CF Gaming
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Before you start

What CF Gaming needs, so everything works the first time.

Your Mac

  • A Mac with Apple silicon: an M1 or later.
  • macOS 27 or later.

To check, choose Apple menu › About This Mac: it shows the Mac's chip and its version of macOS.

Rosetta 2

Windows programs need Apple's Rosetta 2. If it isn't installed, CF Gaming says so when it opens, and explains how to add it.

Room on your Mac

  • About 1.6 GB for CF Gaming itself.
  • Room for your games. Each Windows case is its own copy of Windows with its own games, and big games take a lot of space.
  • Room for recordings: at Standard quality, about 3.7 GB for 40 minutes.
  • Room for texture packs, if you use them: a 4K .hts pack can be 20 GB or more.

For Steam

A Steam account, and an internet connection.

For console games

  • Your own games, in a folder with a folder for each console, and your own BIOS files for the consoles that need them. CF Gaming never downloads BIOS files or games.
  • RetroArch, which CF Gaming installs if you haven't got it: about 230 MB, from libretro's own site. Its cores are a few MB each (MAME's is about 400 MB).
  • Other emulators, which CF Gaming installs from their makers' own sites, checked first: xemu, Xenia Edge, Dolphin, RPCS3, PCSX2 and ScummVM. Or use one you got yourself.

An internet connection, now and then

So CF Gaming can update itself, and download what you ask it to.

Known issues

What doesn't work, and what to try instead, as the release notes give them.

CF Gaming 11.5's known issues
  • Nintendo 64:
    • ParaLLEl N64 can make RetroArch crash as you quit a game: a fault in the core. Your save is written first, so it’s kept, but a setting changed in RetroArch’s own menu during that game may be lost. Choose Mupen64Plus-Next with Change Core if that matters.
    • ParaLLEl N64 on Vulkan crashes (a fault in the core); its Graphics API stays on OpenGL.
    • libretro’s build of Mupen64Plus-Next shows only a black window with GLideN64 on a Mac (libretro/mupen64plus-libretro-nx#664, not yet added by libretro), so its games start with ParaLLEl-RDP. CF Gaming’s own build fixes it, and texture packs need it.
    • A .hts can’t yet be made from a pack of pictures: add a ready-made .hts, or use the pack with ParaLLEl N64.
    • Save File… is for games Mupen64Plus-Next plays; ParaLLEl N64’s saves aren’t covered yet.
    • libretro-database’s cheats that need a number stay greyed out; Project64’s file for the game has them with choices. Two cheats for the same thing both change it, and the later one wins: switch on one.
    • The Transfer Pak isn’t offered yet.
  • Custom Setup:
    • a setting changed in RetroArch’s own menu during a game with Graphics of its own lasts until that game next starts; change it in its Custom Setup to keep it;
    • Use the Case’s puts all of a game’s Graphics back at once, not one setting alone.
  • Save It Now: leave RetroArch in front until it closes by itself. Hidden, it stops running the game, and so never closes.
  • Consoles:
    • Most of RetroArch’s cores haven’t been tried in CF Gaming. If a game doesn’t run well, try another core for its console in Settings › RetroArch › Cores; if nothing works, try the game in RetroArch itself.
    • Best for this Mac covers SwanStation, Beetle PSX HW, PCSX2, PPSSPP, Flycast, Mupen64Plus-Next, ParaLLEl N64, melonDS DS and Azahar, and the Amiga’s Machine. Other consoles have a shader and, where the core draws the picture itself, Metal or Vulkan, but no settings of their own in CF Gaming.
    • A controller whose left stick macOS doesn’t read can use Right stick in a console’s Sticks.
    • Cheats and names with a dot: RetroArch reads a game’s cheats from a file named up to the last dot in its name, so Super Mario Bros. 3 uses “Super Mario Bros” cheats, and shares them with Super Mario Bros. if you have both.
    • Nintendo 3DS: games don’t start yet in RetroArch’s Azahar core; RetroArch closes at once. Choose Panda3DS instead, which has played games.
    • PlayStation 3: a game’s first start compiles for a while. If it stops while compiling, press Esc and start it again; what’s compiled is kept.
    • An arcade game made for two screens shows both, side by side, as MAME draws it.
    • RetroArch: close it with Esc (twice), not ⌘Q, which can make it crash.
    • Amiga:
      • PUAE uses only RetroArch’s own cheats, an address and a value; codes such as Action Replay’s don’t work. A WHDLoad game’s trainers are often the easier way;
      • one key goes forward a disk (F12) but none goes back; use F1 › Disc Control;
      • RetroArch’s Amiga core changes your floppy files’ permissions as it uses them (not what’s on them);
      • a game’s earlier save states are kept under another name once its disks are joined, or once it has an Amiga of its own.
    • Beneath a Steel Sky (CD32) showed only a black screen for the first 50 seconds in our test; it may just need longer.
  • Compress Games… leaves files over about 4 GB as they are, and games already compressed their own way (.chd, .rvz, .zip). It can’t compress on an exFAT disk.
  • High Resolution makes the Mac draw four times the pixels, and some games judder with it (eFootball, for one). Turn it off for that game’s case. A game can’t have its own High Resolution: Wine shares it across a whole case. With two screens, it can also make a game far too big, across both.
  • Train Sim Classic’s DX12 mode doesn’t start: it asks for a Windows DirectX 9 function by a number Wine doesn’t have. Play its 64-bit mode. On a Mac both modes draw through Wine’s own DirectX 9, so DX12 mode would bring nothing extra.
  • The Elder Scrolls Online: if daylight looks blown out, turn off HDR (Beta) in ESO’s own Settings › Video. When you quit ESO, Wine’s error box can appear after the game has closed: nothing is lost, click Close.
  • Graphics: DirectX 12 games don’t run with DXMT or Wine; 32-bit DirectX 10 and 11 games don’t start with D3DMetal. Auto suits both.
  • Steam’s overlay opens in some DirectX 11 games, and with DXMT (if Shift-Tab doesn’t open it, try ⌘⌥⇧Tab), but not in DirectX 12 ones. Steam’s own recording doesn’t work: use ⌃⇧R to record instead.
  • Jagged clothing on some Macs (an M4 Pro, for one), as with eFootball’s shirts: turn off cloth simulation in the game’s own graphics settings.
  • Steam Remote Play from a case shows a black picture. The Mac’s own Steam works.
  • Saved shaders are kept by program name, so clearing a game’s also clears them for the same game in another case.
  • Discs:
    • copy-protected discs, Windows 3.1-era (16-bit) setups and BIN/CUE-style images don’t work. ISO and CDR images do;
    • in a Windows XP case, putting in the next disc once stuck on “Putting in Disc 2…”. If it happens, Stop the Installer… is there; a Windows 7 case is the safer choice for installing from discs.
  • Old games such as Microsoft Train Simulator: in a window, the edge of the picture can be cut off, more so after the window is minimised; full screen, the game can quit as it starts. Being looked into.
  • The shader compiler comes from Steam, so a case without Steam keeps Wine’s own.
  • The launchers other than Steam are future releases.
  • Whether a Windows emulator’s games draw depends on the emulator: Xenia’s Windows build needs DirectX 12 or Vulkan. Xenia’s Mac build (Xenia Edge) is the one to try first.
  • Ryujinx has no command line CF Gaming has checked, so in an Other Emulator case it’s given the game file alone.
  • Cases made before 4.0 keep “crossover” as their Windows user, because games keep their saves there.

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