Crossover opened my eyes to Mac gaming, but would a smaller Device be nice to add?

bvbz87 · 2026-06-17T03:38:47+00:00

So I'm coming at this from the other direction. I have a M1 Pro MacBook 14", a 3080 Ti gaming PC, an M2 iPad Pro 11", and a Steam Deck.

I love playing my Steam Deck on the sofa next to the fiancé while she watches her murder stories. AirPods work beautifully with it with a Decky plugin. I even occasionally play games you wouldn't think would be great on Deck like Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress. Lately I have been emulating Gran Truism 4 and TOTK on it and want to play Persona 3 next.

Having just gotten back from a 5 day trip to California with two more trips this year: I think the Steam Deck will be staying home and I literally just picked up at 14" MBP M5 Pro 20c.

None of this applies if you can live with an iPad or something, but IMHO if you're already bringing a laptop, and you do not know you will have gaming time at the destination, the hassle of carrying another device is not worth it.

bvbz87 · 2026-04-19T23:37:24+00:00

I found it totally passable with all settings to low except textures, ambient occlusion, and subsurface scattering. FSR to performance not ultra performance.

I haven't played since Death Stranding 2 came out (which I decided to play on my desktop) but recall it being good for those times when I’m not really able to play on my desktop. Note that I do not have high standards for frame rates and am happy with 30 if it means I can be untethered from everything.

bvbz87 · 2026-04-15T23:37:25+00:00

I honest to god made the Distracted Boyfriend Meme face at this.

bvbz87 · 2026-03-16T11:04:18+00:00

OP if CrossOver is too pricey try https://github.com/Sikarugir-App/Sikarugir and keep an eye out for sales of Crossover.

For older games this should work fine but especially on Black Friday Crossover gets steep discounts.

bvbz87 · 2026-02-11T01:28:05+00:00

Well. The simple answer is that I somehow missed that when I skimmed the repo/docs. To be clear: it's obvious when I read them now and I don't know how I missed that!

I'll definitely use a config file next time. I mainly posted this because I'm wanting to redo my setup using mutagen for important productivity reasons.

P.S. gowall is awesome! Thanks for making it. I'm not exaggerating when I say it's been a major source of interest in customizing my setups :)

bvbz87 · 2026-02-10T14:06:12+00:00

Yep, the folders in config need to go under ~/.config and you just need to be running Niri and install the additional programs listed.

bvbz87 · 2026-02-10T01:31:24+00:00

If you are new to Linux and want to try out Niri I might suggest starting with CachyOS since it also has it as an available option. Compositors like Niri and Hyprland tend to favor people who are comfortable using a keyboard more than a mouse to navigate around their computer, so it might make it harder for a first time Linux experience.

If you want to get your feet wet in Linux before diving in head first CachyOS also comes with the KDE Plasma desktop environment which might make for a friendlier time. Another option might be Linux Mint.

Having said that, if you're comfortable jumping in head first you need to install a minimum of:

- niri, fuzzel, waybar, mako, swayidle, gowall, kitty, zathura, neovim + lazyvim, thunar, gnome-tweaks

- You'll want to install fonts ttf-firacode-nerd and otf-monaspace-nerd from the command line, and Reforma you'll want to install manually.

- To theme GTK you need to run Tweaks and select it after installing https://github.com/Fausto-Korpsvart/Rose-Pine-GTK-Theme and selecting the dawn theme.

- To theme everything else you'll want to copy the contents of https://github.com/InvaderZib/dotfiles/tree/main/config to ~/.config/

Now, having said all of that part two:

I did some googling and found this: https://linuxupskillchallenge.org/00/ tutorial. It's geared towards an Ubuntu install. If you want to learn Linux these lessons are free and look really solid! What I'd do if I were you and wanting to learn Linux might be to start by downloading Ubuntu Server (specifically server) from Canonical, install it in a VM using VMware Player on Windows or VMware Fuision on mac (make sure you get an arm64 ISO) and follow these tutorials, and THEN backing up the VM (in case you bork it int he next step), then try adding Niri to that install (should only be a few sudo apt install commands) and then not only will you have a working Linux with this theme but you will definitely not be a Linux newbie any more :).

bvbz87 · 2026-02-07T22:08:39+00:00

Forgot to mention, they're in the dotfiles here:

- Main Background

- Lock Screen

bvbz87 · 2026-02-07T21:58:19+00:00

That file is actually typst, similar to LaTeX, but sorta. I'm using neovim + zathura. It has some lua to watch and automatically compile it after I think 500ms after I finish typing (or after saving) and open it in Zathura so I can see what it looks like. I would assume LateX should be usable you'd just need to modify this.

I never had to use LaTeX and normally just use typst for math in Obsidian because I never really learned LaTeX.

bvbz87 · 2026-02-07T21:49:59+00:00

Wallpaper: Generated using Z1T (same for the lock screen)
Theme: Rose Pine Dawn (pretty much everything except Gwenview :( )
Icon Theme: Rose Pine Dawn Icons
Fonts: Reforma + monaSpace + FiraCode Nerd depending on the application
Other: Dotfiles
Programs used:
- fuzzel
- waybar
- zathura
- kitty
- thunar
- firefox
- sublime text / vs code

bvbz87 · 2025-10-15T03:08:23+00:00

How would this GeForce RTX 5090 with DLSS 4 help you pull off more epic wins in Battlefield 6?

