Since Apple began to switch Mac processors from Intel to Apple Silicon, everyone has seen the strength of Apple Silicon. Compared with the previous Intel processors, M1 and M2 series processors have a huge performance improvement in CPU and GPU, especially the power consumption ratio, which is unmatched.
Regardless of the desktop, such performance and extremely low power consumption must be the envy of many Windows gaming notebooks, so naturally Apple also has the idea of gaming.
At WWDC 2023, Apple added a new game mode to the newly released macOS 14 Sonoma, which can improve the CPU and GPU scheduling during the game, bringing a better game experience and a more stable frame rate; the game Mode can also greatly reduce the latency of peripherals such as headphones and gamepads.
Apple has laid a good foundation for playing games, so how to solve the lack of games on the Mac platform, especially 3A masterpieces?
Apple has announced a new Game Porting Toolkit (based on Wine) designed to make it easier and faster for developers to bring their PC games to macOS. In the past, developers wanting to make a PC game run on the Mac required months of up-front preparation work, but this porting tool allows developers to see existing games on the Mac in just a few days. operating conditions. The toolkit also simplifies the process of converting game shader and graphics code to take advantage of Apple Silicon performance, significantly reducing overall development time. With this tool, developers can run an unmodified version of a Windows game on a Mac to see how it works before officially starting the port.
It is worth noting that the game porting toolkit also supports Microsoft's DirectX 12, and Apple converts Windows API calls to Metal API through a translation layer.
A few days ago, CrossOver also said that it will provide DirectX 12 support for Mac, but CrossOver is a paid software. Will Apple's initiative to provide DirectX 12 support directly "kill" CrossOver?
Regardless of whether the quality of the transplant tool itself is excellent, translation will undoubtedly reduce the operating efficiency of the game itself, and non-native will also bring many unexpected bugs.
macOS Sonoma currently only provides a developer beta version, the public beta version will be released next month, and the official version is expected to be released this fall.
Migration Toolkit Download Address: Link