How to Run Windows Games and Programs on Mac

Technical guide about running Windows programs + playing Windows games on macOS with Wine + Game Porting Toolkit (GPTk), DXMT, DXVK, MoltenVK, and more.

Posted Mar 19, 2025 Updated Aug 3, 2026

By Kiran Brahmatewari

73 min read

This article/tutorial is still under construction (i.e. a rough draft). Feel free to bookmark this post to come back later, as there may be new information by then!

With a little bit of tinkering, it’s possible to run both macOS (i.e. native) AND Windows games on a MacBook Pro (M3 Max, in my case). Playable Windows games include Skyrim, Mass Effect series, Palworld, Schedule I, and many more!

Demo / Examples

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Windows version of Steam store vs native Mac Steam store

Windows version of Steam library vs native Mac Steam library

Palworld in Windows version of Steam vs Palworld in native Mac Steam

This entire process can be quite daunting and confusing, and it is assumed that the reader:

Has good terminal commands skills and is comfortable with using terminal/CLI
Understands Wine concepts (e.g. WINEPREFIX, dll overrides, etc.)
Knows how to launch Windows executables through Wine from terminal
Knows how to use Vim

If you’re not tech savvy I don’t recommend following this highly technical tutorial.
Instead, try GUI wrappers like Crossover (paid) or Sikarugir (free).

Background

Key concepts that will continue to show up throughout this writeup:

Wine
Bottles aka Wine Prefixes ($WINEPREFIX)
Wine builds
Graphics APIs (i.e. D3DMetal, DXMT, DXVK, etc.)

Bottles

I store my Wine prefixes, i.e. bottles, in $HOME/Bottles. Each bottle is virtual Windows environment (e.g. Windows 10) with its own C: drive and all its standard folders (e.g. Windows and Program Files), as well as:

Windows registry
System settings
One or more Windows applications/software
Saved user data
Fonts
And more

You can install multiple programs into a bottle, but it’s sometimes better to create a new bottle for each application. Keeping applications in separate bottles prevents them from interacting with or damaging each other. E.g. You can test out a new version of a particular program in one bottle while keeping the original in another. Multiple bottles are also helpful whenever a specific application requires otherwise undesirable settings.

The default Wine bottle, .wine, is located in your home directory (i.e. $HOME/.wine). However, I never use the default Wine bottle/prefix since I always use a specific Wine prefix (i.e. $WINEPREFIX).

I’ve specifically made bottles for each Graphics API: DXMT, DXVK, GPTk, and CrossOver (note: I only use the 1st 3 bottles, i.e. I don’t use CrossOver for gaming).

Builds

wine command loads and runs the given program, which can be a DOS, Windows 3.x, Win32, or Win64 executable (on 64-bit systems).¹

Wine is not isolated from your system: if you can access a file or resource with your user account, programs running in Wine can too—see #Running Wine under a separate user account for possible precautions
Wine can also run malware—see Wine FAQ on Malware compatibility

The program name may be specified in DOS format (e.g. C:\\WINDOWS\\SOL.EXE) or in Unix format (e.g. /msdos/windows/sol.exe). You may pass arguments to the program being executed by adding them to the end of the command line invoking wine. E.g.

  
wine notepad "C:\\Temp\\README.txt"
wine notepad 'C:\Temp\README.txt'
wine notepad "$HOME/Temp/README.txt"

It can also be one of the Windows executables shipped with Wine, in which case specifying the full path is not mandatory, e.g. wine explorer or wine notepad.

I store all my different versions of Wine (i.e. builds) in $HOME/Wine.

Files

Basic Wine files²

wine: Wine program loader
wineconsole: Wine program loader for CUI (console) applications
wineserver: Wine server
winedbg: Wine debugger
$WINEPREFIX/dosdevices: Directory containing the DOS device mappings. Each file in that directory is a symlink to the Unix device file implementing a given device. E.g. if COM1 is mapped to /dev/ttyS0 you'd have a symlink of the form $WINEPREFIX/dosdevices/com1 -> /dev/ttyS0.
DOS drives are also specified with symlinks; e.g. if drive D: corresponds to the CDROM mounted at /mnt/cdrom, you'd have a symlink $WINEPREFIX/dosdevices/d: -> /mnt/cdrom. The Unix device corresponding to a DOS drive can be specified the same way, except with :: instead of :. So for the previous example, if the CDROM device is mounted from /dev/hdc, the corresponding symlink would be $WINEPREFIX/dosdevices/d:: -> /dev/hdc.

Requirements

Apple Silicon Mac (i.e. M series) with at least 16 GB of RAM or more (recommended since translated games require more resources)
macOS 15 Sequoia or higher
Command Line Tools for Xcode 15+ (downloaded via the App Store)
Game Porting Toolkit from Apple Developers (OPTIONAL)
Steam (Windows Version)
Game Controller (OPTIONAL)

Installation

I have different versions of Wine on my system which I use for different purposes.

Game Porting Toolkit.app: This is a translation layer that combines a patched version of an outdated version of Wine (7.7) with D3DMetal (which supports DirectX 11 and 12). I use this if I want to use D3DMetal graphics API. Only downside is that there are some bugs (e.g. window sizing, unable to download games, etc.) since this build uses an old version of Wine. Don’t use it to install Steam games.
Wine Devel.app: I use this if I want to use DXMT or DXVK graphics API. This build uses a recent version of Wine (10.18).
CrossOver.app: I don’t use this, but it contains some useful files that I can use with other Wine builds. See Install CrossOver for more details.

Prefix	Build Name	Graphics API(s)	Description
`$HOME/Bottles/GPTk`	gptk/3_0_2	D3DMetal	Game Porting Toolkit 3
`$HOME/Bottles/DXMT`	dxmt/10.18	DXMT, MoltenVK	DirectX to Metal
`$HOME/Bottles/DXVK`	dxvk/10.18	DXVK, MoltenVK	DirectX to Vulkan
`$HOME/Bottles/CrossOver`	crossover/23.7.1	D3DMetal, DXMT, DXVK, MoltenVK	CrossOver by CodeWeaver

Since we’ll be working with several different Wine builds, we should create a directory containing each of these Wine builds to keep it organized.

  
mkdir -p $HOME/Wine && cd $HOME/Wine
mkdir dxmt dxvk gptk crossover

Your $HOME directory should now look similar to this (where ... denotes all other directories and files, which are currently irrelevant for this tutorial)

$HOME/ 
├── ... 
├── Bottles/ 
│   ├── DXMT/
│   ├── DXVK/
│   ├── GPTk/
│   └── CrossOver/
├── ...
└── Wine/
    ├── dxmt/
    ├── dxvk/
    ├── gptk/
    └── crossover/

Ensure you’re in an x86_64 shell. If not, run:
1 arch -x86_64 /bin/bash

To set version of Wine depending on type, add to PATH. This way, which wine outputs $HOME/Wine/10.12/bin/wine. E.g.

  
export PATH="$HOME/Wine/DXMT/bin:$PATH"

Create a new Wine prefix; e.g. if you have bottle $HOME/Games, set WINEPREFIX like so:

  
WINEPREFIX="$HOME/Games" wine winecfg

Once a “Wine configuration” shows up, change the version to Windows 10, then click Apply and OK to save and exit

If the “Wine configuration” window does not appear and no new icon appears in the Dock, make sure you’ve correctly installed:
x86_64 version of Homebrew
game-porting-toolkit formula

// TODO: Rewrite these instructions

download latest wine build https://github.com/Gcenx/macOS_Wine_builds/releases
get wine folder (path: $HOME/Downloads/Wine Devel.app/Contents/Resources/wine) and move into $HOME/Wine/dxmt (or some other dir in Wine)
Rename moved wine folder and add new dir logs
download and unzip dxmt https://github.com/3Shain/dxmt
move files as described https://github.com/3Shain/dxmt/wiki/DXMT-Installation-Guide-for-Geeks
download and unzip (MoltenVK-macos.tar only) https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK/releases
move libMoltenVK.dylib from $HOME/Downloads/MoltenVK/MoltenVK/dynamic/dylib/macOS to $HOME/Wine/dxmt/10.19/lib

Install Wine

This version of Wine can be used with DXMT and DXVK.

Download the latest macOS Wine build
Extract compressed download (v10.18 is named wine-devel-10.18-osx64.tar.xz)
1 tar -xvzf $HOME/Downloads/wine-devel-10.18-osx64.tar.xz

Copy the wine directory into DXMT and DXVK

  
 cp -r "$HOME/Downloads/Wine Devel.app/Contents/Resources/wine" "$HOME/Wine/dxmt"
 cp -r "$HOME/Downloads/Wine Devel.app/Contents/Resources/wine" "$HOME/Wine/dxvk"

Rename wine to its version number (aka release version of macOS Wine builds), which is 10.18 in this case

  
 mv "$HOME/Wine/dxmt/wine" "$HOME/Wine/dxmt/10.18"
 mv "$HOME/Wine/dxvk/wine" "$HOME/Wine/dxvk/10.18"

Continue to Install DXMT and Install DXVK, since we will need our Wine build(s) for those steps.

// TODO: Instead of creating separate Wine copies for each graphics API, why not just use the same Wine build with all graphics API files (dlls, so, etc.), e.g. winemetal_dxmt.dll vs winemetal_dxvk.dll, winemetal_orig.dll, etc. When setting a specific build (e.g. DXMT, DXVK, etc.), the relevant file(s) will be renamed (e.g. current winemetal.dll is renamed to winemetal_xyz.dll, then winemetal_dxmt.dll is renamed to winemetal.dll in order to enable DXMT).

Install Graphics APIs

Install DXMT

Make sure to download Wine before continuing; see Install Wine for instructions.

DXMT is a Metal-based translation layer for Direct3D 11 (d3d11) and Direct3D 10 (d3d10), which allows running 3D applications on macOS using Wine.

If you want to build DXMT yourself, skip steps 1 – 4 and refer to the “Build” section in DXMT repository’s README.md.
Refer to DXMT installer for a Bash script to automatically install DXMT into your Wine build.

Go to DXMT repository’s releases
Find the most recent release (which, as of this writing, is Version 0.70)
Under Assets, download the attached GitHub Actions artifact (built with -Dwine_builtin_dll=true) named similarly to dxmt-v0.70-builtin.tar.gz (do not download the Source code!)
Unzip the downloaded artifact by double-clicking it or running the following command (change path/filename if needed)
1 tar -xvzf $HOME/Downloads/dxmt-v0.70-builtin.tar.gz
You should now have a directory containing i386-windows, x86_64-unix, and x86_64-windows subdirectories, each of which contains various files
Before proceeding, make sure you have the right path of the libraries for the version of Wine you’re using! We’ll set that path to environment variable WINELIB to make the following commands easier to follow; be sure to change the actual path if needed. If correctly set, the commands echo $WINELIB and echo $DXMT_PATH should print their respective specified path.
1 2 3 4 export WINEPATH="$HOME/Wine/dxmt/10.18" export WINELIB="$WINEPATH/lib/wine" export DXMT_PATH="$HOME/Downloads/v0.70" export WINEPREFIX="$HOME/Bottles/DXMT"
Move $DXMT_PATH/x86_64-unix/winemetal.so into x86_64-unix directory in your Wine library
1 mv -i $DXMT_PATH/x86_64-unix/winemetal.so $WINELIB/x86_64-unix/
Copy $DXMT_PATH/x86_64-windows/winemetal.dll into x86_64-windows directory in your Wine library AND system32 directory in your WINEPREFIX
1 2 cp -i $DXMT_PATH/x86_64-windows/winemetal.dll $WINELIB/x86_64-windows/winemetal.dll mv -i $DXMT_PATH/x86_64-windows/winemetal.dll $WINEPREFIX/drive_c/windows/system32/
Using cp (copy) command instead of mv (move) since winemetal.dll will be used in 2 separate locations. mv requires a destination directory, while cp should be destination file.
Move $DXMT_PATH/x86_64-windows/d3d11.dll into x86_64-windows directory in your Wine library
1 mv -i $DXMT_PATH/x86_64-windows/d3d11.dll $WINELIB/x86_64-windows/
Move $DXMT_PATH/x86_64-windows/dxgi.dll into x86_64-windows directory in your Wine library
1 mv -i $DXMT_PATH/x86_64-windows/dxgi.dll $WINELIB/x86_64-windows/
Optionally move $DXMT_PATH/x86_64-windows/d3d10core.dll into x86_64-windows directory in your Wine library
1 mv -i $DXMT_PATH/x86_64-windows/d3d10core.dll $WINELIB/x86_64-windows/
Ensure NONE of these dlls are set overrides native,builtin
If you use CrossOver 25+, you can replace the files in /Applications/CrossOver.app/Contents/SharedSupport/CrossOver/lib/dxmt/ with files from the Github Actions artifact.
However, DO NOT open a support ticket to CodeWeavers if you have replaced these files.
Execute this command to avoid running into issues when trying to use wine command
1 xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "$WINEPATH"

If all steps are successfully completed, you should be able to run your Wine commands as normal, e.g.

