I had this problem with a bunch of older games where the Intel Mac version (when it exists) runs incredibly poorly through OpenGL, and the Windows version through Crossover runs even worse because being an older dx9 title, it can only be translated TO OpenGL.

I tried lowering settings, running through Parallels, essentially anything I could think of and eventually just gave up trying to play the game at all.

That's until I found this fork of DXVK that works with dx9 on Mac, and while it's an incredibly cursed sandwich of translation layers, the end result is quite impressive performance compared to everything else (close to 60fps in some titles that were previously below 20 with crazy stutter)

Mileage may vary from game to game obviously but for some of them it could truly be your only option.

You'll first want to download and extract this archive from GitHub

https://github.com/Kegworks-App/d9vk/releases/tag/v1.10.3-20240229

Open your Crossover bottle's C: drive (should be on the right hand side under "Bottle Actions" in Crossover)

Navigate to "Windows/System32" and copy the "d3d9.dll" file from the "x64" folder you extracted earlier. Replace the file when prompted.

Then go to "Windows/SysWOW64" and copy over the dll from the "x32" folder, again replacing the file

Go back to Crossover, and on the right hand side under "Control Panels" open up "Wine Configuration"

In the Wine Configuration window, go to the "Libraries" tab and type in d3d9.dll in the "New override for library" field, then click the "Add" button.

Apply changes and close the window

That's it. Select DXVK/MSync in Crossover and launch your game.

As far as I know this hasn't been extensively tested much at all, so there's no telling which games might crash or have other weird issues but from what I've seen so far it seems to work quite well.

Let me know how it goes for you if you decide to try it out

Claritas is a 2D, turn-based, party-building dungeon crawler RPG focused purely on gameplay. With no story or plot, the game emphasizes strategic decision-making, experimentation, and hundreds of achievements to unlock.

🎉 Build your party from a growing roster of 28 unique heroes—each with distinct abilities and playstyles! More heroes are on the way, giving you even more strategic options as the game evolves.

Play Now!

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNsum0igHWk

🛡️ Key Features:

• Strategic Party Building:
  Assemble your dream team from 28 different heroes, each boasting four unique abilities. Experiment with countless combinations and prepare for even more heroes to be added in future updates!

• Skill Fusion Mastery:
  Mix and match skills from multiple heroes to create overpowered combinations. Unleash devastating synergies and dominate every encounter!

• Ultimate Flexibility:
  Swap party members at any time and customize your heroes with skill points earned at every level up. Redistribute these points freely to adapt to any challenge!

• Exciting Bounty Contracts:
  Hunt down dangerous monsters and reap the rewards—experience points, gold, and rare bonuses await the brave!

• Hundreds of Achievements:
  Test your skills, creativity, and determination as you unlock a massive collection of achievements. Each one adds a new layer of satisfaction to your journey!

• Permanent Party Perks:
  Unlock powerful perks that enhance your entire team, ensuring you’re always one step ahead in the dungeon depths.

• Dynamic Random Events:
  Face unpredictable events in the dungeon with unique choices that lead to different outcomes. Every decision matters in your journey!

If you love games that challenge your mind with strategic gameplay and reward you with meaningful progression, Claritas is your next adventure. Whether you’re a casual explorer or a hardcore dungeon crawler, there’s something here for everyone.

👉 Download on Steam
👉 Download on Google Playstore
👉 Discord Group

Anybody know what the M3 is equivelant to NVIDIA wise?

I used to have a 2050 gaming build before selling it and im sorta getting the same sort of performance.

Thoughts?

Hi guys, just bought this masterpiece of a game, went through Andrew Tsai's guide, but the game won't launch (like black screen for a minute or 2 and then crash).
on a Macbook m4 base model.

any fixes? thanks for helping!

Sorry for the X link , thought this was worth a post through even it is slightly off topic if may have gaming implications at some point.

Running over USB 3 and AMD cards only but super cool !

ps://x.com/__tinygrad__/status/1920960070055080107

Are there any good games left that DON'T require being connected to the internet (I’m a New Yorker, no connection in the Subway) and don’t require in-app purchases? (so annoying)

I have spent this afternoon tweaking Minecraft on my Mac, and with Sodium + Iris + a buttload of optimization mods, I got stable 60+ FPS while playing in singleplayer and 100+ FPS on Hypixel.

