How to play Elite Dangerous on Mac - a guide by Kyle Krein

StuartGT

StuartGT
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/mf0hc6
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/mf0hc6/how_to_play_elite_dangerous_on_mac_guide/


To play Elite Dangerous on Macs (even with M1), you need a CrossOver app. It has a free trial for you to test everything.​
​
On CrossOver official website, it's said that Elite Dangerous installs, but won't run in any case. But it's not true. These are steps that'll help you to play Elite Dangerous on Macs without Virtual Machine:​
  1. Download CrossOver
  2. Open it and tap "Install windows application"
  3. Search for Steam and install it. If it asks for something, then click "yes" or "continue"
  4. Log in using your Steam account and download game
  5. Shut down steam and go to CrossOver
  6. There you should install 3 windows apps (DirectX for Modern games, DXVK, .Net Framework 4.5.1 (I tested only this version). The next 5 steps are the same for all apps:
  7. Press "Install Windows Application"
  8. Search for the app
  9. Press "Choose a bottle" on top and choose you "Steam" bottle
  10. Click install
  11. Click "yes" and "install" if something appears
  12. Right Click on your "Steam" bottle -> Settings -> DXVK Backend for D3D11
  13. Press "Reboot" in your "Steam" bottle
  14. Open Steam and play
I tried this on my MacBook Air M1 16GB, 512GB​
​
P.S. If you have MacBook Air M1, then your Mac will be very hot during the game :(​
​
Perhaps this is useful to you @amigacooke {macOS}
 

stuepfnick

S
Hello,

Just wondering if this also works with the standalone version of Elite Dangerous from Frontier Website, as I don't have the Steam version (yet). Don't know exactly what I would need to do to get access to the steam version.

Anyway would prefer to install the stand-alone version, if possible!

Thx!
 

Jack Winter

Jack Winter
It ought to, and you probably don't need the full .NET framework as WINE's mono implementation should be enough, but I only have experience with it on Linux and not on OS/X.
 

stuepfnick

S
Jack Winter said:
It ought to, and you probably don't need the full .NET framework as WINE's mono implementation should be enough, but I only have experience with it on Linux and not on OS/X.
Click to expand...
In my first try it did not work, as the Launcher does not start, so could not even install the game. I read somewhere, that the launcher needs IE 8 somehow? Maybe I would need to chose Win7 64 bit bottle instead of Win10 64bit bottle?
I was quite sure, ED (at least Odyssey) does not run on Win7, that's why I chose 10, but it seems, even Win7 is supported.

Also one of the instructions says: .NET 4.5.1 and the one below says: .NET 4.8 (with same text)

thx
 

Jack Winter

Jack Winter
To be honest I have no idea if it will work at all on OS/X and if it works it might be a bit fiddly to get it up and going.

FWIW, I have it running on Linux, my WINE is configured as win7 and I installed and am starting from the FDev launcher.

The .NET / mono part is only needed for the launcher and not for the game itself. It used to be that .NET was needed, but at some point there was enough support in WINE's mono implementation to run the launcher without installing .NET. IIRC there is also a simplified launcher around, who knows that might also be built to be useful on OS/X.
 

stuepfnick

S
PS: Now with the same steps (but selecting steam instead standalone) at least the launcher works now - maybe it does some other setup which is not done otherwise or Crossover configures the bottle in some other way?
Hopefully the game works too now …

EDIT: Game runs too! Tried Base Game, which seems to run pretty well (about 55 FPS in and around station) and Horizons, needed to restart 2 times for it to finish planet generation.

Later will try to install Odyssey.

But I have an issue with the Gamepad: I cannot get a preset loaded! It is a DualShock4 controller and it shows up in the game as Dualshock4, where I can steer the menus, but it only lets me select Dualshock4-profile beside mouse/keyboard stuff, but that one does not change anything.

I guess it is because the sticks and buttons are shown to me as Xbox-Controller stuff, like X is A, square is B, etc. - so I would need to load in a Xbox(360?) Controller profile. Has anyone an idea, how to do this?

Because configuring everything manually is just crazy and would be at least one full day of work. Almost everytime played with Gamepad, mostly PS3-Gamepad which gets recognized as XBox360 controller by Windows with SCPToolKit. Later with DS4 on PS4, etc. (tried a few times with HOTAS, but Gamepad is preferred, especially for playing on Laptop).

Definitely need to fix this somehow, as I am pretty happy with the default Xbox/PS4 Controller bindings. Maybe just add a few small things …
 
Last edited:

stuepfnick

S
Hm, could almost fix the issue. The controller is recognised as "DualShock4", but all the Buttons and Axis are the one from Xbox. So I copied the ConsoleX360.binds from presets to my custom binds and replaced Device="GamePad" with Device="DualShock4" everywhere.

