You need two things to play FIFA on Mac: A FIFA 18 game code for PC and Windows installed on your Mac. This is the only way to run FIFA 18 on a Mac properly and legally. Please beware of YouTube video tutorials and websites that claim to show you how to install or download FIFA for Mac. Not only do they not work but they often involve illegal downloads of FIFA and may also infect your Mac with adware or malware.
Note that it is not possible to install FIFA on Mac using Parallels due to its lack of support for Microsoft DirectX. FIFA 2018 requires DirectX 11 in order to run and unfortunately Parallels still does not allow you to install Microsoft DirectX 11 on a Mac. In fact all versions of FIFA require Microsoft’s Direct X 11 in order to run on Mac which is why Boot Camp is the only option that works.
This tutorial on how to install FIFA on Mac is easy, safe, legal and allows you to play FIFA online against friends. We even show you how you can connect your Xbox or Playstation controller to your Mac to play FIFA.
Once you’ve learned how to run FIFA on macOS, you’ll also be able to install other games on your Mac that are PC only such as Skyrim, Battlefield 4, Grand Theft Auto 5, Steam games and other games on the EA Origin store that are not available for Mac.
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How To Play FIFA On Mac
Before you start, you’ll need to make sure you have an Intel Mac that’s no more than 3-4 years old with at least 8GB of RAM for FIFA 18. FIFA 18 will not launch on your Mac unless you have at least 8GB of RAM so it’s not even worth following this tutorial and installing it if you don’t. Even for FIFA 16, EA recommends 8GB of RAM and although it runs with 4GB of RAM, older Macs with less RAM simply will not be able to handle the demands of running Windows and macOS at the same time and you’ll find that FIFA either will not launch or be virtually unplayable on your Mac due to severe lag.
To check your Mac system specs, go to the Apple logo in the top left of your Mac desktop and select About this Mac. Next to Memory you can see exactly how much RAM you have on your Mac.
In addition, you’ll need a minimum of 16GB hard drive space to install Windows on your Mac. However, we recommend having around at least 100GB+ to be safe. FIFA 18 requires a whopping 50GB of hard drive space so that means you’ll need at least 76GB of space to install both Windows and FIFA 18 on your Mac. This will very quickly eat up the hard drive space of the majority of Macs but the good thing is you can also install Windows and FIFA on an external hard drive on Mac too.
If you’ve got all this in place, you’re now ready to install the latest version of FIFA on your Mac.
- First you need to install Windows on Mac with Boot Camp. The great thing is that Windows 10 is now free to install on a Mac so this bit won’t cost you a cent. Microsoft no longer requires users to activate it unless they want to customize the look of Windows 10.
- When you’ve done that, check that DirectX 11 is installed in Windows.
- Once Windows and DirextX are installed on your Mac, the process for installing FIFA is exactly the same as if you were using a PC. First you need to install EA Origin in Windows on your Mac. EA Origin is EA’s platform for distributing games such as FIFA, The Sims etc. Simply open Windows on your Mac and download and install EA Origin for PC. If you’ve already got an Origin ID, just login but if not, you’ll need to create a username and password to finish the setup.
- Finally, you simply need to purchase FIFA for which there are two options. You can either buy FIFA directly in the Origin store or buy a game code for FIFA 15, FIFA 16, or FIFA 17 or FIFA 18 from Amazon instead. When you purchase via Amazon, you will be sent a simple code so that you can download FIFA and install it in Origin. The only real advantage to purchasing from Amazon is that it’s often cheaper than in the Origin store. Whichever way you purchase it, FIFA must appear under My Games in Origin.
And that’s it, you’ve now got FIFA on Mac. Once Origin has downloaded and installed FIFA, you can play it on your Mac just as if you were playing on a PC, including online against friends. You will also get updates to teams and squads throughout the season just as if you were playing FIFA on PC.
Connecting An Xbox Or Playstation Controller To FIFA On Mac
You can connect an Xbox controller or Playstation controller to FIFA on Mac via USB or Bluetooth. Although Sony Playstation controllers don’t work with the PC version of FIFA, there is a trick you can use to make your Playstation controller trigger the FIFA PC keyboard controls on Mac using an app called Joystick Mapper. You may find that it’s easier to use a USB cable as trying to get Parallels to work with your Mac’s Bluetooth can be very hit and miss.
Why Hasn’t EA Released FIFA For Mac?
The last time EA released FIFA on Mac was back in 2011 when they released FIFA 12. FIFA 13 was released the following year but since then, EA hasn’t released any newer versions for Mac and it seems they have no intention of doing so. It may have something to do with the fact that EA simply don’t want to invest the resources into developing a version of FIFA for Mac which is comparable with the PC and console version. Very little effort was put into FIFA 12 and FIFA 13 and they were basically poorly ported PC versions that were full of bugs, poor graphics and you couldn’t even play online or update teams.
But don’t worry – if you follow these instructions, you can install the PC version of FIFA on your Mac (and it also works as far back as FIFA 14 on Mac if you really want to).
If you have any problems or issues installing FIFA on your Mac using this tutorial, or you have any questions or suggestions, let us know below.
Dear MacHow2,
GREAT NEWS!!!
Can’t wait to try it!
But I’m still a little bit sceptic…
It looks to easy;)..
Could you arrange some pics or YouTube movie to confirm your FIFA on Mac.
Kind regards.
Daan (from Holland)
Hi Daan! It is indeed easy to play FIFA on Mac as long as you have Windows installed using the method described above.
I have a 13 inch 2012 Mac(non retina)..Will fifa 15 and 16 work in it??
