It seems that the repository is a brew recipe and the actual code for the porting toolkit is on Apple's servers.
This looks like a good guide to installing the portability toolkit.
Is the native game limited to 60 Hz? Could it be higher?
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This looks like a good guide to installing the portability toolkit.
Is the native game limited to 60 Hz? Could it be higher?
Those games are on the Mac App Store only because Apple has an exclusivity agreement with them.
Unlikely that a native game is limited to 60hz. It's most likely shown as 60hz because it's being rendered on a Macbook Air screen or the StudiNo Display, both of which are 60hz.
Exactly my point! A free compatibility layer would ruin such deals. NMS, Layers of Fear and other games aren't exclusive to MAS but Apple still wants either exclusivity or popular native games even if they are on Steam. With a free compatibility layer and devs not bothering to port none of that would be possible.
But the games would still be on Mac regardless if they were native or not, which is all we want.
The resistance to a compatibility layer is silly when the endgoal is still what we want: Mac games.
That's all you want. I want games as the result of a thriving ecosystem where developers see a benefit to porting/developing mac games.
I dunno man being able to have a massive library of AAA games playable on macOS through a compatibility layer sounds pretty thriving to me.
It seems that Apple has made the installation of the porting kit as convoluted as possible. Which is nice because no game developer who contemplates a Mac port will assume that gamers can use the porting kit themselves (the "why should I bother?" attitude), and us geeks can still use it for games that aren't ported.
I'd love that too, but as a consumer how do I help make that happen? If the game is available natively for Mac, I'll play it there instead of Windows. Indeed, I find that I'd much rather play on my M1 MBA than my desktop PC, even under lower settings. It's amazing how annoying fan noise is when you get used to silence!
But that said, I can't see anything but positives for having access to this compatibility layer. All it does is incentivize my next laptop purchase to be a Mac, and still play native Mac games whenever they're available. Isn't that good for the developer too?
Sure, but the lesson from proton on Linux is that it is bad for developers. That being said, people should do what’s best for them.
Proton is the reason the Steam Deck is selling amazingly as it is and pushing Linux and handheld gaming PCs forward. If gamers' libraries weren't available on the Deck day one they never would've bought it. Valve learned that lesson the hard way with the failure of the Steam Machines.
The same is with Mac. Look around you. The Mac has been getting a lot of positive press from gamers including the hardcore PC Master Race crowd seeing their favorite games working great out of the box on macOS, some even looking into getting Macs themselves. The lack of people's favorite games has been the biggest hurdle to mass Mac adoption ever since the Apple Silicon transition, and with a compatibility layer, that problem is gone.
But what monitor is it connected to? It could've been the M2 Max from a Mac Studio plugged into a 60hz monitor.
Proton isn’t pushing Linux forward, it’s pushing valve forward. It reduces Linux to an appliance used to play windows games. It could literally be any os, FreeBSD etc.
So we don't want to play Windows games on macOS?
Using games, newcomers to Linux are trying it with SteamOS, and realizing how cool Linux is especially with how user friendly the OS is, giving a overwhelmingly positive first impression and making them want to use the OS more. It's also pushing other distro makers like Fedora to make changes to their distros to make them more user friendly and as useful and convenient as SteamOS, just like when macOS X made Microsoft make positive changes to Windows.
More people using Linux is a great thing, even if it's just for games, as that means another option for an operating system and competition to eat away at Microsoft's dominance in computing especially PC gaming. The same is true with macOS, even moreso since you gotta buy a Mac to use it which means more Macs being sold, and more Macs being sold means more Mac software since there's now a bigger install base
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Where is the proof of this? I can show proof of Feral cancelling further ports on Linux because of proton.
I want windows games ported to macOS. Or games developed for macOS from the outset.
Because Proton makes Linux versions easier to support, and the games run better through Proton than natively. That's why they cancelled further ports. Yeah people forget Linux ports were a mixed bag, versus Proton that is making games run incredible. Hogwarts Legacy runs better on Linux through Proton than it does on Windows natively.
Whatever is easiest for developers to do and runs the best, they will do, which in this case was Proton. Is that a bad thing? No. Of course not. Do Linux distro developers and Linux users care that there's no native ports anymore? Also no, as guess what: They're still getting the software they want and new users, which is all they want.
So even if we didn't get native ports of PC games on Mac and only had them through compatibility layers, who cares? The games would still be there and playable, many playing beyond expectations on an ARM SoC. Look at GTA5 and Battlefield V through CrossOver. They run fantastically even though they're not native ports. Hell God of War 2018 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake runs as good as they would on a PS4 Pro on a M1 ON A MACBOOK AIR, A COMPUTER WITHOUT ANY HEATSINK! That's incredible.
So who cares if windows games don't get ported or developed for macOS? With a compatibility layer they'd still be on macOS, and everyone will be happy. When everyone can play the same games, everyone wins.
Thanks to the compatibility layer in the Game Porting Toolkit, this comic is now officially outdated
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Ok, we'll have to agree to disagree.Because Proton makes Linux versions easier to support, and the games run better through Proton than natively. That's why they cancelled further ports. Yeah people forget Linux ports were a mixed bag, versus Proton that is making games run incredible. Hogwarts Legacy runs better on Linux through Proton than it does on Windows natively.
Whatever is easiest for developers to do and runs the best, they will do, which in this case was Proton. Is that a bad thing? No. Of course not. Do Linux distro developers and Linux users care that there's no native ports anymore? Also no, as guess what: They're still getting the software they want and new users, which is all they want.
So even if we didn't get native ports of PC games on Mac and only had them through compatibility layers, who cares? The games would still be there and playable, many playing beyond expectations on an ARM SoC. Look at GTA5 and Battlefield V through CrossOver. They run fantastically even though they're not native ports. Hell God of War 2018 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake runs as good as they would on a PS4 Pro on a M1 ON A MACBOOK AIR, A COMPUTER WITHOUT ANY HEATSINK! That's incredible.
So who cares if windows games don't get ported or developed for macOS? With a compatibility layer they'd still be on macOS, and everyone will be happy. When everyone can play the same games, everyone wins.
Thanks to the compatibility layer in the Game Porting Toolkit, this comic is now officially outdated
But those wouldn’t be ”Mac games”, just Windows games on Mac through a compatibility layer and we already have that thanks to Crossover and as we all know it’s not a perfect solution. So there is no unfounded resistance since many of us already use such solutions but at the same time we are aware of the shortcomings.
Apple aside the coin has two sides, the developer’s side and the player’s side. Even if all players want is games we can all agree that native games are better than anything else. Yes, just like Crossover you could play more titles not available on Mac but you also have to compromise and settle with half the performance, less quality and more bugs. Just look at The Medium and the difference between the native and translated version. That leads to more problems and bad performance on lower-end Macs. You’ll be sacrificing performance and quality for more titles.
Proton has Valve behind it and Crossover is the main contributor to Wine. Who would back such a compatibility layer on Mac? That would be only up to the users. Apparently such a compatibility layer also only works on Macs but many native games would work on your iPad and iPhone too so people could play the same game everywhere.
No matter what we want the course is at the moment clear and set by Apple. They don’t want just a compatibility layer for many reasons. We’ll have to wait and see how it goes. If they don’t succeed then maybe we’ll get another solution. Meanwhile we already have Crossover but of course that’s not for anyone who wants free solutions (free for BetterTesters though) and those who really want can always use Apple’s porting toolkit for fun.
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