6 ms·

Have to wonder if there is a world where Proton comes to macOS.

by pdpi 11mo ago

jsheard 11mo ago
Pretty unlikely as long as Apple refuses to support Vulkan. Even if they did, the whole Proton project is about Valve controlling their own destiny rather than being chained to someone else's platform, and Apple is just another Microsoft in that regard.
- pdpi 11mo ago
  True, forgot about that. That said, Apple does have D3DMetal. A man can dream that they eventually opensource that.
- GeekyBear 11mo ago
  > Pretty unlikely as long as Apple refuses to support Vulkan. You would only translate into Vulcan when running on an OS that uses Vulcan as the native graphics API. On a Mac, Wine translates directly into Metal.
  - jsheard 11mo ago
    Valve could implement a separate Metal backend for Proton, what I'm saying is they probably wouldn't want to spend their resources on that.
    - samtheprogram 11mo ago
      That's because D3DMetal already exists. Games run like they did on Proton ~4-5 years ago, some games better. I mostly no longer boot my Linux machine anymore to play games. The anticheat story is probably not as good but I don't play any AAA games, so I wouldn't know.
      - deleted 11mo ago
        [deleted]
      - jsheard 11mo ago
        That's great as long as it works, but D3DMetal is a proprietary, closed-source Apple library so you can and probably will get rug-pulled by Apple neglecting or deprecating it as their priorities change. They've only ever positioned it as an "evaluation environment" for developers to estimate how their game will run before going ahead with a native Mac port, not as something for end-users to play Windows games with, so if developers don't bite then they'll have no reason to keep working on it.
        GeekyBear 11mo ago
        Proton is a downstream fork of Wine, and upstream Wine already directly supports playing Windows games on Mac using D3DMetal. You don't need Proton's Wine fork when you can just use Wine.
        samtheprogram 11mo ago
        That doesn't change the fact that D3DMetal is closed-source. Wine just links to it. There's also DXMT which is open-source, but doesn't support DX12.
        pdpi 11mo ago
        Right now, the user experience with Crossover is that you have to manage the whole thing of installing Windows Steam in a Wine bottle, then installing games within that second Steam installation, then dealing with the fact that Steam doesn't seem to like having two instances running on the same computer (my native Steam loses connectivity every time I start the Crossover instance). Wanting Proton on Mac isn't about that specific fork of Wine, it's shorthand for wanting the user experience that Valve gives you on Linux.
        gpderetta 11mo ago
        As a comparison, before proton, you could run steam with wine under linux. Wine directx implementation was sufficient to make a quite a few games work just fine, but the experience was atrocious. You either had to install a new instance of steam per game or install everything under one bottle which didn't work well as you had to tweak the install per grame. Personally I used it just for one or two of games that I really wanted to play and could actually run outsisde of steam after installation. In comparison the proton experience is seamless.
    - derefr 11mo ago
      Couldn't Apple spend their resources on that? Proton is open-source, and Apple's the one with the incentive to have more "prestige" AAA game devs to parade around during keynotes.
      - jsheard 11mo ago
        Apple could but they're not interested in non-native games, they want native ports or nothing. As I discussed a few posts over, Apple went to the trouble of developing a DirectX compatibility layer, but then told game developers they're not allowed to use it for anything besides evaluating whether their game would run well enough on Mac hardware. If they go ahead with a port then Apple still expects them to do it all the hard way. It's textbook "perfect is the enemy of good" because yeah, compatibility layers have overhead, native is better, but if you insist on native everything but can't get devs on board then you just end up with no games.
        happymellon 11mo ago
        > compatibility layers have overhead Also, how could Apple kill the old software that is better than the new, if it doesn't control the emulation? This way they don't have to even have 10% of the features to force you to buy again. cough /final cut/ cough
        Cloudef 11mo ago
        Target apple and in 5 years your binary wont work anymore anyways
        nasretdinov 11mo ago
        Well, some games like Civ V still manage to work! But they actually had to port it to 64-bit, otherwise it'd have the fate of all other 32-bit macOS games unfortunately...
        Andrex 11mo ago
        Exactly. Compare Steam Machine (2014) to Steam Machine (2026). The difference this time around is Proton support, and you can pretty easily see the hype on the internet for the new version, even after the original version was mocked relentlessly in some circles for having "no games."
