Is "Crossover" Worth It?

[M3Stang]

I'm debating if it's worth paying the subscription price for it. It has worked OK in the trial mode, but I'm curious about how stable it is overall and how often the devs keep improving the functionality.

I have actually been playing with it since Sunday on and off. It's cool and I got the subscription today before the deal ended for $22 for the year so figured why not, gives me more time to play with it. Games I have gotten to run are Crysis Remastered and Halo MCC, although can't play online which sucks really bad. The AS Chips have so much potential. The games that do run mostly run well. I also got Kingdom Hearts 3 to run in Parallels, have not yet tried it in Crossover. KH 1.5 + 2.5 crashes every time with CXPatcher and Crossover, and Parallels. I can't launch NBA 2k24 with Crossover nor Parallels. The games I play the most on my gaming PC don't work or don't do multiplayer. Fortnite and Valorant are big ones that it's really unfortunate to miss out on. Hate needing to have a Windows Laptop (or a PC at all really) when I literally do everything BUT play games on my Mac (video editing, audio with Logic, and programming with VSCode/Xcode). My AS Mac is an M1 13" Pro 8GB so bottom of the barrel and it runs ok. I do get 4-8GB in swap though with parallels and it just bogs down. Imagine the M3 Max and future AS how good it could be. I just got a 16" Intel MBP this week so I could get the best of both worlds. I really love AS and the performance, it's just unfortunate that we miss out on being able to play games on Macs now the way we could in the past with Bootcamp. I have Fortnite and Valorant on my 16" Intel and boot camp and they run flawlessly. Wish my M1 could do that.

TLDR - Crossover is cool, it means well and I am excited to see the future of it now with Game Porting Tool Kit licensing updates. It doesn't work with any games people actually want to play online, just nice for "some" single player games if that's your type of thing. I would recommend visiting their compatibility page.

 

[brgjoe]

Anyone run older games like Oblivion or Skyrim using it? AFAK, there is no native Mac version of Skyrim.

 

[p33t3r]

You can also try Porting Kit, which is free and uses the open source parts of Crossover to install Windows games.

 

[Appletoni]

Like which ones? What scares me about Parallels is that you can't give your full system resources to the games.

That shouldn't scare you. 😂😂😂
I was using on my old MacBook Pro 16-inch M1 MAX (10 CPU cores) 8 performance cores for Parallels Desktop Windows 11 ARM games and the 2 efficiency cores for macOS. And 64 GB RAM, 50% windows and 50% macOS.

My new MacBook Pro 16-inch M3 MAX maxed out is another world.

Here you can see what a simple M1 can do:
M1_compatible_games_master_list

Note that the most games were tested with a many years old version of Parallels and CrossOver and also Linux and Wine.
Someone should make a new games list for the M3 MAX with newest Parallel and CrossOver and Native and Rosetta 2.

So now you should have no problems with the most games if you have CrossOver and Parallels like I do.
Also we will see a lot of new Parallels and CrossOver versions in 2024. = More games perfectly playable.

-> https://www.paulthetall.com/ Porting Kit could also help.

 

[Appletoni]

Anyone run older games like Oblivion or Skyrim using it? AFAK, there is no native Mac version of Skyrim.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Gaming on M1 Apple silicon Macs and MacBooks, bugs, fixes, compatiblity and troubleshooting guides - AppleGamingWiki

www.applegamingwiki.com

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Gaming on M1 Apple silicon Macs and MacBooks, bugs, fixes, compatiblity and troubleshooting guides - AppleGamingWiki

www.applegamingwiki.com

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition - Gaming on M1 Apple silicon Macs and MacBooks, bugs, fixes, compatiblity and troubleshooting guides - AppleGamingWiki

www.applegamingwiki.com

 

[omvs]

In the past I wasn't very impressed, but I decided to give it another go this week. With the D3DMetal option enabled, its totally different - way better frame rates than i saw in parallels. I don't play really play multiplayer, but single player is so good i'm debating giving away one of my PC desktops that i have just for gaming, since everything i've tried has worked.

