For as long as SpaceEngine has been around, people have been eagerly inquiring about cross-platform support. Mac support in particular has been asked about a lot recently. SpaceEngine will indeed be ported to Mac, and Linux, in the future (though not soon, as a lot of work needs to be done before then), but I want to make an important note about an obstacle that will exist to running SpaceEngine on most Macs, even after it becomes fully compatible with the operating system. That obstacle is graphics hardware.

As most of you know, SpaceEngine is a graphically intensive program and has strict graphics hardware requirements. SpaceEngine is guaranteed to work ONLY on proper gaming-class graphics hardware; this means Nvidia GeForce cards and AMD Radeon RX/# cards.

As of August 2018, there NO new computers being sold by Apple which meet this requirement. The 27" iMacs (and the highest-end 21.5" iMac) and the iMac Pro have workstation-class Radeon Pro graphics hardware, which may or may not run SE properly. Other iMacs, Mac Minis, and all types of MacBooks only have integrated Intel graphics, and the Mac Pro has older AMD workstation-class graphics hardware. Past testing has shown that Intel graphics and workstation graphics usually do not run SpaceEngine very well.

So while SpaceEngine will be ported to Mac in the future, Mac users should keep their hardware specs* in mind when that happens.

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*To check what graphics hardware your Mac contains, click on the Apple logo at the top-left of your screen, then click on "About this Mac" at the top of the list. If next to the word "Graphics" it doesn't say something like AMD Radeon R# ### (e.g. AMD Radeon R9 290M), then SpaceEngine might not run properly on your computer when it becomes available for Mac.

I'm running SpaceEngine on a late 2013 MacBook Pro booting into Windows 8.1, with an NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M. VRAM is 2GB and the display is set to half of the native resolution at 1440x900. SpaceEngine is a little slow loading landscapes, but it works OK for me.

Julian, with a such GPU, you may try to increase the landscape loading speed by the slider "Loading speed" in the graphics settings menu. Setting it to very hight value will result in FPS drop and shutter, so it's a question of balance.

Thank you very much for this information. I suspected that graphics would be an issue. I already have trouble with running sims like Children of a Dead Earth. I have long-term plans to make my next computer purchase a PC (will be a house divided as I very much enjoy my Apple hardware), but if it means being able to have a good sim experience that will be worth it
Just to keep you apprised of what some folks use (or plan to use) your software for, I'm eager to get my hands on this program so I can model a star system for a hard sci-fi book I'm writing. I was wondering if the orbital mechanics in this program use N-body physics like with Children of a Dead Earth or something of lesser (but still useful) accuracy. My apologies if the answer is already in the FAQ (I'll be getting to that as a purchase date nears).

SE uses Kepler orbits for planets and correct gravity simulation for ships physics (it is not N-body, because planets are moved "by railway", only ships are integrating gravitational forces).

I have a mid-2014 MacBook Pro, which has a NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M chipset.  I run Windows 10 in BootCamp on this machine, and it has no problem whatsoever running SE 0.9.8.0 with all graphics settings at max.  Any Mac made in the last 2-3 years should be capable of running SE without issues on the hardware side.  Looking forward to the eventual port of this, SE is awesome.

Just checked my os, 27" with the right graphics card. I'm waiting for that mac compatabilty

Any Mac made in the last 2-3 years should be capable of running SE without issues on the hardware side.

I guarantee you that is NOT the case. You can buy a Mac Mini right now that has a 1.4GHz dual-core i5 with Intel HD 5000 graphics. That will not run SE with any kind of acceptable performance, no way. The other Mac Minis are similarly abysmal. The 21.5" iMacs have similar specs. And so on. These are all newly-made Macs that you can buy TODAY, and they are absolutely not adequate for running SE.

I'm currently running Space Engine on a 2012 MacBook Pro via Boot Camp and it works great. It is very cumbersome and time-consuming to switch operating systems however, so I don't get to use it as much as I'd like.

I'm eagerly awaiting the Mac port! ^{Pls hurry up}

Registered a moment ago. Found this site in a tweet. Also looking forward (patiently) to a Mac port.

Registered a moment ago. Found this site in a tweet. Also looking forward (patiently) to a Mac port.

I don't know if wine works in mac os, but my friend ran space engine through wine in linux and it worked perfect!

My Mac is able to run Minecraft (on a typical day) at ~245 FPS (though on good days it's closer to 300), on more graphical games like Celesta, the Space Engine counterpart it is still very fast at ~195-200 (though 230 on good days), so i do not see a problem running it, i do see a problem with other older macs though so maybe there could be some sort of old graphics/older macs mode???

P.S on the post above this one i have high graphics add ons installed for earth like Jestr Earth (which i set to default with some knowledge, you can ask me if ya need to for help), some Graphical Clouds mods and Better Nighttime Lights where's my mac squad at?

My Mac is able to run Minecraft (on a typical day) at ~245 FPS (though on good days it's closer to 300)

That's not very useful information without knowing what settings are used, and at what resolution... at (approximately) default settings, I run vanilla Minecraft at 450 fps (when at the surface in the Overworld viewing a Plains biome with a few trees around). Yet there are times when SE runs at 20-30 fps for me. It all depends.

^ I use Fancy Graphics and better than normal graphics settings P.S the driver is a NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M 1024 MB, do you think that would work on Space Engine???