Running 3D Train Studio on a Mac

The Studio is a Windows program, but its possible to run Windows on a Mac using either Boot Camp or virtualisation.

Windows will run without a licence, though personalisation features are disabled.

Boot Camp

Boot Camp requires an older Mac with an Intel processor. The newer Apple silicon Macs don’t support Boot Camp.

Once Boot Camp has been setup, choose either the Mac or Windows environment at boot time. With a default Boot Camp install, its not possible to toggle between Mac and Windows environments after booting. Macs with Catalina MacOS and later require a minimum OS of Windows 10 64 bit for a Boot Camp install. The Studio runs great in Boot Camp.

Virtualisation

Virtualisation is supported on Macs with either Intel or Apple silicon processors.

To have access to your Mac apps and run Windows in the Mac environment, you can use a virtualisation app, such as VMware Fusion Player which is free for personal use. Parallels is also popular. This will simulate the Windows environment. Just alt-tab to switch to any running Mac apps. The Windows target machine can be either a virtual machine or the Boot Camp install if available.

Version 7 of the Studio requires Windows 7 or later, 32 or 64 bit. There is a 32 bit version of 3D Train Studio v7. Most bigger and busier models will need the 64 bit version which has a greater memory address range.

Version 8 of the Studio requires a 64 bit version of Windows.

With the Studio running in simulation mode, the frame rate may not be as good and models may run a bit jerkily, more so with bigger or busy models. See the Performance post for tips on how to get the best out of virtualisation.

The extra speed of Apple silicon processors running Windows in virtualisation mode has yet to be tested by 3D Train Studio UK.

May 2024 Update

VMware was acquried by Broadcom Inc. in late 2023. Its been reported that support for VMware Fusion Player will be discontinued and that VMware Fusion Pro is now available for free. Its likely there will be more news about this in the coming months as Broadcom reviews its product line.