It isn’t emulation, but translation (an important semantic difference).Īlthough Wine (and CrossOver) have existed as a way to bring PC games to the Mac for quite some time, the Apple silicon transition has been difficult on the project. Wine, which is primarily supported by the company CodeWeavers (which also makes a commercial version called CrossOver), works by converting system calls made to Windows APIs into calls that can be used by other operating systems. That toolkit largely takes place as a 20,000 line of code patch to Wine, a compatibility layer designed to bring support for Windows games to platforms such as Linux, BSD, and macOS. It turns out that Apple added DirectX 12 support via something it is calling the Game Porting Toolkit, a tool Apple is offering to developers to see how their existing x86 DirectX 12 games work on Macs powered by Apple silicon. Maybe, just maybe, this is the beginning of the end to the old joke that Macs can't play AAA games. As PC gamers already know, this software support means the floodgates are open for some real games - not that casual Apple Arcade stuff - on Mac. Cool, 2005 and Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger would like to remind you that we’ve seen this film before.īut buried in the keynote was a macOS feature that Apple should have called out with more fanfare: DirectX 12 support for macOS. Apple announced three new Macs - the 15-inch MacBook Air, M2 Max/Ultra Mac Studio, and M2 Ultra Mac Pro - but mostly breezed past macOS Sonoma and its “new” desktop widgets. Alas, increasing the resolution to 1080p resulted in an erratic frame rate that too often dropped into the 20s.At WWDC last week, most of the focus was rightfully on the new Apple Vision Pro headset and the new visionOS. The shiny new Baldur’s Gate 3 with settings of 1470 x 956 and medium quality mostly stuck to 30 fps. Reducing the quality setting to low didn’t affect the visuals too much, but eked out extra fps where it mattered. This rose to 51 fps on 1152 x 768/low graphics, but dropped to a jarring 24 fps on 1440 x 960/highest.Įlsewhere, Metro Exodus, after taking approximately a year to launch, doddered along at a reasonable 30 fps on 1920 x 1200 and medium graphics quality, but even early on had scenes that dipped to a jerky 15 fps. At the default settings (1440 x 960 resolution medium graphics preset) we got an average 42 fps, which is fine. It’s commonly used in benchmarking because it’s relatively demanding-and because it has a convenient built-in benchmarking system. Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a sterner test, despite being released in 2019 on Mac (and 2018 on Windows). Minecraft, unsurprisingly, runs brilliantly, even when you add complex shaders. But it gets hot, due to the lack of a fan and games requiring sustained performance. It’s also a relatively power-efficient machine. If you want anything newer, go and buy an actual console.įirst, the good news: The M2 MacBook Air’s speakers are great, the keys are responsive (if you’re a masochist who eschews external controllers), and the screen is bright with great color reproduction. ARM-specific PS2 emulator AetherSX2 was better, despite the odd visual wobble. Our Xbox emulation tests resulted in frame rates all over the shop. Should you head into more modern (and shakier legal) territory, things are more variable. Fortunately, there’s Redream for Dreamcast, and the superb and user-friendly OpenEmu supports a slew of older systems, especially in its “experimental” incarnation. The snag is that relatively few emulators exist for Mac. A Raspberry Pi 4 can play Sega Dreamcast titles without blinking, so you’d expect an M2 Mac to go much further. Despite the games being old, the service still requires a fast connection to avoid glitches.Įmulation is another option for playing old games. Antstream Arcade Apple via Craig GrannellĮntertainingly, a streaming service exists for exploring the other end of gaming history: Antstream Arcade has hundreds of classic titles, along with leaderboards and bespoke challenges, like taking on Space Invaders with a single life.
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