The Mac has plenty of games, but it'll always get the short end of the stick compared to Windows. If you want to play the latest games on your Mac, you have no choice but to install Windows ... or do you?
There are a few ways you can play Windows games on your Mac without having to dedicate a partition to Boot Camp or giving away vast amounts of hard drive space to a virtual machine app like VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop. Here are a few other options for playing Windows games on your Mac without the hassle or expense of having to install Windows.
GeForce Now
PC gaming on Mac? Yes you can, thanks to Nvidia's GeForce Now. The service allows users to play PC games from Steam or Battle.net on macOS devices. Better still, the graphic power of these games resides on Nvidia's servers. The biggest drawback: the service remains in beta, and there's been no announcement when the first full release is coming or what a monthly subscription will cost.
- VMware Fusion 8 is a highly functional and easy to use windows emulator for Mac that makes you Mac system a home for major windows applications. By using this program you can seamlessly run your windows applications side by side with Mac programs along with wonderful file and folder sharing experience between Mac and Windows.
- Don't believe me? Consider the fact that is known to most Atari ST users, and that is that Atari's 1040ST computer running at 8.0 MHz offered slightly faster Mac emulation than the Mac Plus which it emulated! Just to double check my memory, I ripped apart a Mac Plus on New Year's Eve and took this picture of the 15.6672 MHz clock crystal.
- Mac OS X running Virtual PC 7.02 emulator, boot time of Windows 2000 VM: 40 seconds remains the same on the hybrid drive. Mac OS X running Virtual PC 7.02 emulator, a Windows 2000 benchmark run: 21 seconds drops to 19 seconds on the very first untrained run down to 17 seconds on subsequent runs.
For now, at least, the service is free to try and enjoy. All supported GeForce NOW titles work on Macs, and yes, there are plenty of them already available!
The Wine Project
The Mac isn't the only computer whose users have wanted to run software designed for Windows. More than 20 years ago, a project was started to enable Windows software to work on POSIX-compliant operating systems like Linux. It's called The Wine Project, and the effort continues to this day. OS X is POSIX-compliant, too (it's Unix underneath all of Apple's gleam, after all), so Wine will run on the Mac also.
CodeWeavers have updated CrossOver for Mac, bringing it to version 10.0.3. CrossOver is an environment/Windows emulator of sorts, based on WINE.
Wine is a recursive acronym that stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator. It's been around the Unix world for a very long time, and because OS X is a Unix-based operating system, it works on the Mac too.
As the name suggests, Wine isn't an emulator. The easiest way to think about it is as a compatibility layer that translates Windows Application Programming Interface (API) calls into something that the Mac can understand. So when a game says 'draw a square on the screen,' the Mac does what it's told.
You can use straight-up Wine if you're technically minded. It isn't for the faint of heart, although there are instructions online, and some kind souls have set up tutorials, which you can find using Google. Wine doesn't work with all games, so your best bet is for you to start searching for which games you'd like to play and whether anyone has instructions to get it working on the Mac using Wine.
Note: At the time of this writing, The Wine Project does not support macOS 10.15 Catalina.
CrossOver Mac
CodeWeavers took some of the sting out of Wine by making a Wine-derived app called CrossOver Mac. CrossOver Mac is Wine with specialized Mac support. Like Wine, it's a Windows compatibility layer for the Mac that enables some games to run.
CodeWeavers has modified the source code to Wine, made some improvements to configuration to make it easier, and provided support for their product, so you shouldn't be out in the cold if you have trouble getting things to run.
My experience with CrossOver — like Wine — is somewhat hit or miss. Its list of actual supported games is pretty small. Many other unsupported games do, in fact work — the CrossOver community has many notes about what to do or how to get them to work, which are referenced by the installation program. Still, if you're more comfortable with an app that's supported by a company, CrossOver may be worth a try. What's more, a free trial is available for download, so you won't be on the hook to pay anything to give it a shot.
