How to play Counter-Strike on Mac
| Platforms | Platform, Computer |
Game summary
Counter-Strike is a multiplayer first-person shooter initially created by Minh Le and Jess Cliffe as a mod for Half-Life. By the fifth beta, Valve Software started actively participating in the development and ultimately bought the rights to the game and offered the original developers jobs at the company which both of them accepted. This edition was the first standalone release of Counter-Strike and Half-Life was not required to play the game.
First released: Nov 2000
Play Counter-Strike on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)
The easiest way to play Counter-Strike on a Mac is through Parallels, which allows you to virtualize a Windows machine on Macs. The setup is very easy and it works for Apple Silicon Macs as well as for older Intel-based Macs.
Parallels supports the latest version of DirectX and OpenGL, allowing you to play the latest PC games on any Mac. The latest version of DirectX is up to 20% faster.
Our favorite feature of Parallels Desktop is that when you turn off your virtual machine, all the unused disk space gets returned to your main OS, thus minimizing resource waste (which used to be a problem with virtualization).
Counter-Strike installation steps for Mac
Step 1
Go to Parallels.com and download the latest version of the software.
Step 2
Follow the installation process and make sure you allow Parallels in your Mac’s security preferences (it will prompt you to do so).
Step 3
When prompted, download and install Windows 10. The download is around 5.7GB. Make sure you give it all the permissions that it asks for.
Step 4
Once Windows is done installing, you are ready to go. All that’s left to do is install Counter-Strike like you would on any PC.
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