  
MTL_HUD_ENABLED=1 D3DM_SUPPORT_DXR=1 ROSETTA_ADVERTISE_AVX=1 WINEESYNC=1 WINEDLLOVERRIDES="dinput8=n,b" DXMT_LOG_LEVEL=error DXMT_LOG_PATH=$HOME/Wine/dxmt/10.18/logs WINEPREFIX=$HOME/Bottles/DXMT wine "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe"

To run with Steam options, e.g. --no-sandbox --in-process-gpu --disable-gpu

  
steam.exe -noverifyfiles -nobootstrapupdate -skipinitialbootstrap -norepairfiles -overridepackageurl

The full command would be:

  
MTL_HUD_ENABLED=0 D3DM_SUPPORT_DXR=1 ROSETTA_ADVERTISE_AVX=1 WINEESYNC=1 WINEDLLOVERRIDES="dinput8=n,b;d3d11,d3d10,d3d12,dxgi=b" wine "C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe"
cd "Games\drive_c\Program Files (x86)\Steam"
steam.exe -noverifyfiles -nobootstrapupdate -skipinitialbootstrap -norepairfiles -overridepackageurl

64 bit is default, so if switching to 32 bit games, rename current winemetal.dll to winemetal_x86_64-windows.dll, then rename winemetal_i386-windows.dll to winemetal.dll

Install DXVK

Make sure to download Wine before continuing; see Install Wine for instructions.

DXVK is a Vulkan-based translation layer for Direct3D 8/9/10/11 (Linux) // Direct3D 10/11 (macOS), which allows running 3D applications with Wine.

MoltenVK doesn’t provide the required Vulkan extensions to use upstream DXVK, so use modified fork DXVK-macOS.

DXVK/Vulkan use the following env: export MVK_CONFIG_RESUME_LOST_DEVICE=1 (wine doesn’t handle VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST correctly)

Download and unpack the latest DXVK package for macOS

Install the downloaded DXVK package into a given wine prefix (i.e. copy or symlink the DLLs into the following directories as follows)

  
 export WINEPREFIX="$HOME/Bottles/DXVK"
 cd "$HOME/Downloads/dxvk-macOS-async"
 mv -i x64/*.dll "$WINEPREFIX/drive_c/windows/system32"
 mv -i x32/*.dll "$WINEPREFIX/drive_c/windows/syswow64"

Execute this command to avoid running into issues when trying to use wine command
1 xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "$HOME/Wine/dxvk/10.18"

Open winecfg and manually add DLL overrides for d3d11 and d3d10core

  
 WINEPREFIX="$HOME/Bottles/DXVK" "$HOME/Wine/dxvk/10.18/bin/wine" winecfg

Verify that your application uses DXVK instead of WineD3D by enabling the HUD
1 DXVK_CONFIG_FILE="$HOME/Wine/dxvk/10.18/dxvk.conf" DXVK_HUD=full
To remove DXVK from a prefix, remove the DLLs and DLL overrides, then restore original DLL files
1 wineboot -u

There shouldn’t be (i.e. don’t add, b/c it didn’t originally come w/) a winemetal.dll in DXVK’S $WINEPREFIX

Install Game Porting Toolkit

Setup Game Porting Toolkit

Downloading Game Porting Toolkit via Apple Developer is no longer a necessary requirement; I’m keeping this here for posterity

Go to the official page for Game Porting Toolkit, scroll down to “Evaluate your Windows executable on Apple silicon”, and click Download the evaluation environment for Windows games
You can also download Game Porting Toolkit in its entirety since it includes the evaluation environment, but it’ll also include a bunch of stuff that you most likely won’t use, such as example code, human interface guidelines, etc.
You’ll be prompted to sign into your Apple account and create an Apple Developer account if you don’t have one already (don’t worry, it’s free)
Once redirected to the downloads page, click Evaluation environment for Windows games 2.1.dmg to download the evaluation environment
Double-click the .dmg after it’s downloaded to open/mount it
Click Agree to the license agreement
Once mounted, it’ll open a window that should look similar to this
You should also be able to see it in “Finder”
Download Command Line Tools for Xcode, which you will need to download via the App Store
Run the .pkg file
- Manually: Double-click the .pkg file
- Via command line (where PKG_PATH is the path to the .pkg file): installer -pkg PKG_PATH -target <target_path>
Open your terminal, then install Rosetta
1 softwareupdate --install-rosetta
If you want to automatically agree to license, add --agree-to-license to command
1 softwareupdate --install-rosetta --agree-to-license
Enter x86_64 shell; all subsequent commands must be run in this shell
1 arch -x86_64 /bin/bash

Install x86 version of Homebrew

  
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Set the path, depending on the number of Homebrew versions you have
If you use both x86 and ARM64 versions of Homebrew, you can add the following to .bashrc (or your preferred shell config file) so it automatically switches based off architecture type
1 2 3 4 5 6 if [ "$(arch)" = "arm64" ]; then eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)" else eval "$(/usr/local/bin/brew shellenv)" export PATH="/usr/local/bin:${PATH}" fi
If you only have x86 version of Homebrew (which was installed in the previous step), execute this command to append the path (eval "$(/usr/local/bin/brew shellenv)") to .bash_profile
1 2 (echo; echo 'eval "$(/usr/local/bin/brew shellenv)"') >> $HOME/.bash_profile eval "$(/usr/local/bin/brew shellenv)"
Since your shell config file has been updated, restart the terminal and return to x86_64 shell
1 arch -x86_64 /bin/bash
Confirm path
1 which brew
Update PATH environment variable (in your shell config file) if the previous command doesn’t print /usr/local/bin/brew; alternatively, you can fully specify the path to brew in the subsequent commands
Make sure that GPTk’s .dmg (downloaded from Apple’s website) is already mounted; it should be located in /Volumes directory

Method 1: Prebuilt

Install Dean Greer’s game-porting-toolkit via x86 version of Homebrew (/usr/local/bin/brew)

  
brew install --cask --no-quarantine gcenx/wine/game-porting-toolkit

The wine executable is located in: /Applications/Game Porting Toolkit.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/wine64

Early in the macOS 16 Tahoe beta period these pre-built tools may still be carrying the prior version of D3DMetal. You can temporarily update these tools to use the latest version:

  
cd /Applications/Game\ Porting\ Toolkit.app/Contents/Resources/wine/lib
mv external external-v3
mv "/Volumes/Evaluation environment for Windows games 3.0 beta 3/redist/lib/external" "/Applications/Game Porting Toolkit.app/Contents/Resources/wine/lib/external"
ditto "/Volumes/Evaluation environment for Windows games 3.0 beta 3/redist/lib/" .
ln -s "/Applications/Game Porting Toolkit.app/Contents/Resources/wine" "$HOME/Wine/gptk/3_0b5"

Method 2: Build

You can’t build any versions after Version 2.1 since it’s out of date, so refer to Method 1 Prebuilt instead and ignore this section

Download Apple tap

 brew tap apple/apple http://github.com/apple/homebrew-apple

Install the game-porting-toolkit formula. The 1st time you run this command, you’ll get an error. We’ll fix it in the next step, but we’re running this step 1st so we have the formulas (i.e. game-porting-toolkit and game-porting-toolkit-compiler). We need the formulas since that’s what we’ll be editing.
1 brew install apple/apple/game-porting-toolkit
If during installation you see an error such as “Error: game-porting-toolkit: unknown or unsupported macOS version: :dunno”, your version of Homebrew doesn’t have macOS Sonoma support. Update to the latest version of Homebrew and try again.
1 brew update ; brew install apple/apple/game-porting-toolkit
Edit game-porting-toolkit formula (location /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/apple/homebrew-apple/Formula/game-porting-toolkit.rb)
1 brew edit game-porting-toolkit
Rename "[email protected]" to "openssl@3"
Then, edit game-porting-toolkit-compiler formula (location /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/apple/homebrew-apple/Formula/game-porting-toolkit-compiler.rb)
1 brew edit game-porting-toolkit-compiler

Add the following after Line 42³

 "-DCMAKE_POLICY_VERSION_MINIMUM=3.5",

Reinstall the game-porting-toolkit formula

 brew install apple/apple/game-porting-toolkit

Copy the Game Porting Toolkit library directory into Wine’s library directory

  
 ditto /Volumes/Evaluation\ environment\ for\ Windows\ games\ 2.1/redist/lib/ $(brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit)/lib/

Link directory

  
 ln -s "$(brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit)" "$HOME/Wine/gptk/2_1"

Install Steam

Make sure the Windows version of Steam is located in your Downloads folder before installing

You can use the installer script in Steam Installer, or complete the following steps.

Install the Windows version of Steam

  
 wine "$HOME/Downloads/SteamSetup.exe"

Run the Windows version of Steam to make sure it works
1 wine "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam.exe"
If it works, continue to Usage section. Otherwise, follow the steps in steamwebhelper not responding section before moving onto the Usage section.

Install CrossOver

This is the most compatible option (compared to the others), as it has all the aforementioned graphics APIs. You can either purchase it from CodeWeavers, or install it via Homebrew:

Install pre-built version of CrossOver v23.7.1 (Wine 8.0.1) via x86 version of Homebrew (/usr/local/bin/brew)
1 brew install --cask --no-quarantine gcenx/wine/wine-crossover

Create symlink

  
 ln -s "/Applications/Wine Crossover.app/Contents/Resources/wine" "$HOME/Wine/23.7.1-crossover"

CrossOver’s game porting toolkit lib path:
/Applications/CrossOver.app/Contents/SharedSupport/CrossOver/lib64/apple_gptk/external/
CrossOver’s wine path:
/Applications/CrossOver.app/Contents/SharedSupport/CrossOver/CrossOver-Hosted Application/wine

Install Winetricks

According to the Winetricks GitHub repository⁴, “Winetricks is an easy way to work around problems in Wine. It has a menu of supported applications for which it can do all the workarounds automatically. It also allows the installation of missing DLLs and tweaking of various Wine settings.”

Method 1: Homebrew

The most straightforward method is to download via Homebrew.

brew install winetricks

Method 2: Manually

Uninstall any previous versions of Winetricks (if applicable)
Download the latest version
For previous versions, check out their releases
Extract the archive
cd into the extracted folder
Run the following:
1 sudo make install

Method 3: Installer Script

Refer to the installer script at Winetricks Installer.

Configuration

Configuring Wine is typically accomplished using:

control — Wine’s implementation of the Windows Control Panel, which can be started by running wine control
regedit — Wine’s registry editing tool, which can be started by running regedit—see also Useful Registry Keys
winecfg — a GUI configuration tool for Wine, which can be started by running winecfg

See Programs for the full list.

