Apple announced the addition of “Game Mode” in macOS 14 Sonoma to enhance the gaming experience on Apple Silicon Macs. It also provides tool resources such as the Game Porting Toolkit to assist developers in porting Windows PC games to the Mac platform.
During this WWDC 2023, Apple announced the addition of “Game Mode” in macOS 14 Sonoma to enhance the gaming experience of Mac models equipped with Apple Silicon processors, and provide related tools and resources for developers to bring Windows PC games It can be used on Mac models, and in the follow-up lectures for developers, Apple further explained the relevant practices.
According to Andrew Tsai, the creator of the PCGamingWiki website, who is also a Mac game player, shared the content of the video on his YouTube channel, the Game Porting Toolkit tool resources provided by Apple for the game content can convert the original corresponding Windows operating system environment The game used can be used on the Mac model “ported” in a shorter time.
However, this tool resource can obviously only be used for Mac models equipped with Apple Silicon processors, and cannot support earlier Intel processor specifications.
On the other hand, in addition to using functions such as Metal Shader Converter to convert the original Windows PC game program code into the corresponding Metal API execution project, Andrew Tsai also found that the conversion tool used by Apple is actually based on CrossOver 21.1 created by CodeWeavers in the Python programming language .1 (which can be regarded as a commercial version of Wine software) has been revised, which means that it is now possible to use a simulated execution method to allow developers to evaluate whether it is appropriate to bring Windows PCs to Mac models.
According to the content shared by more developers, through the Game Porting Toolkit tool resources, it has been able to run “Dian Yu Ren Ke 2077” smoothly on a MacBook Pro equipped with 16GB memory and an M1 processor, or on a Mac equipped with an M2 Max processor. Play “Diablo IV” and “Inheritance of Hogwarts” on this machine.
At present, it seems that Rosetta 2 can also be used to simulate Windows PC games that need to be run through Microsoft DirectX 12. For example, “Marvel Spider-Man” can also be played smoothly on a Mac equipped with an M2 Max processor in a high-definition form of 30fps. model operation.
However, it is currently unclear whether Apple will further assist developers in making games more closely related, or directly execute them on Mac models in a natively compatible manner, such as providing developers with tool resources that can replace DirectX API operations. At the same time, in addition to announcing cooperation with Unity during WWDC 2023, whether it will also cooperate with Epic Games on its Unreal Engine is not yet confirmed.
But what can be confirmed is that after Apple announced the full conversion of Mac models to Apple Silicon processors, it will obviously enter the game market in a large scale and seize the market share originally dominated by Windows PCs.
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