mac-v0.4.0: the launcher

Launcher release. Download Bloodborne-macOS-0.4.0.zip (no building needed).

New: the launcher

Bloodborne.app now opens a launcher window before the game, with every setting on one screen (no scrolling, even on a 13" MacBook Air):

• Display: output resolution, windowed or full screen, frame rate cap (30, 40, 60, 90, 120).
• Upscaler: off, MetalFX or FSR 3.1, its quality level, and the resolution the game actually renders at (for example 1280 × 720 → 1920 × 1080); FSR sharpening.
• Effects: depth of field, motion blur, chromatic aberration, ambient occlusion, shadows from dynamic lights, screen-space reflections, the game's own anti-aliasing, the FPS counter, and skip intro videos (straight to the title screen).
• Locations: the game folder (checked before Play is enabled) and the save folder (it offers to copy your saves to a new folder; the originals stay where they were).
• Show launcher every time: untick it to start the game directly; hold ⌥ (Option) while opening the app to get the launcher back.

Settings are shared with the in-game overlay (⌘,). When the game quits, the launcher comes back; if the game stopped with an error, the launcher says so and offers the log.

Performance is the same as 0.3.3.

Next: 0.5.0

0.5.0 will be the full native Metal renderer: the game's GPU commands go straight to Metal instead of through Vulkan and MoltenVK.

Requirements

An Apple Silicon Mac with macOS 15 or newer and at least 16 GB of memory, and your own game dump: CUSA03173 with the 1.09 update merged (copy the update folder's contents over the game folder), with the original, unmodified eboot.bin. To unpack decrypted PKGs, use pkg_extract-macOS.zip (see "Preparing the game folder from PKG files" in the README).

Install

1. Unzip it and move Bloodborne.app to Applications.
2. The app is not signed with an Apple developer certificate, so release it from quarantine:
   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Bloodborne.app
   (or open it once, then System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway).
3. Open it, choose your game folder under Locations, pick your settings and press Play. If Rosetta 2 is missing, the app offers to install it.

Upgrading from 0.3.x: your saves and settings are kept (~/Library/Application Support/Bloodborne). Log: ~/Library/Logs/Bloodborne/game.log.

Still experimental: expect bugs. See the README for known issues.

mac-v0.3.3: 13–16% faster

Performance release. Download Bloodborne-macOS-0.3.3.zip (no building needed).

Faster: +13–16% FPS

MoltenVK now binds shader resources directly instead of through Metal argument buffers. Measured on an M4 Max at the Hunter's Dream headstone, uncapped:

	0.3.2	0.3.3
1080p native	~82 FPS	~94 FPS
1440p native	~59 FPS	~66 FPS
1080p, FSR 3.1 Quality	~93 FPS	~107 FPS
1080p, MetalFX Quality	~92 FPS	~106 FPS

Frame pacing at the usual 60 FPS cap is unchanged. Smaller Macs should gain about the same proportion, which matters most where the game runs below 60. Thanks to Huax-1839 (bloodborne-macos), whose port pointed at this setting.

Also

• If the native GPU process cannot start (it falls back to one process), the log now names what was in the way, for bug reports (issue #2).

Requirements

An Apple Silicon Mac with macOS 15 or newer and at least 16 GB of memory, and your own game dump: CUSA03173 with the 1.09 update merged (copy the update folder's contents over the game folder), with the original, unmodified eboot.bin. To unpack decrypted PKGs, use pkg_extract-macOS.zip (see "Preparing the game folder from PKG files" in the README).

Install

1. Unzip it and move Bloodborne.app to Applications.
2. The app is not signed with an Apple developer certificate, so release it from quarantine:
   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Bloodborne.app
   (or open it once, then System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway).
3. Open it and choose your game folder. If Rosetta 2 is missing, the app offers to install it.

Saves: ~/Library/Application Support/Bloodborne. Log: ~/Library/Logs/Bloodborne/game.log.

Still experimental: expect bugs. See the README for known issues.

mac-v0.3.2: fix for buffer.cpp:105 at launch

Bug fix release. Download Bloodborne-macOS-0.3.2.zip (no building needed).

Fixed

• The game stopped right at launch with buffer.cpp:105 on Macs with less than about 28 GB of memory (16, 18, 24 GB...). The port reserved the game's GPU memory as one 16 GiB Metal buffer, larger than macOS allows on those Macs. It now sizes that buffer to the Mac (8 GiB on 16–24 GB Macs). game.log shows the chosen size on a line starting GPU arena:.
• 8 GB Macs are not supported: they now stop with a message saying so instead of the crash.

If you got buffer.cpp:105 with 0.3.1, your game folder was fine; just use this version.

