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 | 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
1998 DirectDraw and Direct3D Retained Mode game, re-released by SNEG with dgVoodoo 2.86 (its ddraw.dll, D3DImm.dll and d3drm.dll sit beside DarkOmen.exe with dgVoodoo.conf). Wine loads its own ddraw in front of those by default, and that path renders nothing: Wine's ddraw logs 'Can't find a flip target' every frame, so the game runs blind (the reporter's finding, reproduced). Letting the bundled dgVoodoo load (DLL overrides ddraw,d3dimm,d3drm=n,b) gets a Direct3D 11 device and a 640x480 exclusive swapchain through DXMT or DXVK, then dgVoodoo's ddraw crashes with a page fault right after DXGI sets a 960x600 at 120 Hz display mode, with dgVoodoo set to Direct3D 11 feature level 10.0 or 11.0, windowed or not, with or without EmulateModeset. Not playable yet; investigation continues in highball#120. Tried here on an M4 with macOS 27.0 on 2026-10-05, engine x64-sikarugir10.0_6-r21, the Steam copy: the game asks Windows for 640x480 at 16 bits, Wine on the Mac offers only the display's own mode, and the game stops with 'incompatible DirectX version or out-of-date display drivers'. The release ships dgVoodoo (ddraw.dll, D3DImm.dll); loading those instead of Wine's own crashes at once on DXMT and DXVK alike. Wine's emulated display modes set for DarkOmen.exe alone do not help, because Wine builds its list of modes in another process; set for the whole environment they do, the error goes away and a 4:3 picture area opens, but it stayed black for 200 s without input. Not playable here yet.
Known issues
Black screen with sound on every mode
What helps none yet
Why measured: Wine's own DirectDraw has no flip target for the game's primary surface; the bundled dgVoodoo wrapper crashes at the display-mode change when loaded instead
'Dark Omen has failed due to an incompatible DirectX version or out-of-date display drivers' at start
What helps From the next Highball version, turning on Emulate display mode changes on the game's page also sets it for explorer.exe, and the change goes through (measured on an M4, engine r21, 2026-10-06). The picture then stays black, which is the other issue here (highball#120)
Why The game wants 640x480 at 16 bits and Wine on the Mac lists only the display's own modes. Wine adds its emulated modes to the list only when the process that builds it, explorer.exe, emulates mode changes too
Provenance
Reported by the highball#120 reporter (2026-09-16), Apple M5 Pro, macOS 26.6.2, Highball 0.9.19: launches with audio but never draws a frame on any mode or engine. The maintainer bought it on 2026-09-17 and reproduced on an M1 Pro, engine x64-sikarugir10.0_6-r3.
Before installing anything, it is worth checking whether the game already ships a native Mac build.
Common questions
Does Warhammer: Dark Omen (Classic) work on Mac?
Warhammer: Dark Omen (Classic) 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 Warhammer: Dark Omen (Classic) 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.