• 106 views | 1 messages Discussion: LEAP
    Topic: Notes on running LEAP on an Apple Mac computerSubscribe | Previous | Next
  • Charlie Heaps 6/14/2023

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    A few people have been asking about the possibility of running LEAP on Apple Mac computers. While this is not officially supported by SEI, it can be done with some effort. Here I'm sharing some notes and tips for doing so..

    Intel-based Macs:

    For older Intel-based Macs, you will need to have Windows running on your Mac which can be achieved either by running the Mac's bootcamp software (which lets you dual boot to either Mac OS or Windows) or you can use Parallels, VMWare Fusion or other VM software to run Windows simultaneously (i.e. within MacOS). Note you will likely need to purchase both VM software and an additional license for Windows.

    Newer M1/M2 (Apple Silicon Macs):

    All newer Macs use Apple Silicon CPUs (known as M1 or M2 chips). To run LEAP on these, extra steps are required. First of all, you will need Parallels 17 or VMWare Fusion 13 or later. Earlier versions do not support Apple silicon. Next you will need the special ARM version of Windows.

    See these resources for more info:

    I recommend using Parallels 18 as it is pretty good at taking you gently, step-by-step through the process of installing and then acquiring a license for the ARM version of Windows 11.

    Once you have the ARM version of Windows running, you are almost there. This version of Windows has an emulator that lets it run programs (like LEAP) compiled for Intel chips. I've tested LEAP on these configurations and it runs fine (both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions) as does NEMO, although they are slower than when running natively on Intel chips due to the emulation penalty.