CrossOver Allows x86 Windows Apps to Run on Apple M1 Macs

[gsurf123]

While i'm in general impressed what I have seen the M1 do
(- especially when i take in to account that this is the Cheap one that i should compare to Intel I3 )
This is a Clear example of what it CAN NOT DO - fps drop to 7 (or even lower) and a screen freeze - NOT impressed with the user experience - it might still be nice showcase if you know all the engineering behind it - how powerful it its to give this level of performance.
But for most of us, who are USERS... we tend to focus on the USER experience.. witch here is really bad.

It is a proof of concept of something that is ridiculously complicated. No one is purporting to call this a solution for all users. I do not consider WINE to be a solution for anything I do requiring Windows. For the few times I need Windows I have a Parallels VM with an outstanding user experience.

No need to Debby Downer someone's work.

 

[ani4ani]

Another PC enthusiast getting butthurt. Just face it, Apple had the Jesus Phone and now has the Jesus Chip.

it didn't end well for Jesus!

 

[ani4ani]

All those people so quick to say gaming on Apple devices is a no-go, really need to see how it develops over the next few years. With the chips Apple are starting to build now, I’m sure developers are going to start to come on board. It all depends on how many people buy these new computers and what the demand is.
if Apple release some ridiculous powered GPU it’s going to be hard for game developers to ignore.

This is the chicken and the egg issue. Who are Apples' new customers with the M1. Until those who rely on high-level Windows apps can use the new M1 and later in a way that is appreciably better than their X86, they either will stay using the X86 Macs or stay using Windows. Those already buying Macs will continue buying Macs. I don't see an appreciable new customer increase. Those who don't need high level Windows PC, e.g. browsing, office work email etc already could / have moved to MacOS or iPad, but M1 offers them nothing new to them really [they don't need the speed and the general expense of a Mac]. I don't see the appeal for developers of AAA games for basically 3-4% market share . I know Mac is twice that share, but presumed only 50% would be interested in gaming, the rest being dedicated workstations.

Just my opinion

 

[Macyourdayy]

Codeweavers posted a blog post and video tonight showing off CrossOver running on an Apple M1 MacBook Air. This video shows Team Fortress 2 running on a new M1 MacBook Air:

CrossOver is software (based on Wine Project) that runs Microsoft Windows apps on the Mac by translating Windows APIs into their Mac equivalents. The Codeweavers team was able to run the current version of CrossOver on the new Apple M1 MacBook Air under Rosetta 2 to achieve this feat. Codeweavers maintains a compatibility database so you can see what might work under CrossOver. They were also able to run Quicken, Among Us, and Witcher 3.

Article Link: CrossOver Allows x86 Windows Apps to Run on Apple M1 Macs

Amazing. I’ve never been able to get anything running in CrossOver on my intel Macs.

 

[BGPL]

No mention of FPS... I tried running older games on VMware and it was a powerpoint slideshow. Wine has been largely unreliable over the years, but when it worked for an app it was a huge convenience.

 

[gk4]

Ah yes, it can run a 13 year old game with frequent frame drops. The M1 really is Jesus in chip form.

Also super low settings. The exploding animation after he kills Pyro plus the super low poly count on the sewer walls while he's chasing scout. The sewer wall is only a couple sides away from being an octagon.

Is cool that they got this to work, but even when I first played TF2 on my circa 2005 mid tier setup - I was playing at higher settings than this.

 

[Bonte]

Now run a 68k or PowerPC Mac emulator in Wine/CrossOver.

Emulating these should be easy on M1, fingers crossed.

 

[4743913]

RollerCoaster Tycoon here I come!

let me tell you about Planet Coaster.....

 

[Spectrum]

I am happy this topic of running nonMac apps on ARM is coming up. I want to hear about VMware, Parallels, Docker next.

Yeah, I need to virtualise 10.6.8 Snow Leopard for some legacy software. Currently this is making me stick to Intel hardware and using VMWare, but I am really interested by what these new Macs offer!

