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 | Untested | no report yet — send one |
| D3DMetalApple's Game Porting Toolkit | Reported | community reports |
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
Does not start. Steam starts the game and it hangs inside its own startup with no window. Two walls were found in turn. The first, Wine answering the game's lookup of the Visual C++ libraries package with nothing (Wine bug 55397), is fixed in the Wine 11 engines r24 and r25 (Highball 0.10.16), which register that package the way Proton does. Behind it a second one remains: inside the game a thread loads Steam's own client library (steamclient64.dll) and never releases Wine's loader lock, so the other threads wait until the game gives up; Steam's overlay off changes nothing (traced 2026-10-15). Proton on Linux does not load that library, it ships its own, which is one reason the game runs there. No Mac Wine setup is known to run it (AppleGamingWiki: does not start on CrossOver and Wine). Microsoft delisted the game from Steam in December 2024, and Highball's own test account does not own it, so the maintainer cannot reproduce it and the work goes through a player's traces (highball#268). Among Us, which works, loads the same Steam library on its main thread and is done in about three seconds; Forza loads it from a worker thread and that load never returns.
Known issues
Steam shows the game running, no window ever opens, the game quits after a few minutes
What helps none known
Why a startup deadlock on Wine's loader lock while the game loads Steam's steamclient64.dll (after the VCLibs package lookup, fixed in engine r24), traced in highball#268
Provenance
Reported by whcjimmy (highball#268, from 2026-10-06), Apple M1 Pro, macOS 27.0.1, Highball 0.10.3 to 0.10.16, Wine 11 engines r18 and r24 with D3DMetal 4 and the Forza Horizon 6 variables: the game installs and Steam starts it, but no window ever opens and it quits after a few minutes. AppleGamingWiki lists it as not starting on CrossOver and Wine. Not verified by the maintainer. With Synchronization set to None the same thread still waits forever after loading steamclient64.dll, and a macOS sample shows another of the game's threads suspended the whole time (whcjimmy, highball#268, 2026-10-18), so the engine's msync is not the cause.
Before installing anything, it is worth checking whether the game already ships a native Mac build.
Common questions
Does Forza Horizon 4 work on Mac?
Forza Horizon 4 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.
Which renderer should I use for Forza Horizon 4?
D3DMetal. Highball can translate Direct3D through DXVK, DXMT or Apple's D3DMetal, and the right choice varies by game. The database records D3DMetal for Forza Horizon 4. Highball uses it automatically when the game has a row; to set it by hand, open Settings, then Environments.
Contribute a result
This page is generated from an open database. If you have run Forza Horizon 4 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.