Notes from the workshop.
Guides, explainers, honest comparisons and development journals, written by the people who build the apps.
Posts about Bourbon 26 · Show all 86 posts
Free manual Windows gaming setup on Apple Silicon: step by step
Install Sikarugir, create a Wine wrapper, configure graphics, install Steam or a standalone game, and troubleshoot your first launch. Plus honest paid alternatives.
Latest development journal entries
Bourbon 26·Part 10Moving Bourbon safely, then making the verification faster- Bourbon 26·Part 9The audit that put saves and reset safety first
- Bourbon 26·Part 8Native Steam integration and a library you can use from the couch
- Bourbon 26·Part 7Keeping older tools and newer Steam clients in their own lanes
- Bourbon 26·Part 6Giving SteamOS its own place in Bourbon
- Bourbon 26·Part 5Activation, installers and knowing which program we launched
- Bourbon 26·Part 4Smart Play starts figuring out unfamiliar games
- Bourbon 26·Part 3Making setup and repair less disruptive
Articles, most recent first
Steam on Mac
Steam runs on macOS, and most of its catalog can reach your Mac one way or another. What's native, what needs translation, and what streams.
Windows games on Mac
Every way to run Windows games on a Mac in 2026 — translation, streaming, virtual machines — and which one fits the games you actually play.
DXVK vs D3DMetal
DXVK, VKD3D, DXMT, WineD3D or D3DMetal — what each renderer translates, and which one your game wants on a Mac.
Anti-cheat on Mac
Kernel-level anti-cheat is why Fortnite, Valorant and Apex won't run on a Mac through any translation layer — and what actually works instead.
Boot Camp on Apple Silicon
Boot Camp doesn't exist on M-series Macs. What replaced it for games, and when you actually need a full Windows install.
Run .exe files on Mac
How to open and run Windows .exe and .msi files on macOS — safely, in their own bottle.
Notepad++ on Mac
Notepad++, PuTTY, WinSCP and the small Windows utilities worth keeping on your Mac — and the native swaps worth taking instead.
Play Windows games on Mac for free
The genuinely free routes — raw Wine, Game Porting Toolkit, what's left of Whisky — what they cost you in time, and when $29.99 stops being worth avoiding.
Bourbon 26 system requirements
What Bourbon 26 needs, everything it installs, and how much disk the whole Windows-gaming stack actually takes.
Wine bottles on Mac
What a Wine bottle (prefix) is, why every game deserves its own, and how Bourbon 26's Bottle Shelf manages runtimes per title.
Whisky alternative
Whisky is no longer maintained. What that means for your bottles, and the closest like-for-like replacement on macOS.
CrossOver alternative
CrossOver charges yearly; Bourbon 26 is $29.99 once. Where CodeWeavers still earns its price, and where the alternative wins.
AIL eAPP on Mac
How to run the AIL eAPP on macOS with Bourbon 26, step by step.
Windows on Apple Silicon
Every way to run Windows software on an M-series Mac in 2026 — translation, emulation, VMs — and how to pick per app.
Parallels alternative
Parallels runs a whole Windows; Bourbon 26 runs just your games. Which approach fits, and when a full VM is genuinely the right call.
Game Porting Toolkit
What Apple's Game Porting Toolkit is, who it's actually for, and how Bourbon 26 packages the same technology for people who just want to play.
What Wine can't run
Drivers, kernel services, anti-cheat and the other Windows software no translation layer can handle — where a VM is the honest answer.