Aug 19, 2019 But what haunts me is the desire to play it on a big screen in order to get the best out of it. There is one way by which we can enjoy such high-quality games: play them on Mac using QuickTime player. It is the safest and best way because there are no third-party apps involved. How to Play iPhone or iPad Game on Your Mac Using QuickTime Player. If your App Store is missing or you can't find it on your device, you might have parental controls turned on. Adjust your iTunes & App Store Purchases settings and make sure that you choose 'Allow' for the Installing Apps setting.; Learn what to do if an app unexpectedly quits, stops responding while installing, or won't open.; Learn what to do if you can't download apps, or if apps get stuck.
Yes. Yes you can.
More? Ok.
This is actually two questions. Can you game on OSX? Sure, you can. You can get Steam, Battle.net, and so much more all on Mac now. The other question is can you game, for real on a Mac? And by that I mean, installing Wndows, and running serious games at decent frame rates at high resolution. You shouldn’t expect industry leading performance, but the answer is yes here too.
Let’s start with gaming on OSX. The library of titles isn’t remotely comprehensive, but there are a lot of big titles and smaller indie games that absolutely do support the Mac. Thanks to efforts like the Humble Indie Bundle, Apple’s own gaming support, and most importantly the swath of multi-platform frameworks like Unity and Gamemaker the mac is now home to a healthy sampling of the best gaming has to offer.
If you’re running any model of MacBook Pro, you should be able to run most of these indie titles and quite a few bigger titles without a problem. If you’re looking for honest to goodness AAA gaming, though, this is not your bag. Apple is well known for walled gardens and gaming is no exception. This is where Boot Camp comes in.
Boot Camp works beautifully. Once you’re all up and running with a copy of windows on your mac, sky’s the limit. Actually, well, the limit is actually your graphics card. And that’s where a PC beats a mac. On a mac, you’re stuck with what you bought out of the box. No expandability. A PC can just swap in a powerful graphics card if necessary, but here you’re definitely going to be dialing down the quality settings in your games quite a bit.
Once you’re in Windows, you’ll need to tinker with what settings will work best for your particular build. For me, I’m running a late 2013 15” MacBook Pro with retina which sports an NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M and a meager 2GB of VRAM. While this certainly isn’t much in this day and age, it’s still enough to be able to reliably play Heroes Of The Storm, the new Assassin’s Creed, and plenty of other titles. Just don’t expect to be playing Skyrim with all the most realistic mods you can find.
The best of both worlds for me is running a boot camp partition I can boot into when I’m looking to get serious with something like Magic Online, Overwatch, or another AAA title that either doesn’t support the Mac or will run better on a PC due to your expansion options. I also keep a Parallels instance handy for when I need to make a change on the Windows side, but I don’t want to have to reboot just to do it.
For example, if I want to start a download on a game I know I’ll play later, I’ll use Parallels to virtualize the Boot Camp partition on my MacBook Pro, and use that to start the download while still just using my Mac normally. I never use Parallels to play games, though. Even though there are optimizations in it for gaming, and some games run fine in Parallels, I just can’t justify the drop in performance for the convenience of not having to reboot.
So, let’s answer the question once and for all. Can you game on a Mac? Yes. You can. And to a pretty large extent, too, especially if you’re a filthy casual like me. If you’re looking to get serious, the PC is still the only option. Nothing else will give you the sheer control over your experience like a PC can.
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If you want to play Microsoft Xbox games on your Mac there are two easy ways to do so. One is by running Windows on your Mac using Parallels and the other is via an app called OneCast.
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Here’s an overview of both ways so you can choose the best one for you.
1. Parallels
Parallels is our favorite way to run Windows on a Mac and the latest version of Parallels 15 supports Xbox Beta from the Windows store which allows you to play Xbox games in Windows 10.
You also need an Xbox pass but you can get one for an introductory offer of $1 for the first month and then $5 per month afterwards.
Even better, you can connect your Xbox controller via Bluetooth meaning you can enjoy the full Xbox experience on your Mac.
Installing Windows on your Mac also opens up a whole world of other advantages allowing you to install PC only apps and games on macOS.
2. OneCast
OneCast allows you to stream Xbox One games to macOS in 1080p and connect an Xbox controller to your Mac via Bluetooth or USB.
OneCast is extremely easy to setup, there’s almost no lag when playing and you can setup multiple profiles for multiple Xboxes.
You can try OneCast for free although after 14 days it costs $10 to buy a license key for the full version. It’s normally $20 but it’s currently 50% off until April 1st. You can also watch OneCast in action playing NBA Live on Mac here.
Before starting, make sure that your Mac and Xbox are connected to the same internet router at home. Then follow these instructions to start streaming Xbox games to your Mac for free:
- Download the trial version of OneCast for free and open the DMG file downloaded.
- Drag the OneCast app to your Applications folder.
What Games Can I Run On My Macbook Pro
- Click on the OneCast icon in your dock to launch it.
- OneCast will then automatically detect your Xbox on your home network (assuming it’s switched on) and allow you to connect to it. OneCast will prompt you to login into your Xbox with your Microsoft account details. Just use the same username and password that you use to log onto your Xbox One.
- Finally you simply need to connect your Xbox One controller to your Mac which you can do by activating Bluetooth on your Mac via System Preferences. Alternatively you can also connect it via USB.
What Games Can I Get On My Mac Free
You can stream your Xbox on your Mac in either windowed mode or full screen mode. You can even connect your Mac to your Xbox away from home too although this requires a few simple manual network configuration changes which are explained in the OneCast user manual.
Although there is some lag at times, most games run pretty smoothly in 1080p using OneCast and it’s generally very impressive. If you find that lag becomes a problem, you can try changing the video quality when you launch OneCast from “Very High” to “High”, “Medium” or “Low”.
It is also a good idea to shut down all other applications while using OneCast as it’s quite GPU intensive and your Macs cooling vents will kick in pretty quickly if you’ve got lots of other applications open.
The Mac gaming scene is really hotting-up this year with NVIDIA GeForce Now already allowing Mac users to play Windows only Steam games on Mac.
Previously the only way to run Xbox games on Mac was to install Windows on Mac for free using Boot Camp but both Parallels and OneCast are definitely easier and more efficient.
What Games Can I Get On Mac
If you’re having any problems playing Xbox games on your Mac, let us know in the comments below.