Finishing | Tu Min, Producer | CSDN (ID: CSDNnews)
Do you use a Mac computer to play games?
For a long time, Mac has a reputation of being "only suitable for office work, not suitable for playing games". Its hardware, API, drivers, etc. are not considered for game design, which also leads to many games running on Mac. some problems.
However, now, Apple wants to quickly subvert this, so that the Mac can also become a "game console."
Apple's efforts to support the game
On this year's WWDC23 Keynote, on the one hand, Apple announced a new "game mode" in the latest macOS Sonoma system.
When Game Mode is on, the system prioritizes games' access to CPU and GPU resources and reduces latency for connected AirPods and Xbox and PlayStation controllers.
Apple says the mode works with all games on the operating system.
For this reason, at the conference site, they also specially invited Japanese game designer Hideo Kojima and game engine manufacturer Unity to come to the platform to show their support for the game platform.
game porting tool
On the other hand, in the developer theme technology sharing, Apple released a new game porting tool that allows developers to easily port Windows games to Mac in macOS.
In fact, it is not difficult to run Windows games on macOS. In the past, developers used platforms such as Wine and Crossover to convert some APIs under Windows into a mode that can be run on Mac systems, so that Windows applications can be played on the Mac system. Runs on a Mac.
However, Apple plans to integrate a similar solution directly into the system, releasing a Windows Compatibility Program similar to SteamOS, but targeting millions of Apple Chip Macs instead of Steam Deck.
To this end, Apple released a new porting tool - Game Porting Toolkit, and introduced in detail the use process of developers who want to port games, mainly divided into three stages:
Evaluation: see how the game runs on Apple Silicon;
Convert Shaders: Get shaders and compile them for Mac;
Transcode: Transcode and optimize performance for Mac.
The most important part of this is actually the first phase, some games will work without any code changes.
In the developer theme sharing, Apple used the horror game "The Medium" (psychic medium) as an example to show that this game runs on Apple chips through Rosetta (binary compiler software). Historically, The Medium has used DirectX 12.
According to the explanation of the DirectX 12 technical white paper, DirectX 12 is a program interface set for Microsoft to control the underlying hardware and APIs to handle multimedia tasks (especially games and videos) on the Windows operating system platform. The DirectX API is divided into multiple components. The APIs are independent of each other and updated independently, which ensures that the game only needs to use the necessary functions. Individual components provide access to different hardware, which can include graphics cards, sound cards, GPUs, and input devices such as joysticks and mice with standard interfaces.
In the past, Macs couldn't understand these instructions, which is why developers couldn't run DirectX 12 games through virtual machine software tools like Parallels.
The core of Apple's latest Game Porting Toolkit is the software CrossOver developed by CodeWeavers. Just a few days ago, CrossOver announced that it will provide DirectX 12 support for macOS to improve the user experience when playing Windows games on macOS. CrossOver is based on the Wine project, which provides an easy-to-use way to run Windows applications without installing Windows operating system, and also improves the compatibility and flexibility of the system.
In simple terms, Apple has built an emulation layer that can make almost any Windows game run on a Mac in minutes. In Apple's own words: "First, you can evaluate how your existing Windows games will run on the Mac using the provided simulation environment. This allows you to instantly analyze the potential performance of your games, eliminating months of preliminary work."
Meanwhile, Apple says the Game Porting Toolkit can automatically port controller input, audio and graphics APIs, CPU instructions, and other APIs. According to the official demo (https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10123/), you just need to import a Windows game and launch it via the command line, and the porting will automatically take place in Apple's emulation environment.
After testing Windows games on macOS with the Game Porting Toolkit, developers can use the new tool to convert DirectX graphics to Metal. Therefore, games can run locally with better performance. The macOS Sonoma SDK also helps developers take advantage of other native system features, such as support for game controllers, spatial audio, and HDR video.
Not long after Toolkit was released, many netizens on Reddit have played "Cyberpunk 2077" and "Diablo IV" after Apple's hardware.
Why did Apple think of making games?
It is not unreasonable to say that Apple turned around and started to increase investment in games.
Just in February of this year, Tim Millet, Apple’s vice president of chip architecture, said in an interview with foreign media, “We don’t want to boast about making the Mac a great gaming platform overnight. We have to take a long-term view.”
So why now?
On the one hand, at this year's WWDC23, Apple's new version of the Mac Pro was successfully equipped with the M2 Ultra chip, completely getting rid of the Intel chip, completing the transition plan three years ago, and fully controlling the software and hardware ecology.
This is also what Tim Millet previously revealed. Apple has been paying attention to the game market since the beginning of core making.
So, now is the beginning of the long-term plan, because Apple is ready.
On the other hand, Apple launched Apple Vision Pro, a head-mounted display device with a price of up to 25,000 yuan. This brand-new spatial computing platform can bring various immersive experiences to the game world and bring players into a new world. However, in order to really make it successfully enter the market, it needs the blessing of the content ecology, and the game field is very likely to be an important support point for the content scene under the Apple Vision Pro hardware platform.
Analyzing external factors again, recently, Microsoft’s USD 69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard has been approved by the European Union. After the acquisition is completed, Microsoft will become the third-highest revenue game company in the world after Tencent and Sony. After facing strong pressure, this is one of the reasons why Apple is playing games.
The Mac has never been known as a gaming platform, and now Apple wants to change that. Now with the Apple Silicon chip, the Mac is more powerful than ever. Apple is now testing the waters with porting tools and is showing developers that their games are worth bringing to macOS. Of course, this will also bring great value to the Apple platform.
Then, when Apple is making efforts in the direction of games, the Mac positioning as the main productivity tool may also change accordingly. So, will you use Mac to play games?
reference:
https://arstechnica.com/apple/2023/06/apple-has-a-proton-like-game-porting-toolkit-for-getting-windows-games-on-mac/
https://9to5mac.com/2023/06/06/macos-sonoma-port-windows-games-mac/
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