Playing PC games on your Mac is now way better with CrossOver 23

Diablo IV on Mac
(Image credit: Andrew Williams)

If you want to play PC games on your Mac you're going to have to use something like CodeWeaver's CrossOver, and now a new version makes the experience even better.

Gaming on a Mac isn't always that great despite Apple silicon chips being performant in all kinds of ways. Not all PC games get a Mac port, for starters, and that's where CrossOver comes in. It's an app that can take Windows games and make them run on a Mac, and CrossOver 23 is the latest version, bringing with it some noteworthy improvements.

At the top of that list of improvements is support for DirectX 12, an API that Windows games use to allow them to make the most of a computer's graphics hardware, among other things. But while CrossOver 23 adds that support, you might not actually be able to use it.

The DirectX 12 caveat

CodeWeavers announced the new update via a blog post that details the improvements that version 23 brings to CrossOver. DirectX 12 support isn't the only one, but we're starting there for obvious reasons — because it can make a big difference to gaming performance.

In the case of CrossOver 23, CoreWeavers says that "Diablo II Resurrected and Diablo IV are currently running well on macOS Ventura, making them the first DirectX 12 games working on a released macOS version." That means as of right now, they're the only two games that are supported. That'll change though, with the blog post going on to say that "this breakthrough was the culmination of years of development, and we look forward to continuing to aggressively pursue support for even more DirectX 12 titles."

There are more improvements, too. Gamers should notice fewer missing graphics and black screens when playing some titles thanks to new support for geometry shaders and transform feedback. There's also new support for the EA app, a game launcher from the company of the same name.

CrossOver 23 also finally allows people to uninstall applications for the first time, while the update reportedly includes more than 5,000 changes that offer improvements to a variety of applications.

Obviously, you're going to want to be using Apple's best Macs to get the most out of your gaming experience regardless of these improvements. Those who already have CrossOver installed can grab this new version now. For everyone else, CrossOver can be downloaded from the CodeWeavers store.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.