Convenient: This app makes Windows games playable on macOS hassle-free – XDA Developers

Key takeaways

• macOS isn’t ideal for gaming due to the lack of software support, but the Whiskey app makes running Windows games on Mac simple.
• Whiskey combines Wine, Rosetta, and Game Porting Toolkit to automatically enable certain Windows games to run on Apple Silicon.
• Whiskey allows easy installation of supported Windows games on Apple Silicon Macs, delivering surprisingly good gaming performance.

Apple is really trying to improve macOS’s stature as a gaming platform for the first time in years, adding crucial porting frameworks like the Game Porting Toolkit and user-facing features like Game Mode. However, the best Macs still aren’t great for gaming. Power is no longer the issue, as even low-end Apple Silicon laptops and desktops are capable of playing many AAA titles with ease. The biggest problem is software support, since most flagship game titles are designed for Windows PCs and consoles. But there is a way to play some of your favorite Windows games on your Apple Silicon Mac without hours of frustration using Game Porting Toolkit. It’s called Whiskey, and it blends the Rosetta, Wine, and Game Porting Toolkit translation layers into one singular, simplistic tool. Anyone can use Whiskey, and this just added support for a game that’s exploding again: Fallout 4.

How it works

Leveraging the Game Porting Toolkit in a Simpler Way

First, let’s see how Whiskey can take a standard Windows game file and turn it into a playable macOS game without much manual effort required. Essentially, this app combines multiple layers of translation into a single translation tool. It uses Wine, a translation layer that allows Windows applications and games to run on POSIX-based operating systems, like macOS and Linux. It also uses Rosetta and Game Porting Toolkit, which are two official Apple tools that allow x86 programs to run on Apple Silicon and respectively serve as a framework for porting Windows games to macOS. Normally, this type of process would require users to manually port games to Mac. But by combining Wine, Rosetta and Game Porting Toolkit, all of this can happen automatically.

Anyone can use the official Game Porting Toolkit to port their Windows games to macOS, but this requires a certain degree of knowledge about the porting process and takes hours per game. Alternatively, users have the option to emulate Windows through virtualization software like Parallels 19, but using virtual machines can cause a significant drop in performance. That’s why, in many ways, Whiskey is the best way to run Windows games on macOS.

How to get started

The process of installing supported Windows games on Mac is quick and easy

Using the Whiskey Tool to run Windows games on macOS isn’t as easy as downloading a game from the Mac App Store, but it’s a lot simpler than using Game Porting Toolkit. Basically, all the heavy lifting required to use the Game Porting Toolkit is handled automatically by Whiskey with supported games. You provide the program with .exe Or installation files for the game you want to play, and Whiskey will use its translation layers to allow the game to run on Apple Silicon. There are a few great titles supported by Whiskey, and more are popping up over time. Recently, Whiskey added support for Fallout 4, which we chose for our test because of the hype around live-action TV series. Game support is still quite limited for Whiskey, but those who need more titles can pay for CrossOver, which is a similar translation tool.

Since Whiskey requires Rosetta and Game Porting Toolkit, it will only work on Macs with Apple Silicon.

You may encounter a few caveats, but here’s a general overview of the process of running Windows games on Mac via Whiskey:

1. Download And install Whiskey from its official website.
2. Follow the setup prompts to install required compatibility/translation layersincluding Rosette, Wineand the Game porting toolbox if you haven’t already done so.
3. Create a new “bottle” for the Whiskey by pressing the + button in the toolbar.
4. Create a name for the bottle, choose the Windows version the game you want to play works, and select file location for the bottle on your system.
5. We recommend download the Windows version of Steam and run it first in Whiskey. This way, you can download games through Steam for Windows and ensure that the games include all the necessary executables and program files.
6. You may be able to launch Windows games directly through Steam in whiskey. To try this method, simply enter the game as you normally would through Steam.
7. Alternatively, you can create a new bottle of whiskey with the .exe file of your game and launch it that way.

I originally tried downloading the executables and programs to a Windows virtual machine, but it didn’t work very well. Necessary files and data appeared to be missing, preventing Whiskey from launching Fallout 4. However, after running the Windows version of Steam through the compatibility layer and downloading Fallout 4 using this method I was playing just a few minutes after the process started. This is a huge improvement over using the native Game Porting Toolkit manually, which can take hours and requires some technical know-how.

How is the gameplay?

Surprisingly good, especially if you own a computer with an M3 chip

The hardest part of running Windows games like Fallout 4 on macOS, it’s a matter of putting them in a working whiskey bottle, and even that isn’t very difficult. After launching a Windows game in Whiskey, it was impossible to tell. Fallout 4 worked through a translation layer instead of being compiled natively for macOS. This shouldn’t be that surprising, because Apple has done some impressive things with Rosetta. Running a game through a translation layer causes a tangible performance hit, but it is very minimal. Overall, my playtime Fallout 4 on macOS proved that Whiskey isn’t just a proof of concept: it’s a real way for macOS users to play AAA titles optimized for Windows on their Apple Silicon Macs.

One thing to consider is that the type of Apple Silicon SoC your Mac has can impact gaming performance. Fallout 4 and Whiskey on an M3 iMac, and Apple has made big strides in GPU performance on the M3 chipset, as I discovered in my review. So it’s entirely possible that lower-tier M1 or M2 SoCs might fare worse playing translated games than the M3 machine I used. However, it’s safe to say that Windows game performance should be more than playable on Apple Silicon machines. There is a fairly active community of Whiskey users on GitHub that tracks supported games, potential bugs, and performance results, as well as Reddit communities. The great thing about using these free and versatile translation tools is that you can find a ton of help from knowledgeable users if you run into any problems. Based on my experience playing games on Whiskey, I doubt you’ll need help.

Should You Use Whiskey for Mac Gaming?

Whiskey, like many other methods of improving Mac gaming, is not at all intended to fully satisfy real gamers. macOS Sonoma has a long way to go if it wants to become a competent platform for gaming, and clever tools like this can only do so much. If you’re looking for a primary way to play games, Whiskey still won’t bring macOS anywhere close to alternatives like PCs or Windows consoles. However, if you are a Mac user and want to be able to play casual Windows games on the computer you already own, Whiskey will come in handy. After trying both, it’s clear that Whiskey is a much better way to play Windows games on macOS than using a virtual machine.