| Methods | Specifics | Who is it for? |
| Cloud Gaming (click a link to go to the respective guide) | 1.Play immediately. 2. Good performance, but only with good internet. 3. Multiple plans and platforms to choose from. 4. Can be run on browsers and all android devices. | For those who want smooth performance with the ability to casually play all games with the highest visual quality in a matter of minutes. Has the option to play on multiple devices (not simultaneously). |
| BootCamp | 1. It’s free. 2. Unstable performance (drops and hitches). 3. Compatible only with Intel Macs. 4. Installs a Windows 10 layer. 5. Lots of setup needed. | For those who don’t have a good internet connection or don’t like cloud gaming and don’t mind sacrificing visual fidelity and performance to get a native experience. |
| Parallels Virtual Machine | 1. Easy setup. 2. Moderately good performance with high compatibility. 3. Runs on Windows 11. 4. Requires a yearly fee, but has 14-day free trial to test it out. | For those willing to let their mac run hot in order to get adequate performance in a native experience. Overall better performance, compatibility and results than Bootcamp, but for a fee (if you don’t use the free trial or it has run its course). |
Genshin Impact on Mac
Genshin Impactis an open-world, action, multiplayer role-playing game created by the Chinese developer, Mihoyo. Since its release, the game has become a popular choice for many online players. What makes this game stand out is that, unlike other open-world RPGs that are available, it provides quite innovative gameplay mechanics and an endearing narrative. However, in order to obtain powerful warriors in this free-to-play game, you’ll have to put in some serious work.
Gameplay
In Genshin Impact, the story begins with a battle with a super-powered demigoddess that results in the expulsion of two identical twins to an unknown planet. You begin the journey by picking a hero, and after some tale sleight-of-hand, you and your sibling are separated. To find your sibling, you travel through Teyvat, an unfamiliar world where you meet a variety of other heroic characters. It’s an open-world adventure game with tons of hidden treasures, walls to scale, and bizarre enemies to face.
As you move through the story, you actively recruit additional playable characters into your team, and each of them has its own combat styles and skills.
Up to four characters can be included in the active party. You can quickly switch between your party members to unleash a stunning barrage of combos and particle effects, even if only one is allowed to be currently on the field.
Special Powers
Air, fire, water, lightning, and ice are just a few of the elements that each character can have an affinity to. Additionally, each character has a unique, element-specific attack that may only be used for a short period of time. Auto-deflecting energy shields, powerful counter-stance, spiraling sword formations, magical blasts, and area of effect attacks are among the special abilities included in this set.
Just like the characters, most enemies have their own affinity attacks and weaknesses that make them difficult to deal with if you rely exclusively on melee strikes, therefore, effective usage of the special elements is highly important.
Every elemental strike causes specific damage and imposes a status on the target. As soon as a status is applied to a target, additional elemental attacks can trigger a chain reaction. This is one of the main reasons why Genshin Impact’s fighting is so exciting.
Secrets and treasures can be found all around the world map. If you find and donate miraculous teardrops to divine statues, you can increase your stamina. These teardrops can be found all over the map, usually at high places where you have to use air currents or figure out a puzzle to get to them. The ghostly sprites hover above landmarks and invite you to chase them over the field they inhabit in order to collect treasure chest rewards. Of course, dungeons may be found all around the map, which is filled with creatures to combat and puzzles to solve. Using the cooking system in Genshin Impact, you can combine food items to create meals that heal or temporarily improve your attack and defensive status.
Co-op multiplayer action is available once you achieve Adventure Rank 16, allowing up to four players to explore and raid dungeons together.
As a starting point in the game, you can only explore the areas surrounding the capital city of Mondstadt. As you complete story quests, find landmarks, and solve riddles, the world around you begins to reveal itself.
Characters
To keep the game fresh, Mihoyo plans to develop and release more characters for Genshin Impact, in addition to the 48 characters that are already available. Each character has a distinct attack specialty and elemental affinity. When you enroll in the game, you are given a couple of free characters which you can use once the story begins. Other characters can be unlocked by completing specific tasks.