Yes – it will also work on the 2012 Macbooks as long as you install Windows on it. You may need to upgrade the RAM though to play FIFA smoothly on your Mac.
my macbook pro is (13-inch, mid 2009) version 10.10 with processor of 2ghz intel core duo & memory of 2gb ram & graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9400m 256mb, can i run fifa16 on it
It will probably struggle with just 2GB of RAM on your Mac. If you turn the graphics setting in FIFA 16 to minimum it might work. You can however upgrade the RAM in your Macbook so we’d recommend doing that and you should be fine.
I also have the same version of mac and would want to know what is the minimum size of Ram is required to play the FIFA 15 and 16 on MacBook pro 2009 13 inch.
FIFA 15 and FIFA 16 both have the same operating system requirements according to EA – recommended 8GB of RAM and a minimum 4GB of RAM
Can you explain how to install fifa 16 without paying and downloading for windows (using crossover) ?
Every time I try to launch Fifa 15, it says an unhandled error has occurred. Can you explain how to fix this?
Have you installed FIFA on your Mac following the instructions in the tutorial? If so, make sure that .Net Framework is installed and updated on Windows. If there is any antivirus software running on your Mac or Windows – including Microsoft Security Essentials – try deactivating that too.
After you’re done installing it, can you use a ps4 or xbox controller?
You can connect an Xbox controller because it works with the PC version of FIFA but not a Playstation gamepad as it only works with Playstations. You can connect Xbox controllers via Bluetooth or USB cable – we’ve added instructions to the article.
you can also use a playstation controller.
Just install the software below on your windows.
https://motioninjoy.en.uptodown.com/windows
everything done. but when i click on launch it wont start. do nothing.
can anyone help me please? its an 5K cto imac with 32gb ram. 3,5ghz i5, radeon m290x
the only thing i wasn’t able to change was video memory. it was set to 512 and didnt give me option of changing it to 256. otherwise everything is as instructed. but it still wont start!
My internet connection isn’t the best so downloading Fifa might be a problem. However, I do have a MacBook SuperDrive and could install Fifa via a PC disc. I assume this would still work with Windows on Parallel? Thanks
Parallels can recognize external drives connected to your Mac so yes, installing FIFA on Mac via disc should work.
Thanks for the quick reply. My connection survived enough to install the demo, but I’ve encountered the same problem as this guy, who was told FIFA 17 would not work with Parallels – http://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues/launcher-has-stopped-working-fifa-17/td-p/5648161
How old is the Mac that you’re installing it on? If it’s an older Mac or MacBook, it may not have sufficient specs to support the system requirements of FIFA.
I have a late-2013 MacBook Pro with 8GB RAM. I think the problem is FIFA 17 has a minimum requirement of 8GB RAM, whereas FIFA 16 was 4GB. Could it be that it doesn’t work as 4GB is still required by OS X?
Hi MacHow2, is it possible to connect your steelseries controller to play fifa on your mac as well?
Hi, If it has a Bluetooth or USB connection then it should be no problem.
ok thank you but its not exactly the same controller as a xbox controller so that isn’t a problem?
You need to check whether the Steelseries controllers are compatible with FIFA on PC. If they are, then it won’t be a problem.
I have a Macbook Pro 13” (Mid-2012) and I can’t seem to launch FIFA 18. I have 8GB of RAM, an i5-3210M @2.5GHz processor and my graphics card is the Intel HD Graphics 4000 (I am clueless in terms of computers and specs, but I’m assuming that my graphics card isn’t good enough). I installed Windows 10 and have DirectX 12, which also might be the problem, but again, I have no clue. Please help!
Hi,
I have 15″ Macbook Pro 2016 – intel core i7 98th gen0, 16 Gb ram.
Installed Windows 10 through bootcamp and have installed FIFA 18 though Origin.
The game launches all well, allows met to select the teams, change players, etc.
However, when I hit the play button, I get a black screen.
The audio plays for a short while and the game gets stuck.
I have directX 12. Tried reinstalling Windows and FIFA.
Please help me to fix the issue.
Cheers.
Try minimizing the game settings, resolution, frame rate etc in the FIFA options. You could also try using DirectX 11 instead of 12 to see if it helps solve it for you.
Hello,
Thanks for your reply. I tried lowering the Graphics, still the same.
It renders the initial video perfectly where Ronaldo is fouled by an Athletico Madrid player.
I can skip the game, select kick off – select teams and make changes to the teams.
The moment I click play game, I get black screen.
Windows 10 has built in directx 12. I tried to separately install directx11. Could not do that.
Please help.
Kind regads,
Praful
The problem may be related to the NVIDIA drivers. You can try updating the NVIDIA graphics drivers to see if it helps.
Getting 0xc000007b error while running the application. What should I do?
This is something to do with a conflict between 32 bit and 64 bit drivers on your Windows setup. This solution may help.
os x yosemite
version 10.10.5
macbook air(13 inch, early 2015)
processor- 1.6 ghz intel core i5
memory 4 gb 1600 mhz ddr3
graphics intel hd graphics 6000 1536 mb
will i be able to play fifa 18?
Unfortunately not. You need at least 8GB of RAM to run FIFA on your Mac and you only have 4GB.
can i play other fifa like 14?
Your system requirements are enough for FIFA 14 although we’ve never tried to install it on a Mac. You may also have problems finding a copy of FIFA 14 nowadays.
I have Intel Iris Pro 5200 with updated drivers. So the NVIDIA drivers would not help me.
Is there any other way that I could run FIFA18?
You should try uninstalling the NVIDIA drivers completely first and then reinstall them, rather than just update them.