Apple’s Mac computers have not been traditionally known for their gaming prowess; instead, they have garnered a reputation as reliable tools that creatives and professionals rely on to get things done. However, this has not stopped Apple from making an effort to change this perception—indeed making some notable strides in this area.
Only earlier this year, the iPhone maker introduced the Game Mode with macOS Sonoma. This mode maximises the system performance to allow AAA games to run as well as possible. Of course, speaking of AAA games, we cannot forget the transition to Apple’s M Series silicon, which has enabled the company to bring over console games like Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding, Capcom’s Resident Evil games, and more.
In an interview with Inverse, Apple executive Gordon Keppel provided insight into how the transition to Apple Silicon has been a transformative change for the company.
Speaking to Inverse’s Raymond Wong, Keppel said, “Now, every Mac that ships with Apple Silicon can play AAA games pretty fantastically.” And, this switch to “Apple silicon has been transformative of our mainstream systems that got tremendous boosts in graphics with M1, M2, and now with M3.”
For those unfamiliar, Apple introduced advanced graphics capabilities, such as ray-tracing, with the M3 chipset lineup, as it did for the 3nm-based A17 Pro on the iPhone 15 Pro models—this enables developers to improve the graphics fidelity on Mac computers, which was a problem with Intel-powered Macs.
“If you look at the Mac lineup just a few years ago, there was a mix of both integrated and discrete GPUs,” Martin explained. “That can add complexity when you’re developing games. Because you have multiple different hardware permutations to consider. Today, we’ve effectively eliminated that completely with Apple Silicon, creating a unified gaming platform now across iPhone, iPad, and Mac,” Martin added..
In addition to focusing on hardware, Apple is also making sure that developers have a good environment to make (or port) games to the Mac. Leland Martin from Apple said that the unified hardware and software approach is really helping the company.
Easier To Port PC Games To Mac Than Ever Before
During WWDC 2023, Apple also revealed a new Game Porting Tool that will help developers port their Windows games to macOS—hypothetically allowing Mac users to experience more games than ever before. And of course, to allow users to see the immediate benefits, Apple announced that ‘Death Stranding: Director’s Cut,’ which was previously a PS5 exclusive developed by Kojima, is coming to the Mac.
Apple’s Game Porting Tool is based on ‘Wine,’ which is a popular open-source solution that optimizes Windows software to run on Unix-based operating systems like macOS and Linux. And Apple has also made sure that the Game Porting Tool can convert DirectX 12 into Metal 3. DirectX is a Microsoft API that handles graphics and audio rendering on Windows and Xbox platforms and is equivalent to Metal 3 on macOS.
“Bringing your game natively to the Mac will increase its performance and allow you to take advantage of many advanced features of Apple Silicon and Mac hardware, including features like MetalFX and extended dynamic range features of Apple’s built-in displays,” the company said back in June.
It’s unclear how Apple will keep this momentum going. We’ll have to wait and see how many more developers jump on this bandwagon to see how it plays out for Apple in the long run.
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