HighballWhich renderer to use
Highball can run each game through three different Direct3D translation layers. This is what the database knows for this title — empty rows are open questions, not failures.
| Renderer | Verdict | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| DXVKDirect3D 9-11 over Vulkan | Reported | 1 report |
| DXMTDirect3D 11 over Metal | Untested | no report yet — send one |
| D3DMetalApple's Game Porting Toolkit | Untested | no report yet — send one |
No dated Highball run yet. When one lands it records the renderer, the engine build and the macOS version it was seen on — which is what stops a verdict quietly rotting. Send one.
Notes
Plays in one report on an M1 with DXVK on the Wine 11 engine r30, with or without athei's x87sidecar. On r28 the sound crackled and the game slowed when sound effects piled up. The reporter believes it's a 32-bit game.
Known issues
The sound crackles and the game slows down when sound effects pile up, from 60 to about 30 fps when whipping repeatedly (32-bit, M1, DXVK, Wine 11 r28)
What helps the Wine 11 engine r30 or r31 fixed it, without the sidecar (highball-db#926, 2026-11-07, credit udance4ever). Most likely Wine's own 32-bit sound DLLs, which those engines build with SSE2 maths, though r30 also changed the audio clock
Why likely Wine's own 32-bit sound code. On Wine 11 engines r27 to r29 the 32-bit DLLs, dsound and xaudio2_7 among them, were built with x87 maths, which Rosetta runs slowly (inferred, not checked with this game)
Provenance
Reported by udance4ever (highball-db#926, 2026-11-02), Apple M1, macOS 27.2, Highball 0.10.24, engine x64-crossover26.3-r28, DXVK by the report (the environment's mode is D3DMetal), rated 2 of 5 after 1 minutes: a free 32-bit fan game from archive.org, stutters on DXVK and on Wine's own Direct3D, with sound problems. Not verified by the maintainer. udance4ever again in a comment on highball-db#926 (2026-11-03): on DXVK the picture now runs at 60 fps without stutter. The sound crackles and the game slows when sound effects pile up, to 57 fps on a single whip and down to 30 fps when whipping repeatedly. Engine r28's 32-bit Wine DLLs, dsound and xaudio2_7 among them, were built with x87 maths (counted with objdump on 2026-11-03), which Rosetta runs slowly, a likely cause not checked with this game. udance4ever again in a comment on highball-db#926 (2026-11-06), Wine 11 engine r30 with athei's x87sidecar on (HB_X87SIDECAR=1): the slowdown when sound effects pile up is gone, whipping no longer slows the game. r30 also builds Wine's own 32-bit DLLs with SSE2, so which of the two changes did it isn't known. udance4ever again in a comment on highball-db#926 (2026-11-07): without HB_X87SIDECAR=1, on the same r30 environment, whipping no longer slows the game either, so the sidecar isn't what fixed it.
Before installing anything, it is worth checking whether the game already ships a native Mac build.
Common questions
Does Castlevania Chronicles II: Simon's Quest (fan game) work on Mac?
Castlevania Chronicles II: Simon's Quest (fan game) has no native Mac build, but it is reported to run on Apple Silicon through Highball, a free open-source compatibility layer. This comes from community reports rather than a Highball test run, so treat it as a reasonable expectation rather than a guarantee.
Contribute a result
This page is generated from an open database. If you have run Castlevania Chronicles II: Simon's Quest (fan game) on Apple Silicon, working or not, a report takes a minute and fills in the empty rows above. Send a report, or read how the data is put together.