CrossOver is one of the best ways to run Windows software and games on Mac, Linux, and Chromebooks. CrossOver 25 has now arrived with big improvements for Windows games and launchers on Mac.
CrossOveris a compatibility layer for Microsoft Windows applications and games, built on top of the open-sourceWine project—in fact, CrossOver’s developers are frequent contributors to Wine. CrossOver and Wine translate Windows API calls into native system calls, allowing them to run Windows software without emulating or virtualizing an original Windows operating system. They don’t work with every application and game, though.
The CrossOver 25 update is now available with a few big improvements. It has an updated Wine 10.0 codebase, which itself includes “over 5,000 changes that offer improvements to a variety of applications.” It also includes Wine Mono 9.4, vkd3d 1.14, MoltenVK 1.2.10, and D3DMetal 2.1—the latter three tools help translate DirectX API calls to Vulkan and Apple’s Metal, so more modern games are playable.
The blog post also mentioned, “Additionally, we are excited to announce that CrossOver now includes DXMT, which is a Metal-based implementation of D3D11 on macOS. It can be toggled on in the right sidebar under “Graphics.” DXMT is now another option for running DirectX 11 games through CrossOver, in addition to wined3d, DXVK and D3DMetal. While DXMT offers a better experience for some games on all Macs, our QA team found that DXMT offers especially good performance benefits for lower spec Macs.”
There are many more games marked as working in this release of CrossOver, includingFar Cry 6,The Last of Us Part 1, and theDead Spaceremaster. The full list is below.
Newly Compatible Games
This update also includes faster startup times for the Steam launcher, and GOG Galaxy and Epic Games Store are now supported on macOS for the first time. Not all of the games from those stores are playable on Mac, but just getting the launchers to work reliably is a big step in the right direction.
Finally, CrossOver 25 removes the need for game-specific configurations. The blog post explains, “audio now works on certain games that previously required CrossTies to fix the audio, includingThe Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special EditionandFallout 4. Furthermore, if you update your Steam bottle with the prompt in the upper right corner of CrossOver, multiplayer will now work in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition without needing to use the game-specific CrossTie.”
CrossOver for Linux requires an x86 CPU and a 64-bit Linux distribution—there’s no built-in ARM translation just yet. It alsoworks on Chromebooksthrough the Linux container, though game compatibility might be rougher with the added layer of virtualization. CrossOver for Mac runs on macOS Catalina (10.15) or newer.
CrossOver+ iscurrently on sale for $55.50, down from the regular price of $74, when you use promo codeNEXTLEVEL25. The lifetime option is unchanged at $494.
