FORTS on Mac OSX

This is a work in progress guide to help Macintosh owners play the windows version of FORTS on macOS using Crossover/Fusion on Intel Processor based Mac and Whisky on Apple Silicon based Mac.

Intel Processor based Macintosh FORTS Workaround Instruction

Firstly, you might find the easiest solution is Geforce Now

Otherwise, here are a couple of ways of getting Steam (Windows version) and Forts to run on your Intel Processor based Mac.

This section is originally written by Noze and updated by SamZong.

Codeweavers Crossover

Codeweavers Crossover is a GUI software for wine on macOS, it is very easy to configure bottles and run Windows x86 software without the need for the CLI with this software. Follow the Instruction below should allow you to enjoy Forts with minimal effort and disk storage space.

Step 1
Download Codeweavers Crossover from here[www.codeweavers.com] .

Step 2
Move Crossover app file to Applications section.

Step 3
Launch Crossover and enter your license details or run a free trial.

Step 4
Click the + button on the lower left corner and search Steam,then install it as usual.
Notice: Deselect Run Steam on the setup's final step or Steam will not launch

Step 5
Double click Steam icon on the panel and wait for it to finish updating, this may take some time depending on the speed of your internet connection.If Steam doesn't launch automatically after a self update, you may need to double click the icon again to launch it.

Step 6
Log in as usual and Install Forts. Now you should be able to enjoy Forts on your Macintosh.
Enable Vulkan in Forts option menu may provide performance optimization.

VMware Fusion

VMware Fusion is a desktop hypervisor app for Mac. It allows you to install Windows VM on your Mac.Fusion was recently turned into free software due to Broadcom's decision. This method may be more laborious and will take up some disk space.

Step 1
Download and Install VMware Fusion from here[www.vmware.com]. You may need to register and log in to your Broadcom account to download Fusion.

Step 2
Download Windows 10/11 ISO image from Microsoft.

Step 3
Open Fusion and click Install from disc or image,then follow the instruction to finish installing Windows VM.

Step 4
Installing Steam on a Windows VM and install Forts from Steam.Now you should be able to enjoy Forts on your Macintosh.

Apple Silicon based Macintosh FORTS Workaround Instruction

This section was written by SamZong.

Whisky

Whisky is an open-source GUI tool for Apple's Game Porting Toolkit and it makes playing x86 games much easier on Arm based Mac.Follow the Instructions below and you should be able to enjoy Forts on your Mac without using Parallel Desktop or VMware Fusion.
I tried Forts utilizing Whisky on my own M1 Max Macbook Pro and Forts runs silky smooth.

Step 0:
Update your MacOS to Sonoma and set your MacOS’ language to English if your system language is not English,or Steam will not launch.

Step 1:
Download open-source project Whisky from here[getwhisky.app]

Step 2
Move Whisky app to Applications section

Step 3
Open Whisky app and follow the download instruction

Step 4
Create a bottle with Windows version Windows 10 selected

Step 4.5
Click Bottle Configuration and set Build Version to 19043

Step 5
Download Steam windows installer and then in the Whisky click run and select steam installer exe, then install as usual.
Notice: You have to choose English as display language when installing Steam and DO NOT SELECT RUN STEAM in the installer's final step, or Steam won’t launch.

Step 6
After Steam showed up on the bottle panel,double click the steam icon and wait for it to launch, it might take a while depending on you internet connection speed. After Steam updated itself you may need to double click the icon again to launch it. Then log into Steam as usual.

Step 7
Download Forts and launch, enjoy Forts on your Apple Silicon based Macintosh!
Enable Vulkan mode in Forts’ option menu should provide some performance optimizations.

[JustNotThinking]

Asking again, are you planning to launch it for Mac aswell?

[Rixmorld]

Can't seem to launch the steam client after installing

[Forge_Builder]

or you could just.. not buy a mac... ya know?

[SamZong]

4 should be "brew install --cask --no-quarantine gcenx/wine/wine-crossover"

[XLBoner]

i bought a pc, works better xD

[[DEV] Noze]

Ok, I’m going to need to update this guide as there’s been a lot of Mac updates since.

If anyone has had luck with this and is willing to help out, ping me direct or on the discord.

[hankman25]

the github link to install homebrew brings up a 404 error

[cliffy]

Update: Use Wine Crossover as it makes the game a lot more stable and allows you to play at default resolution. Wine Stable (funnily enough) is not stable at all and created 80 GB worth of Steam crash reports (sorry devs).
I've played 2 multiplayer games (more frequent crashes) and I'm a good chunk of the way through campaign (not counting DLC :D).

[cliffy]

Got it running on an Early 2015 Macbook Pro with Mojave 10.14.6.
Used Wine Stable 5.0 and followed the instructions on "https://wiki.winehq.org/MacOS" .
Then followed the instructions on here and did a bit of trouble shooting when installing homebrew.
Changed the default resolution for my macbook (settings -> display) to 1024x640.
Install forts on wine steam -> run -> enjoy 15 fps Forts ahahah.

[[DEV] Noze]

What kind of Mac do you have?