Highball
Which 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 | Untested | no report yet — send one |
| DXMTDirect3D 11 over Metal | Reported | 1 report |
| 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
Reported perfect on the default engine with DXMT over 83 minutes, and the reporter adds in a comment that D3DMetal (Apple's DirectX 12 support) works too. Nothing was measured here.
Provenance
Reported by linjunpop (highball-db#625, 2026-10-22), Apple M2 Max, macOS 27.0.1, Highball 0.10.15, engine x64-sikarugir10.0_6-r26, DXMT environment, msync, rated 5 of 5 after 83 minutes. Not verified by the maintainer.
Before installing anything, it is worth checking whether the game already ships a native Mac build.
Common questions
Does Cave Story+ work on Mac?
Cave Story+ 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 Cave Story+ 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.