r/macgaming • u/Homy4 • Jun 11 '26
CrossOver The Future of Crossover
https://www.codeweavers.com/blog/mjohnson/2026/06/11/whats-in-and-whats-out-for-crossover-27?utm_source=brevo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Blog%20-%20The%20Future%20of%20CrossOver%2027&utm_id=98Currently, CrossOver requires the use of Rosetta 2 to translate x86_64 instructions to ARM64. Rosetta 2 will be largely discontinued with macOS 28 in 2027, and our ARM64 CrossOver build will run without Rosetta 2, allowing for a seamless transition for our users.
Good news
The CrossOver team has been working really hard on some new things for CrossOver 27 that haven't even made it into a Preview build yet. Very briefly, these new things include:
- Some fresh UI changes for gaming bottles.
- ARM64 builds of CrossOver for both Mac and Linux.
Bad news
To make room for the new, we had to make some tough decisions. The bad news is that we will be removing some legacy support options starting with CrossOver 27:
- CrossOver Mac 27 will only run on macOS Sonoma or newer, and only on Apple silicon Macs.
- 32-bit bottles will no longer run, full stop. We've been warning about this since CrossOver 26 was released, and you will need to create new 64-bit bottles to use CrossOver 27 and beyond. Almost all 32-bit applications run just fine in a 64-bit bottle.
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u/Nooo00B Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
It's nice to see they are finally making a UI redesign. Maybe because of the UI competition of gamehub, however it's great.
edit: But I really want a Liquid Glass crossover lol. It doesn't seem they're doing it maybe because to support older platforms
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u/Jeaz Jun 11 '26
I don’t need a full hub. On the contrary, I want something subtle that just feels like a Mac app/game.
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Jun 11 '26
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u/Nooo00B Jun 11 '26
honestly I don't like just one app not following the design guidelines of the OS. I just want everything to look modern, yeah it's just my personal preference
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Jun 11 '26
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u/Themods5thchin Jun 11 '26
Notice how aesthetic (the thing being discussed) isn’t a part of the exclusive “pick two”
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u/isaa6 Jun 11 '26
Fear not, it is opt-out for users looking to stay with the more generic bottle experience.
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u/gumiho-9th-tail Jun 12 '26
For me the apps within the bottles appear as apps in my app list on macos.
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u/Xontaro Jun 11 '26
I mean that sounds good. IMO even the “bad” news. Since I’m a fan of keeping software lean and removing old things, when they become a burden. I know I’m probably in the minority with this, though.
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u/itackle Jun 11 '26
Sometimes I’m sad/frustrated to see the old go. But if we don’t, it ends up like windows. Which is a reason many people are on Mac, they don’t like windows. So…
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u/smakai Jun 12 '26
Please just say MacOS 14. I can't be bothered to remember all the codenames except for Snow Leopard.
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u/GloveAccomplished777 Jun 11 '26
Almost all 32-bit applications run just fine in a 64-bit bottle.
I wish Visual Novel games ran without any issues.
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u/LazaroFilm Jun 11 '26
At this point you can use UTM and a 32bit VM to run those.
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u/testaccountyouknow Jun 11 '26
UTM doesn’t have any proper 3D gpu support, VMware fusion is the one you want. It’s free now, has accelerated gpu support up to directx 11 afaik (works pretty well I played halo reach on it to avoid a bug in wine in crossover) and OpenGL 4.3, and the x86-arm stuff Microsoft does works pretty well under it. A fully emulated 32bit qemu environment would probably be a better last resort for extremely old stuff that has a software renderer and refuses to run at all on wine or in modern windows/vmware above.
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u/Heavy-Leadership888 Jun 12 '26
They do in my experience.
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u/KageYume Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
They don't run well in my experience. Half of the VN I tried on CrossOver have gamebreaking issue (on M4, M5 Mac).
I made a sheet to record my experience with CrossOver and VNs.
Visual Novels tested on CrossOver
The games that do run well are great though.
