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 | community reports |
| 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 twice on DXMT on an M1 with the default engine r11. The second report played Green Hill, Chemical Plant and Studiopolis and a 3D Chaos Emerald special stage at 60 fps with no drops by the reporter's account. Nothing was measured here.
Provenance
Reported by Sainijon (highball-db#256, 2026-09-29), Apple M1, macOS 27.0, Highball 0.9.39, engine x64-sikarugir10.0_6-r11, DXMT, recipes steam, vcrun2022, corefonts and battle-net (DXMT_ALLOW_CROSS_PROCESS_SWAPCHAIN=1 in the environment), rated 5 of 5 after 2 minutes. JLiveOf (highball-db#261, 2026-09-29), Apple M1, macOS 27.0, Highball 0.9.39, engine x64-sikarugir10.0_6-r11, DXMT, recipes steam, vcrun2022, controller-sdl, corefonts and fakejapanese, rated 5 of 5 after 15 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 Sonic Mania work on Mac?
Sonic Mania 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 Sonic Mania?
DXMT. Highball can translate Direct3D through DXVK, DXMT or Apple's D3DMetal, and the right choice varies by game. The database records DXMT for Sonic Mania. 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 Sonic Mania 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.