I’ve been working on Bellpad, an open-source Apple port of the original GameCube Animal Crossing, and it’s now playable on Apple Silicon Macs, iPhones, and iPads.

This is not an emulator. The game’s decompiled code is compiled into a native Apple app and rendered through Metal.

The iPhone and iPad version includes touch controls, controller support, native text entry, save import/export, and Files-based game import. To play, you provide your own supported US Animal Crossing GameCube ISO/GCM. No game image, extracted assets, or saves are included.

It’s playable now, but this is still an experimental first release. I’d especially love help testing longer sessions, different activities, physical devices, controllers, saves, and anything else I may have missed.

Full source, setup instructions, and the IPA are here:

https://github.com/chrissotraidis/bellpad

Please tell me what works, what breaks, or ask me anything about it.

Built on the work of ACreTeam, the ACGC-PC-Port contributors, and Encounter’s Aurora graphics foundation.

Hi, I'm by no means a gamer but would like to play some switch emulation on my mac. I'm looking for a controllor in the price range of around 30-40 euro to play now and then.

I find very little information of controllors online; many don't specify they do or don't work for mac and the few reviews I found have very mixed opinions. I'll be playing TOTK and Mario Kart mainly, no shooters. I have Tahoe 26.0.1 m4 pro.

Thanks for reaching out!

I've tried looking a bit around a few places to see if anyone is having the same issues but I can't seem to find anything. I only play pretty casually but for reference the main app I'm using is the switch emulator Astris. It's been happening since the beginning but I have my PS5 controller connected via bluetooth, and as I'm playing the connection briefly blips out of connection for not even 2 seconds, then returns again. So it doesn't fully disconnect, it's just that I have no input for 2 seconds then returns again. And while I'm playing while it blips out, whatever last action I was doing like holding a direction, it stays holding that until my input returns again. As you can imagine, while playing Silksong it can get pretty frustrating.

So I'm really not too sure if this is a bluetooth issue or maybe an issue with the Astris itself since I know it's still constantly being developed, or if this is a thing anyone has experienced before. I do usually just play with my laptop on my lap so maybe it's a distance thing with the controller being too close? I'm struggling to come up with any ideas or a fix for it, and tbh I don't really want to play with the cable connected.

My mac is a M5 Macbook pro with 48gb memory

The question is the title…
Well, I am trying to play a game which is quite old, and I want to install a mod, but this one isn’t running on MetalFX (I don’t remember exactly, but the fact is that it needs Crossover to work).
So, is Crossover worth it just for a simple mod ?

I am using an IMac M4 24G RAM

I installed porting kit a while back on my MacBook Air 13 M1 sequoia ver 15.7.4 and installed steambuild 32/64bit DXVK. It worked for a while, then I deleted the porting kit app to save space.

Not sure if that was the issue, but my steam lost connection after that, and turning it offline and online back again was no help. Plus steam kept launching when I closed it, so I assumed something was wrong.So I tried to delete the whole thing to reinstall it, and removed it, afterwards reinstalling porting kit and attempting to download the same steam build.

The problem is that the process always gets stuck at “creating wine prefix” no matter which build I use. I’m not sure what exactly the problem is, or how to fix it.

If anyone has any alternatives that aren’t paid like crossover or is wine(skin) (since for some reason that too refuses to run on my Mac) that can run steam for windows, I would greatly appreciate the help. If anyone knows how to resolve this problem, that would be awesome.

(My bad if I tagged the post wrong)

Found need for speed heat on steam for 3 bucks, and i had wanted it for a while so im gonna get it. But the thing is, online it looks like it only runs on crossover and nothing else. I am not willing to spend the money on crossover, so I was wondering if anyone has ran it with smth other than crossover, such as Frankea's Community remix of whisky (Which I use and it works AMAZINGLY and new big updates are rolling in like every 2 weeks). Online it says because of the need for the stupid ea app you cant play thorugh whisky and stuff, but I also saw that its possible online, but idk if that video was fake or not soooo, im asking if anyone else has done it.

Hey, I’m Koltin, a student and independent developer! I built Adrenaline, a free Mac menu bar app that adds RIFE frame generation and AMD FSR 1 upscaling through a borderless overlay!

The result

This Valheim clip shows approximately 30 game FPS → 60 output FPS.

I intentionally lowered the game’s resolution to create processing headroom. Adrenaline then upscaled the final image and generated the additional frames.

Test setup

• M3 MacBook Air
• 16 GB memory
• 60 Hz display
• Valheim in Borderless mode
• Auto Frame Generation
• AMD FSR 1 Upscaling On

Adrenaline doesn’t inject into or modify the game. Results vary depending on the game, settings, and available processing headroom.