Tested so far:

Tiny Tina Wonderlands
Marvel Midnight Suns (this didn't work even in parallels)
Potionomics (not very challenging, but parallels struggled with this)

Planning on testing Starfield and Robocop later....

 

[M3Stang]

In the past I wasn't very impressed, but I decided to give it another go this week. With the D3DMetal option enabled, its totally different - way better frame rates than i saw in parallels. I don't play really play multiplayer, but single player is so good i'm debating giving away one of my PC desktops that i have just for gaming, since everything i've tried has worked.

Tested so far:

Tiny Tina Wonderlands
Marvel Midnight Suns (this didn't work even in parallels)
Potionomics (not very challenging, but parallels struggled with this)

Planning on testing Starfield and Robocop later....

What specs do you have on your Mac?

Starfield is said to not work because of the AVX instructions. I cancelled my installation of it. I have played a lot of star field on my gaming PC and even that struggles (5900X, 64GB DDR4-3600, 3070 Ti at 1440p/240). Would love to be able to play that on the go.

 

[omvs]

What specs do you have on your Mac?

Starfield is said to not work because of the AVX instructions. I cancelled my installation of it. I have played a lot of star field on my gaming PC and even that struggles (5900X, 64GB DDR4-3600, 3070 Ti at 1440p/240). Would love to be able to play that on the go.

Tested with mini M2 Pro last night. I don't have access to a baseline M1/M2/M3 unfortunately.

Yeah, starfield crashed immediately (looks like probably instructions like you mentioned). Robocop comes up, but some serious graphics glitches. Guess its not all perfect, but i'm still happy a bunch of recent stuff actually works, since parallels wasn't cutting it...

 

[Appletoni]

That shouldn't scare you. 😂😂😂
I was using on my old MacBook Pro 16-inch M1 MAX (10 CPU cores) 8 performance cores for Parallels Desktop Windows 11 ARM games and the 2 efficiency cores for macOS. And 64 GB RAM, 50% windows and 50% macOS.

My new MacBook Pro 16-inch M3 MAX maxed out is another world.

Here you can see what a simple M1 can do:
M1_compatible_games_master_list

Note that the most games were tested with a many years old version of Parallels and CrossOver and also Linux and Wine.
Someone should make a new games list for the M3 MAX with newest Parallel and CrossOver and Native and Rosetta 2.

So now you should have no problems with the most games if you have CrossOver and Parallels like I do.
Also we will see a lot of new Parallels and CrossOver versions in 2024. = More games perfectly playable.

-> https://www.paulthetall.com/ Porting Kit could also help.

Many 32 bit "incompatible" games work perfectly fine on macOS 10.15+ : over 1000 tested with 400 wrongly labeled as "incompatible" :: Steam for Mac

steamcommunity.com

Hopefully somebody will do an M3 MAX list for 3000+ games 32x and 64x.

 

[M3Stang]

Tested with mini M2 Pro last night. I don't have access to a baseline M1/M2/M3 unfortunately.

Yeah, starfield crashed immediately (looks like probably instructions like you mentioned). Robocop comes up, but some serious graphics glitches. Guess its not all perfect, but i'm still happy a bunch of recent stuff actually works, since parallels wasn't cutting it...

So I bought the $19.99 a month Geforce Now and Starfield runs better on the Intel MBP than it does on my gaming PC lol. I think I may not ever turn the gaming PC on again (except for anti cheat games). I got the 4080 tier Geforce Now. Only downfalls are it heavily depends on your connection strength + need internet all the time. Like on vacations idk how well it will work, especially out of the country over VPN when I am visiting countries that don't work with Geforce Now. (Going out of town for a week for new years to Central America and the country doesn't support geforce now. I went backwards and set my VPN to that country from the US and surprisingly it actually loaded but man it was very choppy. Not even sure what my in laws internet is like over there so that's another variable. Been there multiple times but never tried to stream games.) My guess is probably not very good at all. I also have Playstation Plus premium which has the PC client (using parallels to use that) and Xbox Game Pass which has the website which works well on the Mac as well. Between all these monthly payments I can play many things on my Mac now. Just sucks that it's like $60 a month for all of these services.

