M1 Macs can now run Windows apps and games through Crossover 20

[RedRound2]

More M1 news folks....

 

Summary

M1 Macs can now run Windows apps and games throughout Crossover 20. CrossOver, it’s a platform based on the open-source Wine project that can run the Windows environment on macOS and Linux. In other words, it allows users to install and run Windows software on other operating systems without even installing a full version of Windows as you do on a virtual machine.The latest version of CrossOver emulates Windows Intel binaries on macOS through Rosetta 2 technology, which emulates x86 binaries on the new ARM Mac hardware.

 

Quote from the developer

Quote

That’s incredible when you consider that we’re on literally the cheapest Apple Silicon device you can buy – one that gets thermally throttled and is missing a GPU core. I can’t tell you how cool that is; there is so much emulation going on under the covers.

 

Here's a video of TF2 running through Crossover, which translates Intel/Windows binaries, use Wine's 32 to 64 bit bridge, all running under with Rosetta 2 on the cheapest Apple Silicon Mac

 

Naturally, as a beta, it's bit stutter during certain parts but from the looks of it it looks it has more to do with optimization than the lack of horsepower (I could be wrong)

 

 

Also, do note, we need macOS 11.1 beta to run this as it contains some critical fixes for Rosetta 2 that allows this. You can probably expect the update before or around December

 

My thoughts

It is indeed incredible how the lowest power chips are seemingly able to run Windows application, through Rosetta 2, with no sweat. Again people, this is a 10-20W chip running without/with minimal fans. It's nuts

Parallels has said it's working on ARM version of Macs and to stay tuned. Looks like most developers are pretty stoked with the new release and devs are jumping on board - contrary to popular belief prior to release of the M1 macs

 

Sources

https://9to5mac.com/2020/11/18/m1-macs-can-now-run-windows-apps-and-games-through-crossover-20/

[hishnash]

the MAD bit of this is the it run 32bit windows applications! Apparently this team had some good support from the internal Rosetta2 team at apple, seems like this team realy realy want to show off the hard work they have been doing... possibly work they have been working on in secrete for over 7 years.

[Jet_ski]

It’s inception; an emulation within an emulation. Cool but not efficient.

[RedRound2]

5 minutes ago, Jet_ski said:

It’s inception; an emulation within an emulation. Cool but not efficient.

There's multiple layers between the OS and program that would cause inefficiency. Such an inception would usually choke the hardware. But it isn't. And it isn't on a 16 core thread ripper with 1000W PSU and liquid cooling

I can see apps being definitely useful. And I think maybe with further optimization they can also improve gaming

[hishnash]

1 minute ago, Jet_ski said:

It’s inception; an emulation within an emulation. Cool but not efficient.

Note quite, 

 

wine is not emulation:
*  it provides dynamic libs that exposed the windows apis to these apps the map these the unix system apis.
Rosetta2 is not emulation:
* it is a translation tools that convert x86-64 binaries into ARM64 binaries. 

[Sauron]

That's... kind of expected. Wine has been on mac for a long time and rosetta2 performance seems to be around 80% so not really a breakthrough.

1 hour ago, Jet_ski said:

It’s inception; an emulation within an emulation. Cool but not efficient.

Wine is not an emulator. Technically neither is rosetta, it's a binary translation layer as far as I know.

[RedRound2]

3 minutes ago, Sauron said:

That's... kind of expected. Wine has been on mac for a long time and rosetta2 performance seems to be around 80% so not really a breakthrough.

So the M1 CPUs despite going through both wine and rosetta, can still do useful work. That's the point. Plus this is a boon to a lot of people who were disappointed about not being able to run bootcamp - if it was just one or two applications they depended on.

 

The CPU being able to keep up is the breakthrough. Even the developer was surprised

[Jet_ski]

8 minutes ago, hishnash said:

Note quite, 

 

wine is not emulation:
*  it provides dynamic libs that exposed the windows apis to these apps the map these the unix system apis.
Rosetta2 is not emulation:
* it is a translation tools that convert x86-64 binaries into ARM64 binaries. 

I know, I was making a joke. Saying “dynamic libs within dynamic libs” doesn’t really sound like a line from the movie.

[Master Disaster]

Then can say Wine Is Not An Emulator as much as they like, its main function is to allow users to run non native apps on a foreign OS. Its an emulator in every usual way we refer to them.

 

Translation layers are often called by their alternative names, High Level Emulators.

[Video Beagle]

I've never been good at using Crossover...or any of the other wine implementations...to package my own software to use on my mac..but this is pretty cool.  Be interested to see test results on it after after 11.1 comes out and another WINE/Crossover update or two.

[Roswell]

19 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Then can say Wine Is Not An Emulator as much as they like, its main function is to allow users to run non native apps on a foreign OS. Its an emulator in every usual way we refer to them.

 

Translation layers are often called by their alternative names, High Level Emulators.

That’s... not how it works. Emulators literally emulate processors and other hardware through software.

 

Translation layers dump code out to your hardware to run natively. Apps running through Wine or Rosetta have direct hardware access, unlike emulators.

[Roswell]

Crossover is a mess on Mac. Parallels is probably the best option for 99% of Windows software. It’s the most impressive VM software you’ll ever use. 

[Master Disaster]

Just now, Vitamanic said:

That’s... not how it works. Emulators literally emulate processors and other hardware through software.