Visuals
Genshin Impact’s visual design is characterized by a vibrant color palette and cell-shaded modeling. In terms of character design, the game has a generic anime style. Colorful and cute, the monster’s design is also a hit. The archery and swordplay are also anime-inspired.
You can play Genshin Impact alone or with companions, and you’ll have plenty of time to explore and discover new adventures in the game’s expansive open world.
Can you Play Genshin Impact on Mac?
The answer is yes, you can run Genshin Impact on a Mac machine. Officially, there’s currently no Mac version for the game but you can still play Genshin Impact on Mac either by using Cloud Gaming services such as Boosteroid and GeForceNow or by creating a virtual machine on your Mac using or Bootcamp.
The Virtual Machine workaround involves setting up a Windows 10 Boot Camp on your Mac (with an Intel chip) that will allow you to play Windows games (such as Genshin Impact) on your Mac as if it were a regular Windows computer. Macs with an M1 chip can also create a Windows environment with 3rd party software such as Parallels. We cover all the described methods below in detail.
How to Play Genshin Impact on Mac
Genshin Impact is now available to play on cloud gaming servers. This assures NO
compatibility issues while playing on your Mac as well as top-notch performance.
Step 1. Create a free account for Genshin Impact
Before playing Genshin Impact make sure you have an account with genshin.mihoyo.com. This is important as you won’t be able to play the game on cloud gaming services such as Boostorid. Below is a link to the official websites.
Please note, after you register you will see a download button to the Windows version of Genshin Impact which is NOT compatible with Mac. Once you have created an account proceed to step 2 to play on Mac.
Step 2. Register and Play Genshin Impact with Boosteroid
All you need to do now is register for Boosteroid. Once signed in, choose Genshin Impact from their Cloud Gaming Library. You can now seamlessly play the game from your Mac, TV, or Mobile Device.
When Registered you will have additional access to more than 70 top-rated games for free. Pricing varies depending on the subscription plan.
Play Genshin Impact on Mac with Boosteroid
To play Genshin Impact online without the need to download it, we recommend using Boosteroid, a cloud gaming service that can stream Genshin Impact directly to your Mac. The advantage of using this method is that your Mac’s hardware requirements won’t have much of an impact on how well the game runs. Plus, cloud gaming also eliminates the need for lengthy downloads, so you can start playing Genshin Impact on your Mac within minutes if you have a stable internet connection and a subscription to the Boosteroid service. Here are the steps for Streaming Genshin Impact to your Mac using Boosteroid:
In order to get the most out of your Boosteroid streaming experience, we recommend using Google Chrome as your main web browser.
- To register for an account go to Boosteroid.com and follow the steps for creating an account.
- After logging in with your new account, choose the profile icon in the upper right corner of the screen to see your profile.
- Select a subscription plan and a preferred method of payment on your profile page. After that, you will be prompted to provide your billing information to start your subscription.
- Next, search for Genshin Impact on Boosteroid by typing its name in the search bar and selecting it from the results.
- Visit the game’s page on Boosteroid and click Play.
- Follow the on-screen prompts and you can start playing the game as soon as it has finished loading in your browser.
Play Genshin Impact on Mac with GeForce Now
- To play Genshin Impact with GeForce Now, go to the GeForce Now website, sign in with your existing GeForce Now account, or sign up for a new one.
- After that, you may install the GeForce Now Mac client by going to the GeForce Now downloads page in your web browser.
- Log in to the client that has been installed and search for “Genshin Impact” in the client’s search bar.
- Click the “Play” button, follow the prompts on your screen and GeForce Now will launch Genshin Impact on your Mac.
How to Play Genshin Impact on Mac M1
To play Genshin Impact on Mac M1 models with a Virtual Machine, you must first set up a virtual Windows 10 machine on your Mac using virtualization software such as Parallels. Once you’ve done that, you can install Genshin Impact on your Mac M1 through the virtual machine.