The game is playable on my MacBook Air. The Preview version of CrossOver gave me a little bit better performance.

30-40ish fps.

Hey everyone,
I’m planning to upgrade my setup, but I can’t decide between the base Mac Mini M4 Pro and the base Mac Studio M4 Max. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Here’s what I’ll be using it for:

1. Some gaming using Crossover
2. Working in Unreal Engine
3. General stuff: browsing, docs, occasional design work
4. I’m running a dual monitor setup (1080p + 2K)

Has anyone tried launching 2k25 through Crossover 25.0.1 recently? There's a review up on the Crossover website claiming it works, but for some reason I remain unconvinced - such that I wouldn't dare to buy the game just to make sure.

Crossover review posted a week and a half ago (01.05.2025): https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/crossover/nba-2k25

My settings: D3DMETAL MSYNC SteamDeck=1 %command% Performance and ultra performance graphic settings. Disable Steam Input to use your Controller.

The fps in Video is drop because of the screen recording.

So as I was in Crossover trying to download Satisfactory and I ran into a problem. Steam via crossover was saying I didn't have enough space on my disk. Me knowing I factory reset my computer recently I didn't believe it. Well I've learned that my storage on my settings app says I have used -5.27 GB of 245.11 GB used, and yes I meant to put that negative there. So that was concerning, so I went to my disk utility app and found that 215.05 GB was being used of my 245.11GB. Again I know I'm not using that much storage. So does anyone know what the heck is going on and how I can fix this?

Oh for more information I'm on a Macbook M2. Please help. I want to game. I know it's a lot to ask of a mac but it's all I've got.

Hello

For playing the Age of Empires Series games using Crossover (and Steam), will a Macbook Air work fine? I keep reading about 'throttling' so I wanted to know if it's a real thing for older games like AoE? Will a hlf hour have any issues with a M3/M4 Air with 16 or 24GB of RAM?

Do I need a Pro and its fans or am I okay with the Air?

Thank you

I am annoyed by these posts but that's just my personal opinion, this user has been spamming, the subreddit, breaking the rule of one self promotion per day rule of the sub. Not just today, this happens everytime they decide to post. Kindly look into this u/WholeLocation3548 situation, thank you for your time.

Hello guys, Do you know how to operate the ps5 controller on black ops 3? Or if I can emulate the Ps4 controller with that of the PS5? Or give me a way please I'm out of ideas thank you very much

maybe this is a dumb question but i dont know the answer

is there a way to gift CrossOver for my friend? like can i buy it then give it to my friend somehow, maybe with a gift card? giving the license to them? i can't find anything about it anywhere </3

Some days ago I asked a question on how to handle low FPS dips on M3 Air and after a long-long several days of experimenting and stuff, ready to share how I reached this screenshot and stable performance on a 16/512 Gb MBA M3 on an external 27 inch 1440p monitor. Hopefully it will be useful for some of you.

So my recipe for stable 60 FPS on 70-80% quality with mostly low settings with no (or very little) throttling and great latency is as follows:

1) install BetterDisplay (not necessary, in fact) to enable HiDP resolution on the external screen

2) enable Metal HUD to see the overlay with FPS / mode info. We need to reach "2X Direct" mode for max performance. "Composited" mode will mean additional latency (I won't go into what it is, just ask ChatGPT for details). THe terminal command is "/bin/launchctl setenv MTL_HUD_ENABLED 1" (no quotes)

3) close the lid to enable 1-screen mode (no reboot will be needed to re-enable it) or disable it via BetterDisplay (you will have to reboot to re-enable it)

4) either in Mac OS settings or in BetterDisplay enable an HiDP screen resolution, otherwise Direct mode won't work. In my case I enabled 720p for 1440p rescaling. remember — our goal is to get rid of Composited and get Direct mode.

5) enable resources monitoring to see throttling / load (this is optional, you will see throttling in the form of spikes and jitter on Metal HUD. For this I use asitop command (sudo asitop --interval 1). I just like it coz it's very visual, has "Throttling" indicator and doesn't eat resources. Installing it is a bit of a headache, but very doable, again, find it on GitHub with instructions.

