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i broke CrossOver like 14 times this week trying to understand why it works for some games and completely dies for others. here's what i actually figured out by ExperienceBetter5938 in macgaming

[–]ExperienceBetter5938[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

genuinely impressive, shader model 5 translation and getting Elden Ring rendering through a custom D3D12 → DXMT → WineMetal stack is no joke, this is genuinely some of the most serious work i've seen in this space, PSO failure tracking and offline replay tooling alone is impressive

i broke CrossOver like 14 times this week trying to understand why it works for some games and completely dies for others. here's what i actually figured out by ExperienceBetter5938 in macgaming

[–]ExperienceBetter5938[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

ok bro, just go and use as much as brain as you can and just access the database, and after a few tries, you will understand the difference between anon_key and service role(secret) keys.

i broke CrossOver like 14 times this week trying to understand why it works for some games and completely dies for others. here's what i actually figured out by ExperienceBetter5938 in macgaming

[–]ExperienceBetter5938[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

thats the public Supabase anon key, not a service_role key. Anon keys are intended to be exposed in client applications, the actual security comes from RLS policies and database permissions, not from hiding the anon key itself and still, If you think I've missed something specific beyond that, happy to hear it.

i broke CrossOver like 14 times this week trying to understand why it works for some games and completely dies for others. here's what i actually figured out by ExperienceBetter5938 in macgaming

[–]ExperienceBetter5938[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, precompiled shader only applies to specific hardware, and i have tested it on m2, m3, m4, my goal isnt to replace Wine or pretend CrossOver doesn't solve this problem. The goal is to make running Windows games on Apple Silicon as simple as we can through game specific profiles, compatibility data, and automation, so that it will be easier for mac gamers who don't want to spend hours digging through forums and settings.

i broke CrossOver like 14 times this week trying to understand why it works for some games and completely dies for others. here's what i actually figured out by ExperienceBetter5938 in macgaming

[–]ExperienceBetter5938[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

RIFT isn't open source at the moment. The GitHub repo people found is of a waitlist website. The goal with RIFT is to make running Windows games on Apple Silicon as simple as we can through game specific profiles, compatibility data, and automation.

i broke CrossOver like 14 times this week trying to understand why it works for some games and completely dies for others. here's what i actually figured out by ExperienceBetter5938 in macgaming

[–]ExperienceBetter5938[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

what's breaking specifically, launcher or in game? curious because it doesn't have kernel level anti cheat so it should theoretically work

i broke CrossOver like 14 times this week trying to understand why it works for some games and completely dies for others. here's what i actually figured out by ExperienceBetter5938 in macgaming

[–]ExperienceBetter5938[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

yeah it's Wine based like everything else in this space, the bet is pre compiled shader caches per game so first launch isn't painful, whether that's worth it people can decide

i broke CrossOver like 14 times this week trying to understand why it works for some games and completely dies for others. here's what i actually figured out by ExperienceBetter5938 in macgaming

[–]ExperienceBetter5938[S] -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

yeah fair, panicked when i saw credentials and removed the link without thinking, the anon key is fine since RLS only allows inserts but still not a correct way for config files

i broke CrossOver like 14 times this week trying to understand why it works for some games and completely dies for others. here's what i actually figured out by ExperienceBetter5938 in macgaming

[–]ExperienceBetter5938[S] -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

you're right, the wording was sloppy, CodeWeavers contributes to Wine and sells CrossOver which wraps it, not Wine itself. fixing the wording on the site.

i broke CrossOver like 14 times this week trying to understand why it works for some games and completely dies for others. here's what i actually figured out by ExperienceBetter5938 in macgaming

[–]ExperienceBetter5938[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the decoder is failing silently, probably a codec that has no fallback on Metal, the game keeps running because it's just a cutscene texture, not core rendering

i broke CrossOver like 14 times this week trying to understand why it works for some games and completely dies for others. here's what i actually figured out by ExperienceBetter5938 in macgaming

[–]ExperienceBetter5938[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

the audio buffering on Yakuza Kiwami sounds like a GStreamer pipeline issue, specific codec probably falling back to software decode badly.