 

[workerbee]

So I bought the $19.99 a month Geforce Now and Starfield runs better on the Intel MBP than it does on my gaming PC lol. I think I may not ever turn the gaming PC on again (except for anti cheat games)..

i was about to mention GeForce Now when reading the (frankly slightly absurd to me) RAM and cores and whatnot numbers being mentioned in this thread.
We're on the old «Founders» GeForce plan, and Fortnite runs well enough for the boy to enjoy himself for hours on his MBA 8GB RAM without any troubles whatsoever, while I occasionally run around Paris as an Assassin or space as a Jedi apprentice.

 

[MrGimper]

So I bought the $19.99 a month Geforce Now and Starfield runs better on the Intel MBP than it does on my gaming PC lol. I think I may not ever turn the gaming PC on again (except for anti cheat games). I got the 4080 tier Geforce Now. Only downfalls are it heavily depends on your connection strength + need internet all the time. Like on vacations idk how well it will work, especially out of the country over VPN when I am visiting countries that don't work with Geforce Now. (Going out of town for a week for new years to Central America and the country doesn't support geforce now. I went backwards and set my VPN to that country from the US and surprisingly it actually loaded but man it was very choppy. Not even sure what my in laws internet is like over there so that's another variable. Been there multiple times but never tried to stream games.) My guess is probably not very good at all. I also have Playstation Plus premium which has the PC client (using parallels to use that) and Xbox Game Pass which has the website which works well on the Mac as well. Between all these monthly payments I can play many things on my Mac now. Just sucks that it's like $60 a month for all of these services.

I bought Geforce Now ultimate when Frontier stopped development of Elite: Dangerous on console. I play it via GFN on my Intel MBP 16" connected to my 65" OLED in ultra settings 4K. Love it.

 

[M3Stang]

So this past week, I actually traded my M1 13" for a new 16" M3 Pro base model. It actually runs games in crossover. I like it a lot more now lol. I also made my gaming pc a cloud pc via moonlight, virtual here, sunlight and VB Audio Cable/Receptor and Talkie for mic passthrough and moved it to another room. Now when I alt+tab I am back on my Mac lol.

 

[workerbee]

So this past week, I actually traded my M1 13" for a new 16" M3 Pro base model. It actually runs games in crossover.

So which games would you recommend as playable or even enjoyable on M3 + Crossover? (Thinking about switching Air M1 to Base Pro M3).

 

[Appletoni]

So which games would you recommend as playable or even enjoyable on M3 + Crossover? (Thinking about switching Air M1 to Base Pro M3).

• Dec 2, 2023

That shouldn't scare you. 😂😂😂
I was using on my old MacBook Pro 16-inch M1 MAX (10 CPU cores) 8 performance cores for Parallels Desktop Windows 11 ARM games and the 2 efficiency cores for macOS. And 64 GB RAM, 50% windows and 50% macOS.

My new MacBook Pro 16-inch M3 MAX maxed out is another world.

Here you can see what a simple M1 can do:
M1_compatible_games_master_list

Note that the most games were tested with a many years old version of Parallels and CrossOver and also Linux and Wine.
Someone should make a new games list for the M3 MAX with newest Parallel and CrossOver and Native and Rosetta 2.

So now you should have no problems with the most games if you have CrossOver and Parallels like I do.
Also we will see a lot of new Parallels and CrossOver versions in 2024. = More games perfectly playable.

-> https://www.paulthetall.com/ Porting Kit could also help.

Many 32 bit "incompatible" games work perfectly fine on macOS 10.15+ : over 1000 tested with 400 wrongly labeled as "incompatible" :: Steam for Mac​

steamcommunity.com
Hopefully somebody will do an M3 MAX list for 3000+ games 32x and 64x.

 

[pshufd]

I prefer to run Windows 11 ARM on UTM as it's a completely free solution. If I absolutely need to run x86, then I have a custom Windows build or I can run it on my 2015 MacBook Pro via Bootcamp or I can run it on my 2015 iMac 27 via virtual machine or Bootcamp.

If people want to do gaming, I just recommend having the best machines for it. Our kids have MacBook Pros and Windows systems and use the right tool for what they want to do. I do not expect Macs to be good at gaming. They may get there someday but that's not the case right now.