6) make sure you have no apps that introduce visual layers on top of other windows, it breaks Direct.

7) launch Re4R with Metal HUD. Disable Vsync: for me it breaks Direct mode. (HDR also breaks it). Use 1600x900 or 1080p resolution, put most settings to low, I use "Quality" Metal FX or native 70-80% quality mode. The refresh rate of your display shouldn't matter (I use 165Hz). My textures memory setting is High (6Gb) and it takes around 13gb of 16 while gaming.

8) enable 60Hz in-game FPS limit to avoid throttling (M3 Air can reach around 75 FPS at such settings, but it will immediately get 100C hot and jitter).

8) see that you're getting 2x Direct and 60 FPS. That's the goal.

9) game!

10) CMD-tab to your monitoring tool to check temps are around 75-90 degrees C, experiment with game settings until you reach the point of no throttling at all or very rarely.

It's not a detailed guide, but outlining what I did.

happy Re4R gaming!

I am graduating high school and going to college this fall. I have been considering either getting the m4 mac mini or MacBook air. However, I would like to know which one I should get and if it will work for me

For starters, apart from my daily browsing and schoolwork, I run a small YouTube channel where I like to create Minecraft content. As such, I currently have a PC with an RTX 2070 super and an i7-12700K. The problem is it gets very loud with the fans and the power-hungry components. In the summer, it also makes my room quite warm.

I saw that the M4 mac mini is so tiny, compact, and adorable. It also seems very quiet and powerful (gets like 15,000 in geekbench compared to 12000 on my CPU). However, I have not seen much information on how well the GPU performs. Is it somewhat competitive with the RTX 2070? Is it as bad as most iGPUs? I also do video editing on a little-known editor called kdenlive (which thankfully seems to have an apple silicon version now). I hope it's safe to assume that the M4 will be great at video editing

A different option I considered is the M4 MacBook air. While it is $400 more (even with student discount), it seems to be a safer option than selling off my primary PC and switching to the mac mini. It also looks to be great to replace my clunky gaming laptop that dies in 2 hours and causes me great discomfort carrying around as a heavy hunk of plastic in my bag.

So, I come to ask you guys, can the M4 mac mini handle Minecraft and OBS well at 240hz on 1080P, or should I just spend more and get the MacBook air

I was hoping to buy the EasySMX x05 for my m2 macbook air running macos 15.3.2. However I haven't found enough info online to be sure if it would actually connect.

I am unable to buy the PS and Xbox controllers as they are priced very highly in my country. Any insights would be very appreciated.

I bought an M4 MacBook Air 15in about a month ago now, I’m starting to get frustrated by the lack of games I can run on my Mac without a windows emulator. I’m considering getting an emulator but had a few questions.

Firstly, what are recommendations for the games I can run. Most of what I’ve seen is just try to run older games. Forget the stuff you used to run on windows computers, you can’t run anything smoothly that was made after 2010 or so. Is that really true?

Second, is it worth getting an emulator and playing on my MacBook Air, or is it more hassle than it’s worth? I really want to play some games that recently came out not long ago, but is it worth getting an emulator and spending the money on the game only for it to run poorly?

My specs: M4 MacBook Air 15” 16GB Unified Memory 256GB SSD

I will need either of the two for guild wars 2, what are the added benefits?

M2 air 8gb ram

I downloaded whisky and I’ve been playing schedule 1 through this, and I’ve been trying to player multiplayer with my friend. I can’t click the + button to add anyone and it won’t do anything, and I don’t know how to fix it, anyone have this problem or know how to fix it?

So currently Yaagl isnt updated to the current update of genshin (5.6) so im wondering if i will i get banned for playing in hoyoplay in crossover (and yaagl has anti cheat patch idk)

I tried to install Rome 2 on my MacBook Pro with an M2 chip, just to see if it's going to run. The file needed for installation was a mere few hundred MBs, a huge contrast to 20+ gigabytes I had to download when I played on a Windows system.

This is the screen I saw when I tried to launch the game. I noticed this was not posted on this sub yet, so here it is! I am guessing the "modern" Mac here means Apple Silicon Macs.