Category:	Utilities
Price:	Free
Popularity:	Low
Version String:	6.3.2
Release Date:	2024-04-28
Architecture:	Intel
Minimum OS:	macOS 10.15.0
Vendor Name:	Vitor Marques de Miranda
Homepage:	portingkit.com

Description:

Install Windows Games inside your Mac

Using Wineskin technology, Porting Kit can install games and apps compiled for Microsoft Windows in macOS. It's free, it's simple, it's the Porting Kit.


What is the Porting Kit?

Porting Kit is an application which ports Windows games so you can play it on your Mac without needing Windows. Sound pretty cool, and it sure is. But how does it work, is it free and legal? Well, those questions and more I will try to answer on this page.

Porting Kit uses Wineskin wrappers to create its ports. Wineskin mainly use the free open-source code Wine. Wine is a piece of software that in difficult words is a “compatibility layer capable of running Windows applications on several POSIX-compliant operating systems, such as Linux, Mac OSX, & BSD. Instead of simulating internal Windows logic like a virtual machine or emulator, Wine translates Windows API calls into POSIX calls on-the-fly, eliminating the performance and memory penalties of other methods and allowing you to cleanly integrate Windows applications into your desktop.” So its not an Windows emulator but it makes it possible to run Windows software on your Mac.

In combination with the free Wineskin (an graphical shell around Wine), Porting Kit will fulfill your game wishes on your Mac. Wine is under constant development and every 2 weeks Wine gets a new release with updated code which adds more features and fixes problems in earlier versions. This makes it possible to update existing ports in the Porting Kit for better performance and bug fixes, and new games which didn’t work before.


Do the Porting Kit game ports always work on all Mac’s?

No, this depends on the games itself and on the graphical cards of your Mac. For example: big advanced FPS will in some cases not work on low-end Intel Graphics Macs, but may work on better performing Macs with an Nvidia GFX card. Intel Graphics cards in general are quite poor performing graphical cards, so don’t expect miracles for big games on those cards. But even on high end Mac’s the performance might not be matched to when you play it on Windows. In those cases, lower resolutions and less details settings are required to play the game decently, so always check the rankings (Number of Stars) mentioned on the game pages. But also rank yourself, since this gives as much realistic view how the specific game works on different graphical cards. We cannot guarantee anything then mentioning how it works on our system. So use the Porting Kit on your own risk.


Game versions...

A very important subject are the game versions used in the Porting Kit. Those game versions are tested and known to work on our side. But more important, other game versions in most cases have other paths to the start executable of the game or need some extra adjustments in the Wrapper to make the specific installer/download client work. We will try to make the choice of version as diverse as possible.

• GOG.com games: This game version is used the most, one because it’s one of out main game sponsors, and because the games don’t contain DRM (copy protection), which makes the game far more easy to run then games with it. Besides that, GOG.com is not dependent on game clients and can be played offline, this comparing with Steam/Origin/Uplay, which requires in most cases to have an internet connection. That’s why our main advise is to use the GOG.com version when available;

• Gamersgate.com games: This game version will have or a normal setup download using the Gamersgate download client, or in other cases will contain Steam/Origin/Uplay serials which can be used to activate the game in Steam/Origin/Uplay. This is our second choice advise;

• G2A games: Are mainly Steam serials which can be used to activate games in Steam;

• CD games: Are the games which are supplied on CD and are not digitally available;

• Gametop games: Are the free games from Gametop.com. Those games will be automatically downloaded and installed for you;

• Other: Are other sources then mentioned above, in most cases free game downloads from other sites.


Porting Kit Features

There are too many to mention but here just a few:

• Automatic creation of Wrappers including installing Windows games;

• Automatic download of files;

• Implemented Screen Capture to create game videos;

• Game ports always up-to-date in the Porting Kit database;

• Add easily your own games (ports or not) to the Porting Kit local library;

• Ranking System;

• Rating System;

• Integrated forum to put your questions;

• Many more...