Usage

Ensure you’re in an x86_64 shell. If not, run:
1 arch -x86_64 /bin/bash

Steam: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam.exe"
Game: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\MyGame\MyGame.exe"

Launch Steam

If you want to play the game via Steam. This is the basic command; it runs Steam with Wine. You can add additional environment variables. Refer to Environment Variables section for a list of compatible environment variables.

  
wine "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam.exe"

Steam example

Steam menubar

Comparison between native Steam app for macOS and Windows Steam running on macOS via DXMT

Logging output when running Windows version of Steam via GPTk

Launch Directly

You can launch the game directly to avoid Steam’s extra processes. This may improve performance, but you won’t be able to use certain Steam features (e.g. Steam Cloud, online, etc.).

  
wine "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\MyGame\MyGame.exe"

Replace MyGame with the name of your game; if it isn’t in Steam or its path is different, update the command path accordingly.

For example, if you want to enable e-sync and disable the Metal Performance HUD when running MyGame.exe.

  
MTL_HUD_ENABLED=0 WINEESYNC=1 wine "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\MyGame\MyGame.exe"

Feel free to add and remove environment variables as you like; you’re not constrained to the aforementioned ones. Refer to Environment Variables section for a list of compatible environment variables.

Screenshot of Palworld running via DXMT

Screenshot of Far Cry 3 running via DXMT

Stop Running Wine

Method 1: CLI

All running wine and wineconsole processes are stopped at once using the wineserver -k command.

wineserver -k 15

This command is WINEPREFIX-dependent, so when using a custom Wine prefix, run i.e.

  
WINEPREFIX="$HOME/Games" wineserver -k

Alternatively, try this command:

  
killall -9 wineserver && killall -9 wine64-preloader

Method 2: Activity Monitor

Open Activity Monitor
In the search bar, type wine and hit Return
Select all Wine processes with Command ⌘ + A
Once all Wine-related processes are selected, click the Stop icon
Click Quit
If not all of the processes end, you can try again with Force Quit

Appendix

Tips + Tricks

Launch games as an app

Executing scripts via CLI can be tedious sometimes, so it’s nice to launch it as an app instead. That way it’s just a click away!

My custom apps for Windows version of Steam that uses DXMT and DXVK respectively

Method 1: Automator

You can use the Automator app to create a new Application that will run Steam when you click on its icon (similar to how Applications work)

Open Automator
Select Application and click Choose
In the sidebar on the left, click Utilities, then double-click Run Shell Script

Select /bin/bash as the shell and pass input to stdin, then paste the following in the textbox:

  
 #!/bin/bash
	
 arch -x86_64 /bin/bash
	
 export PATH="/usr/local/bin:${PATH}"
 export D3DM_SUPPORT_DXR=1
 export ROSETTA_ADVERTISE_AVX=1
 export WINEDLLOVERRIDES="dinput8=n,b;d3d11,d3d10,d3d12,dxgi=b"
 export WINEESYNC=1
 export WINEDEBUG=-all
 export WINEPREFIX="$HOME/Games"
	
 wine "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam.exe" > /dev/null 2>&1 &

Once you save this automated application (file format Application, I have it saved as Steam (Windows), though you can name it anything), you’ll want to set a custom icon to make it discernable
Copy (i.e. right-click, then press Copy Image) the image you want to use as your icon (preferably .icns file format)
This is the app icon⁵ I use for Steam (Windows); you’ll need to convert it to Apple’s .icns file format
Find the application you saved earlier, right-click it, then click Get Info
Click the default icon at the top (it’ll be outlined when you do), right above the Add Tags… textbox
Press Command ⌘ + V to paste the image you just copied, and you’ll see the icon update accordingly

You can now run the Windows version of Steam anytime you click the app icon! This is much more user-friendly than running commands in the terminal each time.

Method 2: AppleScript

Taken from David Baumgold’s tutorial on installing Wine on Mac. I haven’t used this tutorial myself (I prefer my Bash scripts and Automator application), but I’m including this in case it’s helpful to anyone else.

Open Script Editor (in the /Applications/Utilities directory)

Enter the following in the window

 tell application "Terminal"
     do script "WINEPREFIX=~/Games wine $PATH_TO_PROGRAM.exe"
 end tell

Replace $PATH_TO_PROGRAM with the path from the Program Files directory to your program executable, and modify $WINEPREFIX as needed
Press Compile button at the top of the window; if you want to run your script, press the Run button
Select File Format: Application in the save options, and leave Startup Screen unchecked to save your script
Open up the Finder, go to where you saved your script, and drag that file to your Dock

Method 3: Shortcuts

// TODO

Method 4: App Bundle

TODO: How to make custom Wine as app bundle so that I can set game mode. (since game-mode cmd is currently broken so I can’t set it that way.) this is bc macbook pro automatically enables game mode if it detects a game running. i think it determines it from plist in app bundle or sumn related. since i’m running via wine, i have to make one from scratch so mac recognizes it as a game and auto enables game mode for me. use bookmarked tut.

Folder shortcut

Continue reading if you want easy, quick, and convenient access to both your Mac AND Windows versions of Steam

Change directory to Applications
1 cd /Applications
Create a new folder in Applications titled Steam, either manually (right-click, press New Folder, then enter Steam as its name) or via terminal
1 mkdir -p Steam
Move Steam.app and Steam (Windows).app (or whatever you named it in Method 1 Automator section) into your new Steam folder (assuming you have both .apps in your /Applications directory), either manually (drag each .app into Steam folder) OR via terminal
1 mv -i Steam.app Steam && mv -i "Steam (Windows).app" Steam
Find and download a folder icon you like (preferably .icns file format)
This is the folder icon I use
Once downloaded, select the folder icon and copy it, either with Command ⌘ + C, or you can manually right-click the icon and click Copy
Back in /Applications, right-click Steam folder and click Get Info
Click on the icon in the upper-left corner (it should be outlined in your system’s accent color; in my case it’s purple)
Paste the folder icon with Command ⌘ + V to update Steam folder’s icon accordingly
Now that you have a custom Steam folder with both Mac and Windows versions of Steam (i.e. Steam.app and Steam (Windows).app), drag the folder into the dock
To adjust the appearance, right-click the Steam folder icon in the dock (that you just dragged)
Make the following selections
- Under Display as, select Folder
- Under View content as, select Grid

You now have a convenient way to access both versions of Steam via your dock! If you open the Steam folder and click on either of the .apps, it should launch as expected

Steam (Windows).app takes longer to launch than the native Steam app due to the additional processes it has to run in the background

Set game mode

See “Symbol not found” when setting game mode if it doesn’t work for you.

This requires XCode, which is one of the Requirements (you should already have it by now).

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/gamepolicyctl game-mode set on

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/gamepolicyctl game-mode set off

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/gamepolicyctl game-mode set auto

Adjust game controller

Make sure your game controller is compatible with macOS. While Xbox and PlayStation are the most popular game controllers, I think other Bluetooth game controllers are compatible too (so you’re not limited to those two).⁶
Here’s a list of currently supported Xbox⁷ and PlayStation⁸ controllers as of this writing:
Xbox Wireless Controller with Bluetooth (Model 1708)
Xbox Wireless Controller Series S
Xbox Wireless Controller Series X
Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2
Xbox Adaptive Controller
PlayStation DualShock 4 Wireless Controller
PlayStation 5 DualSense Wireless Controller
PlayStation 5 DualSense Edge Wireless Controller

I recommend disabling the “Home” button to prevent it from opening Launchpad; this can be useful when using Steam’s Big Picture mode
1 defaults write com.apple.GameController bluetoothPrefsMenuLongPressAction -integer 0

I also recommend disabling the “Share” button

 defaults write com.apple.GameController bluetoothPrefsShareLongPressSystemGestureMode -integer -1

Restart the Dock process to apply changes
1 killall Dock
Alternatively, you can logout and log back in again (though this is likely more time-consuming than executing the aforementioned command)

Update MoltenVK

MoltenVK is a layered implementation of Vulkan graphics and compute functionality, built on Apple’s Metal graphics and compute framework. This allows Vulkan applications to run on top of Metal on Apple’s macOS, iOS, and tvOS operating systems.

Refer to MoltenVK’s README.md for steps on how to install MoltenVK from source

Method 1: Wine

Download latest MoltenVK release

Open terminal and set variables. E.g. for DXMT Wine 10.18:

  
 WINE_LIB="$HOME/Wine/dxmt/10.18/lib"
 MVK_DYLIB="$HOME/Downloads/MoltenVK/MoltenVK/dylib/macOS/libMoltenVK.dylib"

Backup original copy by renaming libMoltenVK.dylib in Wine build’s lib to libMoltenVK_orig.dylib
1 mv -i "$WINE_LIB/libMoltenVK.dylib" "$WINE_LIB/libMoltenVK_orig.dylib"
Move new MoltenVK dylib into Wine build’s lib
1 mv -i "$MVK_DYLIB" "$WINE_LIB"
Execute this command to avoid running into issues when trying to use wine command
1 xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "$WINEPATH"

Method 2: CrossOver

Assuming you already have CrossOver, it is possible to add its support for Windows Vulkan games (atop MoltenVK) to GPTk⁹. I also used this method to update MoltenVK for DXVK Wine build.

$(brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit) is equivalent to /usr/local/opt/game-porting-toolkit, which redirects to /usr/local/Cellar/game-porting-toolkit/1.1

Copy x86_64-windows/vulkan-1.dll to GPTk

  
 cp -i /Applications/CrossOver.app/Contents/SharedSupport/CrossOver/lib/wine/x86_64-windows/vulkan-1.dll $(brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit)/lib/wine/x86_64-windows

Copy i386-windows/vulkan-1.dll to GPTk for 32-bit support (OPTIONAL)

  
 cp -i /Applications/CrossOver.app/Contents/SharedSupport/CrossOver/lib/wine/i386-windows/vulkan-1.dll $(brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit)/lib/wine/i386-windows

Copy libMoltenVK.dylib to GPTk

  
 cp -i /Applications/CrossOver.app/Contents/SharedSupport/CrossOver/lib64/libMoltenVK.dylib $(brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit)/lib/external

Set these environment variables

  
 CX_APPLEGPTK_LIBD3DSHARED_PATH="$(brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit)/lib/external/libd3dshared.dylib"
 WINEDLLPATH_PREPEND="$(brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit)/lib/wine"
 WINEDLLOVERRIDES="dxgi,d3d9,d3d10core,d3d11=b;mf,mfplat,mfreadwrite=n"

It should be possible to source these files from other sources of Wine-Crossover, such as those provided by the Heroic Games Launcher (assuming you have not already modified it as described in the previous section. If you have, you should be able to download another version from Heroic.)
According to DXVK:
d3dcompiler_47 is for DX12
d3dcompiler_43 is for DX11

Install SteamCMD

SteamCMD is a command-line tool used to install and update games, dedicated servers, and more on Steam. I like using it when I want to download a game to a specific Wine prefix, or if I’m unable to download a game via the Windows version of Steam GUI for whatever reason.

Open terminal and create SteamCMD directory

  
 mkdir $HOME/SteamCMD && cd $HOME/SteamCMD

Download and extract SteamCMD

  
 curl -sqL "https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/client/installer/steamcmd_osx.tar.gz" | tar zxvf -

Scripts

Bash Functions for Gaming

If you don’t have SteamCMD installed, refer to Install SteamCMD section before continuing

Change directory to wherever you want to download the script (e.g. $HOME/Scripts directory)
1 cd "$HOME/Scripts"

Download my gaming_funcs.sh script

curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lynkos/configs/refs/heads/main/Scripts/gaming_funcs.sh

Add to your shell startup file (e.g. .bashrc, etc.)

  
printf "\n[[ -r \"%s/gaming_funcs.sh\" ]] && . \"%s/gaming_funcs.sh\"\n" "$PWD" "$PWD" >> "$HOME/.bashrc"

Edit gaming_funcs.sh via your preferred text editor (e.g. vim, nano, TextEdit, etc.)
1. Open script in vim
  1 vim gaming_funcs.sh
2. Press i to enter insert mode
Open script in nano
1 nano gaming_funcs.sh
Open script in TextEdit
1 open -e gaming_funcs.sh
Modify values under CONSTANTS as needed; use arrow keys to navigate
Save changes and exit your text editor
1. Exit insert mode by pressing Esc
2. Type :wq (write and quit), then press Return
1. Save changes with CTRL + O
2. Press Return to confirm
3. Exit with CTRL + X
1. Save changes with Command ⌘ + S
2. Exit with Command ⌘ + Q
Apply changes to shell
1 source "$HOME/.bashrc"
You can now use these functions in your shell:
steam
Launches Windows version of Steam
endwine <PREFIX_NAME>
Quit/stop a specific Wine prefix
wine <program> [args…]
Run Wine with multiple arguments
retina <OPTION>
Set retina mode for Windows gaming via Wine (Options: on, off)
game-mode <OPTION>
Set macOS Game Mode (Options: on, off, auto)
anti-alias
Enable font smoothing (i.e. anti-aliasing)
instm <PREFIX_NAME>
Install Windows Steam into specific Wine prefix
dlg <PREFIX_NAME> <APP_ID>
Download Windows Steam game to Wine prefix via SteamCMD
mvdlg <APP_ID> <SOURCE_PREFIX_NAME> <TARGET_PREFIX_NAME>
Move Windows Steam game between Wine prefixes
clear-cache
Clear Oblivion Remastered shader cache (used for debugging)

Steam Installer

This script automatically installs the latest version of Windows Steam into a given Wine prefix.