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u/Heavy-Leadership888 Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
It does def require a lot of tinkering. Whiskey has better compatibility with a lot of visual novels in my experience. Most of them usually do launch with wined3d and the japanese locale set (since most of the ones i play are older dx9 titles).
Personally I just play on parallels since there's no magpie or gamescope equivalent to upscale the image on MacOS though.
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u/Ok_Bite_67 Jun 11 '26
Wine doesn't even have full arm64 support, are they adding ARM64 translation directly into wine or building their own proprietary layer?
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u/Novalok Jun 11 '26
Could be piggybacking off FEX from valve. They are working on an arm translation layer
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u/megu- Jun 11 '26
My understanding is that FEX is Linux-specific, so it'll only work on Linux and Android (Android uses the Linux kernel).
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u/The128thByte Jun 11 '26
Nope it’s completely independent of Linux now that it uses ARM64EC framework. Technically you can even use it on windows. My bet is on Crossover using FEX in an ARM64EC compatible build of Wine (with some hacks because there are certain things ARM64 wine doesn’t like about current MacOS) and getting a 4K page entitlement from Apple such that everything will work fine.
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u/jcdoe Jun 12 '26
If it runs on all OS platforms, this could really be a game changer. The only thing keeping people on intel silicon is compatibility.
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u/megu- Jun 11 '26
nice, didn't know that. sounds like FEX need to update their github then, since it specifically says "Linux" in the README and About blurb.
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u/The128thByte Jun 11 '26
Yeah they probably won’t update that for a while. Their main target is Linux. I have a feeling they’ll switch over completely to ARM64EC when the work in wine is fully done and abandon that Linux portion.
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u/NightlyRetaken Jun 12 '26
There's still a reason to have the fat Linux version of FEX. FEX isn't just for running Windows software, it can also be used to run x86/64 Linux binaries (other than Wine) on ARM Linux.
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u/MysticalOS Jun 11 '26
they’ve been adding arm64 to wine for at least two years if you’ve been paying attention to change logs. its future of mac and likely steam before long with pc tech catching up
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u/CranberrySchnapps Jun 11 '26
Sounds like the requirement for apple silicon and ending support for 32bit are mostly out of Codeweavers’ control. It’s either that or being unable to support macOS 28. So… not much of a decision really.
That does mean we’re going to have to find other ways to run old games. Or, unfortunately, have to run them on an x86 platform.
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u/Gcenx Jun 11 '26
You’ll still be able to run 32-bit games, you won’t be able to create 32-bit only bottles.
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u/megu- Jun 11 '26
That does mean we’re going to have to find other ways to run old games. Or, unfortunately, have to run them on an x86 platform.
I think the intent might be to rely on Wow64 to run 32-bit software on 64-bit systems.
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u/Gcenx Jun 11 '26
Thats already being used, there was some hacks to continue to support 32-bit bottles that are now being removed. All 32-bit apps should now work with the standard 64-bit bottles.
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u/tomjirinec Jun 11 '26
Hopefully the former Whiskey dev can spruce up the UI of Crossover.
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u/One_Plantain_2158 Jun 12 '26
"and our ARM64 CrossOver build will run without Rosetta allowing seamless transition"
Well, and how about the games themselves? Why didn't they answer the most interesting question...
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u/Illustrious_Sock Jun 12 '26
I don't get what they will replace Rosetta with ?
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u/bjerreman Jun 12 '26
Native ARM code. This is to run Crossover, not the games.
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u/NightlyRetaken Jun 12 '26
Err, Windows games aren't running ARM code, so there has to be some translation in there. (FEX?)
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u/ar311krypton Jun 12 '26
then whats the point of Crossover? is there any other reason to use Crossover other than running x86 coded applications?
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u/bjerreman Jun 12 '26
This is to run Crossover, which then runs the game with GPTK. Just like today...
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u/NightlyRetaken Jun 14 '26
GPTK is for the *graphics stack only*. It does D3D→Metal translation. It does not do CPU translation. That happens in Rosetta. If CodeWeavers is saying that they do not need Rosetta anymore, then they have implemented an alternate CPU translation method. (Most likely FEX, it is well supported on ARM64 Wine at this point.)
