How do I play Windows only Steam games?

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Level 1

0 points

How do I play Windows only Steam games?

My first choice of a solution would be to just natively run them, maybe through WinOnX? (If you don't know what that is, it's basically a nice UI and Wine sold for $5 on the MacAppStore.)

I do have Windows 7 installed through Bootcamp, but it's only a 20GB partition so that wouldn't be very practical. If I use Bootcamp is there a way to get it to store the data on my Macintosh HD partition, where I have lots more space? I don't want to just resize the partitions.

Would VirtualBox be a good solution?

I have a 2011 Macbook Pro with 8GB RAM, an Intel CORE i5 2.3 GHz processor, 512 MB vRAM, and Intel 3000 Graphics.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Jan 28, 2012 10:14 PM

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Answer 1

doh1231

Level 2

210 points

Jan 29, 2012 10:38 AM in response to Danielcg25

I see no reason to buy WinOnX, when I make a totally free tool called Wineskin that well let you do much more... if you really want to pay for something, Crossover is more expensive, but is MUCH MUCH more user friendly, as well as actual Wine devs work for them, so the money helps make Wine better... and WinOnX seems like a few people trying to cash in on Wine when they don't even do anything with it. Maybe they do more, but if they do, they sure don't say they do.

Its possible to make a Wineskin app with Steam and some working games in it... but Intel HD 3000 isn't the best graphics to have for anything Wine based.

VirutalBox has several graphics issues. If you really want to run Windows in a virtual machine with gaming in mind, you'd want to buy Parallels 7, since nothing else is close to it yet in performance and compatibility with games.

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Answer 2

Kurt Lang

Level 9

70,009 points

Jan 29, 2012 11:17 AM in response to Danielcg25

Forget all of these Wine versions, VMWare, VirtualBox or Parallels. Games take a lot of processing power, and running them through a VM or any for of Wine distributions will only be frustrating. Make your Boot Camp partition larger and play away.

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