// TODO Steam installer script for PREFIX, Wine version.

  
#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Create temporary file to store download
temp_file="$(mktemp -t SteamSetup)"

# Cleanup logic in case there's an issue
trap "echo 'Something went wrong; performing cleanup...'; rm -rf $temp_file; trap - EXIT ERR; echo 'Cleanup complete. Exiting...'" EXIT ERR

# Download Windows SteamSetup.exe via Steam
curl -o "$temp_file" https://cdn.fastly.steamstatic.com/client/installer/SteamSetup.exe

# Environment variables
export WINEPREFIX="$HOME/Games"
export WINE="wine"

# Install Windows Steam into WINEPREFIX
WINEPREFIX="$WINEPREFIX" "$WINE" "$temp_file"

# Delete temporary Windows Steam installer
rm -rf "$temp_file"

# Reset (i.e. re-enable default processing of) signal(s)
trap - EXIT ERR

DXMT Installer

  
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Install DXMT

# Constants
bottle="$HOME/Bottles/DXMT"
winepath="$HOME/Wine/dxmt/10.18"
winelib="$winepath/lib/wine"
winelib_unix="$winelib/x86_64-unix"
winelib_win="$winelib/x86_64-windows"
dxmt_url="https://github.com/3Shain/dxmt/releases/download/v0.70/dxmt-v0.70-builtin.tar.gz"

# Create temporary directory
temp_dir="$(mktemp -d)"
echo "Created temporary directory $temp_dir"

# Cleanup logic in case there's an issue
trap "echo 'Something went wrong; performing cleanup...'; rm -rf $temp_dir; trap - EXIT ERR; echo 'Cleanup complete. Exiting...'" EXIT ERR

# Download and extract DXMT into temporary directory
curl -sqL "$dxmt_url" | tar zxvf - -C "$temp_dir" --strip-components=1
echo "Downloaded DXMT into $temp_dir"

# Move/copy library files into your Wine library
# TODO: If file with same name exists, create backup of original file (aka implement `mv -b` cmd for macOS)
mv -i "$temp_dir/x86_64-unix/winemetal.so" "$winelib_unix"
echo "Moved winemetal.so into $winelib_unix"

cp -i "$temp_dir/x86_64-windows/winemetal.dll" "$winelib_win"
echo "Copied winemetal.dll into $winelib_win"

mv -i "$temp_dir/x86_64-windows/winemetal.dll" "$bottle/drive_c/windows/system32/"
echo "Moved winemetal.dll into $bottle/drive_c/windows/system32/"

mv -i "$temp_dir/x86_64-windows/d3d11.dll" "$winelib_win"
echo "Moved d3d11.dll into $winelib_win"

mv -i "$temp_dir/x86_64-windows/dxgi.dll" "$winelib_win"
echo "Moved dxgi.dll into $winelib_win"

mv -i "$temp_dir/x86_64-windows/d3d10core.dll" "$winelib_win"
echo "Moved d3d10core.dll into $winelib_win"

# Delete temporary directory
rm -rf "$temp_dir"
echo "Deleted temporary directory $temp_dir"

# Reset (i.e. re-enable default processing of) signal(s)
trap - EXIT ERR

echo "DXMT installation complete!"

Winetricks Installer

This script is taken directly from Winetricks GitHub repository⁴.

Method 1: `sudo`

  
#!/bin/sh

# Create and switch to a temporary directory writeable by current user. See:
#   https://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/subshells.html
cd "$(mktemp -d)" || exit 1

# Use a BASH "here document" to create an updater shell script file.
# See:
#   https://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/here-docs.html
# >  outputs stdout to a file, overwriting any pre-existing file
# << takes input, directly from the script itself, till the second '_EOF_SCRIPT' marker, as stdin
# the cat command hooks these 2 streams up (stdin and stdout)
###### create update_winetricks START ########
cat > update_winetricks <<_EOF_SCRIPT
#!/bin/sh

# Create and switch to a temporary directory writeable by current user. See:
#   https://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/subshells.html
cd "\$(mktemp -d)"

# Download the latest winetricks script (master="latest version") from Github.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Winetricks/winetricks/master/src/winetricks

# Mark the winetricks script (we've just downloaded) as executable. See:
#   https://www.tldp.org/LDP/GNU-Linux-Tools-Summary/html/x9543.htm
chmod +x winetricks

# Move the winetricks script to a location which will be in the standard user PATH. See:
#   https://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/internalvariables.html
sudo mv winetricks /usr/bin

# Download the latest winetricks BASH completion script (master="latest version") from Github.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Winetricks/winetricks/master/src/winetricks.bash-completion

# Move the winetricks BASH completion script to a standard location for BASH completion modules. See:
#   https://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/tabexpansion.html
sudo mv winetricks.bash-completion /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/winetricks

# Download the latest winetricks MAN page (master="latest version") from Github.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Winetricks/winetricks/master/src/winetricks.1

# Move the winetricks MAN page to a standard location for MAN pages. See:
#   https://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#USRSHAREMANMANUALPAGES
sudo mv winetricks.1 /usr/share/man/man1/winetricks.1
_EOF_SCRIPT
###### create update_winetricks FINISH ########

# Mark the update_winetricks script (we've just written out) as executable. See:
#   https://www.tldp.org/LDP/GNU-Linux-Tools-Summary/html/x9543.htm
chmod +x update_winetricks

# We must escalate privileges to root, as regular Linux users do not have write access to '/usr/bin'.
sudo mv update_winetricks /usr/bin/

Method 2: `su`

The repository also contains an alternative updater script implementation using su instead of sudo:

  
#!/bin/sh

cd "$(mktemp -d)"
cat > update_winetricks <<_EOF_SCRIPT
#!/bin/sh

cd "\$(mktemp -d)"
curl -O  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Winetricks/winetricks/master/src/winetricks
curl -O  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Winetricks/winetricks/master/src/winetricks.bash-completion
chmod +x winetricks
su root sh -c 'mv winetricks /usr/bin ; mv winetricks.bash-completion /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/winetricks'
_EOF_SCRIPT

chmod +x update_winetricks
su root sh -c 'mv update_winetricks /usr/bin/'

MetalFX Integration

Enable MetalFX

  
#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Old version
version="v3b2" # Game Porting Toolkit 3.0 Beta 2

# Wine prefix path
bottle="$HOME/Games"

# Wine lib path
wine="$HOME/Wine/gptk/3.0b3/wine/lib/wine"

# Enter directory
cd "$wine"

# Backup old versions
mv x86_64-unix/nvngx.so "x86_64-unix/nvngx-$version.so"
mv x86_64-windows/nvngx.dll "x86_64-windows/nvngx-$version.dll"
mv "$bottle/drive_c/windows/system32/nvngx.dll" "$bottle/drive_c/windows/system32/nvngx-$version.dll"
mv "$bottle/drive_c/windows/system32/nvapi64.dll" "$bottle/drive_c/windows/system32/nvapi64-$version.dll"

# Rename nvngx-on-metalfx.so to nvngx.so
mv x86_64-unix/nvngx-on-metalfx.so x86_64-unix/nvngx.so

# Rename nvngx-on-metalfx.dll to nvngx.dll
mv x86_64-windows/nvngx-on-metalfx.dll x86_64-windows/nvngx.dll

# Move new nvngx.dll into Wine prefix system32
cp x86_64-windows/nvngx.dll "$bottle/drive_c/windows/system32"

# Move new nvapi64.dll into Wine prefix system32
cp x86_64-windows/nvapi64.dll "$bottle/drive_c/windows/system32"

export D3DM_ENABLE_METALFX=1

echo "MetalFX Integration: ENABLED"

Disable MetalFX

  
#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Old version
version="v3b2" # Game Porting Toolkit 3.0 Beta 2

# Wine prefix path
bottle="$HOME/Games"

# Wine lib path
wine="$HOME/Wine/gptk/3.0b3/wine/lib/wine"

# Enter directory
cd "$wine"

# Remove new nvngx.dll from Wine prefix system32
rm -rf "$bottle/drive_c/windows/system32/nvngx.dll"

# Remove new nvapi64.dll from Wine prefix system32
rm -rf "$bottle/drive_c/windows/system32/nvapi64.dll"

# Rename backed up files
mv "$bottle/drive_c/windows/system32/nvngx-$version.dll" "$bottle/drive_c/windows/system32/nvngx.dll"
mv "$bottle/drive_c/windows/system32/nvapi64-$version.dll" "$bottle/drive_c/windows/system32/nvapi64.dll"

# Undo backup
# TODO

export D3DM_ENABLE_METALFX=0

echo "MetalFX Integration: DISABLED"

Game Porting Toolkit 2.1

This script is taken directly from Game Porting Toolkit 2.1. Full credit goes to Apple.

  
#!/bin/zsh
# Copyright (c) 2023-2025 Apple Inc. All right reserved.

if [ -z "$1" ];  then
	echo "Usage: $0 <wine-prefix-path> <executable>"
fi

exe_path="cmd.exe"
if [ ! -z "$2" ]; then
	exe_path="$2"
fi

MTL_HUD_ENABLED=1 WINEESYNC=1 WINEPREFIX="$1" `brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit`/bin/wine64 "$exe_path" 2>&1 | grep "D3DM"

Troubleshooting

Game Porting Toolkit

Most of this section is taken directly from different Game Porting Toolkit’s README.md file.

Game won’t run and crashes with an invalid instruction or complains about lack of certain instruction extensions

Invalid instruction crashes are sometimes caused when the Rosetta 2 instruction translation layer is unable to translate CPU instructions.

You may be able to recompile a version of your game without certain instructions in order to evaluate its potential on Apple Silicon with the Game Porting Toolkit when you hit this error. You may also be able to use the ROSETTA_ADVERTISE_AVX environment variable to ensure your game recognizes available translation instruction extensions.

When porting your code natively to Apple Silicon there are a variety or NEON and ARM instructions which offer high-performance replacements for AVX / AVX2, BMI, F16c and other less common instruction set extensions.

Game won’t run because its anti-cheat or DRM software is incompatible with Wine translation

You may be able to rebuild a custom version of your game in your Windows development environment with anti-cheat or DRM disabled for your own evaluation purposes.

When porting your code natively to Apple Silicon and macOS, contact your anti-cheat or DRM provider—most have native Apple Silicon solutions for your native build, or you may find that existing macOS solutions like Hardened Runtime, Application Sandbox, and Application Attestation prevent forms of cheating or tampering that concern you.

Game won’t run because it thinks the version of Windows is too old

First, make sure you have selected an appropriate Windows version in winecfg. This affects the major and minor Windows versions that are reported to your game.

If your game checks for a specific minimum or an exact build version, you can alter this value by changing the CurrentBuild and CurrentBuildNumber values of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT registry key. You must perform this step after selecting a Windows version in winecfg.