Boxer
If you're an old-school gamer and have a hankering to play DOS-based PC games on your Mac, you may have good luck with Boxer. Boxer is a straight-up emulator designed especially for the Mac, which makes it possible to run DOS games without having to do any configuring, installing extra software, or messing around in the Mac Terminal app.
With Boxer, you can drag and drop CD-ROMs (or disk images) from the DOS games you'd like to play. It also wraps them into self-contained 'game boxes' to make them easy to play in the future and gives you a clean interface to find the games you have installed.
Boxer is built using DOSBox, a DOS emulation project that gets a lot of use over at GOG.com, a commercial game download service that houses hundreds of older PC games that work with the Mac. So if you've ever downloaded a GOG.com game that works using DOSBox, you'll have a basic idea of what to expect.
Some final thoughts
In the end, programs like the ones listed above aren't the most reliable way to play Windows games on your Mac, but they do give you an option.
Of course, another option is to run Windows on your Mac, via BootCamp or a virtual machine, which takes a little know-how and a lot of memory space on your Mac's hard drive.
How do you play your Windows games on Mac?
Let us know in the comment below!
Updated October 2019: Updated with the best options.
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With a Windows emulator for Mac, you can run software that is only compatible with Windows PCs on your Mac.
Crossover Mac Rapidshare
For example, advanced features of the Microsoft Office suite may prove easier to access and use on a Windows computer.
Whether by virtualization or emulation, we discuss the best options to emulate a PC on your Mac.
Best Windows Emulator For Mac
- Parallels Desktop
- VMware Fusion
- Virtual PC for Mac
- CrossOver Mac
- Wineskin Winery
- VirtualBox
- WinOnX
- Boot Camp
Parallels Desktop Windows Emulator For Mac
Potentially the best application to runs Windows on your Mac, Parallels Desktop costs around $80. The setup process is simple and straightforward. Furthermore, not only does it emulate Windows, you can also run Linux and Unix apps. Here are the minimum system requirements:
Crossover Emulator For Os X
- Intel processor-based Mac computer.
- OS X Yosemite or Older Oversionson like Mavericks, Mountain Lion or Lion.
- Windows 32-bit or 62-bit installation CD/DVD or ISO image.
Boot Camp
Do you like getting into shape? Then, go to a boot camp. However, this native application for Mac allows you to install the Windows operating system on your MacBook. However, you keep all the MacBook brightness, trackpad functions etc. Moreover, it supports dual booting. Once the installation completes, you can select which OS to boot by pressing the options key at startup.
VMware Fusion
For an easy and quick way to access Windows, try VMware Fusion. There’s no need to reboot the Mac OS. The program sells for $34.95.
CrossOver Mac Windows Emulator
Also, if running Windows software is all you need, CrossOver is another good application. Any Windows application run through CrossOver gains native Mac OS X functionality such as Mission Control, keyboard shortcuts, and copy & paste.
Virtual PC for Mac
With Virtual PC for Mac, you can access Windows system based software, networks and share files with other PC users. It is a Microsoft developed program.
WinOnX
And, then, there’s WinOnX. Unlike other programs on the list, this application does not require a Windows license for the Windows installation. However, to use it, you need OS X 10.6 and later.
Citrix XenApp
There’s also the Citrix XenApp that lets you access any type of application on any device. It stores the applications in a database which then uses the Citrix application virtualization to emulate Windows. Hence, you can use this app even without an internet connection.
Wineskin Winery
However, for older versions of Mac OS, like Snow leopard to OS X 10.10 Yosemite, Wineskin Winery is the software of choice. It’s also free to use.
VirtualBox
VirtualBox is free to use and open source. It’s a virtualization software for enterprise and home users. It creates virtual machines for Windows OS and Linux like operating systems.
Wine Bottler Open Source
Wine Bottler. It lets you run Windows apps and other services without installing the complete Windows OS on your Mac.
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