March 5, 2008
CrossOver will finally do what everyone actually wants
Posted Mar. 5, ’08, 12:09 PM PT by Dan Pourhadi
Category | Games
Let’s be honest: nobody uses Windows-on-Mac tech for anything productive or important. There’s all this nonsense about running Windows-only business apps, or taking advantage of Microsoft technologies like Windows DRM, or ensuring better file compatibility with coworkers and friends. But that’s crap. There’s only one thing people want from Windows virtualization.
Games.
Pretty futile to try to play games on something like Parallels or VMWare — too much overhead from running two operating systems at the same time. Boot Camp works pretty well for that: my brother is a Die Hard Gamer and spends more time in Windows on his MacBook Pro playing Windows-only games than he does in OS X doing whatever it is non-gamers do on their computers. Everyone had high hopes for CodeWeavers’ CrossOver, an app that lets you run Windows apps on your Mac without actually needing Windows: it mimics the APIs, tricking programs into thinking they’re on Windows, allowing you to run them right inside OS X.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work too well. Too many graphics technologies and other complications I pretend to understand made it difficult to ensure compatibility with many Windows games. But CodeWeavers knows where its priorities should be, and has quietly announced a private beta of their new game-focused product, CrossOver Games:
The plan is for CrossOver Games to be more ‘bleeding edge’ than CrossOver itself. That is, we will release early and often to bring the very latest in games to our users, while keeping the main CrossOver releases on a more stable timetable so that we continue to focus on stability and reliable use of productivity applications in CrossOver itself.
They’re currently working on ensuring compatibility with Steam games — Half Life 2, Portal, Civilization 4, etc. — and popular multiplayer games like World of Warcraft and Guild Wars. Haven’t seen a timetable for a public release, or potential cost — but it looks promising so far. The final argument to use PCs — more games! — is slowly slipping away. Which is great, really, because games are all that really matters…right?
13 Comments
Leave a comment
Recent Entries
About MacUser
MacUser is your source for news, info, and opinion about Apple, the Mac, and the iPod. Our dedicated team of bloggers covers everything that is relevant to Mac users — and, okay, some stuff that’s not quite relevant, but is still a lot of fun. (Plus, we've got columns by Andy Ihnatko!)
Subscribe/RSS
- Blog Posts
- Blog Comments
- Podcast (RSS) (iTunes)
Tip us off!
- Email: macuser [at] macuser [dot] com
Recent Comments 
- Wondercow on Wait...Spotlight can do that?!
- Aayush Arya on Wait...Spotlight can do that?!
- Be on Wait...Spotlight can do that?!
- D Jones on Wait...Spotlight can do that?!
- David M on Wait...Spotlight can do that?!
- Bob on U-Charge: like U-Haul, but for batteries. Except not.
Categories
- Apple (173)
- Advertising (135)
- Events (198)
- Huh? (139)
- Humor (229)
- News (128)
- People (223)
- Rivals (334)
- Speculation (134)
- Steve Jobs (142)
- Stores (170)
- Apple TV (50)
- Business (374)
- Games (128)
- Geekery (409)
- Hardware (836)
- Accessories (53)
- Intel Macs (157)
- Ihnatko (18)
- Internet (379)
- Legal (194)
- MacUser (87)
- Money (153)
- Music (312)
- Podcasting (97)
- Photography (66)
- Security (205)
- Software (1368)
- Updates (457)
- Tips (324)
- Troubleshooting (172)
- Video (356)
- Windows (190)
- iPhone (174)
- iPod (560)
- iPod Accessories (87)
- iPod Software (56)
- iTunes (97)
- iTunes Store (376)
Archives
- May 2008 (109)
- April 2008 (234)
- March 2008 (217)
- February 2008 (215)
- January 2008 (239)
- December 2007 (169)
- November 2007 (164)
- October 2007 (187)
- September 2007 (167)
- August 2007 (195)
- July 2007 (152)
- June 2007 (223)
- May 2007 (243)
- April 2007 (286)
- March 2007 (288)
- February 2007 (250)
- January 2007 (266)
- December 2006 (244)
- November 2006 (293)
- October 2006 (307)
- September 2006 (250)
- August 2006 (268)
- July 2006 (288)
- June 2006 (293)
- May 2006 (297)
- April 2006 (351)
- March 2006 (366)
- February 2006 (110)
- January 2006 (107)
- December 2005 (23)
Mac Publishing Sites
Links
IDG NETWORK:
You're right, Dan, I do only use Boot Camp for games. Anytime I try to do anything "productive" in Windows, I end up getting frustrated at something, then return to OS X and get the job done in half the time. OS X FTW!
Why are they working to get WoW working via Crossover? Seems to work fine on my Mac as Blizzard kindly release dual PC/Mac versions of their latest games these days.
Games-no, MSIE Windows-yes. It sucks but I'm forced to use IE for Real Estate. Now their going to another upgrade and I will be finally forced to get a Windows computer. CrossOver worked, but in about a month it's going totally IE. I think they have coded it in a way to not load features unless it's Windows.
I'd like to get an iPhone, but it'd be useless to me because I'd still have to carry around a Windows IE based phone. Freaking stupid people running the Real Estate Industry.
"The plan is for CrossOver Games to be more ‘bleeding edge’ than CrossOver itself."
Eeek! Might as well commit hara-kiri now and get it over with.
Finally. I've tried using Crossover for games, but it just doesn't work as well as I want it to. I love the idea of being able to play TF2 on my Mac partition. That would solve all my windows problems. Oh, and if the real version of Spore would work well on it, then that'd be awesome as well.
I agree completely. I use Windows for only two things, Browser Testing (10%) and Games (90%).
I think most of the productivity apps in the Compatibility database have been put their by the Linux users long ago.
This announcement about Crossover Games seems to be a direct result of Intel Mac users flooding in buying Crossover to play Windows Games without Windows.
Good news!
This is complete bollocks. I'm thinking of switching, and the ability of a Mac to run Windows is really important to that decision. I cannot afford to upgrade any two of my desktop, laptop and software simultaneously. Either I decide my software has locked me into Windows for life, or I accept that the first six months or so of switching will mean that I need to run Adobe CS2 (for a major example) on Windows - possibly waiting for the release of CS4 before upgrading. This is not the only software I would have such issues with.
Now it might be possible you only write for people with more cash than sense, in which case you will hardly advance the cause of the Mac, but you need to take more account of the hard realities of most people's lives.
To "Anonymous" above who asked why CodeWeavers would want to make WoW work: CrossOver is also for Linux, not just for Macs. WoW doesn't have a native version for Linux.
Personally, I think this is a great idea... it allows the application port to focus on stability, speed, ease of use for normal users...
Besides, I imagine that most games don't use even a small fraction of your typical office app API.
Don't run any Windows games on my Mac, but I do have to run software for work that is Windows only. I may be in the minority, but even a cool game isn't enought for me to put up with Windows more than I absolutely have to.
I agree with Andrew Gilbert: I have business critical apps that require Windows (AutoCAD, Microstation, Revit) and everything else can be done on the Mac side.
Even copying the actual windows files to the CrossOver bottle only allowed for the installation of an AutoCAD clone, but did not allow the app to run.
Games may be thge excitement, but enterprise and business-critical apps are where the money is.
Well then Craig Gorsuch, please contribute to the Wine project.
They could really use your help obviously.
I personally can run games using Parallels Desktop for Mac version 3 - i run into very few problems... I do run a mb pro with 4 gigs of ram, so naturally that will make it run faster...
id rather be playing a game on one screen and utilizing os 10 in my other ...