 

[panjandrum]

I have unfortunately never found a single instance where Crossover has worked well in our test scenarios. We've always had to use either Bootcamp or a full VM environment (VirtualBox if speed isn't needed or Parallels usually, since Fusion now does not function on many older Macs whereas Parallels continues to work perfectly. Interestingly Parallels has proven not only much faster than Fusion but has also been much more reliable for us than Fusion proved to be in later years anyway; something I certainly never expected to say.) Every couple of years I give WINE / Crossover another try, but it's never matured to the point where I could consider deploying it in any meaningful way.

 

[JosephAW]

Yet Apple cannot provide a 32 bit translation library for Catalina and Big Sur?

 

[Zdigital2015]

Does anyone know if this also includes Microsoft Remote Desktop? I’m pretty ready to pull the trigger now, but my wife has been using the MacBook for her work from home and it needs to be able to run that. The late 2013 MacBook Pro we have is running it though it’s slowing down. But if the M1 can’t run that yet then we still have to wait...

Microsoft Remote Desktop is available on the Mac App Store. I would think it would run just fine under Rosetta translation until Microsoft is able to update it for Apple Silicon and the M1. Office will receive priority, so best to ping MS Support and see if they have any useful information regarding timelines and/or commitment.

 

[JosephAW]

Wondering how many iterations of macOS Apple will give us before they remove Rosetta 2?
With the PowerPC we got two, Leopard and Snow Leopard and dropped it with Lion because they shortened the transition to Intel.

 

[Zdigital2015]

Yet Apple cannot provide a 32 bit translation library for Catalina and Big Sur?

Because 32-bit needed to go. Apple has repeatedly told people it was going away for almost 15 years. Why is this such a difficult concept for people to accept?

 

[H00513R]

Man I loved TF2. So many hours wasted on it. Not surprising I still play Overwatch a lot as it's a spiritual successor. Update and rerelease!!!

 

[blackcrayon]

This is the chicken and the egg issue. Who are Apples' new customers with the M1. Until those who rely on high-level Windows apps can use the new M1 and later in a way that is appreciably better than their X86, they either will stay using the X86 Macs or stay using Windows. Those already buying Macs will continue buying Macs. I don't see an appreciable new customer increase. Those who don't need high level Windows PC, e.g. browsing, office work email etc already could / have moved to MacOS or iPad, but M1 offers them nothing new to them really [they don't need the speed and the general expense of a Mac]. I don't see the appeal for developers of AAA games for basically 3-4% market share . I know Mac is twice that share, but presumed only 50% would be interested in gaming, the rest being dedicated workstations.

Just my opinion

You say that as if the vast majority of Mac users rely heavily on Windows apps, and the only way to run them is on their Mac. That isn't the case. To say M1 offers "nothing new" to someone who wants a light laptop but with speed that punches way above its weight, and battery life that punches way above its literal weight, is a bit silly. In any case, Apple never said this was a way to increase market share. Just for a way to make better machines than intel was allowing them to make.

 

[BaltimoreMediaBlog]

Wondering how many iterations of macOS Apple will give us before they remove Rosetta 2?
With the PowerPC we got two, Leopard and Snow Leopard and dropped it with Lion because they shortened the transition to Intel.

If Tim Cook does exactly what Steve Jobs did, Rosetta 2 is going to disappear before you next change your underwear!
Actions speak louder than words.

 

[pshufd]

Will Crossover continue to run when Rosetta is gone (I'm not sure that it needs it but it's a useful question). I do not need an Apple Silicon at this time as the performance of my current system (i7-10700) is excellent. I can't run my desktop environment off an M1 as it's a 3x4k system with 64 GB of RAM and 3 TB SSD. The question is can I integrate an M1 system into my environment?

I could likely run my environment with 2 Minis connected by Synergy but I would really rather have a Mini that can drive 4x4k and comes with 32-64 GB of RAM. This model is just so tempting to buy as kind of a throwaway or iPad replacement.