Play Genshin Impact on Mac with Parallels
- Getting Parallels
- Downloading a Windows installation file
- Installing the Parallels VM
- Final Preparations
- Download Genshin Impact and Play
- First, you need to go to Parallels’ website, click Download Free Trial, and then click Download Now.
- Download the app on your Desktop (if Safari asks you to choose a location). If the file downloads automatically, the location where it gets saved should be your Downloads folder, unless you’ve changed the default folder where downloaded files would get saved.
- Launch the Install Parallels Desktop.dmg file that you downloaded and double-click on Install Parallels Desktop. If your Mac asks you if you are sure you want to install this app because it has been “downloaded from the Internet”, click Open.
- Next, type in your Admin password, and click OK again.
- When you get to the Parallels Desktop Permissions screen, click Next, and then click OK on each permission request that pops up on your screen.
- On the next page, Parallels will tell you that your Mac has an M1 chip and that you will need either a VHDX or an ISO image with an ARM-based operating system. On that page, click Continue.
- Next, open your browser, type Windows Insider Program in Google, perform the search, and click the first result.
- Scroll down a bit, select Register and then click Sign in now on the following page.
- Sign in with your Microsoft account if you have one. If not, create an account now and sign into it.
- On the next page, scroll down, accept the agreement terms, click on Register Now, and then select Flight Now.
- Next, search in Google for “Windows 10 on arm insider preview” and open the first result or simply follow this link.
- If you aren’t already signed in, click the Sign in option in the top-right, and you should automatically be signed in to your Microsoft account.
- Now click on the Windows Client ARM 64 Insider Preview button, select a download location (if asked to) and wait for the download of the file to complete (this is a large file, about 9 GB, so it would take some time to download).
- Go back to the Parallels installer and drag and drop the ARM file you downloaded onto the center of the installer. This should cause the Continue button to become available, so click on it.
- Next, select what you will primarily be using Windows 10 for – Productivity or Games only. Since you want to install Windows 10 to play games, select Games only and then click Continue.
- (Optional) On the next page, check the Customize settings before installation and click the Create button.
- (Optional) On the next page, click the padlock, enter your password, and click Unlock to be able to make changes to the default settings. Customizing the settings is optional and it’s only recommended if you have some idea about what you are doing. Depending on what your Mac M1 model is, you could allocate more resources towards the Windows 10 virtual machine and thus get better performance in games. We recommend not changing the number of processor cores but increasing the amount of memory to 6 GB if you are using the 8 GB Mac M1 model, or to 8 (or 12 GB), if you are using the 16 GB model. Once you’re done with the customization, close the settings window and click Continue.
- Next, go through the rest of the prompts that show up on your screen – click OK on everything to provide the necessary permissions.
- After the installation is complete, you will have to either log in to your existing Parallels account or create a new account right now. Do either of those things, accept the necessary agreements, and you should be ready to go.
Once the Windows 10 virtual machine is readily installed, you will be able to easily switch between it and your macOS system by pressing Command + Tab. Basically, think of the Virtual machine as just another app on your Mac that you can open and close at any time. Swiping with three fingers to the left or right on your trackpad is another way of switching between macOS and the Windows virtual machine. You can also pause the virtual machine by going to macOS, clicking the Parallels icon in the menu bar, selecting Actions, and then clicking the Pause option. This will help free up the resources that Parallels/the virtual machine would be using up when active. If you switch to the virtual machine while it’s paused, you will see a big pause button on your screen – clicking it will unpause Parallels and you can start using it again.
If you want to shut down the virtual machine, go to it, select the Windows 10 Start Menu from the bottom left, click Power, and then click Shut Down.
Now that everything has been set up, you can follow the Genshin Impact installation instructions that you will find further down this page and follow them to install the game.
Genshin Impact won’t run on Parallels with an M based processor.
Main Solution: Make sure you have the Microsoft Visual C++ installed on the Parallels virtual machine. This will ensure that the game can run in an arm based environment. Choose the ARM64 architecture variant from the link above and run it with full admin rights.
How to play Genshin Impact on Mac with Bootcamp?
