Gaming on Mac with FX Steam Launcher
Gaming on Mac has come a long way. Gone are the days of limited releases, although not everything can be played on the platform. Community developers are actively closing those gaps.
FX Steam Launcher, an open‑source project on GitHub, brings the SteamOS ARM64 version to Apple Silicon Macs. It uses Proton 11 and FEX to enable Windows games, and it runs the official SteamOS image from Valve, handling updates automatically.
The launcher isn’t a native install; it runs SteamOS inside a virtual machine. It’s free to download, but you must meet a few requirements. Currently it works only on Apple Silicon Macs with macOS 15 or newer, and the graphics stack needs DXVK for DirectX 9‑11 and VKD3D‑Proton for DirectX 12. MoltenVK or KosmicKrisp act as translation layers, with KosmicKrisp requiring macOS 26 or later.
When it works, the launcher lets you run SteamOS in windowed or full‑screen mode and switch to macOS whenever you like. YouTuber ETA Prime tested it on an M4 Max, achieving over 70 FPS in The Witcher 3, Stellar Blade and Left 4 Dead 2, with the latter topping 200 FPS. Stellar Blade ran at 800p, the others capped at 1080p, and not every title performed as well.
Still, the results are impressive. Mac gaming is far more viable now than before. For Apple’s 50th birthday, Jacob highlighted what the Mac does better than PC, and Ian praised the Mac Studio M4 Max, joking that you should “buy something else to play with.” A budget‑friendly option like the MacBook Neo, priced at $699/£699, offers solid performance amid rising PC component costs and memory shortages.
