Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005) — Native for Apple Silicon Macs

A native macOS version of the 2005 PC game, made by static recompilation: the game's own x86 code is translated to C ahead of time and compiled for Apple Silicon, with a Metal renderer, native audio and native controller support. There is no emulator, no Wine and no CrossOver.

You need your own copy of the game. This repository contains no game code, executables, artwork, sound, movies, tracks or textures. The Setup app builds the game on your Mac from your game files. Nothing it builds is meant to be shared.

This project is unofficial. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Electronic Arts, Criterion Games or Black Box. Need for Speed and Most Wanted are trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc.; all other names belong to their owners. Details: NOTICE.

Play it on your Mac

1. Have your own PC game, version 1.3, on your Mac: the installed game folder or a .zip of it, or your PC game discs as .iso images with the game's 1.3 update (no Windows needed).
2. Download the Setup app (the disk image) from the latest release and open it.
3. Choose your game folder (or a .zip of it, or your disc images), optionally your Xbox 360 copy, and click Build. Setup compiles the game on your Mac and puts NFS Most Wanted Native.app in Applications.
4. Questions and help: the Discord.

Step by step, including the one-time "Open Anyway" for an app that is not notarized by Apple: Getting started. Problems: Troubleshooting.

Coming from 3.x? 4.0.0 is a new build, not an update of 3.x. Download the latest Setup and build again. Setup replaces the 3.x app in place (same name, same Dock icon) and keeps it as "NFS Most Wanted Native 3.x.app". See the changelog.

What you need

• An Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or later) with macOS 14.5 or later (provisional).
• Xcode Command Line Tools (free; Setup offers to install them).
• About 12 GB free disk space while Setup builds; the installed game then uses about 9 GB (3.5 GB without the Xbox 360 copy).
• Your own PC game, version 1.3: the installed game folder or a .zip of it. Any speed.exe that has the 1.3 code is accepted.
• Or, instead of an installed game: your PC game discs as .iso images (or mounted in Finder) and the game's official 1.3 update (nfsmwpatch1.3.exe). Setup installs the game from them into its work folder and applies the update without running it. The speed.exe on the discs and in the update is copy-protected, so Setup also needs a speed.exe that has the 1.3 code.
• Optional: your own Xbox 360 copy of the game, as a folder or an .iso (both work), for the Xbox 360 features. The USA and the European (PAL) retail discs are supported.

What you get

• A native Apple Silicon app: Metal renderer, CoreAudio sound, widescreen.
• F10 settings menu (Fn+F10 on a Mac keyboard) over the game. On a DualSense or DualShock 4 the touchpad click opens it.
• Controllers: DualSense, DualShock 4 and other controllers macOS supports; PlayStation and Xbox button layouts; button prompts that follow the controller you use; rumble.
• Audio: the game's 5.1 mix, with optional Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus and TrueHD bitstream output.
• Xbox 360 features, only if you give Setup your own Xbox 360 copy: Setup lists them as world, audio, reverb, music, police, nis (cutscenes), vinyls, textures and movies. Without that copy the PC game alone is used and these are absent.
• Guide and look presets: F10 > Help > Guide explains the settings; Picture offers Port, PC retail, Xbox 360 retail and My picks.
• PlayStation trigger pedals: the new Controls > Triggers selector offers Shift or Pedals; DualSense resistance follows the trigger bindings.
• Online free roam beta: Off until you Host or Join. Hosting needs incoming UDP and may need router setup; some networks cannot host. See the Guide for controls and limits.
• Updates: Check for updates runs when you press it; Update now prepares an available update for the next launch. Keep Setup’s remembered sources available. Discord status is off by default.
• The original Most Wanted car catalog.

How it works

Setup checks your speed.exe, translates its code to C, compiles it with Apple's tools, builds the audio and shader pieces, converts your assets and installs the app. It uses a bundled Python and a pinned FFmpeg 7.1.1 build; the exact pieces are in NOTICE. Everything happens on your Mac and nothing is uploaded.

Credits and licenses

Thanks to everyone listed in NOTICE, including prex-xo for the Discord status. The project's own code is under the MIT license (LICENSE). The game itself is not relicensed.