Run the following commands, replacing «BUILD_NUMBER» with the specific build number your game checks for; if you’re unsure, build 19042 should work for most games:

  
wine reg add 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion' /v CurrentBuild /t REG_SZ /d «BUILD_NUMBER» /f
wine reg add 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion' /v CurrentBuildNumber /t REG_SZ /d «BUILD_NUMBER» /f
/usr/local/bin/wineserver -k

The last command will shut down the virtual Windows environment to ensure that all components agree on the Windows version the next time you launch your game.

Game won’t run because it requires Mono, .NET, or the MSVCRT runtime

The evaluation environment for Windows games does not pre-install these runtime support packages. If your game makes use of one of these packages, consider searching for and downloading appropriate installers (.exe or .msi) and installing them to your evaluation environment. Additional runtime installers can be run on your environment by just launching the installer and following its installation instructions:

wine <some-installer.exe>

.MSI packages can be installed by launching the Windows uninstaller application and choosing to install a downloaded .msi package:

wine uninstaller

Game won’t boot anymore despite no changes

Try clearing the shader cache

  
cd $(getconf DARWIN_USER_CACHE_DIR)/d3dm
cd «GAME_NAME»
rm -r shaders.cache

Enable experimental MetalFX integration

This ONLY works for macOS 16 AND Game Porting Toolkit 3.0!
Refer to Method 1 Prebuilt on how to download Game Porting Toolkit 3.0

To enable experimental MetalFX integration:

Rename wine/x86_64-unix/nvngx-on-metalfx.so to wine/x86_64-unix/nvngx.so (if this hasn’t already been done)
Rename wine/x86_64-windows/nvngx-on-metalfx.dll to wine/x86_64-windows/nvngx.dll (if this hasn’t already been done)
Copy both nvngx.dll and nvapi64.dll to the windows\system32 directory your Wine prefix’s virtual C: drive (open $WINEPREFIX/drive_c/windows/system32)
Rename old versions in system32 to nvngx_orig.dll and nvapi64_orig.dll
Set D3DM_ENABLE_METALFX=1 to convert DLSS functions to MetalFX (where possible)

Refer to MetalFX Integration for Bash script.

Steam

steamwebhelper not responding

Complete the following steps if you updated Steam to the latest version and/or get an error along the lines of:

steamwebhelper, a critical Steam component, is not responding. The Steam UI will not be usable.

This error is common when using an outdated version of Wine with a new version of Steam.

If you haven’t already, set your WINEPREFIX (aka bottle), otherwise it’ll default to $HOME/.wine
1 export WINEPREFIX="$HOME/Games"
Enter your WINEPREFIX (aka bottle)
1 cd "$WINEPREFIX"

Run cmd.exe

  
 "$WINE" "C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe"

Enter your Steam directory
1 cd "drive_c\Program Files (x86)\Steam"
Try "Z:\Users\<YOUR_USERNAME>\<YOUR_BOTTLE_NAME>\drive_c\Program Files (x86)\Steam" if the previous command doesn’t work, where <YOUR_USERNAME> is your Mac username and <YOUR_BOTTLE_NAME> is $WINEPREFIX without $HOME

Downgrade your Steam version

Running an outdated version of Steam is not recommended by Valve due to possible security risks. Proceed at your own risk.

This will restore an older Steam version from 3/6/2025

  
steam.exe -forcesteamupdate -forcepackagedownload -overridepackageurl http://web.archive.org/web/20250306194830if_/media.steampowered.com/client -exitsteam

If that doesn’t work, try this Steam version from 1/28/2025

  
steam.exe -forcesteamupdate -forcepackagedownload -overridepackageurl http://web.archive.org/web/20250128if_/media.steampowered.com/client -exitsteam

If that doesn’t work, try this Steam version from 5/20/2024

  
steam.exe -forcesteamupdate -forcepackagedownload -overridepackageurl http://web.archive.org/web/20240520if_/media.steampowered.com/client -exitsteam

If that doesn’t work, try this Steam version from 7/2/2023

  
steam.exe -forcesteamupdate -forcepackagedownload -overridepackageurl https://web.archive.org/web/20230702125953if_/media.steampowered.com/client -exitsteam

Visit the Internet Archive / Wayback Machine to view all archived versions of Steam from 10/17/2007 to present.

Exit
1 exit

Create/update steam.cfg

  
 cat <<EOF > $WINEPREFIX/drive_c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Steam/steam.cfg

Enter the following (to disable auto-update)

 BootStrapperInhibitAll=enable
 BootStrapperForceSelfUpdate=disable
 EOF

Restart Steam

  
 "$WINE" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam.exe"

Optional args for steam.exe (tho including them caused some issues):
1 -noverifyfiles -nobootstrapupdate -skipinitialbootstrap -norepairfiles -overridepackageurl

Steam download freezes

This is if you’re unable to download a game via Steam (GUI/app). Usually it’ll go up to a certain percentage (often 80%) and then immediately drops (i.e. stops downloading, graph goes flat to 0), giving an error like “content servers unreachable”, “corrupt download”, “content unavailable”, etc.

You may need to add Steam as a trusted device¹⁰:

System Settings > Privacy & Security > App Management

Method 1: Steam Console

Source¹¹

Make sure you have the native Steam app for macOS

Use ~ instead of $HOME for any paths!

Open your web browser (e.g. Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc.) and enter steam://open/console in the URL bar
Once Steam (for macOS) opens, click the Console tab
Enter the following in the bottom prompt to enable downloading Windows games via macOS Steam
1 @sSteamCmdForcePlatformType windows
Either through SteamDB.info or via the store page’s link, find and copy the app ID (e.g. 3527290) of the game you want to download
Enter the following in the console, where <APP_ID> is the app ID (e.g. 3164500) of the game you want to download
1 app_install <APP_ID>
If you need a beta access, include the following flag, where <CHANNEL_NAME> is the channel name
1 -beta <CHANNEL_NAME>
Once the app is done downloading, which you can see in your Steam’s Download Manager, right click it and go to Manage > Browse Local Files to open Finder’s window with the game files inside; this should be in path $HOME/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/<YOUR_GAMES_NAME>, where <YOUR_GAMES_NAME> is the name of the game you want to download
Move all of the aforementioned game files to the same location (i.e. $WINEPREFIX/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/<YOUR_GAMES_NAME>) inside your Windows Steam installation
Two folders up (i.e. path $HOME/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/), move the file appmanifest_<APP_ID>.acf, where <APP_ID> is your game’s Steam app ID, to the same location (i.e. $WINEPREFIX/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/) inside your Windows Steam installation. E.g. appmanifest_3164500.acf
Run your Windows Steam installation as normal and the game should appear as downloaded in your Steam library

Method 2: SteamCMD

If you don’t have SteamCMD installed, refer to Install SteamCMD section

Enter SteamCMD directory and run SteamCMD

  
 cd "$HOME/SteamCMD" && ./steamcmd.sh

Set your app directory, where <APP_PATH> is where you want to save the game. In this case, it’ll be in your Wine prefix’s ($WINEPREFIX) steamapps directory (i.e. $WINEPREFIX/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/)
1 force_install_dir <APP_PATH>
If you are running SteamCMD from your path env or installed it as a package, it will return an error if you try to use . as a directory. A workaround for this is to use the absolute path to the current directory.
When downloading/downloaded via SteamCMD:
- Downloaded appmanifest is in <APP_PATH>/steamapps/ directory
- Downloaded appmanifest should be [moved] in $WINEPREFIX/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/ directory
- <APP_PATH>/steamapps/ can be deleted AFTER its appmanifest has been moved to $WINEPREFIX/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/ directory
- <APP_PATH>/!steamapps/ contains everything [that should be] in the game’s source folder (i.e. $WINEPREFIX/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/<GAME_NAME>/)
Login to your Steam account, where <STEAM_USERNAME> is your Steam username (or anonymous if you don’t want to login, though you won’t be able to download your purchased games)
1 login <STEAM_USERNAME>
Valve recommends setting the install directory BEFORE logging in
Install or update the app using the app_update command, where <APP_ID> is the app’s Steam Application ID. If you don’t know the Steam Application ID for the server, tool, or game you want to download, use steamdb.info to locate it.
1 app_update <APP_ID> [-beta <BETA_NAME>] [-betapassword <BETA_PASSWORD>] [validate]
- Dedicated server list
- Use the -beta <BETA_NAME> option to download a beta branch
- For beta branches protected by a password, include the -betapassword <BETA_PASSWORD> option to be able to download from them
- Add validate to the command to check all the server files to make sure they match SteamCMD files; this command is useful if you think files may be missing or corrupted. However, this will overwrite any changed files to the server default; any files that aren’t part of the default installation will not be affected. Therefore, it is recommended you use this command only on initial installation and if there are server issues.
Log off Steam servers once finished
1 quit

ALTERNATIVELY, continue reading if you want to use a script instead

Create a file install_game.txt with the following contents, and replace the :

 @ShutdownOnFailedCommand 1
 @NoPromptForPassword 1
 @sSteamCmdForcePlatformType windows
	
 // Install game into <APP_PATH>
 force_install_dir <APP_PATH>
	
 // Log into your Steam account
 login <STEAM_USERNAME> <STEAM_PASSWORD>
 // OR if you don't want to login, remove the previous line and uncomment the next line
 // login anonymous
	
 // To find your Steam game's app ID: https://steamdb.info
 app_update <APP_ID> validate
	
 quit

Run script with the +runscript option
1 ./steamcmd.sh +runscript install_game.txt
- If you get an error like Failed to load script file '<SCRIPT_NAME>', try providing an absolute path, e.g. /absolute/path/to/<SCRIPT_NAME>
- If you get an error like Failed to install app '<APP_ID>' (No subscription), the game/server you are trying to download either requires a login or that you have purchased the game. You will therefore have to log in with a Steam username and password (i.e. use login <STEAM_USERNAME> <STEAM_PASSWORD> instead of login anonymous).

The aforementioned script is functionally the same as:

./steamcmd.sh +@sSteamCmdForcePlatformType windows +force_install_dir <APP_PATH> +login <STEAM_USERNAME> +app_update <APP_ID> validate +quit

For the sake of convenience, I’ve written a bash function to download a Steam app into a given WINEPREFIX’s Steam directory. You can find this function at Bash Functions for Gaming.

Memory

Dynamically allocate VRAM

Allocate memory for VRAM, where DESIRED_VRAM_MB is an integer number of how many MB of VRAM you want to allocate.¹²

sudo sysctl iogpu.wired_limit_mb=DESIRED_VRAM_MB

To set it permanently:

  
sudo touch /etc/sysctl.conf
sudo chown root:wheel /etc/sysctl.conf
sudo chmod 0644 /etc/sysctl.conf
echo "iogpu.wired_limit_mb=DESIRED_VRAM_MB" >> /etc/sysctl.conf

Set video memory size

Sometimes Game Porting Toolkit and your game not properly communicating with each other about how much Video RAM your system has (more than likely, GPTk is not getting the correct value from your system).¹³

You may need this setting if you have the following symptoms:

Strange rendering
Crash/Freeze on launch

A log file that says something like:

fixme:d3d_texture:texture_init Failed to create surface 0x35c4fc68, hr 0x8876017c
err:d3d:resource_init Out of adapter memory

Click the Apple icon in the upper-left corner and select About This Mac
Note the value next to Memory (e.g. 64 GB), multiply it by either 2 or 3, divide by either 3 or 4, and round the result down if it’s not a whole number
64 * 2 / 3 = 128 / 3 ≈ 42
Your final answer is the approximate amount of VRAM you have. This is an approximation since MacBook Pro M-series uses unified memory (i.e. memory is shared between CPU and GPU), so there’s only RAM, not VRAM. Technically the amount of VRAM you have is equal to the amount of RAM, but in practice it’s less since some of that RAM is reserved by the system to prevent instability.
Switch architecture
1 arch -x86_64 /bin/bash
Open regedit
1 wine regedit
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wine
If Direct3D isn’t already there, right-click Wineand navigate to New
Click Key
Input Direct3D, then press Return to save its name
To rename a key, right-click it and click Rename
Double-click Direct3D to open
Right-click anywhere that isn’t a key (i.e. right-click anywhere in the white space)
Navigate to New and click String Value
Input VideoMemorySize, then press Return to save its name
Double-click VideoMemorySize to set its value
Under Value data:, enter 16384 (i.e. 16.384 GB), click OK, then close regedit

I recommend experimenting with the value (in MB) of VideoMemorySize. Some users say 4096 is better, etc. Might need to do some trial and error.

