Apple's Game Porting Toolkit

Apple's new tool for developers could be a game-changer for Mac

- CLIFF JOSEPH

WHOOPI GOLDBERG CAUSED  a bit of a stir online recently, when she criticized games developer Activision Blizzard for not releasing action RPG Diablo IV on Mac. But this is nothing new for Mac gamers, and the sad truth is that Macs have never been any good at gaming. What’s even worse is that this situation is primarily Apple’s own fault. Many Mac models over the years have used under powered graphics cards that simply weren’t powerful enough to handle high– speed 3D graphics and games. And the arrival of Catalina (macOS 10.15) a few years ago caused a kind of gaming apocalypse, could no longer run on Catalina, as well as later versions of macOS.

But there are signs of hope for Mac gamers — not least because Apple’s latest M1 and M2 processors provide much better graphics performance than previous generations of Macs that used Intel processors. And, to take advantage of that improved performance, Apple recently announced a new Game Porting Toolkit that aims to make life a lot easier for games developers who want to convert, or port, their games for the Mac.

EMULATION VS TRANSLATION