Highball

Run Windows games on Apple Silicon. Free, open, engine-agnostic.

Highball is a native macOS app (and CLI) that sets up Wine, DXMT, D3DMetal and DXVK for you, installs Steam with one click, connects your Epic Games library (installs and plays through the open source Legendary client, no Epic launcher involved), and tells you honestly what runs, what doesn't, and which renderer to use — backed by an open, CC0 compatibility database (highball-db, browsable at gauthierpiarrette.github.io/highball-db) where every claim carries its provenance.

Status: beta. Notarized, auto-updating, working end to end: engine install → bottle → Steam login → game, with per-bottle renderer switching and msync-accelerated launches. Download Highball — Apple Silicon, macOS 14+.

Design principles (learned the hard way)

This niche has a cautionary tale: Whisky was archived in 2025 after its developer concluded it gave too little back to the Wine ecosystem it sat on. Highball is built around that lesson:

  • Zero Wine patches, zero hosted binaries. Engines are assembled from pinned, SHA-256-verified upstream releases (Gcenx's builds, DXMT, the Sikarugir runtime). An engine update is a JSON pull request, not a build pipeline.
  • The database is the product. Recipes ("Steam needs sync: none; this game needs DXVK") are versioned CC0 data anyone can use — including CrossOver users. Nothing like it exists in the open today.
  • Additive to the ecosystem. Bugs go upstream, donations links point at Gcenx and DXMT, and if you want commercial-grade support you should buy CrossOver — it funds most of Wine's Mac work.

Install

Download Highball, drag it to Applications, open it. The app walks you through the rest — engine download, your first bottle, Steam. Requires Apple Silicon and macOS 14+ (it prompts for Rosetta 2 if needed).

Prefer the terminal? The CLI does everything the app does. 
git clone https://github.com/gauthierpiarrette/highball-db ../highball-db  # recipes + game database (CC0)
swift build -c release
.build/release/highball engine install spike/engine-manifest.json
.build/release/highball engine accept x64-sikarugir10.0_6-r0 apple-gptk-license-2023-08-17  # optional: D3DMetal
.build/release/highball bottle create play --recipe steam
.build/release/highball run play Steam

Everything lives in ~/Library/Application Support/Highball/. Nothing touches /usr or /Library; deleting that folder is a full uninstall.

What works

Reference test machine: Apple M1 Pro · macOS 14.6; community reports cover M5 and macOS 15/26. Send yours via Highball menu → Report a Problem, or highball report.
Steam 64-bit client ✅ login, store, downloads (sync: none required — see the recipe)
Aperture Desk Job ✅ DXVK correct ~31 fps · ⚠️ D3DMetal fast but corrupted · ❌ DXMT black screen
Renderer switching ✅ per bottle and per pinned program, no reinstall
32-bit programs ✅ via Wine WoW64 (Steam's own 32-bit bootstrapper ran)
Cyberpunk 2077 ✅ community-verified on M5 / macOS 15 (D3DMetal + AVX + --launcher-skip, ~17 fps Steam Deck preset)
Epic Games ✅ connect your account, install and play (via Legendary — the Epic launcher's install flow is broken under Wine and never used)
Windows runtimes (VC++ 2015-2022, .NET Framework 4.8) ✅ one-click per bottle (Settings → Dependencies)
ReShade ✅ verified under DXVK (dll next to the exe + a DLL override, now settable in Settings → Advanced)
DLL overrides & env vars ✅ per bottle (Settings → Advanced) — Cyber Engine Tweaks class mods work
Kernel anti-cheat (Valorant, Fortnite, Destiny 2…) ❌ structurally impossible — flagged in the DB before you download 80 GB

Architecture in one paragraph

highball (CLI) and the app are thin views over HighballKit: an engine is a manifest-defined bundle (Wine + runtime dylibs + renderer overlays) laid out under engines/<id>; a bottle is a WINEPREFIX plus bottle.json; renderers (WineD3D / DXMT / D3DMetal / DXVK) are directory overlays selected per launch via WINEDLLPATH_PREPEND; recipes are declarative JSON steps (installer, registry, winetricks, sync, renderer, pin, note) applied to a bottle. D3DMetal is gated behind explicit acceptance of Apple's Game Porting Toolkit license and is never redistributed in this repository.

Licensing

App + CLI + HighballKit: GPL-3.0 (LICENSE). Recipes and database: CC0-1.0 (in highball-db). Wine is LGPL; DXMT is MIT/LGPL; DXVK is Zlib; D3DMetal is Apple-licensed (non-commercial, downloaded separately, never modified). Highball has no paid tier and never will — that's a license requirement, not a promise.