Windows games now run on Macs - even if not perfectly
7/6/2023
Translation: machine translated
The "Game Porting Toolkit" from Apple is actually designed to convert games for Macs. However, it can also be used to game PC games directly on macOS.
At the WWDC developer conference, Apple presented a "Game Porting Toolkit". The aim is to make it easier and quicker for studios to port their games to Macs - and thus make more games available on computers with the Apple logo. It can also be used to play Windows games directly on the Mac.
Aids for game studios
Before you order masses of PC games for your Mac, the whole thing is not really intended for gaming. The emulated environment of the Game Porting Toolkit is designed to help development studios evaluate their games on a Mac before they go to the trouble of porting them. But that shouldn't stop you from trying it out. However, it may be that not everything runs perfectly without adaptation to macOS.
So reports Meredith Johnson of numerous bugs that had to be fixed when porting "Diablo II Resurrected". Johnson works at CodeWeavers on CrossOver, a programme for running PC software on Macs. She expects similar problems with all games using DirectX 12.
To just get Diablo II Resurrected running, we had to fix a multitude of bugs involving MoltenVK and SPIRV-Cross. We anticipate that this will be the case for other DirectX 12 games: we will need to add support on a per-title basis, and each game will likely involve multiple bugs.
The Game Porting Toolkit works in a similar way to Proton. Valve uses this to port Windows games to the Linux handheld Steam Deck to run.
DirectX becomes Metal
DirectX 12 is currently the most widely used graphics interface for Windows games. Apple has its own graphics interface with Metal 3. In addition, the instructions for the x86 chips from Intel and AMD must be translated for the Apple Silicon processors - the ones with the M in the name. There are also Windows interfaces for mouse, keyboard, sound, network and so on.
The Game Porting Toolkit is intended to help with all this work and offers developer studios direct emulation for initial orientation, which is not perfect, but works impressively well.
Cover photo: Apple
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