Fritz 12 is a great chess product that unfortunately has no Mac version. I’ve installed it on a Bootcamp partition, and it works great. But I hate rebooting to Windows everytime I need it. Besides, all my files are in the OS X partition.
I also tried running Fritz 12 in a Parallels Desktop. It works fine as well, but then I have to boot Windows on top of OS X, which in the process they’re sharing the same computer’s resources, which proves to be an inefficient environment to run a resource hungry application like Fritz 12. I was only able to assign 3GB of RAM out of the total installed 8GB, and the application can only utilize 1 CPU out of the total 4.
So what about Codeweaver’s Crossover? Well, this is how it looks like:
Notice how the black pieces have turned into. They must be the “zombies” in the chess world. There was nothing I can do to fix it. Really, when you start playing or analyzing games, you’ll get confused about the black and the white pieces.
That alone is already a total turn off. But it does not stop there: you can’t activate the application to get the latest software updates. I didn’t try installing additional engines, because I find it unnecessary to move forward with the setup.
So until now, there’s no ideal way to run a ChessBase application on a Mac. You can try one option but you have deal with the setbacks. A huge gap to fill in — a great opportunity for competitors to expand their market on.
Calling Hiarcs, Shredder, anyone?
By the way, it appears Stockfish UI does not work anymore in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.
My setup: MacBook Pro 13-inch, Early 2011, running OS X Mountain Lion.
November 1, 2012 at 4:57 am
You can fix that. In the board-design (via right-mouse click), just remove the one tick-box, that is called “rounded” or so. I only got the German version so I am not sure how it is called exactly. But there are only four tick-boxes to try anyway.
You may also set the design to Fritz4 and then choose anothert board color again.
There you go.
Cheers!
November 23, 2013 at 8:19 pm
The best Mac GUI I use on Mac is Shredder, it just works but it is miles away from Fritz, Aquarium, and Arena Chess also. However it is good.