GOG on an Apple Silicon Mac

Mac GOG Galaxy vs Windows GOG Galaxy

GOG publishes GOG Galaxy for Windows and for Mac. The Mac version is a native app and the obvious choice for anything in your library with a macOS build — plenty of GOG's catalogue, especially the classics, has one.

What it can't do is install a Windows-only game, in exactly the way the Mac Steam client can't. The Windows version of Galaxy doesn't know or care what it's running on: put it inside a Wine-based Windows environment and it sees a Windows PC, which is what should put the Windows builds of everything you own in front of you. Your purchases live with your account, so there is nothing to buy again and nothing to transfer. How far we have actually taken that on a Mac is set out under what we've tested.

You may not need Galaxy at all

This is where GOG differs from every other store on your Mac. GOG describes Galaxy as an optional client, and the games it sells are DRM-free. Every purchase comes with an offline installer you download from your account page in a normal browser — a plain Windows .exe, with no launcher and no sign-in wrapped around it.

So the shortest path to a Windows-only GOG game on a Mac is often: download the offline installer in Safari, then run that .exe inside a Windows environment. Nothing else needs to be installed, nothing phones home, and there is no launcher to update itself at the worst moment.

Galaxy earns its place if you want the things a launcher is for:

• Cloud saves, so a game follows you between machines.
• Automatic updates and patches, rather than re-downloading an installer.
• Achievements, playtime and the friends list.
• One library view that can also pull in your other stores.

Which app to run it in

• Heroic Games Launcher is free, open source, and talks to GOG's servers directly: it downloads and manages GOG games itself, so you never install Galaxy. If your library is mostly GOG, this is the most mature route on a Mac today.
• CrossOver installs GOG Galaxy from its app catalogue and includes D3DMetal for DirectX 12. Paid, with a 14-day trial; its 26.x updates have specifically fixed GOG Galaxy problems.
• Grapple (ours) sets GOG Galaxy up in one click on either plan, silently, and works around the failed first start described below. Free runs one game of yours, forever, and launchers never count as that game. DirectX 9 to 12 is covered — D3DMetal comes with the app.
• Sikarugir is free and manual: make a wrapper, run the installer in it. Most flexible, most clicking.

For the wider picture — virtual machines, cloud gaming and the rest — see every way to play Windows games on a Mac.

Step by step

The same steps apply whichever app you use; only the buttons differ.

1. Check whether the game has a Mac build. GOG store pages list the platforms a game supports. If there's a macOS build, buy and install it with the Mac version of GOG Galaxy — or its offline installer — and stop here.
2. Decide whether you want Galaxy at all. GOG games are DRM-free and every purchase comes with an offline installer you download in a browser. If you only want to play one Windows game, running that installer inside a Windows environment is the shortest route.
3. Set up a Windows environment. Install a Wine-based app that runs on Apple Silicon — CrossOver, Sikarugir or Grapple — and let it create a 64-bit Windows environment. They all need Rosetta 2; macOS offers to install it the first time it's needed.
4. Install the Windows GOG Galaxy inside it. Run GOG's Windows installer in that environment, or use your app's one-click GOG setup if it has one. The full installer is around 340 MB, and installing takes a few minutes.
5. Expect the first start to fail once. GOG Galaxy registers a background service the first time it runs and then gives up waiting for it, leaving an error box on screen. Close it and start Galaxy again; the second start is the one that works. Some apps, Grapple included, do this restart for you.
6. Sign in and pick a graphics layer. Sign in with your GOG account, then choose the graphics layer for the games you install: DXMT or D3DMetal for DirectX 10/11, D3DMetal for DirectX 12.

What we've tested — and what we haven't

We'd rather be dull than wrong, so here is the line, drawn where we actually ran out of evidence. On a real Apple Silicon Mac, twice, on freshly created environments:

• Tested. GOG Galaxy downloads and installs without anyone clicking through a wizard, and opens at its sign-in window.
• Not tested. Signing in. Seeing your library. Downloading a game. Installing a game. Launching a game. There is no GOG account on our test Mac, so none of that has been through a single run.

Which means: we do not claim that any GOG game runs on a Mac through Grapple, and you will not find a GOG title on our compatibility pages until we have played one and can say which Mac it ran on. If you get there before we do, tell us and we'll publish what you found.

Once Galaxy is running

• Graphics. DirectX 10/11 games want DXMT or D3DMetal; DirectX 12 needs D3DMetal. The DirectX guide explains which is which.
• Old games are the good news here. GOG's catalogue leans heavily on DirectX 9 era titles, which ask the least of a Mac GPU and are the easiest thing any of these tools has to do.
• Anti-cheat. Rare on GOG, but not unknown. See anti-cheat games on a Mac.
• Disk space. Games install inside the Windows environment, so it grows to the size of what you put in it.
• Saves. Galaxy's cloud saves only work while you're signed in; offline installer games keep their saves inside the environment, so back it up before you delete anything.

FAQ