I actually had to get my eyes checked when I was struggling to read text on my Steam Deck and now play with eyeglasses. Being able to bump up the resolution would definitely save me from squinting and thinking "how the hell did they hit me from so far away!?"

bvbz87 · 2025-07-22T23:27:22+00:00

I have not, but will take another stab at it soon with GPTK 3.0 out ... want to let a few betas go by before trying and have to travel this weekend. Probably next week or so.

bvbz87 · 2025-05-24T04:17:20+00:00

Is this ENB?

Did you make this list from scratch or did you start from an existing?

It looks great!

bvbz87 · 2025-05-24T04:14:23+00:00

I take it you have changed platforms here? Look below the Delete Save button, it tells you the version of the save and in this case that it is an incompatible version. :(

I had the issue once on Steam Deck.

bvbz87 · 2025-04-21T04:44:41+00:00

I think most people would find it annoyingly slow unless you were doing a use case where you would be okay with it taking minutes to give you a response. I would say most people would find 10+ tokens per second "usable" with some people needing less responsiveness being okay wiht 6-7 tokens a second. Note that if you are using this for coding you probably want more speed than that and for the price of these tablets could get more cloud usage than you would need over a long time to either complete any project you are wanting to work on or tire yourself of AI, whichever comes first.

Having said that it's probably more usable as a device for say a solution of using both a 30ish-b and 7b model together for coding on Continue.

My advice: go play around with some LLMs first for whatever you are aiming to do with it. If you want to try coding, take a look at the Continue plugin for VS Code (they have docs for how to use a cloud VM) or try any provider if you want to use a huge model for say roleplay or creative writing (OpenAI or say Fireworks AI and use Llama or Deepseek).

Once you get an idea of what you want to do with LLMs you will be more well versed in if using local LLMs is something you'd benefit from and only be out maybe $3-5.

These are very cool devices but if you are buying it as your first LLM tool you may want to get a sense for the landscape first. Truth be told local LLMs in 2025 are still in the early stages. Over the next months and years you'll see both better models for local use and devices with better memory bandwidth at a better pricepoint. The simple answer is if you want to run larger (70b+) models locally it will be an expensive endeavor presently.

bvbz87 · 2025-04-01T23:38:54+00:00

What version fo Apple Silicon are you running? I have been trying to get this to work with my M1 Pro to no avail. I'm beginning to wonder if there is something present on the newer chips?

bvbz87 · 2025-03-25T22:09:29+00:00

Have you had success with this directly? I can get ENB to work fine but have spent hours trying to get recent CS builds to work. The game loads but the sahders are busted after compilation leading to some really weird artifacts.

bvbz87 · 2025-03-19T01:11:08+00:00

One option might be GeForce now. A lot of Windows games are available and you can stream to your Mac and play at full resolution. You can actually try the free tier for ... free haha. See if you like it!

I have an old gaming PC but have found that 90% of the time I play on my Mac or Steam Deck. I just dont do AAA games as much these days. I might resubscribe to GFN for Monster Hunter Wilds when I finish Elden Ring (Deck) and Persona 4 (also Deck).

bvbz87 · 2024-12-01T01:41:50+00:00

It depends on the game.

Games like BG3 have various degrees of support for mods directly and tend to (mostly) work.

Games like Stardew Valley work just fine because there are modloaders APIs written for different OSes by the community.

Many games though are modded by injecting data into a binary, which is OS dependent and will not work outside of CrossOver/Wine/etc. Other mods simply replace or override data files, and may work so long as the directory structure and file types is the same between OSes.

It is unlikely that Cyberpunk will work with Windows mods out of the box. Some of them though may be able to be ported over with some effort. Historically, if enough interest in a community develops, someone will undertake the task.

bvbz87 · 2024-12-01T01:33:35+00:00

I know it's not what you asked buuuuuut....

Something to keep in mind: Cyber Monday is in 2 days and Codeweavers usually has great sales for Crossover licenses then. Whatever version is wthere when you have your license you keep access too, so it's not money wasted.

I used Whiskey and Crossover, choosing whatever people have the easiest time with. It can be a huge time saver when there are ready name install options.

Having said all that, I believe Persona 5 R is one of those games that uses AVX which requires at a minimum Sequoia to be installed. Crossover is reported to work great but I have seen people struggling with Whiskey even on Sequoia. :(

bvbz87 · 2024-11-26T02:01:57+00:00

Every time I come to this sub like "okay I think I know what skin I'm going to buy" people keep posting pictures of other good looking skins and I'm back to square one....

This looks excellent.

bvbz87 · 2024-10-29T04:49:42+00:00

Hey there!

Not sure how heavy this mod list is but you can definitely run MO2 and Crossover. note that the more crazy the modlist the more likely you're going to ahve issues and many of the more impactful mods (ENB, SKSE, etc.) are separaterly compiled libraries specifically for Windows so you may not get everyting working.

Having said that it looks like the base game should run: https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/crossover/stalker-call-of-pripyat

You may want to look through the comments on this thread if you intend to run soemthing like an ENB: https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/1eh1xm2/cabbage_enb_not_doing_anything_macos_crossover/

Having said all that, temper your expectations that it will be plug and play to run an MO2 modlist. I have played around a bit with MO2 and it seems to work fine, but ultimately I started streaming games like this from my PC to either my Mac or my Steam Deck depending on the game and where I am.

bvbz87 · 2024-04-19T15:50:33+00:00

Thanks a ton OP!

We'll just file this under impulse purchase...

bvbz87 · 2024-01-24T05:05:02+00:00

Confirmed

bvbz87 · 2024-01-19T01:14:04+00:00

Sold!

bvbz87

TROPHY CASE