Windows remains the top platform for PC games, but Apple is trying to change that with a new toolkit designed to help developers quickly bring their PC titles to the macOS platform.
At WWDC, the company introduced a Game Porting Toolkit, which promises to streamline the process of translating a Windows or even console title to macOS.
It can typically take a developer numerous steps merely to see and test their game on a different OS. To address this, the toolkit includes an emulator that can run a Windows game on a Mac. “This lets you analyze your game’s potential performance immediately, eliminating months of upfront work,” Apple director Brandon Corey said in a session at WWDC.
Interestingly, a screenshot shows the emulator can also run Microsoft’s DirectX12, which is often used in high-end Windows PC titles, but hasn’t been natively available for Macs. In another WWDC session, Apple demoed the developers of the game, The Medium, using the emulator to run a DirectX12 Window build of their horror title on a Mac.
Hence, the emulator is raising questions over whether it can be used beyond testing purposes and become an official way to run Windows PC games on a Mac, as pointed out by Andrew Tsai, the founder of PCGamingWiki. This would be similar to how Valve’s Linux-based Steam Deck can also run Windows games, thanks to the Proton translation layer.
It also looks like Apple built the emulator based on open-source computer code from CodeWeavers, the company behind Wine and CrossOver, two projects that can run Windows apps on macOS. In a press release, CodeWeavers said: "We are ecstatic that Apple chose to use CrossOver’s source code as their emulation solution for the Game Porting Toolkit."
"We did not work with Apple on this tool, but we would be delighted to work with any game developers who try out the Game Porting Toolkit and see the massive potential that Wine offers," the company added. Last week, CodeWeaver also announced it's working on DirectX12 support for CrossOver. So that may explain the emulator's DirectX12 capabilities.
For now, Apple has only said that the emulator can translate the x86 instructions in a Windows game, including mouse/keyboard input, audio and graphics, to run on Apple’s Arm-based silicon. We reached out to the company for comment and will update the story if we hear back.
The second feature in the Game Porting Toolkit can automatically convert a Windows game’s 3D visual shaders, including the ray-tracing elements, to Metal, the graphics API for macOS. A final feature can convert the game’s graphics code and optimize it for Macs through various debugging tools.
Apple is offering the Game Porting Toolkit to developers on its website and via a GitHub page. Meanwhile, the game The Medium is slated to arrive natively for Macs later this summer.