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> Apple hid something AMAZING for Mac gaming at WWDC: a full Windows DirectX 12 gaming emulator. Windows ... emulator? Does this mean we can now play old Windo

> Apple hid something AMAZING for Mac gaming at WWDC: a full Windows DirectX 12 gaming emulator. Windows ... emulator? Does this mean we can now play old Windows EXE games? E.g. can I now run Fallout 2 and 3 like I did on an old Intel Mac with Crossover? Can it also run Windows apps which don't use DirectX? I need some for work and have to use Parallels now. Does it support Windows crypto APIs (certificates etc)?

jeroenhd 3y ago
It's Wine with some special sauce (Apple couldn't reuse VKD3D because they chose to invent Metal rather than stick with OpenGL/Vulkan so they had to build their graphics translation themselves). Crossover is built on the same technology. In fact, Apple's brew script literally links to Crossover's sources: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/apple/homebrew-apple/main/Formula/game-porting-toolkit.rb https://raw.githubusercontent.com/apple/homebrew-apple/main/... Things like the crypto API should be implemented if you can find the reference for your specific API calls here: https://github.com/wine-mirror/wine/tree/master/dlls/crypt32 https://github.com/wine-mirror/wine/tree/master/dlls/crypt32 Apple's version of Wine is aimed at developers, though. It shouldn't take too long for someone to make an app or script to easily set up environments with the developer runtime, but I doubt they'll support it as well as Valve supports Proton. If your application of choice doesn't need any fancy graphics, there's a decent chance Wine/Crossover can already run it anyway, no need to mess with Apple's SDK. With the M2 Max outputting 28fps at 1080p (screenshot linked), I wouldn't expect too much from the gaming performance of this thing, though.
- sbuk 3y ago
  OpenGL was a technological dead-end and Vulkan came 2 years after Metal, which as stated, came about because OpenGL was a technological dead-end. Besides, mobile gaming with Metal has been reasonably successful, whichever way you slice it.
  - qwerty456127 3y ago
    What's the problem with OpenGL? It always did its job great, didn't it?
    - byhemechi 3y ago
      Have you ever written something that uses it?
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    Vulkan born out of Mantle which was released before Metal. Of course, Mantle wasn't openly developed in the beginning, but AMD and Apple were still partners in the GPU space back then. I don't see why Apple and AMD wouldn't cooperate in this space. Mantle would've been a much bigger success outside of the console market if iOS also used it, and Apple could have helped shape Mantle if they got in at the ground floor. I know Apple isn't exactly a company that's open to adopting other people's standard when they might as well develop their own, but the split from the other API standards was still a choice they made.
- nicce 3y ago
  > It shouldn't take too long for someone to make an app or script to easily set up environments with the developer runtime There you go: https://github.com/IsaacMarovitz/Whisky https://github.com/IsaacMarovitz/Whisky Here is a bit more promising sample about the performance on M2 Max: https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/1435ukq/cyberpunk_on_m2_max_wgame_porting_toolkit/ https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/1435ukq/cyberpun...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- qwerty456127 3y ago
  I never thought Wine/Crossover can work on M2. Isn't the M2 CPU totally different from what ordinary Windows apps are meant to be ran on? I know there there is an Arm Windows version and apps built for it but there aren't many.
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    macOS runs x64 executables just fine through Rosetta so I don't see why Wine couldn't make use of that hardware acceleration. It's also possible to only simulate the entrypoints through Rosetta and then execute native aarch64 code from there. On Linux https://github.com/ptitSeb/box64 https://github.com/ptitSeb/box64 does exactly that, for example. However, with the performance Apple has been able to squeeze out of Rosetta, I'm not sure of that workaround is even necessary.
riffraff 3y ago
> like I did on an old Intel Mac with Crossover? I _think_ you can run crossover with rosetta and still do this, that is basically what this is plus a DX12 -> Metal translation module
oynqr 3y ago
I recommend having a look at Fallout 2 CE. It's reverse engineered Fallout 2 with improvements, should compile for most platforms sdl2 runs on.

jeroenhd 3y ago

It's Wine with some special sauce (Apple couldn't reuse VKD3D because they chose to invent Metal rather than stick with OpenGL/Vulkan so they had to build their graphics translation themselves). Crossover is built on the same technology. In fact, Apple's brew script literally links to Crossover's sources: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/apple/homebrew-apple/main/Formula/game-porting-toolkit.rb https://raw.githubusercontent.com/apple/homebrew-apple/main/... Things like the crypto API should be implemented if you can find the reference for your specific API calls here: https://github.com/wine-mirror/wine/tree/master/dlls/crypt32 https://github.com/wine-mirror/wine/tree/master/dlls/crypt32 Apple's version of Wine is aimed at developers, though. It shouldn't take too long for someone to make an app or script to easily set up environments with the developer runtime, but I doubt they'll support it as well as Valve supports Proton. If your application of choice doesn't need any fancy graphics, there's a decent chance Wine/Crossover can already run it anyway, no need to mess with Apple's SDK. With the M2 Max outputting 28fps at 1080p (screenshot linked), I wouldn't expect too much from the gaming performance of this thing, though.

sbuk 3y ago
OpenGL was a technological dead-end and Vulkan came 2 years after Metal, which as stated, came about because OpenGL was a technological dead-end. Besides, mobile gaming with Metal has been reasonably successful, whichever way you slice it.
- qwerty456127 3y ago
  What's the problem with OpenGL? It always did its job great, didn't it?
  - byhemechi 3y ago
    Have you ever written something that uses it?
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  Vulkan born out of Mantle which was released before Metal. Of course, Mantle wasn't openly developed in the beginning, but AMD and Apple were still partners in the GPU space back then. I don't see why Apple and AMD wouldn't cooperate in this space. Mantle would've been a much bigger success outside of the console market if iOS also used it, and Apple could have helped shape Mantle if they got in at the ground floor. I know Apple isn't exactly a company that's open to adopting other people's standard when they might as well develop their own, but the split from the other API standards was still a choice they made.
nicce 3y ago
> It shouldn't take too long for someone to make an app or script to easily set up environments with the developer runtime There you go: https://github.com/IsaacMarovitz/Whisky https://github.com/IsaacMarovitz/Whisky Here is a bit more promising sample about the performance on M2 Max: https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/1435ukq/cyberpunk_on_m2_max_wgame_porting_toolkit/ https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/1435ukq/cyberpun...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
qwerty456127 3y ago
I never thought Wine/Crossover can work on M2. Isn't the M2 CPU totally different from what ordinary Windows apps are meant to be ran on? I know there there is an Arm Windows version and apps built for it but there aren't many.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  macOS runs x64 executables just fine through Rosetta so I don't see why Wine couldn't make use of that hardware acceleration. It's also possible to only simulate the entrypoints through Rosetta and then execute native aarch64 code from there. On Linux https://github.com/ptitSeb/box64 https://github.com/ptitSeb/box64 does exactly that, for example. However, with the performance Apple has been able to squeeze out of Rosetta, I'm not sure of that workaround is even necessary.

riffraff 3y ago

> like I did on an old Intel Mac with Crossover? I _think_ you can run crossover with rosetta and still do this, that is basically what this is plus a DX12 -> Metal translation module

oynqr 3y ago

I recommend having a look at Fallout 2 CE. It's reverse engineered Fallout 2 with improvements, should compile for most platforms sdl2 runs on.