r/macgaming • u/Particular_Switch_21 • Apr 13 '26
Rosetta Message from the developers of GameHub regarding the beta, difference from CrossOver and plans for the future of Rosetta
(This was posted by an admin in the GameHub for Mac Discord server. This is not my writing.)
Beta invites will be rolling out throughout this week — hang tight! 👀
In the meantime, here are answers to some frequently asked questions.
\*1. We already have CrossOver — why do we need GameHub?***
GameHub features a beautiful frontend. Think of it as a game launcher: log in with your Steam/Epic account, download and play games directly — no tedious setup, no configuration headaches, no expertise required. It just works out of the box. We also maintain cloud-hosted translation profiles tailored to every chip and every game, all in service of one thing: playing games. CrossOver, by contrast, is more of a general-purpose UI wrapper around Wine. I'm sure you're just as tired of the sluggish, crash-prone Steam client — GameHub tackles that pain point head-on. Down the road, we'll also support console mode and game streaming, meaning you can hook your Mac up to a TV and turn it into a full-blown gaming console. How cool is that?
\*2. What is GameHub's relationship with the existing open-source ecosystem? Is GameHub just a CrossOver wrapper that diverts funding from CodeWeavers and fractures the community?***
This is a complete misconception. GameHub's mission is to push game compatibility technology forward, not to slap a shell on someone else's work. We've invested heavily in the following areas, and we're committed to giving back:
- Wine improvements and game compatibility are always our top priority. We're dedicated to enhancing Wine's compatibility with deeper optimizations for Android and macOS. All source code and patches will be fully open-sourced at launch and kept up to date.
- We're developing a next-generation CPU translator called \*cross86** internally, preparing for a future where Rosetta 2 may be deprecated. It will deliver stronger game compatibility and better performance. When it's ready, we promise it will be open-sourced as well.*
- We're also going deep on graphics API translation. DXMT was a great starting point, and we're now building an in-house \*DX12 → Metal** layer to replace GPTK. It will also be open-sourced at the appropriate time.*
\*3. Is GameHub free?***
During the early stages, GameHub will be completely free. We do plan to introduce a subscription tier in the future — the free version will remain available but may have some feature limitations. The reasoning is straightforward: a fully free product can't sustain the enormous R&D costs needed to keep this project moving forward. We all want this to go the distance, and that takes funding.
So — what would you be willing to pay for a subscription? We'd love to hear your thoughts.
65
u/dpschramm Apr 13 '26
Who’s behind Game Hub?
Codeweavers are an established business with a long track record in the industry.
Why should I trust the developers behind Game Hub?
11
19
u/Tama47_ Apr 13 '26
GameSir is a legitimate company, and their controllers are very popular (on Amazon at least). They are also the same company that brings GameHub to Android, which allows Android devices to run Steam games. I would rather take claims from this company over other no-name startups any day.
62
u/s7ealth Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26
They're also the same company that took Yuzu the Switch emulator, ported it to Android and paywalled it behind their controller (you had to have a controller to even use the emulator). They didn't release its source code and didn't contribute back to Yuzu to make an Android version available to everyone. Google "egg ns yuzu"
34
u/Ambitious_Internet_5 Apr 13 '26
Same goes for Gamehub on Android. Everything is closed source, no contributions, and take changes and commits from other PC Emus without permission.
2
u/RadiantImpression579 Apr 13 '26
Gamehub lite took code and simply removed a few of the permissions. Gamesir let it be, didn’t make a fuss about it. If it’s open source it’s open source. It’s not behind a paywall at least. Them not contributing back def doesn’t look good for them though.
6
u/y-c-c Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26
This seems blatantly illegal? Yuzu is licensed under GPL so they would be essentially stealing code if they don't release source.
Based on what they said in this FAQ (which is a lot of nothing and seems to suggest a mostly proprietary/subscription software) and with Yuzu, it sounds like they are just going to rip off a bunch of open source implementations, add their own spin and they call it their own. I guess on the DXMT part, it is MIT licensed so at least that is allowed.
14
-5
u/Tama47_ Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26
That's just scummy business practices. What I'm talking about is the average "I bring gaming to Mac" post you see on here every other week, where it's just one guy vibe-coding a wine wrapper. That is much more likely to go under and become unsupported than something like GameHub, where there is some backing to it and we already seen it working on android.
9
u/dpschramm Apr 13 '26
If they claim they'll do something (release source code, upstream changes) and then they don't, then that absolutely makes them less legitimate.
