an item, my game tells me a completely different item than what I actually get and use in-game. I suspect my textures in my files are scrambled but I’m not sure how to fix it without manually changing them (which I can’t do on my Mac anyways). Any ideas?

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

trying to launch deadlock and the game works fine but it forces the launch into my mac display and not my external monitor, my external monitor is my primary display on setting aswell. Is there a fix for this?

Build by day. Survive by night. Each day, use a limited number of actions to expand your city, manage resources, reinforce defenses, and prepare for what’s coming. Each night, your towers unleash their power against ever-growing zombie hordes.

Key Features:

🛠 Turn-Based City-Building – Make the most of each action in a limited timeframe.
🏰 Defensive Strategy – No army, just walls, turrets, traps, and smart planning.
🌓 Day/Night Cycle – Plan your expansion during the day, defend at night.

Hello, I'm the dev! 👋

I ported DreadHaven: The Last Colony just in time for the Steam Next Fest!

The game is available in 7 languages with real localization (just in time for the next fest too haha).

The demo has been out for a month now and has been updated multiple times, so it's way cleaner than the first version!

I'm not a Mac user, but I specifically have a Mac to test the game with the build myself (and that it works on Steam and doesn't generate the 0-octet build).

The game/the save/the cloud save should work without any problem!

If you have any problems or questions, I'll be around!

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.

Hi everyone!

I'm trying to get AION 2 running on my MacBook Air M5 using Sikarugir App, with Apple's Game Porting Toolkit and D3DMetal, but I haven't been able to get past the initial game loading screen.

Steam launches the game, but it gets stuck on the AION 2 splash screen and never progresses any further. I've already verified the game files through Steam and tried different configuration settings, but the issue persists.

I'm wondering if anyone has managed to get AION 2 working with Sikarugir App, especially on Apple Silicon Macs.

My setup:

• MacBook Air M5
• macOS 27
• Sikarugir App
• Apple Game Porting Toolkit (GPTK 4.0)
• D3DMetal
• AION 2 via Steam

I'd prefer to get it working with Sikarugir rather than using Parallels or CrossOver.

If you've managed to run the game successfully, could you please share your configuration, any required patches, environment variables, or other steps needed to get past the splash screen?

I'm also wondering whether the issue could be related to the game's anti-cheat system or Wine compatibility.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Roblox runs at 30 fps on my MacBook Air M4 16GB of ram on macOS 27 with full graphics, never happened before, used to get straight 60 but EVEN AFTER downgrading to Tahoe, the issue persists. Funny thing is that my macOS Golden Gate VM running on my external ssd is getting straight 60 like it's meant to, but not on my main device with macOS 26.7.1. This issue is also for many people playing Roblox on Mac, like my friend with an M5 Pro MacBook Pro on Golden Gate.

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!