macOS Sonoma: You can finally play “real” computer games with this tool

On Monday, June 5, 2023, Apple invaded the media scene with its new WWDC 2023 conference. During this loud ceremony dedicated to developers, the Apple brand introduced its future products, starting with the next version of the operating system, macOS Sonoma.

macOS Sonoma already promises many new featuresSuch as interactive widgets, advanced and smarter video conferencing tools, a complete overhaul of the Safari web browser, and even improved accessibility options.

But what we remember above all, These are game-oriented innovations. For now, Mac gamers are used to trying Windows PC games with various open source tools like Wine, Crossover or Parallels. And can you imagine that Apple finally decided to offer its own proprietary tool: Game Transport Tool.

Apple wants to revolutionize the port of Windows games on Mac

Actually hidden behind this name game transport toolkit, similar to what we found on Valve with Proton and Steam Deck. for simplicity, Apple’s tool instantly translates Windows games to run on macOS.

“The new Game Porting Toolkit provides an emulation environment to run your existing unmodified Windows game and you can use it to quickly understand the graphics feature usage and potential performance of your game while running on a Mac. Summing up Aiswariya Sreenivassan, project manager for GPUs at Apple.

Apple’s new Game Porting Toolkit translates Intel-based x86 instructions and Windows APIs into Apple Silicon. As for keyboard-mouse, joysticks, audio playback, networking and even file system and Direct3D related APIs all translated to corresponding APIsIt’s like Metal 3 on macOS.

First step to develop local releases

This way, both developers and power users can try Windows games on macOS. According to Apple, this is essentially a first step. Evaluate the performance of a Windows game on macOS before considering a local version of the title.

Game Porting Toolkit can be downloaded from: GitHub, some users have already tried games like Cyberpunk 2077 on MacBook Pro M1, Diablo IV on MacBook Pro M1 Max, or Hogwarts Legacy on M2 Max. Initial results are quite promising, even if we note. Obviously some bugs and performance issues.

Anyway, we think Apple wants to persuade developers to return to the Mac with macOS Sonoma. In addition to the Gaming Porting Toolkit, the latest version of the operating system also includes: a new game modeAllows games to get priority access to GPU and CPU for better performance.