Running Fritz 12 on a Mac via Crossover

Fritz 12 is a great chess product that unfortunately has no Mac version. I've installed it on a Bootcamp partition, and it works great. But I hate rebooting to Windows everytime I need it. Besides, all my files are in the OS X partition.

I also tried running Fritz 12 in a Parallels Desktop. It works fine as well, but then I have to boot Windows on top of OS X, which in the process they're sharing the same computer's resources, which proves to be an inefficient environment to run a resource hungry application like Fritz 12. I was only able to assign 3GB of RAM out of the total installed 8GB, and the application can only utilize 1 CPU out of the total 4.

So what about Codeweaver's Crossover? Well, this is how it looks like:

[caption id="attachment_855" align="alignnone" width="500"] Screenshot: Fritz 12 on a Mac via Crossover[/caption]

Notice how the black pieces have turned into. They must be the "zombies" in the chess world. There was nothing I can do to fix it. Really, when you start playing or analyzing games, you'll get confused about the black and the white pieces.

That alone is already a total turn off. But it does not stop there: you can't activate the application to get the latest software updates. I didn't try installing additional engines, because I find it unnecessary to move forward with the setup.

So until now, there's no ideal way to run a ChessBase application on a Mac. You can try one option but you have deal with the setbacks. A huge gap to fill in -- a great opportunity for competitors to expand their market on.

Calling Hiarcs, Shredder, anyone?

By the way, it appears Stockfish UI does not work anymore in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.

My setup: MacBook Pro 13-inch, Early 2011, running OS X Mountain Lion.

The Chess Explorer by Hiarcs

The Hiarcs page right now goes:

HIARCS Chess Explorer is an exciting new chess product which is under development and we hope will be available in the autumn 2011. More details on the new chess explorer application will be posted here when they are ready. We hope chess players of all chess abilities who really wish to explore and improve their chess will like the new HIARCS chess explorer software.

For me, this leaves more questions than answers:

• Is this a GUI alternative to Chessbase' Fritz 12?


• Is this thing available for Windows and Mac?


• Is this Hiarcs answer due to Sigma Chess not available to support OS X Lion?


• Can I install other competing engines?


• Will it have intuitive interface for game analysis?


• Will I become a better player with this software?


• Will this be free or shall be sold for a hefty amount?


• Do you think it can beat Houdini?

I can go on and on, even with stupid questions, but really, that page is not helping a lot. Hope Hiarcs can come up with a concrete answer and hopefully fill that bridge for a good native chess program for the Mac.