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Steam for Windows and Game Porting Toolkit

Jakimo

Jakimo

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 25, 2008
556
172
Colorado Springs
I'd like to run a few simple games (I enjoy coffee-break rogue-likes, which are FAR from graphic intensive) that are Windows-only in Steam, using Apple's new Game Porting Toolkit. I see that it's VERY possible to do, watching folks run AAA-title PC games already here and there on the inter webs..

I'm curious if anyone has tried? Any suggestions on how to get started?

thanks
 
I suggest you follow the r/macgaming subreddit on Reddit. Many have done what you describe and are playing the latest Steam games on Mac. Looks like the easiest way to do this is use a wrapper called Whisky that people on that subreddit are using.
 
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One major caveat: it appears that running Sonoma is a prerequisite for the toolkit to work. If you are running Sonoma and are comfortable with the Terminal and command lines, you can follow the guide located here to get Steam installed.
 
cylack: I did see someone mention Whisky, and assumed it was from Apple and didn't find it there on first hunt. I'll dig into Reddit as you suggested, hopefully I'll catch the task before the planned protest against Reddit's crazy pricing structure for third-party apps =)

dmccloud: Yep, running Sonoma and Apple Silicon. I started the process Apple outlined, now that cylack mentioned the wrapper, I wonder if I really needed to?

thanks you two =)
 
I gave Whiskey a try but couldn't get any of my Windows games to run. None of them require DX12 graphics and I'd hoped to see a performance increase over CrossOver (I prefer to stay away from Parallels Desktop if at all possible). There aren't any instructions at their Github site, and several issues have been posted requesting some kind of information for those who aren't familiar with Wine. The Reddit forum is now private so if anyone can provide a step-by-step guide as to how to use Whiskey for the installation and running of Windows games I'd be most grateful.
 
I installed the GPTK per Apple's instructions here and I've been having reasonable success. Here's my environment: MacBook Pro 13" M2 Max 64GB/Ventura 13.4.

I started with something that was minimal overhead and had previously run virtualized on the MacOS which was GuildWars 2. It has run flawlessly at quarter res (can't figure out how to get full retina) in DX11 Mode.

Next was getting steam installed. It was a bit of a hassle as I couldn't get the login screen to load. Instead, I copied my "Steam" folder under program files (x86) from my Parallels Desktop install to my GPTK install and fired it up there. Steam launches but it isn't great. It works reasonably well in small mode to allow to me to access my game library. Which I've been doing...

Valheim runs great (even has good controller support), Raft runs great, Risk of Rain 2 runs great.

I've had issues with Fallout 3 (had to try an older game just to see). The launcher pops up and then just crashes. I know it runs a short test to figure out what hardware you're on and I suspect that is causing the crash. I'll have to play with it a bit.

I'll keep testing and report back but so far so good even on Ventura.

Now steam itself is a behemoth. It's always a behemoth but now it's a behemoth that wants to whine about the world not being exactly as it wants. If you purchase a game through steam on the Mac and then download it through the small mode steam under GPTK things should be OK.

Getting there is a bit tricky and it isn't pretty. The steam web helper crashes and relaunches itself repeatedly so you're stuck with multiple error messages on your screen. It seems harmless but it's annoying. If you leave the error messages up they don't produce more but if you close one it'll come right back.

On top of this no store content will load in steam. No store pages, Home Screen, community page, workshop page or anything. So you can't use steam as you'd expect.

Big Picture mode does not load.

Finally, controller configuration doesn't work. Games with native controller support seem to work well but if you try to configure a steam controller the configuration page you get nothing or it crashes.
 
Just some general advice: the documentation included with the GPTK is incomplete. The guide on AppleGamingWiki has more detail, including instructions specific to getting both Steam and Battle.net running. As far as Steam goes, if you attempt to load it and get the blank screen, just quit Steam and relaunch. For some reason, it can take more than one attempt to get it to fully load.
 
dmccloud said:
Just some general advice: the documentation included with the GPTK is incomplete. The guide on AppleGamingWiki has more detail, including instructions specific to getting both Steam and Battle.net running. As far as Steam goes, if you attempt to load it and get the blank screen, just quit Steam and relaunch. For some reason, it can take more than one attempt to get it to fully load.
Click to expand...
Yep, tried this. Still get the errors. Haven't tried B.net.

Restarting is not going to get rid of these errors. There's a null pointer exception. Without the symbols or code I can't be sure but it looks like the SteamWebHelper isn't getting handed the address of the URL it's supposed to connect to by the Akamai libs.

The blank screen is due to a race condition in loading the web content from the right web helper before it crashes.
 
The only games I've tested under Steam so far are Cyberpunk 2077 and Elden Ring (the latter requiring some additional steps to get working). I'm going to test Bioshock Infinite next.
 
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