Crossover Answers

[Plutonius]

For those who are interested in Crossover or not too familiar with it, the following is a recent YouTube video that someone posted.

When I got Crossover, it took me awhile to figure it out and I'm probably still doing some things wrong .

 

[maflynn]

For those who are interested in Crossover or not too familiar with it, the following is a recent YouTube video that someone posted.

Thanks for this thread and link to the video. I'm trying this out now, I had no idea that I had options for graphics.

 

[Huntn]

“CrossOver is a software that allows you to run Windows games on a Mac without needing a Windows operating system. It translates Windows commands into Mac commands, providing a more seamless gaming experience compared to traditional emulators.”

Not posted to be pro or con:

 

[Plutonius]

“CrossOver is a software that allows you to run Windows games on a Mac without needing a Windows operating system. It translates Windows commands into Mac commands, providing a more seamless gaming experience compared to traditional emulators.”

Not posted to be pro or con:

The Reddit.thread is from 2 years ago and generally doesn't reflect the current Crossover 25. Many programs that would not run, run correctly now with the performance depending on the computer.

 

[maflynn]

The Reddit.thread is from 2 years ago and generally doesn't reflect the current Crossover 25. Many programs that would not run, run correctly now with the performance depending on the computer.

I tried crossover years ago and my experience today vs. then are night and day - I'm very impressed

 

[Plutonius]

I tried crossover years ago and my experience today vs. then are night and day - I'm very impressed

As much as we criticize Apple for the lack of focus in gaming, most of the Crossover improvements could not have happened without Apple's GPTK which allows DX12 games to be run.

 

[dmccloud]

There are a couple of things I appreciate with respect to Crossover. First are the ratings that indicate how well the game or software in question should run on your machine. That help eliminate some uncertainty regarding what runs well and what does not. The second is that the bottles created by Crossover usually require no additional changes to run, although some titles can benefit from additional tweaks.

 

[maflynn]

The second is that the bottles created by Crossover

Defintitely, and tbh, well worth the price of the software. I've been using Crossover on the trial license, but now that I confirmed the games that are important to me, are able to run, I'll be buying the license.

without Apple's GPTK which allows DX12 games to be run.

I did not know that, I am impressed at the large number of games that are available, I largely attributed the increase to Steam's work with proton, and that somehow benefited crossover given that proton is a wine implementation

 

[eva2000]

Glad I found this thread as a noob to macOS ~6 months into my experience Just found 50% off Tekken 8 deal https://store.steampowered.com/app/1778820/TEKKEN_8/ and found a video that says I can use Crossover to play it

Anyone done this for Tekken 8?

 

[Homy]

Codeweavers' own guides are often forgotten. This is for Advanced Settings.

 

[Homy]

I did not know that, I am impressed at the large number of games that are available, I largely attributed the increase to Steam's work with proton, and that somehow benefited crossover given that proton is a wine implementation

People give Apple too little credit for this and say they do nothing for gaming. They practically "saved" Crossover over a night. Codeweavers had started the work with DX12 but was struggling and only had managed to get a couple of games to work so their solution was per-game basis unlike GPTK.

 

[maflynn]

Options for moving the cross over data off your internal drive.
First one is to move the Crossover folder found in ~/Library/Application support and replace it with a sym link.

1. Quit Crossover;
2. Open Finder, go to (cmd + shift + g) the folder /Users/username/Library/Application Support/;
3. Copy and paste the whole CrossOver folder to the external drive;
4. Open Terminal.app (in Finder, /Applications/Utilities/) and type "cd /Users/username/Library/Application Support/";
5. Type "rm -r CrossOver" (be careful, it will remove the whole folder, so make sure to have your copy handy — or just rename it with "mv CrossOver CrossOver.old");
6. Last, type "ln -s /Volumes/Data/˜CrossOver ." (mind the "." at the end), it will create a link directly from your Library files to the external drive;
7. Relaunch CrossOver, check if everything is as it should.

The other option is to add a new drive that is hosted on your external drive that steam can access and install games from. That is, the main crossover folder still resides in ~/Library/Application Support but you can install steam games to this other drive.

In Crossover, open the selected bottle, for me its called steam

1. Select Wine Configuration
2. Click on the Drives Tab
3. Click Add, pick a drive letter, and paste in the path of the drive e.g., /volumes/<Drive name>. Conversely you can select browse, scroll to the bottom and expand volumes to select the drive.
4. Launch Steam
5. Go to Settings
6. Select Storage
7. Add new drive
8. Install any new games on that drive.

