Apple has never been characterized as a company that bets on video games. Despite the fact that Steve Jobs presented titles of the caliber of Doom 3 and Halo, the Mac is last on the list of platforms for developers. That could change very soon with macOS Sonoma and its Windows game porting tools, which include a DirectX 12 emulator that measures performance in real time.
Those from Cupertino took advantage of the WWDC keynote to announce their news in this field and invited Hideo Kojima. The creator of Metal Gear Solid announced that Death Stranding: Director’s Cut It’s coming to macOS soon, as are his upcoming projects. This will be possible thanks to the Game Porting Toolkit, a package of tools to port games to Apple operating systems.
The Game Porting Toolkit includes a DirectX 12 emulator to run Windows games on macOS without the need to change a line of code. This tool aims for developers to evaluate the game’s performance on the Mac before investing time and money in a porting process.
“It doesn’t take months to get an idea of how it looks, sounds, or plays. You’ll see the potential in your game right away,” said Aiswariya Sreenivassan, an engineer in Apple’s GPU, graphics and software division.
Basically, Apple has built an emulator that can run Windows games like Death Stranding, The Medium either stray without compiling anything. The tool is prepared to measure the performance of AAA games with high caliber graphics such as Resident Evil Village to see if the Mac will run them without a problem.
Outside of a future version of CrossOver, no third-party software is enabled to run DirectX 12 on the Mac.
The future of Mac gaming is bright
Every time Apple dedicates a segment to Metal or video games within its keynotes, it usually goes unnoticed. Maybe it’s because Mac gamers are used to receiving these versions late or they just don’t care to play No Man’s Sky for the tenth time. The truth is that this year is different.
The Game Porting Toolkit video shows The Medium, a PS5 and Xbox game, running at 30fps on an Apple M2 Max. All graphic options like shaderstransparencies, tessellation or global illumination all run smoothly.
Sreenivassan mentions that performance on the emulator is an approximation and the native version can make use of options like MetalFX Upscaling, an intelligent scaling similar to NVIDIA’s DLSS. A Comparison of the emulated version against the native one in The Medium shows as the second hits 60 frames per second at 1080p when running on a Mac with M2 Max.
During the WWDC keynote, Apple announced that macOS Sonoma will have a Game Mode to take advantage of Mac hardware. This option prioritizes CPU and GPU usage, reduces latency, and improves connectivity with PS5 or Xbox Series X|S controllers.
Although all advances are important, the last word will be the developers. Apple has taken the first step by securing Hideo Kojima, although it will have to work harder to invite other studios into its ecosystem. Perhaps most important will be closing deals that bridge the gap between a PC and Mac release.