    - alessandroberna 11mo ago
      They could also use MoltenVK
  - jakogut 11mo ago
    As far as I understand, there's actually an intermediate driver on macOS that implements Vulkan on top of Metal, similar to how Proton implements Direct3D on top of Vulkan. The available low-level API is Metal, and the existing software stack is written for Vulkan, so it makes more sense to implement Vulkan than to write a new Metal backend.
- miohtama 11mo ago
  Wouldn't it be Apple's benefit to get more gaming on MacOS? Their goals might align with Steam. Apple's native gaming story has been similar failure as their AI and Siri ventures. Time to fix it.
  - WhyNotHugo 11mo ago
    Valve seems to break free form depending on someone else’s walled garden. Apple seeks to builds its own walled garden. Their interests do not align. Apple doesn’t want portable software on their platform, they want exclusive software.
    - evilduck 11mo ago
      Hard to swallow. Every day I sit down at a Mac for work and proceed to launch VS Code, Zed, Outlook, DBeaver, Excel, Teams, LogSeq, Syncthing, Chrome, Firefox, LM Studio and Docker. I prefer MacOS but basically all of my application workflow exists for Windows verbatim and if using browser versions of the MS apps, on Linux too.
      - andriesm 11mo ago
        Same! I main macos, love the hardware, but I keep a very close eye on Linux (asahi, omarchy etc) in case Apple gets any more toxic, and I am forced to jump ship to something else, and that something else won't be windoze. The last straw with MacOS was when my US bank cards expired, I could no longer update apps I already paid for, I could no longer install apps I already paid for. Everything was held hostage, could not install FREE apps via the appstore on macos or on ipad. That day my eyes opened to what Apple has become. You simply cannot trust Apple with your computing future. They're a fashion company now.
        BruceEel 11mo ago
        and plus one here! I don't know, I like my mac workflow but irritation and aggravation have crept in more frequently of late. Last week I was told a binary that clang++ had just produced from my own code could not be run because Apple couldn't check whether it was safe.. And what to make of power users complaining bitterly about Tahoe & liquid glass etc? I'm hanging on to Ventura for now.
- easyThrowaway 11mo ago
  I mean, theoretically they could backport the D3DMetal wine driver from the Game Porting Toolkit. Also I remember there was some early preliminary work done on stock wine a few years ago. Honestly right now there is so much overlapping between all the wine "flavors" and forks available (Stock wine, Crossover, Proton/Proton-GE/Wine-GE, Game Porting Toolkit, winevdm, probably a few more I'm forgetting right now) I'm not entirely sure how many features have been independently implemented already multiple times.
- sgentle 11mo ago
  DXMT has been advancing very quickly: https://github.com/3Shain/dxmt https://github.com/3Shain/dxmt
- yAak 11mo ago
  https://www.lunarg.com/lunarg-at-xdc-2025-kosmickrisp-overview/ https://www.lunarg.com/lunarg-at-xdc-2025-kosmickrisp-overvi...
GeekyBear 11mo ago
Proton is just a fork of Wine that also translates from Microsoft's DirectX graphics API to the native graphics API of Linux (Vulcan) so you can run Windows games on Linux. The new thing Proton is adding is translation from x86 to ARM. Macs already have Wine, an x86 to ARM translation layer (Rosetta), and an Apple provided translation layer from Microsoft's DirectX to the Mac's native Metal graphics API (D3DMetal) which is integrated into upstream Wine.
- pdpi 11mo ago
  I mentioned elsewhere — Right now, using Wine/Crossover is a hassle. Wanting "Proton on Mac" isn't about that specific fork of Wine, it's shorthand for wanting the user experience that Valve gives you on Linux.
bsimpson 11mo ago
I did catch that the streaming stick for the Valve Frame in the announcement video was plugged into a computer that looked an awful lot like a Mac.
- ENGNR 11mo ago
  Yes! I rewound the video to double check But honestly at this point I’m destined to buy a Steam Machine despite having a hefty Mac that could do gaming if only it were possible. Valve have been amazing about open computing and Apple are basically the enemy at this point. It makes me wonder about what using steam machine for all computing might look like, as the new home of open computing and gaming.
  - bsimpson 11mo ago
    I wonder if the video team uses Mac, and just shot a quick clip with the closest USB port on hand.
philo23 11mo ago
I believe that was part of the original plan for Proton, but with the success of the Steam Deck that got shelved and it moved to a focus purely on Linux. I don't think it's ever likely to return any time soon, but it'd be cool if it did. Valve seemingly have very little interest in macOS at the moment. CodeWeavers work closely with Valve and the Wine project to improve compatibility with games, and Apple's own Game Porting Toolkit is based on CodeWeavers work on Wine too. So all the pieces are there in theory.