 

[gnasher729]

Rosetta 2 is for all intents and purposes, an emulator, though some will argue just because its transpiled ahead of time rather than on-the-fly. But Rosetta ultimately allows x86 code to run on Apple Silicon. WINE allows you to run x86 Windows code on another x86 non-windows Platform.

It's not "some will argue". Rosetta2 _is_ a compiler. It takes x86 code, compiles it to ARM code, saves the ARM code, and then never looks at the x86 code again. (Well, there is an exception; if the next macOS version has an improved Rosetta, it will do the same thing again to produce better ARM code).

 

[gnasher729]

If Tim Cook does exactly what Steve Jobs did, Rosetta 2 is going to disappear before you next change your underwear!
Actions speak louder than words.

At WWDC Apple engineers discussed what will happen when improved versions of Rosetta 2 are released in new MacOS versions. And Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs.

 

[macintologist]

full screen support?

 

[gnasher729]

You’re misunderstanding the linked article. Wine works to run ARM Windows applications on ARM platforms. It doesn’t run x86 Windows applications on ARM platforms.

You’d need to add an additional x86 binary translator/emulator to make x86-on-ARM work. WINE itself explicitly does not do that (the clue is in the name...)

If you have 64 bit Intel code, then you can use Rosetta 2 to run it. If you have 32 bit Intel code, then you could write your own translator to translate it to 64 bit code, and then use Rosetta 2 to run it. Quite similar, the MacOS / Intel version of Chrome translates Javascript code to Intel code, so when it's run on an M1 Mac, Rosetta 2 takes that Intel code and translates it to ARM code.

 

[Carlanga]

Meh looks bad but it is emulation inception so it’s expected.

 

[pshufd]

You say that as if the vast majority of Mac users rely heavily on Windows apps, and the only way to run them is on their Mac. That isn't the case. To say M1 offers "nothing new" to someone who wants a light laptop but with speed that punches way above its weight, and battery life that punches way above its literal weight, is a bit silly. In any case, Apple never said this was a way to increase market share. Just for a way to make better machines than intel was allowing them to make.

And their marketshare will grow - my prediction. This is their first salvo and it's a fantastic introduction. It leaves us all wanting for more and should scare the crap out of Intel, AMD, Dell, HP, Samsung and Lenovo.

I suspect that I could replace my desktop with two Minis right now. The Crossover solution solves one problem for me. It may be that this is the only problem that I need solved. I am considering running a Mini with my Windows desktop using Synergy but I'd really prefer to have only one system as there are some oddball issues in running multiple systems as one such as losing drag and drop, cut and paste and moving windows around.

 

[ani4ani]

You say that as if the vast majority of Mac users rely heavily on Windows apps, and the only way to run them is on their Mac. That isn't the case. To say M1 offers "nothing new" to someone who wants a light laptop but with speed that punches way above its weight, and battery life that punches way above its literal weight, is a bit silly. In any case, Apple never said this was a way to increase market share. Just for a way to make better machines than intel was allowing them to make.

You should read my post again; I never suggested at all that this was Apple trying to increase market share, I was responding to a post that said with increased market share, AAA game developers would work on Mac ARM

I specifically DO NOT say Mac Users rely heaviliy on Windows Apps [though actually many do, but that is besides the point]. I said those Windows users who NEED high level Windows apps will only move to M1 [or later] if it offers something significant, e.g. it works on Mac ARM, is as fast or faster than what they currently use.[after emulation or whatever] I say Mac users will stay being Mac users. Windows users who only use basic office, browsing and email etc, could move to Mac, but in all likelihood they won't because a) the cost is still much more than their $250 PC b) speed is irrelevant to them or b) they would choose an iPad or similar [nearer $250]. So again, who is the new Mac customer? Without an appreciable increase in market share, AAA game developers will not see the merit in developing for a niche market?

Again, my opinion