Windows games on Mac? Apple’s new toolkit will let you try PC games on macOS

Gaming on Mac has turned more serious with Apple's new Game Porting Toolkit, unveiled at WWDC. The toolkit lets developers test out Windows games on macOS.

Apple’s tool instantly translates Windows games to run on macOS. (Image: Apple)

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So far, gaming on Mac has only been the subject of memes, despite the presence of some popular titles like Resident Evil Village on the platform. But Apple seems determined to change that. At the WWDC event, the company unveiled a new dedicated gaming mode on macOS Sonoma and even brought game developer Hideo Kojima on stage.

Now, the Cupertino company has unveiled a new Game Porting Toolkit similar to the work Valve has done with Proton, which is a compatibility layer that allows Windows games to run on Linux-based operating systems. The goal is to make the tedious process of porting Windows games to Mac easier and faster for developers.

Apple’s tool instantly translates Windows games to run on macOS, giving developers the opportunity to test an unmodified version of a Windows game on a Mac and assess its performance. Developers can quickly understand the graphics feature usage and performance potential of the game on the platform before deciding to port it.

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The Game Porting Toolkit works by translating Intel-based x86 instructions and Windows APIs to Apple Silicon. All the APIs for various input devices, audio output, network communication, file management, and graphics rendering are mapped to their equivalents in macOS. The result is Windows games running on macOS without any modifications.

While the toolkit has been designed for testing purposes, there’s no reason for regular users to try it out as well and push those power-efficient processors on Mac machines to the max. The only downside is that since these games will not be specifically optimised for Mac devices through this tool, performance issues and bugs can be expected.

Apple has often flexed the power of its high-end M1 and M2 chips, boasting about the number of cores they have. At WWDC, the company announced the M2 Ultra chip with a 76-core GPU that’s 30 percent faster than the M1 Ultra. Sadly, with so few demanding titles available on macOS, testing the gaming performance of these chips is difficult. This new toolkit should encourage developers to port more games over to macOS.

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Apple Inc