Key Takeaways
1. Apple’s macOS Tahoe developer beta, along with Game Porting Toolkit 3.0 and Crossover Preview, improves compatibility for popular Windows games on Apple Silicon.
2. Games like Starfield and Horizon Forbidden West now run more reliably, achieving good performance without needing community patches or hacks.
3. New titles like Jurassic World Evolution 2 and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora have become playable on Macs, indicating advancements in DirectX 12-to-Metal translation.
4. Custom tweaks in Crossover Preview allow the use of modern gaming features like DLSS and AVX emulation on Macs.
5. Apple is quietly enhancing macOS for gaming, making it a more viable platform for recent AAA titles despite not officially promoting these advancements.
Apple’s macOS Tahoe developer beta, along with Game Porting Toolkit 3.0 and the newest Crossover Preview (build 0507), is paving the way for popular Windows games to function on Apple Silicon. YouTuber Andrew Tsai has conducted tests showing that games like Starfield, Star Wars Outlaws, and Horizon Forbidden West now start more reliably and perform better. In many instances, these games no longer require community patches or hacks, indicating that Apple has made significant strides in DirectX 12 compatibility within macOS.
Starfield and Horizon Forbidden West Perform Better
Starfield now runs on Apple Silicon, and the results are impressively good. The YouTuber demonstrated that the game achieves 60 FPS at 1080p on medium settings with MetalFX upscaling turned on, making use of DLSS and frame generation through Crossover. Horizon Forbidden West, which used to crash when launched, now opens smoothly without needing shader patches or unofficial modifications.
New Titles Become Playable
Jurassic World Evolution 2 and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, which were previously unplayable on Macs, now start without issues and run more stably, as highlighted by Andrew. The latest update to Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit seems to have greatly enhanced the DirectX 12-to-Metal translation, bringing Apple Silicon closer to mainstream AAA gaming.
All of this is tested using Crossover Preview, CodeWeavers’ compatibility layer for macOS, with Andrew Tsai using it to evaluate the new configurations. By manually swapping in GPTK 3.0 files and making some custom bottle tweaks, the setup allows features like DLSS hooks, AVX emulation, and real-time MetalFX. This marks the closest Apple Silicon has ever gotten to supporting modern PC gaming technologies natively.
Quiet Improvements for Gamers
Apple hasn’t officially promoted these advancements for gamers, but the capability to play recent AAA titles on MacBooks, such as Horizon Forbidden West, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Star Wars Outlaws, points to a subtle yet steady effort to make macOS a more viable gaming platform.
As of now, all the games were tested on a MacBook Pro with M3 Max, the macOS Tahoe developer beta, Game Porting Toolkit 3.0 Beta 1, and Crossover Preview. You can find the complete video showcasing these tests below.
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