Only a few weeks after introducing Game Porting Toolkit for macOS Sonoma at the WWDC 2023 event, Apple has updated the tool to beta 1.0.2 with significant improvement in game performance.
Game Porting Toolkit provides an emulation environment for developers to easily port their Windows games to macOS. The new tool is an improved version of Wine, an open-source platform that translates Windows apps to Unix environments, which translates DirectX 12 to Metal 3 to run Windows games on macOS.
Currently, Game Porting Toolkit is in beta like macOS Sonoma and is available on the Apple Developer website for developers and tech enthusiasts who know how to use Terminal to run their Windows games on Macs.
Game Porting Tool beta 1.0.2 boosts framerates, game compatibility, and more but for some Apple Silicon
YouTuber @Andrew Tsai spotted the new Game Porting Toolkit beta 1.0.2 update which did not come with release notes.
But Apple engineer responsible for Game Porting Toolkit shared on Twitter that the update did not feature a change log because the team “ran out of runway” before the holiday weekend. He also added that the new Game Porting Tool beta 1.0.2 included “fixes for 32-bit, rendering and performance improvements, and overall stability.”
We are intending to add change logs, just ran out of runway before the holiday weekend. The 1.02 release has fixes for 32-bit, rendering and performance improvements, and overall stability.
— Nat Brown @natbro@mastodon.social (@natbro) July 1, 2023
Luckily, Tsai tested Windows games on macOS through Game Porting Toolkit (GPTK) beta 1.0.2 and found that the updated toolkit boosted framerates, improved game compatibility, and more but for select M series Apple Silicon.
- Elden Ring on M1 Max at 1080p running on GPTK 1.0.2 delivered 32 fps. An increase from 26 fps on GPTK 1.0.
- Cyberpunk on M1 Max ran at 40 fps on GPTK 1.0.2.
- On M2 Ultra at 1080p, GPTK 1.0.2 doubled Cyberpunk’s framerate to 18 fps from 8 fps on GPTK 1.0.
- Even games incompatible with GPTK like Resident Evil 2 and Horizon Zero Dawn performed before on the new GPTK 1.0.2.
However, the higher boost in framerate on the M1 Max than the M2 Ultra chip of the same games also highlighted the GPTK compatibility issues with the M1 Ultra and M2 Ultra chips.
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