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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/112cxyz/MoltenVR-Preview/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

A Wine bottle is a self-contained Windows environment that lives inside macOS — it has its own virtual C: drive, registry, and set of Windows libraries, completely isolated from the rest of your system. MoltenVR uses a bottle to run Windows VR games without a separate Windows PC, then streams every rendered frame to your headset in real time.

How MoltenVR’s bottle works

Inside the bottle, two critical components are installed and configured by the setup wizard:
  • DXMT — translates Direct3D 11 draw calls into Apple Metal API calls, so the game’s GPU work runs fully native on your Apple Silicon chip rather than through a software emulation path.
  • OpenXR VR runtime — a custom runtime that intercepts every VR frame the game submits and hands it to MoltenVR’s streaming pipeline. Games call this runtime for head tracking, controller input, and haptics, just as they would call SteamVR on Windows.
Game libraries are discovered automatically. MoltenVR scans for Steam, BSManager (multi-version Beat Saber installs), and itch.io libraries and lists compatible titles on the Games screen.
The MoltenVR managed bottle is the recommended way to get started. The setup wizard creates it, installs the DXMT graphics layer, and registers the OpenXR runtime in a single click each — no manual configuration required.

Managed bottle vs. custom bottle

The Minecraft exception

Minecraft + Vivecraft runs fully native on macOS — no Wine bottle involved at all. MoltenVR launches it through Prism Launcher and Vivecraft handles the VR integration directly. It is the first working Mac Minecraft VR experience since SteamVR for Mac was discontinued in 2020.

Further reading

For a deep dive into what a bottle is, how DXMT’s D3D11 → Metal translation works, and how the MoltenVR OpenXR runtime fits into the stack, see the full PDF guide: Bottles & DXMT, explained (PDF)

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