Buzz
However, the process of recompiling games still needs to address some emerging issues if smooth gameplay is desired.
Last year, Apple made a small breakthrough in helping games run on Mac computers, with titles like Resident Evil Village and more recently, No Man's Sky being ported to the Apple operating system. While this hasn't yet transformed Macs into full-fledged gaming machines, it brings hope to Mac users who are accustomed to limitations in gaming capabilities.
To play most PC games nowadays, the most promising solution would be software similar to Steam Deck, capable of translating Microsoft's DirectX 12 API into something compatible with Apple's exclusive Metal API. According to an announcement from CodeWeavers, preliminary support for such translation software will be available on their CrossOver software this summer.
CrossOver is a software package promising to enable operating systems like MacOS and Linux to run Windows applications and games without the need for virtualization (or emulation) of the installation. Their developers announced that they have been working on DirectX 12 support since late 2021, and now they have a test screenshot showing Diablo II Resurrected running on a computer with an Apple M2 chip. The DirectX 12 support feature is expected to be released in CrossOver version 23 'later this summer'.
Alongside the promising prospects of this software's capabilities, the product introduction announcement also cautioned: running a particular game will require fixing many individual errors for each ported game project. Support will be added on a per-game basis, at least initially.
'Our research has revealed that there's no miraculous solution to unlocking DirectX 12 support for MacOS,' Trưởng nhóm dự án CodeWeavers, Meredith Johnson, shared on the blog. 'Just to get Diablo II Resurrected running, we had to address a slew of issues related to Molten VK and SPIRV-Cross. We anticipate the same will happen with DirectX 12 games: we'll need additional support for each individual game, and each game will involve various different issues.'
In other words, don't expect the level of compatibility with Windows games as on the Steam Deck software. There are numerous gameplay issues even with Diablo II Resurrected, although 'the fact that it can run is a big win.'
API translation layers have become increasingly clear and crucial in recent years as low-level APIs with similar goals and basic features have become increasingly developed and competitive, while older APIs have become less relevant for maintenance and improvement.
Valve's Proton compatibility layer is indeed a vast collection of various technologies capable of translating DirectX 9, 10, 11, and 12 API calls into Vulkan. Currently, Intel is using Microsoft's DirectX 9 to 12 translation to enhance the performance of older games when running on their Arc graphics cards.
The MoltenVK Vulkan-to-Metal translation layer is also being utilized in many promising software projects, such as Google's Android emulator for developers working on MacOS and emulators for Wii and GameCube consoles.
Reference: ArsTechnica