Have to wonder if there is a world where Proton comes to macOS.

by pdpi 11mo ago

Have to wonder if there is a world where Proton comes to macOS.

Pretty unlikely as long as Apple refuses to support Vulkan. Even if they did, the whole Proton project is about Valve controlling their own destiny rather than being chained to someone else's platform, and Apple is just another Microsoft in that regard.

pdpi 11mo ago
True, forgot about that. That said, Apple does have D3DMetal. A man can dream that they eventually opensource that.
GeekyBear 11mo ago
> Pretty unlikely as long as Apple refuses to support Vulkan. You would only translate into Vulcan when running on an OS that uses Vulcan as the native graphics API. On a Mac, Wine translates directly into Metal.
- jsheard 11mo ago
  Valve could implement a separate Metal backend for Proton, what I'm saying is they probably wouldn't want to spend their resources on that.
  - samtheprogram 11mo ago
    That's because D3DMetal already exists. Games run like they did on Proton ~4-5 years ago, some games better. I mostly no longer boot my Linux machine anymore to play games. The anticheat story is probably not as good but I don't play any AAA games, so I wouldn't know.
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
    - jsheard 11mo ago
      That's great as long as it works, but D3DMetal is a proprietary, closed-source Apple library so you can and probably will get rug-pulled by Apple neglecting or deprecating it as their priorities change. They've only ever positioned it as an "evaluation environment" for developers to estimate how their game will run before going ahead with a native Mac port, not as something for end-users to play Windows games with, so if developers don't bite then they'll have no reason to keep working on it.
      - GeekyBear 11mo ago
        Proton is a downstream fork of Wine, and upstream Wine already directly supports playing Windows games on Mac using D3DMetal. You don't need Proton's Wine fork when you can just use Wine.
        samtheprogram 11mo ago
        That doesn't change the fact that D3DMetal is closed-source. Wine just links to it. There's also DXMT which is open-source, but doesn't support DX12.
        pdpi 11mo ago
        Right now, the user experience with Crossover is that you have to manage the whole thing of installing Windows Steam in a Wine bottle, then installing games within that second Steam installation, then dealing with the fact that Steam doesn't seem to like having two instances running on the same computer (my native Steam loses connectivity every time I start the Crossover instance). Wanting Proton on Mac isn't about that specific fork of Wine, it's shorthand for wanting the user experience that Valve gives you on Linux.
        gpderetta 11mo ago
        As a comparison, before proton, you could run steam with wine under linux. Wine directx implementation was sufficient to make a quite a few games work just fine, but the experience was atrocious. You either had to install a new instance of steam per game or install everything under one bottle which didn't work well as you had to tweak the install per grame. Personally I used it just for one or two of games that I really wanted to play and could actually run outsisde of steam after installation. In comparison the proton experience is seamless.
  - derefr 11mo ago
    Couldn't Apple spend their resources on that? Proton is open-source, and Apple's the one with the incentive to have more "prestige" AAA game devs to parade around during keynotes.
    - jsheard 11mo ago
      Apple could but they're not interested in non-native games, they want native ports or nothing. As I discussed a few posts over, Apple went to the trouble of developing a DirectX compatibility layer, but then told game developers they're not allowed to use it for anything besides evaluating whether their game would run well enough on Mac hardware. If they go ahead with a port then Apple still expects them to do it all the hard way. It's textbook "perfect is the enemy of good" because yeah, compatibility layers have overhead, native is better, but if you insist on native everything but can't get devs on board then you just end up with no games.
      - happymellon 11mo ago
        > compatibility layers have overhead Also, how could Apple kill the old software that is better than the new, if it doesn't control the emulation? This way they don't have to even have 10% of the features to force you to buy again. cough /final cut/ cough
      - Cloudef 11mo ago
        Target apple and in 5 years your binary wont work anymore anyways
        nasretdinov 11mo ago
        Well, some games like Civ V still manage to work! But they actually had to port it to 64-bit, otherwise it'd have the fate of all other 32-bit macOS games unfortunately...
      - Andrex 11mo ago
        Exactly. Compare Steam Machine (2014) to Steam Machine (2026). The difference this time around is Proton support, and you can pretty easily see the hype on the internet for the new version, even after the original version was mocked relentlessly in some circles for having "no games."
  - alessandroberna 11mo ago
    They could also use MoltenVK
- jakogut 11mo ago
  As far as I understand, there's actually an intermediate driver on macOS that implements Vulkan on top of Metal, similar to how Proton implements Direct3D on top of Vulkan. The available low-level API is Metal, and the existing software stack is written for Vulkan, so it makes more sense to implement Vulkan than to write a new Metal backend.
miohtama 11mo ago
Wouldn't it be Apple's benefit to get more gaming on MacOS? Their goals might align with Steam. Apple's native gaming story has been similar failure as their AI and Siri ventures. Time to fix it.
- WhyNotHugo 11mo ago
  Valve seems to break free form depending on someone else’s walled garden. Apple seeks to builds its own walled garden. Their interests do not align. Apple doesn’t want portable software on their platform, they want exclusive software.
  - evilduck 11mo ago
    Hard to swallow. Every day I sit down at a Mac for work and proceed to launch VS Code, Zed, Outlook, DBeaver, Excel, Teams, LogSeq, Syncthing, Chrome, Firefox, LM Studio and Docker. I prefer MacOS but basically all of my application workflow exists for Windows verbatim and if using browser versions of the MS apps, on Linux too.
    - andriesm 11mo ago
      Same! I main macos, love the hardware, but I keep a very close eye on Linux (asahi, omarchy etc) in case Apple gets any more toxic, and I am forced to jump ship to something else, and that something else won't be windoze. The last straw with MacOS was when my US bank cards expired, I could no longer update apps I already paid for, I could no longer install apps I already paid for. Everything was held hostage, could not install FREE apps via the appstore on macos or on ipad. That day my eyes opened to what Apple has become. You simply cannot trust Apple with your computing future. They're a fashion company now.
      - BruceEel 11mo ago
        and plus one here! I don't know, I like my mac workflow but irritation and aggravation have crept in more frequently of late. Last week I was told a binary that clang++ had just produced from my own code could not be run because Apple couldn't check whether it was safe.. And what to make of power users complaining bitterly about Tahoe & liquid glass etc? I'm hanging on to Ventura for now.
easyThrowaway 11mo ago
I mean, theoretically they could backport the D3DMetal wine driver from the Game Porting Toolkit. Also I remember there was some early preliminary work done on stock wine a few years ago. Honestly right now there is so much overlapping between all the wine "flavors" and forks available (Stock wine, Crossover, Proton/Proton-GE/Wine-GE, Game Porting Toolkit, winevdm, probably a few more I'm forgetting right now) I'm not entirely sure how many features have been independently implemented already multiple times.
sgentle 11mo ago
DXMT has been advancing very quickly: https://github.com/3Shain/dxmt https://github.com/3Shain/dxmt
yAak 11mo ago
https://www.lunarg.com/lunarg-at-xdc-2025-kosmickrisp-overview/ https://www.lunarg.com/lunarg-at-xdc-2025-kosmickrisp-overvi...

