How to play MapleStory on Mac

MapleStory shot to fame when it was released back in the early 2000s, and despite the game being out for quite some time, it still features a huge fan base. The 2D side-scrolling MMO transports players to the Maple World with the aim of defeating monsters and developing their characters skills and abilities. Sounds great, right? Mac gamers wouldn’t know, as the game has never officially supported macOS/Mac OS X.

Don’t get disheartened though, as we’ve found a way for gamers to play MapleStory on Mac – and here’s how.

Nvidia GeForce Now for Mac

The best (and easiest) way to play MapleStory on your Mac is via Nvidia’s new cloud-based streaming service, GeForce NOW for Mac. The service, currently available in beta form in the UK, Europe and the US, allows Mac gamers a great and easy way to play any game from Steam or Battle.net regardless of whether it offers macOS/Mac OS X support, or how powerful your Mac is. You can run the latest graphically-demanding PC games on a basic Mac Mini if you really want to.

How is this witchcraft managed? It’s all down to Nvidia server sites scattered across Europe and the US which handle all the processing required by the games. When you select a game you’d like to play on your Mac, Nvidia’s impressively powerful servers (which we’re told provides the equivalent to GTX 1080 performance) run the game remotely before sending it to your Mac via the internet.

The best part? Every game that’s available to play on GeForce Now for Mac has been optimised for streaming, meaning you’ll be getting the best quality possible without having to delve in and tweak the graphics settings yourself.

Oh, and Nvidia keeps a cached version of every game available on Steam and Battle.net on their servers, meaning there’s no waiting around while the game downloads. You should be playing the game within around 30 seconds of hitting the play button!

Of course, the performance will somewhat depend on your internet speeds and location of the servers, as someone with high-speed internet that lives 500 miles from a server site will get better response times than someone with slow internet in more remote areas.

With that being said, we’ve generally been impressed with the response times provided by GeForce Now for Mac when connected to Wi-Fi and Ethernet, although admittedly we have access to 200mb+ internet speeds not available in many parts of the UK.

The service is completely free to use while it’s in beta too, allowing prospective Mac gamers to dive in right now and make the most of the service. Nvidia has reassured Macworld UK that he service will stay free until at least early 2018, if not longer. The only catch? High levels of interest in the service mean those that want to test it out must first join a waiting list.

Once you’ve got access, it’s as simple as signing into your Steam account, selecting MapleStory and hitting that play button! You’ll be playing in no time.

Boot Camp

But what if you don’t have access to a high-speed internet connection to use Nvidia’s streaming service? Don’t fret as there is another way to play MapleStory on your Mac, but it will come at a cost of performance and storage space. Full disclaimer: we haven’t tested MapleStory specifically with this method, so continue at your own risk.

If you’re willing to give it a go, another way to play MapleStory on Mac is to split your Mac hard drive and run Windows 10 on a separate partition using Apple’s Boot Camp software. This method requires you to (semi-permanently) partition your hard drive and sacrifice a big chunk of Mac storage space, so consider your options before doing so.

We suggest providing your Boot Camp partition with as much storage as possible, as the game and operating system will take a considerable amount of space - MapleStory is 14GB while Windows 10 requires around 20GB. Admittedly you can change the size of your partition once you’ve installed Windows 10, but it can create issues – read more about how to partition your Mac’s HDD here.

If you want to go down the Boot Camp route, take a look at our instructions on how to run Windows 10 on Mac using Boot Camp. Once it’s installed, simply install Steam and MapleStory and game on! As said above, performance may be sub-optimal depending on the specification of your Mac, so you may need to tweak settings for a decent gameplay experience.