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 | Reported | 1 report |
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 playable at 120 fps, about 100 on the 2K highest preset, on an M4 Pro with macOS 27. Measured on an M4 with macOS 27.0 on 2026-09-30, DXMT, up to the announcement board, about 59 fps on the game's own counter there, not played further. The input faults below are fixed in engine r15. Checked here on 2026-10-05 on an M4 with engine r21 in DXMT mode: the login dialog comes up over the game scene at 110 s, its text not drawn (a web view); not played.
Known issues
After switching to another app and back, the game window has focus but ignores the mouse and keyboard until the game is restarted
What helps Fixed in engine r15, which environments on the default engine pick up by themselves once Steam is closed. The reporter confirmed it on an M4 Pro on r15 and on the Wine 11 engine (highball#182, 2026-09-30). On an older engine, restart the game.
Why Wine 10's Mac driver sent the game a made-up click in its title bar whenever macOS gave it focus back, and Unity ignores the focus gain that follows such a click, so it keeps drawing but drops every click and key (Wine bug 48121, highball#182). Measured on an M4 with macOS 27.0 on engine r15: the announcement tabs keep working after a Cmd+Tab round trip and after 15 seconds away
Takes no clicks at all from the start when launched with Steam's Play button
What helps Fixed in engine r15, which environments on the default engine pick up by themselves once Steam is closed
Why The game makes its window key without making it Wine's foreground window, and the Mac driver dropped the focus event macOS sent back, so raw input never reached the game (CrossOver Hack #18896). Measured on an M4 with macOS 27.0: two launches out of two on engine r13 took no click, the first click works on r15
The dialog shown while the game loads has no text, only a white and a teal button. The account page's text is missing the same way (still on engine r29 with D3DMetal, highball-db#578, 2026-10-20)
What helps The teal button on the right continues into the game
Why Not the graphics mode: it looks the same on DXMT and DXVK (an M4 with macOS 27.0). Not found yet. The game embeds a Chromium web view (Vuplex 3D WebView), whose helper process was not running, and logs "Got null handle from IDXGIResource::GetSharedHandle" 30 times at start, so the dialog's page may never reach the screen. Not confirmed
Provenance
Reported by myzenon (highball-db#155, 2026-09-20): rated 4, playable with minor issues, Apple M4 Pro, macOS 27.0, engine x64-sikarugir10.0_6-r5, Highball 0.9.28; graphics mode not stated. Not run here. amfakh (highball-db#577 and #578, 2026-10-20), Apple M4, macOS 27.0.1, Highball 0.10.21, rated 4 of 5 twice: on engine r15 with DXMT at Ultra with FXAA, 40 to 50 fps once loaded, the first logo video stuttering, and on engine r29 with D3DMetal, the video fixed and the frame rate steadier. Both times the account page's text did not draw.
Before installing anything, it is worth checking whether the game already ships a native Mac build.
Common questions
Does Heartopia work on Mac?
Heartopia 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 Heartopia 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.