32bit games crash after 4GB RAM

Set the following environment variable:

  
export WINE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE=1

Wine

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Mac Driver¹⁴

Disable window decorations

The heuristics that Wine uses to decide whether or not to trim off the edges of windows and replace them with the platform-native window decorations are imperfect. The Mac driver, like the X11 driver, has a registry setting to turn off window decorations for situations like this.¹⁵

  
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Mac Driver' /v 'Decorated' /t REG_SZ /d 'N' /f

To re-enable window decorations:

  
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Mac Driver' /v 'Decorated' /t REG_SZ /d 'Y' /f

Disable vertical sync (vsync)

  
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Mac Driver' /v 'AllowVerticalSync' /t REG_SZ /d 'N' /f

Prevent Wine from creating filetype associations

This method prevents the creation of filetype associations but retains the creation of XDG .desktop files (that you might see e.g. in menus).

  
wine reg add "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\FileOpenAssociations" /v 'Enable' /d 'N'

Allow Wine to run

After downloading binary files online (e.g. Wine builds, etc.), you won’t be able to run it immediately since macOS’s blocks it as a safety feature.

To allow it to run, execute this command (PATH_TO_WINE_DIRECTORY is the path to your Wine directory)

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine PATH_TO_WINE_DIRECTORY

So, for example, if you want to do it for your DXMT Wine 10.19 build in "$HOME/Wine/dxmt/10.19", it’d look like:

  
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "$HOME/Wine/dxmt/10.19"

If you prefer to do this manually (which can get pretty tedious since you’d need to do this for every single file):

Open System Settings
Go to Privacy & Security, then scrolling down to Security section
Manually click the Allow button for each Wine-related file after running some wine command

Restore original DLL files

wineboot -u

Pixelated and limited display resolution

Enable Retina (aka high resolution mode)

  
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Mac Driver' /v 'RetinaMode' /t REG_SZ /d 'Y' /f

Some games will not run with Retina mode enabled; to disable:
1 wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Mac Driver' /v 'RetinaMode' /t REG_SZ /d 'N' /f

To check if it’s set:

wine reg query 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Mac Driver' /v 'RetinaMode'

Adjust DPI scaling level

You can adjust scaling to 100% (96 DPI = 100% scaling), or you can also use whatever DPI value you prefer

wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop' /v 'LogPixels' /t REG_DWORD /d 96 /f

Set drivers

  
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Drivers' /v 'Graphics' /t REG_SZ /d 'mac,x11' /f

Enable noflicker

  
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Mac Driver' /t REG_SZ /v 'ForceOpenGLBackingStore' /d 'Y' /f

Restrict Wine processes to subset of available cores

Pass a CPU mask through the WINECPUMASK environment variable¹⁶

  
export WINECPUMASK=0xff

This will tie Wine processes (including wineserver) to the first 8 cores and limit the number of reported cores to 8. You may also get a performance gain if the mask specifies the cores of one core complex (CCX). E.g. this Bash script computes the mask for the first CCX:

  
#!/usr/bin/env bash
local model_name="$(sysctl -n machdep.cpu.brand_string)"

NUM_CPUS=$(sysctl -n hw.logicalcpu)
echo "$NUM_CPUS-core CPU"

CCX_MASK=$(((1 << $NUM_CPUS / 2) - 1))
echo -n "first CCX mask: "
printf "0x%x\n" $CCX_MASK

With this patch The Forest goes from 23 to 40 fps on a 16 core Ryzen CPU

Check prefix architecture

You can manually print the value of $WINEARCH (which should be either win64 or win32)

  
echo "$WINEARCH"

You can also read the system registry of $WINEPREFIX; depending on the architecture, it should output #arch=win32, #arch=win64, or Unknown

  
reg_arch="$(grep '#arch' $WINEPREFIX/system.reg)" && echo "${reg_arch#'#arch='}" || echo "Unknown"

This should print value after #arch= (i.e. win32 or win64) or “Unknown” if #arch is not in system.reg

prefix="#arch="
reg_val="#arch=win64"
wine_arch=${reg_val#"$prefix"}
echo "${wine_arch}"
win64

Audio

Some games have messed up and/or crackling audio

This fix¹⁷ was recommended for audio crackling in Far Cry 3¹⁸, where it sounds like it’s coming out a Geiger counter

Open Audio MIDI Setup app
Select your speaker on the left, then click on the drop down menu at the right side
Change the output to 96,000Hz (default should be set to 44,000hz I think)

Some games don’t have sound

Some games (e.g. Cities Skylines, Starcraft 2 and Heroes of the Storm) stopped having any sound at some point. This may be due to the extra audio drivers installed as plugin by Microsoft Teams. Simply remove the audio driver:

sudo rm -rf /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/MSTeamsAudioDevice.driver

Removing the Teams audio drivers does not prevent Teams from working normally; apparently they’re an optional module during Teams setup

There have been similar reports for other games that also had sound problems and after users removed any extra audio drivers, sound started working again. Looking into this problem I saw similar reports about Zoom audio drivers as well.¹⁹

Alternatively, you may have to override certain Wine DLLs²⁰:

  
export WINEDLLOVERRIDES="xaudio2_7=n,b"

Fonts

Unreadable or missing fonts

If you don’t have any fonts installed, you can link all of the system fonts so they are accessible from Wine:

  
cd "$WINEPREFIX/drive_c/windows/Fonts" && for i in /usr/share/fonts/**/*.{ttf,otf}; do ln -s "$i"; done

Wine uses FreeType to render fonts, and FreeType’s defaults changed a few releases ago. Try using the following environment variable when running programs in Wine:

  
FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=35"

Another option is to install Microsoft’s TrueType fonts into your wine prefix. If this does not help, try running winetricks corefonts first, then winetricks allfonts as a last resort.

After running such programs, kill all Wine servers and run winecfg. Fonts should be legible now.

Font smoothing

Font smoothing improves the font’s display resolution and font rendering.

Method 1: Winetricks

winetricks fontsmooth=rgb

Method 2: Regedit

Enable anti-alias

  
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\X11 Driver' /v 'ClientSideAntiAliasWithCore' /t REG_SZ /d 'Y' /f
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\X11 Driver' /v 'ClientSideAntiAliasWithRender' /t REG_SZ /d 'Y' /f
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\X11 Driver' /v 'ClientSideWithRender' /t REG_SZ /d 'Y' /f

If the fonts look somehow smeared, disable anti-aliased fonts

  
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\X11 Driver' /v 'ClientSideAntiAliasWithCore' /t REG_SZ /d 'N' /f
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\X11 Driver' /v 'ClientSideAntiAliasWithRender' /t REG_SZ /d 'N' /f
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\X11 Driver' /v 'ClientSideWithRender' /t REG_SZ /d 'N' /f

Enable subpixel smoothing/rendering/anti-aliasing (ClearType) RGB

  
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop' /v 'FontSmoothing' /t REG_SZ /d '2' /f
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop' /v 'FontSmoothingOrientation' /t REG_DWORD /d 00000001 /f
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop' /v 'FontSmoothingType' /t REG_DWORD /d 00000002 /f
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop' /v 'FontSmoothingGamma' /t REG_DWORD /d 00000578 /f

Disable subpixel smoothing

  
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop' /v 'FontSmoothing' /t REG_SZ /d '0' /f
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop' /v 'FontSmoothingOrientation' /t REG_DWORD /d 00000001 /f
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop' /v 'FontSmoothingType' /t REG_DWORD /d 00000000 /f
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop' /v 'FontSmoothingGamma' /t REG_DWORD /d 00000578 /f

Enable standard font smoothing

  
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop' /v 'FontSmoothing' /t REG_SZ /d '2' /f
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop' /v 'FontSmoothingOrientation' /t REG_DWORD /d 00000001 /f
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop' /v 'FontSmoothingType' /t REG_DWORD /d 00000001 /f
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop' /v 'FontSmoothingGamma' /t REG_DWORD /d 00000578 /f

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop Keys:

Registry Key	Value
`FontSmoothing`	`0`: Disable font smoothing ~~`1`: Enable standard font smoothing~~ `2`: Enable ClearType font smoothing
`FontSmoothingType`	~~`0`: Switch to gray (i.e. basic) font smoothing~~ `1`: Regular; switch to gray (i.e. basic) font smoothing `2`: Subpixel; switch to colored (i.e. ClearType) font smoothing
`FontSmoothingGamma`	`0` (dark/heavier) to `2200` (light/finer) decimal: Intensity of color and darkness of the smoothing
`FontSmoothingOrientation`	`0`: ~~None~~ BGR (?) `1`: RGB format (red, green, blue) for LCD, normal ~~`2`: BGR format (blue, green, red) for LCD~~

Keyboard

Fix keyboard shortcuts

Wine by default maps the keys differently than native macOS applications. It’s possible to change some of the keyboard mappings.

Map Option as Alt:

  
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Mac Driver' /v 'LeftOptionIsAlt' /t REG_SZ /d 'Y'
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Mac Driver' /v 'RightOptionIsAlt' /t REG_SZ /d 'Y'

Map Command as CTRL:

  
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Mac Driver' /v 'LeftCommandIsCtrl' /t REG_SZ /d 'Y'
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Mac Driver' /v 'RightCommandIsCtrl' /t REG_SZ /d 'Y'

Keyboard input not working

This could be caused by the window manager not switching focus.

Method 1: Winetricks

winetricks usetakefocus=n

Method 2: Regedit

Toggle all the Window settings, click Apply, then change them back.

If that does not work, go to the Graphics tab of winecfg, disable the Allow the window manager… options, or set windowed mode with Emulate a virtual desktop.

If the keyboard still does not work after unfocusing the application, try editing the registry

  
wine reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\X11 Driver' /t REG_SZ /v 'UseTakeFocus' /d 'N' /f

Shaders

You can view and/or delete the shader caches if you run into any issues, like Game won’t boot anymore despite no changes

D3DM shader caching

$(getconf DARWIN_USER_CACHE_DIR)/d3dm

Example contents

CrashReportClient.exe                 MassEffectLauncher.exe
EADesktop.exe                         MCC-Win64-Shipping.exe
EALaunchHelper.exe                    OblivionRemastered-Win64-Shipping.exe
EpicWebHelper.exe                     Palworld-Win64-Shipping.exe
GhostOfTsushima.exe                   Schedule I.exe
GoW.exe                               SkyrimSE.exe
IGOProxy64.exe                        steamwebhelper.exe

The shaders for each game are in the shaders.cache subdirectory in each game directory. E.g. cached shaders for Schedule I would be in $(getconf DARWIN_USER_CACHE_DIR)/d3dm/Schedule I.exe/shaders.cache

DXMT shader caching

$(getconf DARWIN_USER_CACHE_DIR)/dxmt

Example contents

EpicWebHelper.exe           steamwebhelper.exe
Palworld-Win64-Shipping.exe

Miscellaneous

“Symbol not found” when setting game mode

You may get this error if setting game-mode (e.g. /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/gamepolicyctl game-mode set auto)

dyld[52755]: Symbol not found: _$s2os6LoggerV10GamePolicyE4toolACvau
  Referenced from: <EF9CA6F2-E5BD-35B1-ACC3-E45E7CBB0AD4> /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/gamepolicyctl
  Expected in:     <7962FD29-508F-3668-87F7-68AC93844B60> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/GamePolicy.framework/Versions/A/GamePolicy
Abort trap: 6

This may be due to a version mismatch (especially if you recently updated your OS without updating XCode). To fix, update XCode and then try running game-mode again.

gamepolicyctl tool may have been compiled against an older version of GamePolicy.framework than the one installed on your system. This often happens when you have mismatched Xcode and macOS versions.