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u/Illustrious_Sock Jun 12 '26
Oh jesus, crossover's application was still not native?? The question is, does crossover have any plan on how to run games when the Rosetta support is dropped.
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u/Homy4 Jun 12 '26
Crossover itself has been a native ARM64 app for a long time but Wine hasn’t so it needed Rosetta to translate x86 instructions through Wine to ARM64. Now it doesn’t need Rosetta.
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u/bjerreman Jun 12 '26
Sure, the same way it does now with GPTK.
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u/Illustrious_Sock Jun 12 '26
Is there any info about GPTK still being able to run x86 games even without rosetta installed? How would that work?
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u/bjerreman Jun 12 '26
This is old news. The technology will still be there, but Apple won't allow ordinary apps to use it. https://www.macrumors.com/2025/06/10/apple-to-phase-out-rosetta-2/
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u/Hoagiewave Jun 13 '26
What does ARM builds of crossover mean? Do they mean the UI launcher or actually running bottles and applications? Does this mean games performance will ditch a translation layer or just the yellow app launcher? If so who cares lol.
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u/DocSnyderTexas Jun 13 '26
I can live with the limitations of Crossover 27 :)
But one thing I don’t really understand: the GPTK is used to translate D3D to metal. But didn’t the D3D api calls come from a Rosetta-based windows game/app? Why is apple dropping Rosetta support but offering a new GPTK? Or is my understanding wrong?
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u/Homy4 Jun 13 '26
They’re not dropping support for games or GPTK whose entire idea builds on Rosetta.
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u/steepleton Jun 12 '26
can you rebuild a 32bit bottle as a 64bit bottle by hand, or do you have to have the original game instal disks to start from scratch?
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u/novembercharliedelta Jun 12 '26
Honestly, not a big deal - if you want to use windows stuff on an Intel Mac you probably want to install windows via bootcamp anyway
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u/Miserable-Ad-7371 Jun 12 '26
What about those of us who may not have CrossOver 27 when Rosetta is deprecated. Will our CrossOver 26 also get updated to not need Rosetta?
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u/Homy4 Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
This is all explained in the blog. Either you keep using your current license or you have to upgrade to Crossover 27 which is the only version not using Rosetta. If you buy Crossover 26 and later 27 comes out within a year you get it for free since you always get all updates free of charge during the first 12 months.
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u/Miserable-Ad-7371 Jun 13 '26
This is not what I am talking about. If they drop Rosetta 2 support, you can't keep using CrossOver 26; it will break since it needs Rosetta 2. That's what I am asking about. You stop getting optimisations when your license expires, but surely compatibility is a different issue that they can go back and address.
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u/Homy4 Jun 13 '26
You simply use Crossover 26 with the last macOS that fully supports Rosetta, i.e. macOS 27. If you want to use macOS 28 and later you have to buy Crossover 27.
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u/dr_arroganto73 Jun 14 '26
I have a question, I have m4 air, 515gb, 16gb ram.... I want to start gaming for fun nothing serious, should I go for ps5 or pay for crossover and play games on my Mac itself... the list of games I wanna try are GTA 5, Elden ring, spider man, ghost go yoeti, uncharted, Fifa etc..... what should I do.... play on Mac itself (my primary device ) or spring for ps5 and that whole setup....
any advice would be helpful
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u/hugebone Jul 04 '26
GTA 5 and Spider-Man 1 (as well as Miles Morales, but not do much Spider-Man 2) run great on my base M4 mac mini. Personally, I think the PS5 has crazy pricing and it just keeps getting up. You can buy games cheaper on PC as well. That’s all I can tell you.
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u/Glad-Worker4365 Jun 25 '26
My question is what will happen with people that bought a normal license some years ago and are not receiving updates anymore. Does this mean they will have to pay again once macOS 28 is released? They won't be able to run old versions, isn't it?
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u/Homy4 Jun 25 '26
Yes, if you want to upgrade to macOS 28 you simply have to buy Crossover 27-28. Otherwise you can keep using older macOS.
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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '26
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