Short Version
Highball is a new, free, open-source macOS app for running Windows games on Apple Silicon. It sets up Wine and the graphics backends for you, installs Steam with one click, connects your Epic library, and, the part we're most excited about, checks an open compatibility database to tell you in-app whether a game will run.
Let's be upfront: CrossOver is still our go-to recommendation, and it will be for a while. And yes, we've watched a lot of free Wine projects for Mac come and go. But Highball is different in a way that matters. It's built around the exact thing Mac gaming has been missing, and it's on the right track to deliver it.
We've added it to our Other Options list, and we'll be following it closely.
The Thing Mac Has Been Missing: Proton and ProtonDB
One of the questions we get most often is "how do I get Steam Proton on my Mac?" The honest answer has always been: you can't. But it's worth asking why people want it so badly.
Proton made Linux gaming work not just because it runs Windows games, but because of ProtonDB: a huge community database where anyone can look up a game and see whether it runs, how well, and what tweaks it needs. You know before you buy. You know before you download. That confidence is what turned Linux from a gamble into a real gaming platform.
Mac has had the runtime side covered for years through CrossOver, Whisky and others. What it has never had is the database side. Every Mac gamer has downloaded 60 GB only to find out the game doesn't launch, then gone hunting through Reddit threads and Discord servers for a fix that may or may not exist.
Highball is the first project we've seen that treats the database as the product. That's why we think this one is worth getting excited about.
How the Database Works
Every game in your Highball library gets a verdict: verified, reported, predicted, or blocked. Each one tells you where it came from, so you know whether you're looking at something a person actually tested on real hardware, a community report, or an educated guess. The verdict also tells you which graphics mode the game wants, and where a fix is known, Highball can apply it for you.
The hand-verified list is small today: about 15 games tested on real Macs, a few dozen more from community reports, and 40 marked impossible. The developers are clear about that, and the different sources are labelled separately rather than blurred together. That honesty is exactly what made ProtonDB trustworthy.
Predictions for games nobody has tested yet
Here's the clever part. Even if no one has tried a game in Highball yet, the database still gives you a predicted score by cross-referencing ProtonDB's Linux ratings with whether the game uses anti-cheat. A title that's Gold on ProtonDB with no anti-cheat gets "Likely playable." A Silver rating shows up as "Maybe." Anything with kernel-level anti-cheat gets ruled out regardless of how well it runs on Linux.
That covers roughly 12,500 Steam games right out of the gate. Highball is careful to call these odds rather than verdicts, since Proton describes Linux, not Mac, and it keeps them out of the main search results until someone confirms one on real hardware. But as a starting point for "is this worth trying?", it's exactly the kind of signal Mac gamers have never had.
Best of all, the data is public domain (CC0). Anyone can use it, including CrossOver users looking up whether a game is worth trying. You can browse it right now at gethighball.com/database without installing anything, and if you play something, you can report your result back so the next person benefits. That's how ProtonDB grew, and it's how this one will too.
It also tells you when to give up
Highball flags games with kernel-level anti-cheat, like Valorant, Fortnite and Destiny 2, as impossible before you download them. No compatibility layer on any Mac can run those, and it's refreshing to see an app just say so.
What Highball Does as an App
Highball is a native Mac app (with a matching command-line tool) that acts as a friendly front-end for Wine. On first run it downloads a Wine engine, sets up a Windows environment, and asks where your games live.
- Steam and Epic: Windows Steam installs with one click. Your Epic library connects through the open-source Legendary client.
- Graphics backends: D3DMetal, DXMT and DXVK are all available and switchable per game, with the database recommending the right one.
- Older games: 32-bit titles are supported, which matters for classic Steam games.
- Mac-friendly keys: ⌘C / ⌘V / ⌘A work inside Windows apps out of the box.
The developers' own examples are encouraging: Cyberpunk 2077 at 60–82 fps on an M5, Red Dead Redemption 2 on an M1 Pro, and Portal 2 at 210 fps after they traced and fixed a freeze on map load. Steam and Epic work on the default engine; Rockstar and EA work with an optional engine; GOG Galaxy doesn't sign in yet.
Why This One Might Stick Around
We've been burned before. Wineskin, PlayOnMac and Whisky all faded when a single maintainer or a single frozen Wine build couldn't keep up. Highball was designed by people who watched that happen.
It doesn't fork Wine or maintain its own custom build. Instead it pulls verified releases from the existing community projects (Gcenx's Wine builds, DXMT, the Sikarugir runtime), so it moves with the ecosystem instead of freezing against it. When a game needs a fix, the fix gets sent upstream where everyone benefits.
The app is GPL-3.0, the data is CC0, and the developers say there will never be a paid tier. There's no account and no telemetry, which, after our look at GameHub earlier this year, is nice to see spelled out. And rather than competing with CrossOver, the project openly points people to it for commercial-grade support and sends donation links to the upstream developers it depends on. That's the right attitude.
Things to Know Before You Try It
- It's a beta from a very new project. Expect bugs and frequent updates. The verified game list will take time to grow.
- Apple Silicon only, macOS 14+. Intel Mac users should stick with CrossOver or Sikarugir.
- First run is slow. Plan on 15 to 25 minutes while the engine downloads and Steam sets itself up. After that, launches are quick.
- No anti-cheat support yet. Games like Helldivers 2 and Starfield that CrossOver 26 unlocked still need CrossOver.
Highball and CrossOver
We don't see this as either/or. CrossOver remains the best way to get the most games running with the least effort, on both Intel and Apple Silicon, with real support behind it and years of game-specific fixes. That hasn't changed.
Highball is the free, open, community-driven project that fills in the piece CrossOver was never built to be: a public, shared answer to "will this run on my Mac?" Even if you're a happy CrossOver user, the database is worth bookmarking. And if you've been waiting for a Whisky successor, this is the one to watch.
How to Try It
- Download it from gethighball.com, or install with Homebrew:
brew install --cask gauthierpiarrette/highball/highball - Open the app and press Get started. It handles Rosetta, the engine download and the Windows environment for you.
- Pick your source: Steam, Epic, or a Windows program you already have.
- Check the verdict on each game before you download it.
- Played something? Report your result back to the database so it grows.
The source code is on GitHub, and the database has its own repository at highball-db.
Bottom Line
Highball isn't trying to replace CrossOver, and it doesn't need to. What it's building is the thing Mac gaming has needed for years: a shared, honest, community-owned answer to whether a game will run, sitting right inside the app that runs it. That's the Proton and ProtonDB model, and it's the first time we've seen someone build it for Mac the right way.
It's early. But we're excited, and we think you should give it a look.