 

Translation layers dump code out to your hardware to run natively. Apps running through Wine or Rosetta have direct hardware access, unlike emulators.

Oh I know, I fully understand the technicalities of the situation.

 

The issue is that the vast majority of people do not and have no real reason to bother learning it. To the vast majority of people WINE is an emulator, I just don't understand why they insist on complicating the situation and insisting that it isn't.

[leadeater]

As a past user of Wine and forks of Wine I wouldn't count on games working/working properly. It's a great option for Mac OS users, just don't pick this over Windows if you really care about gaming.

 

9 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

To the vast majority of people WINE is an emulator

May I ask what WINE standards for?  

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, RedRound2 said:

So the M1 CPUs despite going through both wine and rosetta, can still do useful work. That's the point. Plus this is a boon to a lot of people who were disappointed about not being able to run bootcamp - if it was just one or two applications they depended on.

 

The CPU being able to keep up is the breakthrough. Even the developer was surprised

Again, there's nothing surprising about this - if rosetta2 works fine then being able to run software like wine is just expected. There's no emulation going on here. Binary translation layers have existed for a long time and they often perform just fine (and generally much better than emulators), this isn't new.

8 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

The issue is that the vast majority of people do not and have no real reason to bother learning it. To the vast majority of people WINE is an emulator, I just don't understand why they insist on complicating the situation and insisting that it isn't.

Because then we get people claiming that the M1 can run games through two layers of emulation, which is just not true and very misleading. Case and point, this thread. If you want to call wine an emulator to explain what it does to someone who has no clue then go right ahead, if you want to have a semi technical discussion then just call it a compatibility layer.

[RejZoR]

1 hour ago, Jet_ski said:

It’s inception; an emulation within an emulation. Cool but not efficient.

Yo dawg, I heard you like emulation within emulation, so we made this sick emulation on top of regular emulation. Xzibit presumably.

[Spindel]

I love this quote from Codeweavers blog.

 

Quote

Now it isn't perfect; Team Fortress 2 showed some lag. I think we've got some work to do on that front.

 

But I can't get Brian to stop playing Witcher 3...

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

As a past user of Wine and forks of Wine I wouldn't count on games working/working properly. It's a great option for Mac OS users, just don't pick this over Windows if you really care about gaming.

It's also worth noting that most recent progress on Wine-related stuff has depended on DXVK which is not technically part of the Wine software and as far as I know doesn't work with Metal.

[Video Beagle]

34 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

Crossover is a mess on Mac. Parallels is probably the best option for 99% of Windows software. It’s the most impressive VM software you’ll ever use. 

oh, Parallels has worked great for when I've needed it.  I'm curious how it'll work with the M1...and if the secret sauce of Windows Arm might lay somewhere in Parallels efforts and WINE etc.

 

23 minutes ago, leadeater said:

As a past user of Wine and forks of Wine I wouldn't count on games working/working properly. It's a great option for Mac OS users, just don't pick this over Windows if you really care about gaming.

 

I've played a lot of games (well in the past, I have a PC for most gaming now), using WINE or CIDER packages that, while I'm sure not a premium experience a gamin entusiast would want, was perfectly fine and fun for me.

[Master Disaster]

17 minutes ago, leadeater said:

As a past user of Wine and forks of Wine I wouldn't count on games working/working properly. It's a great option for Mac OS users, just don't pick this over Windows if you really care about gaming.

Its just a shame Valve didn't bother making Proton run on macOS. I guess its due to the differences between OpenGL/Vulkan & Metal but Proton is pretty damn good these days, they even have workarounds for some DRMs like Denuvo.

 

20 minutes ago, leadeater said:

May I ask what WINE standards for?  

As I said, I understand the difference but you try explaining the difference between a software implementation, ring 1 access and ring 3 access to someone who isn't very technically minded. I feel like their insistence on Wine Is Not an Emulator is holding them back, for your average user its better to just call it an emulator, at least that's a term they might have heard of.

 

24 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Because then we get people claiming that the M1 can run games through two layers of emulation, which is just not true and very misleading. Case and point, this thread. If you want to call wine an emulator to explain what it does to someone who has no clue then go right ahead, if you want to have a semi technical discussion then just call it a compatibility layer.

Fair point.

 

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

As I said, I understand the difference

Don't worry, I was just making a joke 

 

Like I just found it funny since the post you made before it said what is was lol

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, Video Beagle said:

I've played a lot of games (well in the past, I have a PC for most gaming now), using WINE or CIDER packages that, while I'm sure not a premium experience a gamin entusiast would want, was perfectly fine and fun for me.

Yea lots of stuff works, it just very annoying and mood breaking each time you come across one that doesn't or worse does until after the intro cinematic ends and then crashes as you get to the actual game, that's the actual worst.

[Master Disaster]

4 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Don't worry, I was just making a joke 

 

Like I just found it funny since the post you made before it said what is was lol

To be fair, I didn't say it was, I said most of what it does is the same thing. Saying that it isn't is confusing to people who don't understand why it isn't.

[Video Beagle]

5 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Yea lots of stuff works, it just very annoying and mood breaking each time you come across one that doesn't or worse does until after the intro cinematic ends and then crashes as you get to the actual game, that's the actual worst.

Yeah...I've always been willing to accept the limitations in a "get what you pay for" sort of way....cerntainly wouldn't say it's the way someone who's really into gaming should go.

[Maticks]

i was expecting x86 code to run like rubbish.. speechless.