To play Genshin Impact on a Mac computer before an official Mac version gets released, you will first need to set up a Windows 10 partition on your Mac (Bootcamp on Mac). In other words, you will need to install Windows 10 on your Mac.
To some users, this might sound like a bizarre thing to do but it is actually quite common for users to install Windows 10 Bootcamp on Mac computers when they need to run software that’s exclusive to Windows on their Mac. The first section of our guide will explain to you how you can set up the Windows 10 partition while the second section will focus on installing the Genshin Impact game itself.
Genshin Impact with Bootcamp Overview
- Downloading the Windows 10 ISO file
- Preparing for the Installation
- Starting the installation of Windows 10
- Customizing Windows 10 and installing necessary updates
Important: These instructions work for Macs with Intel and M1 chips.
First, you will need to visit this page from the official Microsoft site and download Windows 10. Downloading Windows 10 on a Mac computer is free so there’s no need to buy a Windows 10 license to install it on your Mac.
- Once you open the download link, select the Windows 10 version of the OS, click on Confirm, choose your preferred language, and confirm again.
2. Next, select the 64-bit version of Windows 10, choose a location where you want to download the installation file, and click on Save to download it.
3. Now, in the Search Assistant (top-right), type Bootcamp Assistant and open the first search result entry.
4. In the Bootcamp Assistant, select Continue and wait for the loading to finish. The tool should have automatically found the ISO image file but if it hasn’t, you can manually find it on your Mac and select it.
5. The next step is to set the size of the Windows 10 partition by dragging the dot between the macOS and Windows 10 partitions so that the one for Windows 10 becomes bigger. Here, it is very important that you give the Win10 partition enough storage space so that it can accommodate the Genshin Impact game. Our suggestion is to give it at least 50 GB (preferably 100GB) of free space because the Windows version of Genshin Impact is around 30GB.
6. After the Windows 10 ISO image file has been chosen and the Win10 partition has been resized so that it has enough space, click on the Install button and wait for the loading process to finish and for your Mac to automatically restart.
7. Once the computer restarts, choose your preferred language, country, and keyboard input and click on Next.
8. On the following page, you will be asked to provide a product key but you don’t need one to use Win10 on Mac so you can simply click on the I don’t have a product key option and you will be allowed to use the OS indefinitely on your Mac.
9. On the next page, choose your preferred Windows 10 version – our suggestion is to go for the Win10 Home version. Click on the Next button.
10. Now, agree to the License terms and click on Next again to begin the installation. Be patient while Windows 10 installs.
11. Once the installation finishes, you will be asked to log in with your Microsoft account. You can skip this step if you don’t have an account and don’t want to create one. If you do want to create a Microsoft account, you can do so from this page.
12. After your Mac boots into Windows 10, you should see the Bootcamp driver installation wizard on your screen. Follow its prompts to install the necessary driver software required for Windows 10 to work on your Mac.
13. Restart your Mac after the driver software is installed. You are now using Windows 10 on your Mac as if you were on a regular Windows PC computer.
14. Before we show you how to download Genshin Impact on Mac and how to install it, we must first tell you how to boot into the Windows 10 partition of your Mac in the future. To do this, turn off your Mac, press the power button, and immediately after that press and hold the Option key. This will land you on a screen from where you can choose (using your Arrow keys and Enter button) which partition you want to boot into. From that screen, select the Windows 10 partition and your Mac will boot into Windows instead of into its regular macOS partition.
15. Once you have successfully set up Windows 10 Bootcamp on your Mac, you will be able to install and play any Windows game on your Mac (and not only Genshin Impact) so long as your machine meets the minimum system requirements of the game. Just make sure that there’s enough space for new games on the Windows 10 partition of your Mac and that you are installing the games on this partition and not on the macOS one.
Note: If you have a hard time following these steps we recommend watching this YouTube video
Download Genshin Impact on Mac
- First, boot your Mac into the Windows 10 partition you’ve installed as we explained above.
- Now, follow this link and click on the Windows version of the game to download it. Also, do not forget to create an account for the game.