Requirements

You need your own game dump: CUSA03173 with the 1.09 update merged (copy the update folder's contents over the game folder), with the original, unmodified eboot.bin. To unpack decrypted PKGs, use pkg_extract-macOS.zip (see "Preparing the game folder from PKG files" in the README).

Install

1. Unzip it and move Bloodborne.app to Applications.
2. The app is not signed with an Apple developer certificate, so release it from quarantine:
   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Bloodborne.app
   (or open it once, then System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway).
3. Open it and choose your game folder. If Rosetta 2 is missing, the app offers to install it.

Requires an Apple Silicon Mac with macOS 15 or newer and at least 16 GB of memory. Saves: ~/Library/Application Support/Bloodborne. Log: ~/Library/Logs/Bloodborne/game.log.

Pre-release: expect bugs. See the README for known issues.

mac-v0.3.1: downloadable app

First downloadable build: Bloodborne-macOS-0.3.1.zip No building needed.

You still need your own game dump: CUSA03173 with the 1.09 update merged, with the original, unmodified eboot.bin. A pre-patched eboot (for example a 60 FPS patch for jailbroken consoles) is rejected; the port applies its own 60 FPS patches in memory.

Game folder from PKG files

The app needs an unpacked game folder. If you play on shadPS4, use that folder after copying the update folder's contents (e.g. CUSA03173-patch) into it. To unpack decrypted (fake-signed) PKGs, use pkg_extract-macOS.zip: see "Preparing the game folder from PKG files" in the README. Retail (encrypted) PKGs must be dumped on a jailbroken PS4 first.

Install

1. Unzip it and move Bloodborne.app to Applications.
2. The app is not signed with an Apple developer certificate, so release it from quarantine:
   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Bloodborne.app
   (or open it once, then System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway).
3. Open it and choose your game folder. If Rosetta 2 is missing, the app offers to install it.

Requires an Apple Silicon Mac with macOS 15 or newer. Saves: ~/Library/Application Support/Bloodborne. Log: ~/Library/Logs/Bloodborne/game.log.

Changes since mac-v0.3.0

• Self-contained app for downloads (bundled libraries and Python; nothing to build).
• Fixed a load race behind missing geometry (floors, stairs, a character's legs).
• Much less judder at 60 FPS with the upscaler off or FSR (MoltenVK encodes while the frame is recorded).
• Full Retina resolution in the window and in full screen.
• Settings are saved right after a change.
• Game check at launch with a clear explanation for modified or wrong game files.

Pre-release: expect bugs. See the README for known issues.

mac-v0.3.0: stability round

Work in progress, playable on Apple Silicon Macs. Source only: no binaries, and no game files are included or will ever be distributed. You need your own decrypted copy of Bloodborne (CUSA03173 v1.09) and must build the port yourself; see Building and Launching in the README.

Version numbers are this macOS port's own (mac- prefix); they are unrelated to the tags of the Windows port it was forked from.

Highlights so far

• 0.1 (2026-10-11): first playable build. Boots, character creation, saves load, ~22 FPS at 1080p.
• 0.2 (2026-10-12/13): rendering in a native arm64 GPU process; MetalFX upscaling; shader fixes. Central Yharnam at a locked 60 FPS at 1080p on an M4 Max.
• 0.3 (this release, 2026-10-14): stability round, below.

What's new in 0.3

• Load crash defused. The intermittent crash during area loads (the window closing on a loading screen) is a race in the game: its main thread records cloth/texture compute jobs into the render thread's command stream without a lock, which only works with PS4 timing. The GPU process now logs and skips the corrupted commands instead of exiting (the race hit in 6 of 9 test runs; none crashed). The proper fix is in the backlog.
• Full screen works (⌃⌘F or the green button); it used to freeze the picture.
• Lower display latency: 48.5 → 31.7 ms from present to screen (two swapchain images).
• Game file reads into GPU-watched memory no longer fail (macOS returned EFAULT); a candidate cause of missing geometry.
• balanced shader compile mode (default): background compiles, at most 6 ms wait per frame.
• Finder launcher: double-click Bloodborne.command; it asks for your game folder once.
• Diagnostics: BB_FRAME_STATS=1 frame-spike log; detailed reports of corrupted GPU command streams.

Known issues

• Missing geometry after a respawn or reload (character's legs, stairs), seen on M4 Max and M2 Pro; a relaunch fixes it.
• Occasional judder at a steady 60 FPS.
• Full screen renders at point size, not full Retina resolution.
• Loading screens can still briefly look garbled when the game race hits.

Full details: docs/MACOS_BACKLOG.md and docs/FINDINGS.md.