Macbook Pro Apple M1

[hans]

The game dosent start on Apple Silicon m1.
Dose someone has a solution?

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Don't use a M1? Arma 3 is old and unlikely to run on the M1 architecture without serious work on an even older engine. And then there is the question of does this new tech provide any reason to invest the effort for a game like Arma.

[Aleks]

Nobody cares about Mac or Linux users.

[Lieutenant Dinkleass]

uhh

[Wander]

Get a real PC

[Sgt Smash]

Macbook's remind me of them Toyota's converted into fake Ferrari's lol

[JackedUpBowman]

Yes, its possible though not through bigSur. Arma 3 hasn't supported any types of MacOS for a while now and even though steam lets you download it; spoilers, it doesn't open. There are experimental ports that are being developed outside of BI apparently (https://dev.arma3.com/ports) yet it is explicitly stated that there are some serious limitations so I will assume that's out of the question.



SOLUTIONS FOR OTHER GAMES



I then attempted to download the Windows version of steam to get the appropriate binaries to run the Windows patch of Arma 3 as it is basically the only one supported, and then I tried to run the game using Rosetta 2 and Wine. The easiest way to do this is with the Crossover platform offered by Codeweavers (https://www.codeweavers.com/) however I had significant issues with running Arma 3 because of errors with dx11 that have something to do with my dotnet packages. This might be resolvable however I'm seeing that a lot of people are having this issue and not many have suggested a fix that doesn't give me a headache so I moved on. This solution is probably the best for running other games though as you will be less bottlenecked in performance as opposed to my last solution (using Parallels to run a Windows VM).

I am also aware that people say Crossover works with Arma 2.



SOLUTION FOR ARMA 3



Lastly I tried using parallels (https://www.parallels.com/) to install a VM version of Windows and it definitely works. You basically install steam and Arma 3 through the Virtual Windows and it runs. The game stutters as things load in (just like on any other computer tbh) but it is definitely playable and I was surprised that I was getting more than 20fps (standard settings) when no enemy elements or bases are being loaded in. Combat can get hectic when there are many elements engaging each other which makes the game stutter a bit but its definitely playable. I haven't tried with mods yet nor have I taken any measures to improve performance by doing things such as using less resources on the MacOS, changing the VM settings (increase allocated resources), performance settings on the Windows side and other game oriented techniques to increase performance.



A better way to do this would be wait for Bootcamp to come out/get updated for m1 and have a bootable version of Windows (not virtual) so that your computers resources are not divided and arma has access to them. This might take a while though (https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/jw786q/apple_m1_chip_with_bootcamp/), even though Microsoft have made an effort for Windows compatibility on ARM.



I should also mention that this was done on a Macbook Air (M1 2020, 8gb ram).

[Xone]

It's unfortunate that ARMA does not work at all on Mac/Silicon M1/M2.

Deleting.

[Weißbrot]

Originally posted by isyyy:

The game dosent start on Apple Silicon m1.
Dose someone has a solution?

Not worth it, just save for a PC (not a laptop btw) fitting Arma 3 minimum requirements.

[HPC 10X Engineer]

Guys, finally they made support for M1/M2.
I tried it, and it's much better in performance than Parallels

[Kony Stark]

Originally posted by Land Maze:

Guys, finally they made support for M1/M2.
I tried it, and it's much better in performance than Parallels
:lunar2019piginablanket:

Is no third party software needed? And what resolution and settings would you recommend on an M1 base macbook air

[HPC 10X Engineer]

Originally posted by Kony Stark:

Originally posted by Land Maze:

Guys, finally they made support for M1/M2.
I tried it, and it's much better in performance than Parallels

Is no third party software needed? And what resolution and settings would you recommend on an M1 base macbook air

Personally, I use second monitor which is Full HD, but I suggest you to play either on 1440x900 or 1680x1050.

If you want to load mods, use Arma 3 Unix Launcher. It's available on GitHub. But it doesn't have BattleEye support, so no multiplayer on almost every servers

[Corpo.Rat]

What issue are you facing? I ran Arma on m1, as well as m2 and never had a problem.