GeekyBear 11mo ago

Proton is just a fork of Wine that also translates from Microsoft's DirectX graphics API to the native graphics API of Linux (Vulcan) so you can run Windows games on Linux. The new thing Proton is adding is translation from x86 to ARM. Macs already have Wine, an x86 to ARM translation layer (Rosetta), and an Apple provided translation layer from Microsoft's DirectX to the Mac's native Metal graphics API (D3DMetal) which is integrated into upstream Wine.

pdpi 11mo ago
I mentioned elsewhere — Right now, using Wine/Crossover is a hassle. Wanting "Proton on Mac" isn't about that specific fork of Wine, it's shorthand for wanting the user experience that Valve gives you on Linux.

bsimpson 11mo ago

I did catch that the streaming stick for the Valve Frame in the announcement video was plugged into a computer that looked an awful lot like a Mac.

ENGNR 11mo ago
Yes! I rewound the video to double check But honestly at this point I’m destined to buy a Steam Machine despite having a hefty Mac that could do gaming if only it were possible. Valve have been amazing about open computing and Apple are basically the enemy at this point. It makes me wonder about what using steam machine for all computing might look like, as the new home of open computing and gaming.
- bsimpson 11mo ago
  I wonder if the video team uses Mac, and just shot a quick clip with the closest USB port on hand.

philo23 11mo ago

I believe that was part of the original plan for Proton, but with the success of the Steam Deck that got shelved and it moved to a focus purely on Linux. I don't think it's ever likely to return any time soon, but it'd be cool if it did. Valve seemingly have very little interest in macOS at the moment. CodeWeavers work closely with Valve and the Wine project to improve compatibility with games, and Apple's own Game Porting Toolkit is based on CodeWeavers work on Wine too. So all the pieces are there in theory.