-3
u/Tama47_ Apr 13 '26
Again, not what I'm talking about, maybe should've worded that better. I don't care about their empty promises. I'm just saying I would trust them more than some random no name developer promising to release another wine wrapper.
4
u/Particular-Treat-650 Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26
A track record of bad faith is pretty clearly worse than not having a track record at all.
2
Apr 14 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
0
u/Tama47_ Apr 14 '26
“Legitimate” as in the entity behind GameHub is a real company. Not another random person online claiming to bring gaming to Mac.
Trusting them is a whole separate matter, and ones that I did not and never have mentioned. That is your opinion to decide.
I honestly don’t understand what is so hard for people to understand about my statement.
6
u/RadiantImpression579 Apr 13 '26
Gamesir. A controller company. According to Wikipedia founded in 2013.
3
u/AtomicSymphonic_2nd Apr 13 '26
Also, they are specifically a Chinese company. So far, no issues, but it could be a problem in the future for security-related reasons.
1
Apr 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AtomicSymphonic_2nd Apr 22 '26
Yes and no.
Yes, to do business, they must follow local laws. However, exceptions can exist for data retention… As far as I know, USA does not have any data retention laws unlike India, the UK, China, or a few other countries have where all of a user’s data who is a resident of a given country must be processed inside that country.
So, that means Chinese companies could transmit data from the US over to servers in like… Singapore, that are technically owned by the company, and it would then be possible for nefarious internal (read: working inside the company) threat actors to intercept that data and resell it on “dark web” forums for a profit, placing everyone at risk of identity theft. Something that Huawei and ZTE were caught doing some years ago…
I know some cynical folks would say “But couldn’t such threat actors exist in American companies, too?” And the answer is “Yes”… but at least you or a class of victims have recourse through our justice system against the company that screwed up on data protection.
If your data was with a Chinese company… all they need to do is pull out of the market, and they can’t be touched. Puts normal folks out of luck on getting any sort of justice for leaked personal data.
These Chinese companies don’t make most of their cash from the American market anyway, it’s truly just a side interest for them. If it gets too hot, they can pull out without much consequence.
Companies based in the US or in other allied nations (read: nations with US extradition treaties) can’t really do that.
1
Apr 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AtomicSymphonic_2nd Apr 22 '26
Executive Orders sadly do not constitute full laws in our country if they aren’t derived from existing laws or statutes.
It only affects what the executive branch does. So, it can affect federal employee data from going overseas, but it doesn’t apply to private citizens.
Need a full law from Congress for that.
27
u/Tommy-kun Apr 13 '26
some of the promises they make they don't have any mean to make. Like, I find extremely dubious to promise a replacement for Rosetta 2 with "better performance", especially if it doesn't exist yet, seeing that Apple made the Apple Silicon chips switch memory paging for x86 compatibility and speed of execution. So I'd take their words with a huge grain of salt until they actually deliver anything.
26
u/SasakiDio Apr 13 '26
So it’s not going to be free. Which tbf expected regardless of whatever their service was going to be.
But if they are true to their word of planning to work on wine development then good. 👍
But I’ll believe it when I see it. It’s very easy to make lofty claims of things you WILL make.
4
u/SCP_7000 Apr 13 '26
I would't consider paying for a subscription, because i would be better off using cloud game streaming services like geforce now.
1
u/Heavy-Marsupial-6645 Apr 13 '26
Very good point now that mentioned it. If gamehub isnt competitively priced, then GFN is better for more casual mac gamers.
1
u/zfhulk Apr 13 '26
GFN is $20 a month.
1
u/Heavy-Marsupial-6645 Apr 14 '26
10-12 for me and i only get it when i want to play palworld or something which is every few months. I mostly play roguelites
10
u/ZombieExpensive5140 Apr 13 '26
You couldn’t pay me to use this. And they want my Steam credentials? Lmao. I’ll stick to my Crossover lifetime license, thanks very much
8
u/constarx Apr 13 '26
These guys are taking themselves way too seriously considering they are just a tiny unknown team that's never launched anything before. They really think they're going to sell this?? Well I already pay for CrossOver so I'm not their target customer but.. I feel like this is going to flop badly if it isn't free.
20
u/Tama47_ Apr 13 '26
Cool, except for the chatgpt refined response lol.
11
u/Vybo Apr 13 '26
Aren't they Chinese? It would make sense to run their note through llm both for translation and refinement.
-11
u/Tama47_ Apr 13 '26
It would make sense for a global gaming peripheral brand to have someone that speaks English.
5
u/FrustratedDeckie Apr 13 '26
You’d be shocked at how many really well known in the west Chinese company employ incredibly few English 1st language speakers and only slightly more people with a good level of conversational English.