DXVK runs out of memory and crashes

With the following repeated in the terminal

[mvk-warn] VK_ERROR_OUT_OF_POOL_MEMORY: VkDescriptorPool exhausted pool of (x) descriptors. Allocating descriptor dynamically.

You should allocate enough memory [in the pool] by creating multiple pools.

VK_ERROR_OUT_OF_POOL_MEMORY:

Used to determine when to allocate a new descriptor pool.
Returned if allocation fails due to no more space in the descriptor pool (and not because of system or device memory exhaustion).

Applications fail to start

Some older games and applications assume that the current working directory is the same as that which the executable is in. Launching these executables from other locations will prevent them from starting correctly. Use cd path_containing_exe before invoking Wine to rule this possibility out.

“Operation not permitted” error

macOS often restricts Terminal/iTerm access to certain system-related directories, which can cause the “Operation not permitted” error when trying to delete certain files.

To grant full disk access:

Open System Preferences
Go to Privacy & Security > Full Disk Access
Grant Terminal/iTerm full disk access (if it’s not already listed, click the Plus (+) button to add an application and choose Terminal/iTerm)

Environment Variables

Wine

Name	Description	Options	Example
`WINE`	Specify which version of Wine to use, if you have multiple different versions.	Wine path (i.e. `/path/to/your/wine`)	`WINE="/usr/local/bin/wine64"`
`WINEPREFIX`	Directory where Wine stores its data (default is `$HOME/.wine`). This directory is also used to identify the socket which is used to communicate with the wineserver. All wine processes using the same wineserver (i.e. same user) share certain things like registry, shared memory, and config file. By setting `WINEPREFIX` to different values for different wine processes, it is possible to run a number of truly independent wine processes.		`WINEPREFIX="$HOME/Bottles/DXMT"`
`WINESERVER`	Specifies the path and name of the wineserver binary. If not set, Wine will look for a file named "wineserver" in the path and in a few other likely locations.		`WINESERVER=$HOME/Wine/dxmt/10.18/bin/wineserver`
`WINEDEBUG`	Turns debugging messages on or off; can be used to silence logs, enable detailed logging for components, or filter specific messages. The syntax of the variable is of the form `[class][+\|-]channel[,[class2][+\|-]channel2]` class is optional and can be one of the following: err, warn, fixme, or trace. If class is not specified, all debugging messages for the specified channel are turned on. Each channel will print messages about a particular component of Wine. The following character can be either + or - to switch the specified channel on or off respectively. If there is no class part before it, a leading + can be omitted. Note that spaces are not allowed anywhere in the string.		`WINEDEBUG=warn+all` will turn on all warning messages (recommended for debugging). `WINEDEBUG=warn+dll,+heap` will turn on DLL warning messages and all heap messages. `WINEDEBUG=fixme-all,warn+cursor,+relay` will turn off all FIXME messages, turn on cursor warning messages, and turn on all relay messages (API calls). `WINEDEBUG=relay` will turn on all relay messages. For more control on including or excluding functions and dlls from the relay trace, look into the `HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Debug` registry key.
`WINEDLLPATH`	Specifies the path(s) in which to search for builtin dlls and Winelib applications. This is a list of directories separated by `:`. In addition to any directory specified in `WINEDLLPATH`, Wine will also look in the installation directory.		`WINEDLLPATH=`
`WINEDLLOVERRIDES`	Defines the override type and load order of dlls used in the loading process for any dll. There are currently two types of libraries that can be loaded into a process address space: native windows dlls (`native`) and Wine internal dlls (`builtin`). The type may be abbreviated with the first letter of the type (`n` or `b`). The library may also be disabled (`''`). Each sequence of orders must be separated by commas. Each dll may have its own specific load order. The load order determines which version of the dll is attempted to be loaded into the address space. If the first fails, then the next is tried and so on. Multiple libraries with the same load order can be separated with commas. It is also possible to use specify different loadorders for different libraries by separating the entries by `;`. The load order for a 16-bit dll is always defined by the load order of the 32-bit dll that contains it (which can be identified by looking at the symbolic link of the 16-bit `.dll.so` file). For instance if `ole32.dll` is configured as `builtin`, `storage.dll` will be loaded as `builtin` too, since the 32-bit `ole32.dll` contains the 16-bit `storage.dll`.		`WINEDLLOVERRIDES="comdlg32,shell32=n,b"` Try to load `comdlg32` and `shell32` as `native` windows dll first and try the `builtin` version if the `native` load fails. `WINEDLLOVERRIDES="comdlg32,shell32=n;c:\\foo\\bar\\baz=b"` Try to load the libraries `comdlg32` and `shell32` as `native` windows dlls. Furthermore, if an application request to load `c:\foo\bar\baz.dll` load the `builtin` library `baz`. `WINEDLLOVERRIDES="comdlg32=b,n;shell32=b;comctl32=n;oleaut32="` Try to load `comdlg32` as `builtin` first and try the `native` version if the `builtin` load fails; load `shell32` always as `builtin` and `comctl32` always as `native`; `oleaut32` will be disabled. `WINEDLLOVERRIDES="mscoree=d;mshtml=d"` Disable dialog prompting you to download Gecko and/or Mono.
`WINEPATH`	Specifies additional path(s) to be prepended to the default Windows `PATH` environment variable. This is a list of Windows-style directories separated by `;`. For a permanent alternative, edit (create if needed) the `PATH` value under the `HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment` registry key.		`WINEPATH=`
`WINEARCH`	Specifies the Windows architecture to support. The architecture supported by a given Wine prefix is set at prefix creation time and cannot be changed afterwards. When running with an existing prefix, Wine will refuse to start if `WINEARCH` doesn't match the prefix architecture. It is possible however to switch freely between `win64` and `wow64` with an existing 64-bit prefix.	`win32` Support only 32-bit applications `win64` Support both 64-bit applications and 32-bit ones. `wow64` Support 64-bit applications and 32-bit ones, using a 64-bit host process in all cases.	`WINEARCH=win64`
`WINE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE`	Prevents 32bit games from crashing after reaching 4GB of RAM.	`0` (OFF), `1` (ON)	`WINE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE=1`
`WINE_D3D_CONFIG`	Specifies Direct3D configuration options. It can be used instead of modifying the `HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Direct3D` registry key. The value is a comma- or semicolon-separated list of key-value pairs. If an individual setting is specified in both the environment variable and the registry, the former takes precedence.		`WINE_D3D_CONFIG="renderer=vulkan;VideoPciVendorID=0xc0de"`
`WINEESYNC`	Enables Eventfd Synchronization (ESync), which reduces overhead from thread synchronization by replacing Windows synchronization objects with `eventfd` objects. Improves multithreaded application and game performance. Available on Linux and macOS.	`0` (OFF), `1` (ON)	`WINEESYNC=1`
`WINEMSYNC`	Intended for Mac Synchronization (MSync), adapting synchronization improvements like ESync/FSync for macOS systems using Mach ports. Aims to reduce overhead on macOS similarly to how FSync helps Linux. Experimental, still relatively new, and less mature than ESync/FSync.	`0` (OFF), `1` (ON)	`WINEMSYNC=0`
`WINE_FULLSCREEN_FSR`	Enables FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) upscaling when Wine runs fullscreen apps. Good for boosting low-res games on Mac displays.	`0` (OFF), `1` (ON)	`WINE_FULLSCREEN_FSR=1`
`WINE_FULLSCREEN_FSR_STRENGTH`	Controls image sharpness when FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) upscaling (i.e. `WINE_FULLSCREEN_FSR`) is enabled. Defaults to `5`.	A number from `5` (minimum) to `0` (maximum)	`WINE_FULLSCREEN_FSR_STRENGTH=3`
`WINE_NO_FULLSCREEN`	Forces Wine apps to run in a window even if they want fullscreen. Useful for compatibility.	`0` (OFF), `1` (ON)	`WINE_NO_FULLSCREEN=0`
`VKD3D_FEATURE_LEVEL`		`12_2`, `4`, etc.	`VKD3D_FEATURE_LEVEL=12_2`
`GST_DEBUG`	Controls logging level for GStreamer (used by Wine for media playback). Useful if games/apps involve video/audio playback issues.	`3` (info level), `4` (debug level)	Example
`LC_ALL`	Sets the system-wide locale for Wine and its programs. Important for avoiding weird character encoding issues (especially in older games).	`en_US` or `en_US.UTF-8` (forces US English encoding)	`LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8`
`DISPLAY`	Specifies the X11 display to use.		`DISPLAY=`
`AUDIODEV`	Set the device for audio input / output. Default `/dev/dsp`.		`AUDIODEV=/dev/dsp`
`MIXERDEV`	Set the device for mixer controls. Default `/dev/mixer`.		`MIXERDEV=/dev/mixer`
`MIDIDEV`	Set the MIDI (sequencer) device. Default `/dev/sequencer`.		`MIDIDEV=/dev/sequencer`

D3DMetal

Environment variables can be used to control some aspects of translation and emulation in the evaluation environment.

Name	Description	Options	Example
`D3DM_SUPPORT_DXR`	Defaults to `0` (OFF) on M1 & M2 Macs, and to `1` (ON) for M3 & later Macs. Setting this environment variable to `1` (ON) enables DirectX Raytracing (aka DXR) features in D3DMetal’s DirectX 12 translation layer, so games querying for DXR support will find the support level and expected interfaces of DXR.	`0` (OFF), `1` (ON)	`D3DM_SUPPORT_DXR=1`
`ROSETTA_ADVERTISE_AVX`	Defaults to `0` (OFF). On macOS 15 Sequoia, setting this environment variable to `1` (ON) causes the CPU instruction translation layer to publish cpuid information to translated applications when running in the evaluation environment, so games querying instruction set extension capabilities before utilizing them can conditionally control their use of instruction extensions. This setting does not modify the availability of the instruction set in Rosetta; it only controls whether the processor advertises its support for these extensions.	`0` (OFF), `1` (ON)	`ROSETTA_ADVERTISE_AVX=1`
`D3DM_ENABLE_METALFX`	On macOS 16, setting this environment variable to `1` (ON) causes DLSS functions to be converted to MetalFX where possible. Setting this environment variable to `0` (OFF) causes DLSS functions to be not be available.	`0` (OFF), `1` (ON)	`D3DM_ENABLE_METALFX=1`

