Gaming on Mac has always been problematic. Apple announced big changes at WWDC 2023.

Faster porting of games from Windows to macOS

The most important tool is the Game Porting Tool, which is the equivalent of solutions such as Wine or Crossover, allowing you to transfer the API from Windows in such a way that macOS can run a given game that would not normally start.

Game Porting Tool is designed to help developers port games from Windows or consoles to macOS by offering a much simpler conversion process and seeing if such a conversion makes sense.

An interesting fact is that Apple’s tool is based on Wine. Developers can, according to the company, port their games to macOS “with little or no effort.”

It turns out that some games can run smoothly on Apple’s system without making any changes to the code. This is already considerable progress. However, the optimized version for the native system often achieves better performance, sometimes doubling the frame rate on the same hardware.

Game Porting Tooling Collection for Developers helps you leverage native system features such as game controller support, surround sound, and HDR video to provide the best possible gaming experience on a system that’s not necessarily associated with video games.

macOS and Game Mode

In addition, macOS Sonoma will receive a Game Mode that will allow you to achieve even better performance and improve your gaming experience. It will be interesting to see how much this will affect battery consumption.

In addition, AirPods and controllers will receive faster response times, which will improve immersion. Our movements on the controller will be translated faster into the reactions of the characters in the game – and for example, we will hear shots faster on our headphones.

Tl;dr macOS is now intended to become a friendly place for gamers. I just wonder what will come out of it.