How to install and play Control on macOS (2023)
Apple Silicon (M1/M2), macOS Sonoma, CrossOver 23.5, and D3DMetal (GPTK) has made games like Control playable on Macs. Here’s how I installed and played Control on macOS running on a M2 Max Mac Studio.
Yes. It runs really well.
What’s the trick?!
CodeWeaver’s Crossover is the secret sauce that translates Windows applications, read games, to run on your Mac. This usually means it runs faster when compared to Windows emulation on platforms like Parallels. With version 23.5 and above, CrossOver includes the D3DMetal implementation so you don’t need to mess around with GPTK to get it working.
This will cost you about $59.95 usually. Sometimes there are promos like Black Friday, etc so you might be able to snag it cheaper. Once you purchased and installed CrossOver, the fun begins.
How to install Control Ultimate Edition on macOS using CrossOver
I personally prefer to get my games from GOG‘s platform as I’m able to play it offline. This is especially helpful to get games working on emulators like CrossOver! But this will also work if you purchase your games from Steam as you would simply install the game via Steam in CrossOver.
Anyways. If you have not bought Control Ultimate Edition yet, I would recommend getting it from GOG.com here. GOG allows you to download the offline installer and the offline installer and thus removing the dependancy on Steam or Epic Games Store launcher to get it working. One less problem to worry about! Control Ultimate Edition from GOG comes is a 28GB download in total over 8 files.
Once you have all the installer files downloaded, it’s time to start up CrossOver and install Control Ultimate Edition on your Mac. Control is not listed in CrossOver, so you need to install it manually. But don’t worry as it is a simple process.
First, click to install an unlisted application.
Then, point CrossOver to the Control Ultimate Edition installer that you just downloaded.
Next, select Windows 10 64-bit bottle and name it “Control Ultimate Edition” or any other name you like.
After that, click on Install and the installer will start. Then it’s just a matter or waiting for the installer to complete.
Required settings on CrossOver for Control on macOS
First up, you need to enable D3DMetal support on the bottle. I also recommend turning on ESync settings. That’s it. You can now run Control on macOS!
Is Control Ultimate Edition playable on macOS?!
The short answer is that it really depends on your Mac’s GPU. Thankfully, the M1 and M2 Macs have relatively powerful GPUs. Check out the video below and see how I was able to get constant 60 FPS @ 1080p using medium settings on my Mac Studio with a 38-cores GPU M2 Max.
I also used an Xbox One wireless controller with the game. No tweaking required once you connected the connector to the Mac. It. Just. Works.
I can also confirm that the game is completely playable with no issues, allowing me to complete the game. While there’s no ray tracing support in this setup, the game actually still looks great without it.
I would encourage you to try tweaking around with graphics settings if you don’t have a GPU as powerful as the M2 Max.
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