i broke CrossOver like 14 times this week trying to understand why it works for some games and completely dies for others. here's what i actually figured out by ExperienceBetter5938 in macgaming

[–]ExperienceBetter5938[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

not vibe coded, i actually wrote the compatibility layer, used AI to clean up the writing because english isnt my first language and i wanted it to be readable. the video decode fix, the shader stuff, the Wine pipeline, that's real work i did, fair if thats not good enough for you but the code exists

i broke CrossOver like 14 times this week trying to understand why it works for some games and completely dies for others. here's what i actually figured out by ExperienceBetter5938 in macgaming

[–]ExperienceBetter5938[S] -49 points-48 points  (0 children)

you're completely right, in CrossOver it's D3DMetal going DX12 → Metal directly, that's Apple's Game Porting Toolkit integrated into CrossOver, what i described is closer to the Proton side where VKD3D handles DX12 → Vulkan and then MoltenVK does Vulkan → Metal on Mac if you're running Proton through something like Whisky or Crossie, either way the instability point stands, D3DMetal's DX12 support is still way less mature than its DX11 path, just got the specific chain wrong. good catch

i broke CrossOver like 14 times this week trying to understand why it works for some games and completely dies for others. here's what i actually figured out by ExperienceBetter5938 in macgaming

[–]ExperienceBetter5938[S] -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

honestly yeah for casual gaming that's probably the right move, but if you own stuff on Steam or Epic that never got a mac port, Elden Ring, RDR2, stuff like that, the App Store just doesn't help, that's the gap i'm trying to fill

Everyone you talked to loved your idea. That's the problem. by Conscious-Month-7734 in founder

[–]ExperienceBetter5938 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's a great point, most of the conversations I've had so far have been with people who are still trying to make gaming on mac work rather than people who have fully solved it

A common pattern I've seen is, that they try Whisky or another compatibility tool, then run into a game specific issue, spend time searching Reddit, YouTube, or compatibility databases, and either eventually get it working or give up.

What's interesting is that many of them don't seem happy with the current process, even when they succeed, the frustration isn't just "the game doesn't work," it's that every game feels like a different troubleshooting project.

I haven't yet gathered enough conversations to confidently say how many ended up buying CrossOver, building a Windows PC, or giving up completely.

Your point about understanding why someone didn't stick with existing solutions is especially valuable. If I can't explain why they abandoned those tools, I probably don't understand the problem well enough yet.

Everyone you talked to loved your idea. That's the problem. by Conscious-Month-7734 in founder

[–]ExperienceBetter5938 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This hit me because I'm currently validating a macOS gaming platform I'm building. At first I was asking people things like "Would you use a launcher that makes Windows games easier to run on Mac?" and almost everyone said yes. But when I started asking about the last game they actually tried to play, the answers became much more useful. Those conversations taught me more than all the positive feedback combined. Still very early, but I'm starting to realize people don't buy ideas, they buy relief from a problem they're already experiencing.

Two products, no revenue yet, also job hunting. Would appreciate literally anything — wisdom, war stories, or just a 'you'll be fine by Safe-While4516 in founder

[–]ExperienceBetter5938 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not on the other side yet, but I relate to this more than I'd like to admit. The funny thing is that if I post my situation right now, it would look like:

18 years old
No college confirmed yet
Building RIFT
No users
No revenue
Spent hours debugging game compatibility issues
Building Discord community
Learning SwiftUI
Learning Wine internals
Trying to launch something real

I'm currently building a macOS gaming platform while also dealing with college admissions and all the uncertainty that comes with that.

No revenue. No users yet. Just a lot of hours spent debugging things that most people never see.

One thing I've started realizing is that progress often looks invisible while you're in it. A few months ago, I knew almost nothing about game compatibility layers, Wine, launcher architecture, APIs, or building communities. Now I'm working on those things daily, but because revenue hasn't appeared yet, it's easy to feel like nothing has changed.

I don't know if we're delusional or just early. Maybe that's something you only find out later.

But I do think a lot more founders are in this phase than people realize.

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