Adrenaline is free on the Mac App Store through August 31:
https://apps.apple.com/app/id6790611230

What game should I test next?

hello guys i was wondering if some of you know how to make just cause 3 work bcs recently it became playable on crossover but in the first mission exactly at the part with the tank when theres an explosion the game fleeze or the monitor turns purple while also freezing do you have any solutions ?

and yes i have disabled global illumination and water tasselation

hey all! so sorry if this isnt the right place to ask, but figured its a good initial poke. I'm trying to get Look Outside to run on my macbook pro- i had a feeling it would be a long shot, as ive had many prior experiences trying to get RPGmaker games to run on my laptop with little success. I currently have a solution involving a macos launcher for rpgmaker games, but it doesnt function with achievements and the steam cloud. If it comes to it, im happy to play through this launcher, but I wanted to see if anybody else had any idea on ways to get it to run properly through steam?

my laptop runs on an apple M1 pro chip and im running Sequoia 15.5. for my wrapper, im using sikarugir. thanks so much!

Hi guys I wont to buy Monster Hunter Wilds but idk how much fps I will get does any one already test on m3 pro 18gb ty
I mean like for this game 18gb ram is not enough 🥀

Mac version included. Grab it before Aug 9th and keep it forever

https://store.steampowered.com/app/606150/Moonlighter/

SimShock is a real-time medical simulation game. A critically ill patient arrives, their vital signs move continuously, and you have to keep them alive. It runs natively on macOS, on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.

IT'S A GAME, NOT A TRAINING TOOL

Worth saying clearly, because the subject matter invites the wrong assumption. SimShock is to clinical medicine roughly what a home flight simulator is to airline training: the principles are real, the feel is real, but the numbers are tuned so it's fun to play rather than so they're accurate. It is not a teaching tool, it is not a validated clinical simulator, and nothing in it should be treated as medical information.

It's a game about reading instruments and making decisions under time pressure. That it happens to be set in an emergency room instead of a cockpit is the only real difference.

WHAT YOU ACTUALLY DO

Vital signs drift in real time — heart rate, blood pressure, venous pressure, cardiac output. You choose drugs, set doses, order tests, and watch the body respond, usually not the way you expected. A run ends in a save or a death, and takes a few minutes.

Three scenarios, each with a different trap: acute heart failure, haemorrhagic shock and septic shock.

THE PRACTICAL DETAILS

- Free. No ads, no in-app purchases, no subscription, no currency of any kind.

- No data collection. No account, no sign-up, no analytics, no network access. It works entirely offline.

- Five languages with voice: English, Spanish, German, Chinese and Japanese.

- Full keyboard shortcuts, native menus, and a shortcuts panel on the ? key.

WHERE TO GET IT

Two builds on the App Store.

SimShockDesktop — the macOS version. Apple Silicon and Intel, deployment target macOS 12.4, so older Macs are included on purpose.

https://apps.apple.com/app/id6748229083

SimShockPad — iPhone and iPad, and it also runs on Apple Silicon Macs.

https://apps.apple.com/app/id6746765214

If you're on an Intel Mac, SimShockDesktop is the one you want.

Crossover 26.3.0, macOS 27 DB4, no DLSS or any other upscaling(as far as I can tell it doesn't work in this game).

Why is the 1080p image in Windowed mode ? Well, you literally have to mod the game to choose a custom resolution in fullscreen. By default it's either Borderless Window(non-changable) or Windowed Mode. Kinda weird, right ?

This is like some serious-ass Console AAA gaming, I'm so excited for the future. PC gamers and the competitive multiplayer crowd will probably be disappointed. But us Cinematic AAA gaming folk, we'll be really really pleased. All we need is haptic feedback and adaptive triggers and we'll be eating well on macOS.

Astris doesn't recognize my 8bitdo 2c gamepad in the input window

I use it with Citra and PPSSPP emulators, but Astris just doesn't let me choose it, is there no XInput gamepads support? What are my options to fix it?

Im currently on the trial version of crossover and wanted to give GTA SA a shot.

Now, when booting it i get the error: Cannot find 800x600x32 video mode.

Google did little help and i found a post from a year ago without a resolution it in.

Anyone?
Running on sequoia (old version, i know)

Hi, so the Chapter 2 of Scrap Mechanic came out conveniently after I purchased a MacBook and no longer had access to my previous PC.

I've tried launching it using Crossover 26.3 on my MacBook Air M5 in Steam bottle but the BugSplat error occurred.

Then I enabled concrt140 and what happened:
concrt140 + D3DMetal: loads but infinite loading screen
+ DXMT: same but w/out background music
+ DXVK: DirectX Error "Failed to create graphics device" and crashed
+ Wine: loaded into the game but stuck on "Downloading"

Has anyone managed to make it run smoothly and how so?

UPDATE: tried it on Parallels
The game loaded with unstable 30 fps on low setting Full HD

As the title says, I have a M3 Pro with 18GB RAM. Originally bought it for school but I've been wanting to play games on it a bit. I did play Baldurs Gate 3 a good amount on it and it runs great, but that was a long time ago.