I used the first option, as it seems the most seamless. I did not see any performance impact to the games, i.e., they ran the same on my Macintosh HD and my external drive called Data

 

[Plutonius]

Options for moving the cross over data off your internal drive.
First one is to move the Crossover folder found in ~/Library/Application support and replace it with a sym link.

1. Quit Crossover;
2. Open Finder, go to (cmd + shift + g) the folder /Users/username/Library/Application Support/;
3. Copy and paste the whole CrossOver folder to the external drive;
4. Open Terminal.app (in Finder, /Applications/Utilities/) and type "cd /Users/username/Library/Application Support/";
5. Type "rm -r CrossOver" (be careful, it will remove the whole folder, so make sure to have your copy handy — or just rename it with "mv CrossOver CrossOver.old");
6. Last, type "ln -s /Volumes/Data/˜CrossOver ." (mind the "." at the end), it will create a link directly from your Library files to the external drive;
7. Relaunch CrossOver, check if everything is as it should.

The other option is to add a new drive that is hosted on your external drive that steam can access and install games from. That is, the main crossover folder still resides in ~/Library/Application Support but you can install steam games to this other drive.

In Crossover, open the selected bottle, for me its called steam

1. Select Wine Configuration
2. Click on the Drives Tab
3. Click Add, pick a drive letter, and paste in the path of the drive e.g., /volumes/<Drive name>. Conversely you can select browse, scroll to the bottom and expand volumes to select the drive.
4. Launch Steam
5. Go to Settings
6. Select Storage
7. Add new drive
8. Install any new games on that drive.

I used the first option, as it seems the most seamless. I did not see any performance impact to the games, i.e., they ran the same on my Macintosh HD and my external drive called Data

I have always used the second option.

 

[maflynn]

I get this oddity in Fallout 76 under crossover.

It was happening 100% of the time with the ultra/high settings, once in a blue moon when I use Medium/high.

Kind of odd, but since its mostly working I'll not do much about it. I'm running Fallout 76 with the following settings
Graphics: D3DMetal
Synchronization: MSync
High Resolution Mode; Off

Overall performance is excellent in most situations, only in some instanced areas, like West Tek do I see FPS drop way down. I generally see 60+ FPS everywhere else.

 

[dmccloud]

Options for moving the cross over data off your internal drive.
First one is to move the Crossover folder found in ~/Library/Application support and replace it with a sym link.

1. Quit Crossover;
2. Open Finder, go to (cmd + shift + g) the folder /Users/username/Library/Application Support/;
3. Copy and paste the whole CrossOver folder to the external drive;
4. Open Terminal.app (in Finder, /Applications/Utilities/) and type "cd /Users/username/Library/Application Support/";
5. Type "rm -r CrossOver" (be careful, it will remove the whole folder, so make sure to have your copy handy — or just rename it with "mv CrossOver CrossOver.old");
6. Last, type "ln -s /Volumes/Data/˜CrossOver ." (mind the "." at the end), it will create a link directly from your Library files to the external drive;
7. Relaunch CrossOver, check if everything is as it should.

The other option is to add a new drive that is hosted on your external drive that steam can access and install games from. That is, the main crossover folder still resides in ~/Library/Application Support but you can install steam games to this other drive.

In Crossover, open the selected bottle, for me its called steam

1. Select Wine Configuration
2. Click on the Drives Tab
3. Click Add, pick a drive letter, and paste in the path of the drive e.g., /volumes/<Drive name>. Conversely you can select browse, scroll to the bottom and expand volumes to select the drive.
4. Launch Steam
5. Go to Settings
6. Select Storage
7. Add new drive
8. Install any new games on that drive.

I used the first option, as it seems the most seamless. I did not see any performance impact to the games, i.e., they ran the same on my Macintosh HD and my external drive called Data

For the second method, there is a much simpler way. From the main Crossover screen, go to Preferences -> System Integration and then change the bottle folder to the external drive you want to use. That way all bottles are installed to that location without having to touch either Wine config or Steam settings each time. I have my bottles installed on a Crucial X10 Pro 4TB SSD, and it's more than fast enough to handle running games externally.