- Wait for the download to complete and run the installation file you’ve just downloaded.
- Follow the prompts from the Installer to install the game and wait for the process to complete.
- Once you’ve set up your account and the installation is complete, you can now run the game on your Mac!
Editor’s Choice: Play GTA 5 on Mac for Free
Genshin Impact on Mac Details
Here, I will go over some aspects of the game and how well it runs on Mac for those of you who are wondering if they should install it on their Mac computers.
Performance
It’s no secret that Mac computers are not intended to be used as gaming machines and even higher-end Macs wouldn’t always give you the best performance, especially on newer games like Genshin Impact.
In the case of Genshin Impact, in particular, you will likely need to lower the graphical settings of the game in order for it to run smoothly. On lower graphical settings, the game runs rather smoothly and you will likely not notice any performance issues. On a newer or higher-end Mac, you may even get away with the medium graphics settings but most Macs will likely experience performance problems if you set the game to run on the high or highest graphics settings.
Tips for better performance
One very important tip to keep in mind is that, if you want the game to run as smoothly as possible, it’s best to update the Intel Graphics drivers. Here is a link to Intel’s official site from where you can update your driver.
Another useful tip for improving the performance is to go to the Settings of your Windows Bootcamp on Mac and find the Display Settings. From there, find the setting that controls the screen resolution of the Bootcamp and set it to something lower such as, for example, 1200 x 800. Usually, this should allow the game to run better and smoother.
Thirdly, you may want to stretch the game’s window to make it fit the screen of your Macbook (if you are using a Macbook) so that the title bar doesn’t show at the top. To do this, you can use a small app called Borderless Gaming that you can download from here. Once you download and run the app, add Genshin Impact to the list of favorites on the right, and every time you run the game its window should automatically stretch to fit your Macbook’s screen.
The last tip we have for you here is that the game plays better if you are using a regular mouse instead of a trackpad or touchpad so getting a mouse would definitely be worth it if you want to get the best experience playing Genshin Impact.
Genshin Impact system requirements
Finally, before we move on to the conclusion, we ought to mention that it is possible (if not likely) that your Mac would heat up rather quickly while you are playing the game on it. This game is quite graphically intensive and will probably push your Mac quite hard so the machine’s fans would likely become quite loud from spinning as quickly as possible. This doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a problem with your machine but it’s something to keep in mind.
After all, the game is very new and has rather high system requirements that would be a challenge to even some of the most powerful Macs on the market. If you see that your Mac is getting too hot, it might be a good idea to stop playing for a while and give it time to cool down. You can also consider investing in a cooling pad or external fan for your Mac if you want to be able to play the game for longer periods of time.
One other important thing to consider before trying to install and run the game is whether your Mac can actually support it in terms of system specifications. Genshin Impact is indeed a resource-intensive game and not all Macs may be able to run it simply because of its system requirements. For those of you who are wondering if their Mac could run Genshin Impact from the perspective of its system specifications and the requirements of the game, here are the minimum and the recommended system requirements of Genshin Impact:
- Minimum configuration for PC Players
- OS: Windows 7 SP1 64-bit, Windows 8.1 64-bit, or Windows 10 64-bit
- CPU: Intel Core i5 or equivalent
- Virtual Memory: 8 GB RAM
- GPU: NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 1030 and higher
- DirectX version: 11
- Storage: 30 GB of space
Conclusion
Macs are certainly not the most popular gaming platform but if you are a Mac user and want to play Genshin Impact on Mac, this is totally possible so long as your Mac’s characteristics are up to the task of supporting the game. To download and play Genshin Impact on Mac for free, you will first need to set up a Windows 10 Bootcamp on your Mac machine and even though this process may seem a bit lengthy and complicated if you have never done it before, we believe that, with the help of the instructions we’ve prepared for you, you will be able to complete the process, install the Genshin Impact game on your Mac computer, and run it without any problem. For the best performance and gaming experience, we advise you to make use of the additional tips we have put under the Tips for better Performance paragraph of this article.
Genshin Impact Video Tutorial