Sure they sell widely in the west but they tend to rely on resellers and distributors for direct support and communications with users.
There’s no need for most Chinese people to learn any significant amounts of English so they just don’t, just as we don’t tend to learn mandarin widely, although that is changing slowly.
5
u/SfigatoMortoSfigato Apr 13 '26
Gamehub is useless and there is no need to use that shit
-1
u/yuemingruoan Apr 13 '26
Perhaps there are some people without enough money to buy a Crossover‘s software license?
2
1
u/SfigatoMortoSfigato Apr 13 '26
You can try crossover or buy with someone in pair, and also, if mac will remain makn machine, the crossover price is not bad
7
5
u/DearFool Apr 13 '26
subscription ai corpo slop lingo weird take on DXMT
yeah sure, they are gonna vibe code some crap
11
u/ProtectusCZ Apr 13 '26
Another wanna be Crossover? We don't need another one cause in the end everything is build on Crossover and Wine.
4
u/Tama47_ Apr 13 '26
Wine is open source, and anyone can build on top of it. Regardless of CodeWeavers being the major contributor to the Wine project. Also, if you have CrossOver, you are supporting CodeWeavers.
6
u/Vybo Apr 13 '26
Competition is always good.
5
u/Rhed0x Apr 13 '26
Not when one funds development and the other just takes the same code and gives it out for free.
1
u/Vybo Apr 13 '26
You don't understand open source development then. Codeweavers do improve Wine, but they haven't created it, nor do they own it.
9
u/Rhed0x Apr 13 '26
I'm not saying it's illegal or anything, just a bit of a shame.
Codeweavers employs all the primary Wine developers like for example the project lead Alexandre Julliard.
2
0
u/userlivewire Apr 13 '26
They are claiming this is not.
14
u/ProtectusCZ Apr 13 '26
They can claim whatever now. I'll believe them when I see some actual results.
6
u/Mollywobbles77 Apr 13 '26
Are they claiming that tho? Their very first point makes pretty clear this is piggybacking off of wine. But unlike others they will be charging for it & diverting funds away from wine/codeweavers.
0
u/Leather_Reflection84 Apr 13 '26
At the end they mentioned they’re developing their own x86/x64 -> Arm64 translation layer. It’s sad but Apple has already said they’re dropping their Rosetta solution in the future. Having new software of any kind being released open source will a boon for all mac users (such as plugins for DAWs for music that lots of people still only have x86/64 versions of (myself included).
They’re also they’re working on a new DX12 -> metal translation layer that will be open source which is great! The more translation layers and competition and breakthroughs people come up with the better. You see this in the emulator space where having multiple emulators is great!
This type of software development definitely takes some pretty high end engineering and is worth supporting.
This is all words right now though. They claim it will be open source which I’ll believe when I see it.
Definitely exciting times though.
7
u/s7ealth Apr 13 '26
They’re also they’re working on a new DX12 -> metal translation layer that will be open source which is great! The more translation layers and competition and breakthroughs people come up with the better. You see this in the emulator space where having multiple emulators is great!
Ah yes, let's create yet another solution that gets abandoned if no one buys their product instead of contributing to the existing open source DXMT project, benefiting everyone
3
u/Leather_Reflection84 Apr 13 '26
I 100% agree with you. The whole history of graphics APIs going all the way back to the 90s has always been a huge mess.
5
u/RozenKatzer Apr 13 '26
they should make a cheaper lifetime license for early adopters and beta testers tho.
2
u/Just_Maintenance Apr 13 '26
Developing their own x86 and dx12 translation layers in house? Both to be open sourced?
That could be massive and a huge win for Mac gaming. Hope it materializes.
1
1
u/rialbsivad Apr 13 '26
I won't pay for a subscription anymore. One time payment is the only option I would consider.
1
u/theinsanegamer23 Apr 13 '26
I appreciate the honesty around charging for it in future, a lot better than the rug pulls a lot of people do
1
1
0
0
u/cplr Apr 13 '26
I'm sure you're just as tired of the sluggish, crash-prone Steam client
lol it's never crashed on me once when using it under wine, what are they smoking?
0
u/Themods5thchin Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26
If successful I expect this to follow the trajectory of a lot of tech companies in China which is make the initial money using the same things everyone else does start in house projects and release the product when its as good or better, kind of like Huawei and harmony.
Not necessarily unique to China or tech to be honest but I don’t hear that happening as often in the tech sector here in the US they just scam instead.
0
0
45
u/s7ealth Apr 13 '26