It works, almost … sadly the double assignment of buttons does not seem to work. So if I want to press circle + d-pad-down for landing gear it boosts (and switched landing gear), or square-left for menu it deploys the weapons (and goes to left menu).

So it always starts the action and does not wait to find out if it is the press of that button or a combination. Sadly it's not playable that way. Maybe I should try the DS3? Don't really know where to ask or what to search for, as this is quite special and I could not find anything useful yet.

Maybe the Steam Controller setting could help, but this view does not render font, I just see an empty screen with some checkboxes (without any description). So don't really know what to set there blindly … :(
 

jhaprins

J
I've been trying to get this working yesterday, but so far without any success. Steam installs fine, and I can also install EDO into steam, but when I start EDO the launcher doesn't start but an error is thrown. Have not yet been able to get past this hurdle.

One of the problems I ran into was that during the .NET install I got several messages that it wanted to reboot. I have tested both with rebooting and without rebooting but for some reason it looks like the .NET versions are not installing properly, and installing just one results in the installation of all the other versions on top of each other.
And I think that the end result is some messed up installation of all the .NET frameworks.

CMDR Prins Hugo
 
Last edited:

Jack Winter

Jack Winter
AFAIK a recent wine shouldn't need .NET at all (as it already implements enough to run the launcher), and steam should install all that you need. But it was a long time since I tried starting it in steam on Linux. Maybe you are missing a Vulkan layer on your OS/X?
 

Liberalguy

L
StuartGT said:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/mf0hc6
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/mf0hc6/how_to_play_elite_dangerous_on_mac_guide/


To play Elite Dangerous on Macs (even with M1), you need a CrossOver app. It has a free trial for you to test everything.​
​
On CrossOver official website, it's said that Elite Dangerous installs, but won't run in any case. But it's not true. These are steps that'll help you to play Elite Dangerous on Macs without Virtual Machine:​
  1. Download CrossOver
  2. Open it and tap "Install windows application"
  3. Search for Steam and install it. If it asks for something, then click "yes" or "continue"
  4. Log in using your Steam account and download game
  5. Shut down steam and go to CrossOver
  6. There you should install 3 windows apps (DirectX for Modern games, DXVK, .Net Framework 4.5.1 (I tested only this version). The next 5 steps are the same for all apps:
  7. Press "Install Windows Application"
  8. Search for the app
  9. Press "Choose a bottle" on top and choose you "Steam" bottle
  10. Click install
  11. Click "yes" and "install" if something appears
  12. Right Click on your "Steam" bottle -> Settings -> DXVK Backend for D3D11
  13. Press "Reboot" in your "Steam" bottle
  14. Open Steam and play
I tried this on my MacBook Air M1 16GB, 512GB​
​
P.S. If you have MacBook Air M1, then your Mac will be very hot during the game :(​
​
Perhaps this is useful to you @amigacooke {macOS}
Click to expand...

StuartGT, any chance you have an updated step-by-step to run EDO on Mac through CrossOver? I downloaded crossover, then steam, then Elite in CrossOver on my m4 pro Mac Mini.. but when I try to Play, I get error "Unhandled Exception: mono-io-layer-error (6521216)". The instructions you gave 2 years ago... aren't clear as I look at options in CrossOver - for example, I don't see anything call .NET... I do see in CrossOver for steam window there are Advanced Settings that list: D3DMetal, DXVK, ESync, MSync, and High Resoltuion Mode. Each of those can be turned on or off, but it seems only one can be turned on.

Anyway, anyone any ideas??
 

c01nd01r

C
Liberalguy said:
StuartGT, any chance you have an updated step-by-step to run EDO on Mac through CrossOver? I downloaded crossover, then steam, then Elite in CrossOver on my m4 pro Mac Mini.. but when I try to Play, I get error "Unhandled Exception: mono-io-layer-error (6521216)". The instructions you gave 2 years ago... aren't clear as I look at options in CrossOver - for example, I don't see anything call .NET... I do see in CrossOver for steam window there are Advanced Settings that list: D3DMetal, DXVK, ESync, MSync, and High Resoltuion Mode. Each of those can be turned on or off, but it seems only one can be turned on.

Anyway, anyone any ideas??
Click to expand...
Use min-ed-launcher (https://github.com/rfvgyhn/min-ed-launcher). There is also an issue with uncontrolled VRAM usage (
https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/1ilel2f/elite_dangerous_on_2020_m1_mbp_the_dream_the
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/1ilel2f/elite_dangerous_on_2020_m1_mbp_the_dream_the/
)
 
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