Hogwarts Legacy on Mac: Working Methods and Performance

Can you play Hogwarts Legacy on Mac?

Hogwarts Legacy might not be the first title you’d expect to find on Mac. However, for fans of the magical world of Harry Potter longing to experience one of the best gaming representations of that universe on their Mac, there’s good news. Surprisingly, there are several fully functional methods to play Hogwarts Legacy on Mac systems. These methods include Boosteroid, CrossOver combined with Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit, and, to a lesser extent, Boot Camp. Having tested each of these methods, we’re here to share our experiences and help you choose the one that best suits your preferences.

How to play Hogwarts Legacy on Mac: All methods

If you’re eager to jump into the enchanting world of Hogwarts Legacy on your Apple machine without any delay, we certainly won’t keep you waiting. Here, we’ve outlined all the methods we’ve confirmed to work seamlessly.

Hogwarts Legacy on Mac with Cloud Gaming

When it comes to experiencing Hogwarts Legacy on Mac, the methods we’ve shared operate in different ways. Depending on your setup and personal preferences, some may prove to be a better fit for you than others. Rest assured, we’ve thoroughly tested each of these methods, and now, we’re ready to share our firsthand experiences to guide you through the options.

Our Hogwarts Legacy Boosteroid Experience

Many users often harbor skepticism towards cloud services, questioning their suitability for gaming. We, too, shared similar reservations until we delved into actual testing. In our exploration, Boosteroid emerged as a reliable choice for playing unsupported games like Hogwarts Legacy on Apple machines.

Cloud services operate by streaming the selected game directly to your device, and eliminate concerns about system compatibility or performance restrictions. Our current Boosteroid plan offers a maximum streaming quality of 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second and while a decent Internet connection is generally necessary for this resolution and frame rate, the requirements for Boosteroid are quite reasonable. Anyone with a 15 Mbps Internet speed and latency below 40 ms should be able to enjoy Hogwarts Legacy and other games through this service.

During our Hogwarts Legacy Boosteroid testing, we intentionally used a moderate wireless Internet connection with 25 Mbps speed and around 40 ms latency. Surprisingly, Hogwarts Legacy ran smoothly on our M1 MacBook Air, with only occasional lag spikes causing brief drops in resolution and minor stuttering. However, the stream quickly recovered, allowing us to continue playing without significant interruptions.

It’s essential to note that, during our Hogwarts Legacy Mac M1 gaming session, there was a slight input delay, which is a common characteristic of cloud gaming services, as the game was streamed from a remote server rather than running locally on our machine. This aspect might concern competitive multiplayer gamers, but it typically is not of major importance for a single-player adventure like Hogwarts Legacy, and we scarcely noticed it during most of our Boosteroid Hogwarts Legacy playtime.

Hogwarts Legacy for MacBook with Local Gaming Methods

CrossOver is another choice for playing Hogwarts Legacy on Mac. This application allows you to download the Windows version of the game and run it on your Mac machine by translating the game’s code to make it compatible with macOS. As the game lacks official requirements for Mac, however, it can be tricky to figure out which Mac models are powerful enough to handle it smoothly, but from our Hogwarts Legacy Crossover tests on an M2 Max MacBook Pro, we found that you need at least an M1 Pro chip for decent performance. Anything less may render the game unplayable.

In our Hogwarts Legacy Mac M2 testing, starting the game with CrossOver was straightforward as the app is user-friendly, and setting it up, as well as launching games, is intuitive and doesn’t demand advanced knowledge or experience. Before diving into the game, we activated the D3DMetal option in CrossOver to run DirectX 12 games. In the game settings, we opted for ‘Low’ settings and enabled the FSR Quality mode for better visuals with a lower impact on performance. This configuration provided a consistent frame rate of 40 to 45 FPS, which we found perfectly acceptable. When we tried the Medium settings, the FPS dropped to around 25, making it still playable but noticeably less smooth.

What about Hogwarts Legacy on Mac with the Game Porting Toolkit?

If you are curious about running Hogwarts Legacy on Mac with the Game Porting Toolkit, we should inform you that, in terms of gameplay performance, it’s quite similar to CrossOver, mainly because GPTK is integrated into it. The downside of using the basic Game Porting Toolkit without CrossOver, however, is that setting it up takes more time and can be confusing. Additionally, the Toolkit is less user-friendly and more prone to errors and crashes compared to CrossOver.

Despite these drawbacks, we gave it a shot, and Hogwarts Legacy ran reasonably well. With the same low settings and FSR set to Quality, we achieved around 35 FPS—slightly lower than CrossOver but still enjoyable. When we tried medium settings, our M2 Max machine reached around 20 FPS, which wasn’t ideal, so we didn’t explore this configuration much.

Interestingly, we came across reports of an annoying bug in Hogwarts Legacy after the first playthrough with CrossOver or the Game Porting Toolkit. Users have shared that they can’t relaunch the game. The solution involves navigating to the C: drive of the CrossOver bottle or GPTK prefix (where the game is installed) and deleting the ProgramData/Hogwarts Legacy folder. This quick fix should resolve the problem and allow you to relaunch the game without any issues.

Is Hogwarts Legacy playable on Mac with Boot Camp?

Boot Camp is a method where you install Windows on your Mac and then run the game from within the Windows partition. Sounds straightforward, right? However, there’s a catch—it only works on Intel-based Macs. This limitation is significant because most Intel Macs lack powerful GPUs, and Hogwarts Legacy is quite graphically demanding.

In simpler terms, only a handful of Intel-based Mac models stand a chance to run the game with somewhat decent performance. Perhaps an iMac Pro or a Mac Pro might handle it, but for most MacBooks, even the high-end MacBook Pros, the performance will either be subpar or the game won’t run at all. We tested this method on a 2018 MacBook Pro with 16 GB of RAM, and although Hogwarts Legacy did launch, we barely hit 20 FPS on the lowest settings, making the game nearly unplayable. So, this method is really only suitable for users with high-end desktop Macs.

If you happen to own such a Mac, Boot Camp becomes a viable option because it significantly reduces the chances of encountering errors, bugs, or crashes while starting and playing the game (unless there are issues with the game itself). However, keep in mind that the setup process can be time-consuming, taking several hours, and you’ll need around 200 gigs of free space to accommodate both the game and the Windows installation.

Conclusion

Despite its demanding nature, Hogwarts Legacy is playable on Mac, and each workaround presents a viable solution for different situations. In summary, we’d label cloud gaming as the most versatile option, suitable for all users, regardless of their Mac type. The CrossOver/Game Porting Toolkit combo isn’t a bad alternative, especially for those with high-end Apple Silicon machines. Still, we wouldn’t recommend it for users with base M1 and M2 Macs or Intel-based Macs. Boot Camp, while an okay option, is primarily suitable for users with powerful desktop Macs.