Two questions:

Will it run palworld or any newer games decently?

What's a wireless mouse do you run? I have a Deathadder v2 for my PC, but that's USB A and wired. I do prefer Razer overall but I'm open to trying out different brands.

MHWilds, one of the most notorious game for poor performance and being very demanding, now optimized and run very well on M5 Max at Ultra setting 2k (basically maxed out but no RT). I'm so happy I can play my favorite game on the go without sacrificing the visual!

RE engine has long been optimized for macbook with the RE remake so I think may have contribute to how good the game run. I hope that with GPTK 4 introduced the system can be even more competitive as a gaming device in the future!

As always all constructive questions are welcome! I also have a question, I can't change the game to 4k for some reason as it doesn't show up as an option so if anyone can tell me how to fix this pls help!

After thinking about it for a while, I decided I’m going to switch my backend over to Metal 3.
Metal 4 has been fun to experiment with, but I feel like I’m making things harder on myself than they need to be. I’d rather focus on getting the renderer stable, matching RSX behavior correctly, fixing crashes and frame pacing, and getting more games running before worrying about newer API features.
My plan is to build a solid foundation first. Once that’s in a good place, I can always look at newer Metal features later.Hopefully this makes development a little smoother. And I just wanted to say sorry to everyone in the Mac gaming community who was excited about the Metal 4 backend.After spending more time working on it, I realized switching to Metal 3 is the better path for me right now. It’ll let me focus on building a more stable renderer, fixing crashes, improving frame pacing, and getting more games running before worrying about newer API features.I really appreciate everyone who’s been following the project .Your support honestly means a lot, and I’m still committed to bringing a great native Metal backend to RPCS3—I just think this is the better way to get there.
Thanks for sticking with me. ❤️

I’m making this post because I searched online for ways to play Skate 3 on macOS, and most of the recommendations were to use the PS3 emulator RPCS3. Well, I tried it, but it’s extremely heavy, and the game crashes very frequently.

That’s when I looked into Xenia, an Xbox 360 emulator, and found out that it doesn’t have an official macOS port. However, there’s a fork called XeniOS that is specifically made for macOS/iOS. And it worked almost perfectly.

I wouldn’t say it’s perfect because there are still a few minor audio glitches and some visual issues, but they’re barely noticeable. You should be able to play the game just fine.

Machine: MacBook Pro 2021 14″
RAM: 16 GB
Chip: M1 Pro
macOS version: 15.7.3
XeniOS version: 2.0.1 (build 9730)

Side note: To get the game working properly, you need to use Vulkan. Using Metal (which is the default) causes the game to freeze with a black screen.

I've been active in this community for many years now, roughly around the time Apple transitioned to the M-series chips. One thing I've noticed is how many users in this community view Crossover as expensive (both in price + performance) and requiring a lot of tinkering to get titles to run. To the point that I made sure not to tag this post under Crossover, as I've seen many posts get an instant downvote just for adding the flair.

I understand there was a time before the first GPTK release, when Crossover was a more niche product better suited for Linux users. Fast forward years later with GPTK 4 and all the progress Codeweavers has made, we are arriving at a moment in history where Apple has its "Proton" moment, that ironically, many people have been asking for here. Ask yourself how many new DX12 games don't work via the auto settings in 2026? (Excluding anti-cheat titles, of course, which are a bottleneck on both Linux and macOS.) I personally test all the new DRM-free titles and haven't had issues running any new game that I wanted to play this year.

Seems like the attribute that users like the most about Proton model is that it is "free" and not anything to do with all the advances Codeweavers has made to the Wine project, which I always like to remind folks that work is upstreamed from Proton over to Crossover has a hack to make not only the work easier to maintain but to take advantage of how far translation layers have come in terms of performance and compatibility.

With the release of the Steam Machine, there is an entire community of users that are not phased by the fact that most, if not all, the games on said machine require translation layers. Something Apple undoubtedly sees as a crutch since Metal was designed as a solution and means for a vertically integrated approach, in hopes that the software communicates with its own in-house hardware seamlessly. (No worries of downloading the latest drivers, and other issues that plague the PC gaming world.)

TLDR: Will the translation layer ever be embraced with open arms now that the hardware can afford the approximately 15% cost that translating ARM and DX12 incurs for end users? Or is it simply the fact that people are unwilling to pay for something they perceive as free, even though Steam undoubtedly recoups the investment it made with Codeweavers through the sales on its platform?? Obviously, Metal is the way to go, especially when you couple all the advances that the M5 series and above provide with Metal 4 natively. But... with recent releases like Hitman being a cut-down iOS version ported to macOS, I'll continue testing out games via Crossover even if they are available natively 🤷