FX Steam Launcher enables SteamOS on Apple Silicon Macs

A new open-source project called FX Steam Launcher allows Valve’s SteamOS to run on Apple Silicon Macs running macOS 15 or newer. The software utilizes a virtual machine approach, leveraging Apple’s Hypervisor framework and libkrun to execute the ARM64 version of SteamOS originally developed for Steam Frame.

Through the use of Proton 11 for ARM64 and the FEX emulator for translating x86 instructions to ARM64, the launcher enables the execution of Windows games on macOS. The system supports various graphics translation layers, including DXVK for DirectX 9, 10, and 11, and vkd3d-proton for DirectX 12. It also features experimental DXMT support to allow certain DirectX titles to interface with Apple’s Metal API without a Vulkan translation layer.

Key features include support for Steam’s Gaming Mode, the KDE Plasma desktop mode, GPU acceleration, and various controllers such as Xbox and DualSense. Users can run the interface in windowed or full-screen modes while maintaining access to macOS. Testing on high-end hardware, such as the MacBook Pro M4 Max, has demonstrated the potential for running demanding titles, though high memory allocations are recommended for resource-intensive games.