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I know it's an extremely un-Apple-like thing to do, but I really wish Apple would team up with Valve to work on Proton, and bring full Proton support to MacOS.

duskwuff 2y ago
I wouldn't hold my breath. Valve is still bitter about Apple deprecating i386 support back in 2019.
jsheard 2y ago
Bringing Proton to Mac would involve either Apple making amends with Khronos and supporting Vulkan, or Valve making the substantial effort to port Proton to Metal natively, or doing DirectX-to-Vulkan-to-Metal translation with MoltenVK. None of those sound very likely or optimal to me. Besides, the main reason Valve is investing so heavily in Linux and Proton is so their destiny isn't tied to someone else's platform. MacOS is just another someone else's platform like Windows is, with the same threat of getting rug-pulled by a first-party app store that spooked Gabe Newell[1] into investing in Linux in the first place. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18996377 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18996377
- wtallis 2y ago
  Apple already provides their Game Porting Toolkit which includes a D3D12 to Metal translation later for Wine, and it has been integrated into user-friendly Wine distributions like Crossover since last year. There's not much Proton has to offer over what's already available.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - dcchambers 2y ago
    My understanding about the game porting toolkit is that it requires developers to specifically modify their game in order to make their game compatible. The magic of Proton from a consumer point of view is that it just works for basically every game, sans those with Kernel-level anticheat stuff. This means thousands of old games that haven't been updated in years will work.any games that don't have active developers. So Apples solution works for new games but isn't a practical option for compatibility for existing games.
    - whimsicalism 2y ago
      crossover experience does not require manual modification by developer
      - dcchambers 2y ago
        TIL about Crossover. Thanks!
        jasomill 2y ago
        Also note that Codeweavers, Crossover's developer, is a major contributor to both Wine and Proton, so there's a great deal of, um, crossover between these projects.
    - fl0id 2y ago
      There is things like whisky app which makes it a more general thing like proton
    - wtallis 2y ago
      The stated intended purpose of the game porting toolkit is to enable developers to modify their games. But the software actually being shipped includes what is literally a Wine GPU backend, which is usable by (and already used and bundled by) consumer-facing Wine applications like Crossover. If you go to Codeweavers, download any Crossover for Mac from the past year (Sep. 27, 2023 according to their release notes), you're getting a tool that includes the D3D to Metal layer from Apple's Game Porting Toolkit.
      - dcchambers 2y ago
        Huh, TIL, thanks!

duskwuff 2y ago

I wouldn't hold my breath. Valve is still bitter about Apple deprecating i386 support back in 2019.

jsheard 2y ago

Bringing Proton to Mac would involve either Apple making amends with Khronos and supporting Vulkan, or Valve making the substantial effort to port Proton to Metal natively, or doing DirectX-to-Vulkan-to-Metal translation with MoltenVK. None of those sound very likely or optimal to me. Besides, the main reason Valve is investing so heavily in Linux and Proton is so their destiny isn't tied to someone else's platform. MacOS is just another someone else's platform like Windows is, with the same threat of getting rug-pulled by a first-party app store that spooked Gabe Newell[1] into investing in Linux in the first place. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18996377 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18996377

wtallis 2y ago
Apple already provides their Game Porting Toolkit which includes a D3D12 to Metal translation later for Wine, and it has been integrated into user-friendly Wine distributions like Crossover since last year. There's not much Proton has to offer over what's already available.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- dcchambers 2y ago
  My understanding about the game porting toolkit is that it requires developers to specifically modify their game in order to make their game compatible. The magic of Proton from a consumer point of view is that it just works for basically every game, sans those with Kernel-level anticheat stuff. This means thousands of old games that haven't been updated in years will work.any games that don't have active developers. So Apples solution works for new games but isn't a practical option for compatibility for existing games.
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    crossover experience does not require manual modification by developer
    - dcchambers 2y ago
      TIL about Crossover. Thanks!
      - jasomill 2y ago
        Also note that Codeweavers, Crossover's developer, is a major contributor to both Wine and Proton, so there's a great deal of, um, crossover between these projects.
  - fl0id 2y ago
    There is things like whisky app which makes it a more general thing like proton
  - wtallis 2y ago
    The stated intended purpose of the game porting toolkit is to enable developers to modify their games. But the software actually being shipped includes what is literally a Wine GPU backend, which is usable by (and already used and bundled by) consumer-facing Wine applications like Crossover. If you go to Codeweavers, download any Crossover for Mac from the past year (Sep. 27, 2023 according to their release notes), you're getting a tool that includes the D3D to Metal layer from Apple's Game Porting Toolkit.
    - dcchambers 2y ago
      Huh, TIL, thanks!