“Apple has created a new Game Porting Toolkit that’s similar to the work Valve has done with Proton and the Steam Deck. It’s powered by source code from CrossOver, a Wine-based solution for running Windows games on macOS. Apple’s tool will instantly translate Windows games to run on macOS, allowing developers to launch an unmodified version of a Windows game on a Mac and see how well it runs before fully porting a game.”
The new software will allow Mac users* (see edit) to play ‘Windows games’ on their Apple silicon (M1/M2) devices. With development, this has the potential to bring gaming to Apple.
*EDIT: The Game Porting Toolkit is designed for developers to see how their game performs on Apple silicone to entice devs to create native ports. Thanks to commenters for pointing out this distinction. The CrossOver project on which it is built, I believe, is designed for end-users to run software on their Mac clients.
This isn’t Proton-like, this IS Proton. Proton is what Valve call their WINE version. Codeweavers actively build WINE and give it away and they’ve looked at the Apple code and it IS WINE.
You’re welcome Apple! Assholes. Least you could do would be to contribute, but then the magic is taken away from your dictatorship isn’t it? Can’t have that.
You are mostly correct, but from my understanding the “Game Porting Toolkit” system isn’t just the CodeWeavers’ WINE part but also includes the Rosetta x64 to ARM translator and the D3DMetal translation layer as well. So through those layers many instructions can fall through the cracks.
All in all, neat that games can even be played on a Mac in the first place, but you still get relatively bad performance, restrictive licensing on use, worse compatibility than Proton. That’s living in Apple’s wonderful walled garden, for ya.
I want to see Apple contributing more to the open-source CrossOver project, both in terms of code and financing. Their contribution has been minimal and Apple’s audacity in essentially repackaging open-source software is disgusting to me. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
You are not wrong. But this isn’t even like proton, it’s not for end users. It’s intended for developer testing, so they can get an idea how well it runs on a mac, and then somehow be persuaded to do a proper mac port??
Exactly this. After seeing what proton can do on Linux, devs will probably just wait and hope apple gets on that level.
I’d love for that to happen but I believe Apple wants all the games in the App Store so they get 30% cut, rather than giving that cut to steam.
If that’s what they want, Steam’s existence on macOS as well as games being available for purchase through both the App Store and Steam aren’t working in their favor in that regard. But between the App Store and those previous attempts to block out Game Pass, hopefully Apple will see an opportunity to ensnare more users to the ecosystem.
How many folks out there have iPhones but don’t have Macs because of weird hangups like “no games”? They’ll target this group eventually.
I’m personally about to exactly be in this category. I am moving from Android to iPhone, and will not be getting a MacOS device for my primary computing until MacOS gets good Gaming Support.
Namely Guild Wars 2 and Warframe. But, other games would be really nice.
Definitely. Apple doesn’t pour much resources into mac gaming because they make barely anything off it. It may change though, because I’m sure they’ll try to push it with their closed down goggles, which run mac / ios architecture.
My thoughts exactly. Apple is a public company, they’re not investing in software that’ll put money in other companys’ pockets.
If you look at what was also announced, it reads pretty clearly as they needed a solution for porting to and developing for their new VR headset.
Eh, this doesn’t sound anywhere near as impressive as what Valve did for Proton itself. First of all, Proton is actually good to the point where native linux ports aren’t even needed (although appreciated), its not just for dev prototyping.
And as the top post said, Apple’s fork of CrossOver is not public. Pretty expected from Apple by this point.
And Linux gaming is already here for years now ;)
I know it’s been a joke for as long as I can remember, but I really think this year (or last) was the year of the Linux desktop. All the work done on proton has seemed to bring lots of gamers over who were tired of Windows bs.
Similar, but not the same, to proton. Few games will work well enough to be playable off the bat. Most will still require porting work be done by the developer, to bring the game to a point that’d be considered playable.
Much like how the “linux-support” of many game engines went unused, I’m sceptical. The reason proton has been so successful is that it has been able to get the ball rolling with zero or near-zero work input required from the devs of the games it has brought to linux. This has give linux gaming enough of a start that putting in the work becomes more appealing in the cases where it is needed.
Just putting out the tools and telling devs, “use them” may not be enough to get mac gaming back on track.
The Steam Deck was also gave Proton a huge boost in visibility thanks to Valve’s Steam Deck ready branding, which is something only Valve could do thanks to them having control of Steam. Apple will need to figure out a way to similarly boost visibility for Mac compatible/playable games that isn’t just putting them on the Mac App Store (which I can’t remember using for anything other than an update in months).
Additionally, Valve also does work themselves to push the list forward. The catalog needs to exist first if they want gamers to move and the devs won’t put in the work without the market.
Valve saw that and did work to ensure tons of games would work on the Deck with no effort on the part of the devs. If Apple isn’t going to put in more effort then I don’t see how this succeeds.
And the year of Linux desktop is happening any day now. I remain skeptical that this is enough to get any real gaming user base on Mac but I’m all for being proven wrong over time.
The Steam Deck runs Linux and is fairly mainstream, so if by “year of the Linux desktop” you mean “year of the Linux gaming platform”, that already happened.