DXMT

Name	Description	Options	Example
`DXMT_ENABLE_NVEXT`	Enable [implemented subset of] NVIDIA vendor extensions and load `nvapi64.dll` and `nvngx.dll`. It is NOT recommended to always enable this extension, because the game may use certain techniques that is only fast on NVIDIA hardware but extremely slow on others. Use it when it's actually beneficial. Current implemented features: HDR , DLSS SuperResolution (translated to MetalFX Temporal Scaler) : NOT ALL GAMES REQUIRE vendor extension to enable HDR, especially if it's released recently and/or targets Windows 11.	`0` (OFF), `1` (ON)	`DXMT_ENABLE_NVEXT=1`
`MTL_SHADER_VALIDATION`	Enable Metal shader validation layer for DXMT.	`0` (OFF), `1` (ON)	`MTL_SHADER_VALIDATION=0`
`MTL_DEBUG_LAYER`	Enable Metal API validation layer for DXMT.	`0` (OFF), `1` (ON)	`MTL_DEBUG_LAYER=0`
`MTL_CAPTURE_ENABLED`	Enable Metal frame capture for DXMT.	`0` (OFF), `1` (ON)	`MTL_CAPTURE_ENABLED=0`
`DXMT_LOG_LEVEL`	Controls message logging for DXMT.	`none`, `error`, `warn`, `info`, `debug`	`DXMT_LOG_LEVEL=warn`
`DXMT_LOG_PATH`	Changes path where DXMT log files are stored. Log files in the given directory will be called `app_d3d11.log`, `app_dxgi.log`, etc., where `app` is the name of the game executable. Set to `none` to disable log file creation entirely without disabling logging (i.e. log messages will still be printed to `stderr`).	`/some/directory`, `none`	`DXMT_LOG_PATH=$HOME/dxmt/logs`
`DXMT_CAPTURE_FRAME`	Automatically captures n-th frame. Useful for debugging a replay.	`n` (i.e. any positive integer)	`DXMT_CAPTURE_FRAME=3`
`DXMT_CAPTURE_EXECUTABLE`	Must be set to enable Metal frame capture. Press `F10` to generate a capture. The captured result will be stored in the same directory as the executable.	`"executable name without extension"`	`DXMT_CAPTURE_EXECUTABLE="Palworld"`
`DXMT_METALFX_SPATIAL_SWAPCHAIN`	Enable MetalFX spatial upscaler on output swapchain. By default it will double the output resolution. Set `d3d11.metalSpatialUpscaleFactor` to a value between `1.0` and `2.0` to change the scale factor.	`0` (OFF), `1` (ON)	`DXMT_METALFX_SPATIAL_SWAPCHAIN=1`
`DXMT_CONFIG_FILE`	Sets path to the DXMT configuration file. Check `dxmt.conf` in DXMT GitHub repository for reference.	`/path/to/dxmt.conf`	`DXMT_CONFIG_FILE=/Users/lynkos/dxmt/dxmt.conf`
`DXMT_CONFIG`	Can be used to set config variables through the environment instead of a configuration file using the same syntax. `;` is used as a separator. Set `d3d11.preferredMaxFrameRate` to enforce the application's frame pacing being controlled by Metal. The value must be a factor of your display's refresh rate (e.g. `15`, `30`, `40`, `60`, `120` are valid for a 120hz display).	`"DXMT config variables separated with ;"`	`DXMT_CONFIG="d3d11.preferredMaxFrameRate=30;d3d11.metalSpatialUpscaleFactor=1.5;"`

DXVK

Name	Description	Options	Example
`DXVK_ASYNC`	Enables async shader compilation in DXVK. Reduces stutter by allowing shaders to compile in the background, but may cause visual glitches. Needs a patched version of DXVK to work.	`0` (OFF), `1` (ON)	`DXVK_ASYNC=1`
`DXVK_HUD`	Controls a HUD which can display FPS and some stat counters.	`1` (has the same effect as `devinfo,fps`) `full` (enables all available HUD elements) `devinfo` (displays the name of the GPU and the driver version) `fps` (shows the current frame rate) `frametimes` (shows a frame time graph) `submissions` (shows the number of command buffers submitted per frame) `drawcalls` (shows the number of draw calls and render passes per frame) `pipelines` (shows the total number of graphics and compute pipelines) `memory` (shows the amount of device memory allocated and used) `gpuload` (shows estimated GPU load; may be inaccurate) `version` (shows DXVK version) `api` (shows the D3D feature level used by the application) `compiler` (shows shader compiler activity) `samplers` (shows the current number of sampler pairs used; D3D9 Only) `scale=x` (scales the HUD by a factor of `x`)	`DXVK_HUD=1`
`DXVK_FRAME_RATE`	Can be used to limit the frame rate. Alternatively, the configuration file can be used.	`0` uncaps the frame rate, while any positive value will limit rendering to the given number of frames per second	`DXVK_FRAME_RATE=15`
`DXVK_FILTER_DEVICE_NAME`	Some applications do not provide a method to select a different GPU. In that case, DXVK can be forced to use a given device. Selects devices with a matching Vulkan device name, which can be retrieved with tools such as `vulkaninfo`. Matches on substrings, so "VEGA" or "AMD RADV VEGA10" is supported if the full device name is "AMD RADV VEGA10 (LLVM 9.0.0)", for example. If the substring matches more than one device, the first device matched will be used. Note: If the device filter is configured incorrectly, it may filter out all devices and applications will be unable to create a D3D device.		`DXVK_FILTER_DEVICE_NAME="Device Name"`
`DXVK_STATE_CACHE`	Enables state cache in DXVK.	`0` (OFF), `1` (ON)	`DXVK_STATE_CACHE=0`
`DXVK_STATE_CACHE_PATH`	Specifies a directory where to put the cache files. Defaults to the current working directory of the application.		`DXVK_STATE_CACHE_PATH=/some/directory`

MoltenVK

This section is still under construction. Please refer to MoltenVK’s configuration parameters file for the full list.

Name	Type	Description	Options	Default	Example
`MVK_CONFIG_ACTIVITY_PERFORMANCE_LOGGING_STYLE`	Enumeration	If the `MVK_CONFIG_PERFORMANCE_TRACKING` parameter is enabled, this parameter controls when MoltenVK should log activity performance events.	`0`: Log repeatedly every number of frames configured by the `MVK_CONFIG_PERFORMANCE_LOGGING_FRAME_COUNT` parameter. `1`: Log immediately after each performance measurement. `2`: Log at the end of the VkDevice lifetime. This is useful for one-shot apps such as testing frameworks. `3`: Log at the end of the VkDevice lifetime, but continue to accumulate across multiple VkDevices throughout the app process. This is useful for testing frameworks that create many VkDevices serially.	`0`	`MVK_CONFIG_ACTIVITY_PERFORMANCE_LOGGING_STYLE=1`
`MVK_CONFIG_ADVERTISE_EXTENSIONS`	UInt32	Controls which extensions MoltenVK should advertise it supports in `vkEnumerateInstanceExtensionProperties()` and `vkEnumerateDeviceExtensionProperties()`. This can be useful when testing MoltenVK against specific limited functionality. Any prerequisite extensions are also advertised. If bit `1` is included, all supported extensions will be advertised. A value of zero means no extensions will be advertised.	The value of this parameter is a `Bitwise-OR` of the following values: `1`: All supported extensions. `2`: WSI extensions supported on the platform. `4`: Vulkan Portability Subset extensions.	`1`	`MVK_CONFIG_ADVERTISE_EXTENSIONS=2`
`MVK_CONFIG_API_VERSION_TO_ADVERTISE`	UInt32	Controls the Vulkan API version that MoltenVK should advertise in `vkEnumerateInstanceVersion()`, after MoltenVK adds the `VK_HEADER_VERSION` component.	`4210688`: Decimal number for `VK_API_VERSION_1_4`. `4206592`: Decimal number for `VK_API_VERSION_1_3`. `4202496`: Decimal number for `VK_API_VERSION_1_2`. `4198400`: Decimal number for `VK_API_VERSION_1_1`. `4194304`: Decimal number for `VK_API_VERSION_1_0`. `14`: Shorthand for `VK_API_VERSION_1_4`. `13`: Shorthand for `VK_API_VERSION_1_3`. `12`: Shorthand for `VK_API_VERSION_1_2`. `11`: Shorthand for `VK_API_VERSION_1_1`. `10`: Shorthand for `VK_API_VERSION_1_0`.	`4210688` (Decimal number for `VK_API_VERSION_1_4`)	`MVK_CONFIG_API_VERSION_TO_ADVERTISE=12`
`MVK_CONFIG_AUTO_GPU_CAPTURE_OUTPUT_FILE`	String	If `MVK_CONFIG_AUTO_GPU_CAPTURE_SCOPE` is any value other than `0`, this is the path to a file where the automatic GPU capture will be saved. If this parameter is an empty string (the default), automatic GPU capture will be handled by the Xcode user interface. If this parameter is set to a valid file path, the Xcode scheme need not have Metal GPU capture enabled, and in fact the app need not be run under Xcode's control at all. This is useful in case the app cannot be run under Xcode's control. A path starting with `~` can be used to place it in a user's home directory.	Some string value	`""` (i.e. empty string)	`MVK_CONFIG_AUTO_GPU_CAPTURE_OUTPUT_FILE="~/save/path/here"`
`NAME`	TYPE	DESC	`NUM`: DESC.	`DEFAULT`	`EXAMPLE`

Logging

This subsection is taken directly from Game Porting Toolkit’s README.md file and has been modified in some parts

Logging output will appear in the Terminal window in which you launch your game as well as the system log, which can be viewed with /System/Applications/Utilities/Console.app
Log messages from the evolution environment for Windows games are prefixed with D3DM and are logged to the system log using the “D3DMetal” category. By default the ee4wg* scripts will filter to just the D3DM-prefixed messages.
If you are experiencing an issue and want to send logging information through https://feedbackassistant.apple.com, please attach and send the full logs without filtering to D3DM

The provided bin/ee4wg* scripts can be copied onto your path to facilitate different forms of logging and launching. You can run these scripts from any shell; you don’t need to switch to the Rosetta environment first.

Debugging with Metal Debugger

This subsection is taken directly from Game Porting Toolkit’s README.md file and has been modified in some parts

Disable System Integrity Protection (SIP)
Compile your shaders with embedded debug information (https://developer.apple.com/metal/shader-converter/#shader) by passing -Zi -Qembed_debug to the DX Compiler
In CrossOver, select a bottle to launch your game from
Enable D3DMetal in the Advanced Settings for the bottle
Launch your game by clicking Run Command, choosing your game executable, and inserting the following environment variables to enable Metal debugging and processing of debug information:
1 2 MTL_CAPTURE_ENABLED=1 D3DM_DXIL_PROCESS_DEBUG_INFORMATION=1
In Xcode, click Debug > Debug Executable… from the menubar and select CrossOver.app (this is just to get a workspace window open)
In the visible Scheme options, click the Options tab and change GPU Frame Capture from Automatically to Metal
Close Scheme
Click Debug > Attach to Process from the menubar and select your launched game process
After the debugger attaches to the process, you can capture your Metal workload
If lldb suspends the process due to handling SIGUSR1, you will need to run the following commands to ignore this signal and continue the process:
1 2 3 process handle -pass false -stop false -notify false SIGUSR1 continue
To clear terminal:
- CTRL + L
- clear
Reenable SIP after you finish debugging

References

guide, unix-gaming

This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.

Background

Bottles

Builds

Files

Requirements

Installation

Install Wine

Install Graphics APIs

Install DXMT

Install DXVK

Install Game Porting Toolkit

Setup Game Porting Toolkit

Method 1: Prebuilt

Method 2: Build

Install Steam

Install CrossOver

Install Winetricks

Method 1: Homebrew

Method 2: Manually

Method 3: Installer Script

Configuration

Usage

Launch Steam

Launch Directly

Stop Running Wine

Method 1: CLI

Method 2: Activity Monitor

Appendix

Tips + Tricks

Launch games as an app

Method 1: Automator

Method 2: AppleScript

Method 3: Shortcuts

Method 4: App Bundle

Folder shortcut

Set game mode

Adjust game controller

Update MoltenVK

Method 1: Wine

Method 2: CrossOver

Install SteamCMD

Scripts

Bash Functions for Gaming

Steam Installer

DXMT Installer

Winetricks Installer

Method 1: sudo

Method 2: su

MetalFX Integration

Enable MetalFX

Disable MetalFX

Game Porting Toolkit 2.1

Troubleshooting

Game Porting Toolkit

Game won’t run and crashes with an invalid instruction or complains about lack of certain instruction extensions

Game won’t run because its anti-cheat or DRM software is incompatible with Wine translation

Game won’t run because it thinks the version of Windows is too old

Game won’t run because it requires Mono, .NET, or the MSVCRT runtime

Game won’t boot anymore despite no changes

Enable experimental MetalFX integration

Steam

steamwebhelper not responding

Steam download freezes

Method 1: Steam Console

Method 2: SteamCMD

Memory

Dynamically allocate VRAM

Set video memory size

32bit games crash after 4GB RAM

Wine

Disable window decorations

Disable vertical sync (vsync)

Prevent Wine from creating filetype associations

Allow Wine to run

Restore original DLL files

Pixelated and limited display resolution

Adjust DPI scaling level

Set drivers

Enable noflicker

Restrict Wine processes to subset of available cores

Method 1: `sudo`

Method 2: `su`