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Wine comes to macOS: Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit powered by CrossOver source code


Apple revealed their new Game Porting Toolkit today at WWDC. This Toolkit is designed to allow Windows game developers a way to easily and quickly determine how well their game could run on macOS, with the ultimate goal of facilitating the creation of Mac game ports.

We are ecstatic that Apple chose to use CrossOver’s source code as their emulation solution for the Game Porting Toolkit. We have decades of experience creating ports with Wine, and we are very pleased that Apple is recognizing that Wine is a fantastic solution for running Windows games on macOS. We did not work with Apple on this tool, but we would be delighted to work with any game developers who try out the Game Porting Toolkit and see the massive potential that Wine offers. Our PortJump™ team has perfected the art and science of creating ports of Windows applications using our Wine technology, and we welcome inquiries about how we can help get your game working on macOS. 

We are also excited by the potential that the Game Porting Toolkit can offer CrossOver. We announced last week that we have preliminary DirectX 12 support on macOS coming in CrossOver 23, and we are eager to build on that momentum. As we learn more, we will be sharing updates in future posts. You can stay informed by subscribing to our blog.

About Meredith Johnson
Meredith has been with CodeWeavers since 2019, and currently wears both the QA Manager and CrossOver Product Manager hats. After getting her PhD in linguistics, she somehow stumbled into the Free and Open Source Software world. When she isn't testing CrossOver, she's probably perfecting yet another bean stew, jogging slowly, buying even more linen tunics, doing a face mask or doting on her perfect chunky baby. 

The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Wow! Great news for the Crossover team!

I hope Apple will help you out now, maybe a heads up on how new OS version will affect you, maybe early access to new APIs and such?

4

How does this impact code weavers if apple implement native support etc, are they looking to codeweavers to maintain the code base or do what apple do and maintain their own branch?

A win-win situation! 😀

Congrats CodeWeavers team! Great time to live in. Imagine playing Diablo IV on Vision Pro being surrounded by a dungeon.. or Hogwarts Legacy from a meadow..

parabéns para vocês, excelente trabalho.

I hope at least they start making contributions to the opensource project, you guys helped them, they should help you back with some job contributions/fixes, etc.

Awesome

Wait a moment?! I just poked a little into the game porting toolkit… Did Apple just release a D3DX (D3D9 till D3D12) to metal translation layer?!

3

Cosmin Calin wrote:

I hope at least they start making contributions to the opensource project, you guys helped them, they should help you back with some job contributions/fixes, etc.

Awesome

Apple just did make a huge contribution by adding support for DX 12 to Wine and since it's open source it can be added to Crossover. Codeweavers already wrote they didn't work with Apple on this project.

This sounds slick and is already working wonders with some games by users in the community. This is huge recognition to Crossover and Wine, keep up the good work.

It's been only one day and people are already running Cyberpunk 2077, Spiderman, Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy and Diablo IV on their Macs at high settings. As said elsewhere though the license doesn't seem to allow any commercial products being ported this way. It's only for use with Game porting toolkit so I guess Codeweavers must find their own solution.

Thank you. Can't wait.

I am paying $2 / hour to airgpu.com at the moment to play diablo 4 (great service, but expensive). Despite having a super fast M2 gpu.

Diablo 4 may be months to years away on cross over, but $70 a year to code weavers sounds way better than $2 an hour for cloud gaming!

Congratulations!!! Well deserved. Now a huge marketing campaign is needed so games companies can associate the toolkit with CodeWeavers' support

Gavin Shaw wrote:

Thank you. Can't wait.

I am paying $2 / hour to airgpu.com at the moment to play diablo 4 (great service, but expensive). Despite having a super fast M2 gpu.

Diablo 4 may be months to years away on cross over, but $70 a year to code weavers sounds way better than $2 an hour for cloud gaming!

https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/14307be/diablo_iv_on_m2_max_using_macos_sonoma_and_game/

Looks like it is already running!

Human wrote:

As said elsewhere though the license doesn't seem to allow any commercial products being ported this way. It's only for use with Game porting toolkit so I guess Codeweavers must find their own solution.

Why is that? It looks Apple released code under GNU LGPL 2.1. It's same as WINE or vkd3d. You can use it in commercial product as long as you release the source code. Codeweavers already does that.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/apple/homebrew-apple/main/Formula/game-porting-toolkit.rb

Oskar Gargas wrote:

Human wrote:

As said elsewhere though the license doesn't seem to allow any commercial products being ported this way. It's only for use with Game porting toolkit so I guess Codeweavers must find their own solution.

Why is that? It looks Apple released code under GNU LGPL 2.1. It's same as WINE or vkd3d. You can use it in commercial product as long as you release the source code. Codeweavers already does that.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/apple/homebrew-apple/main/Formula/game-porting-toolkit.rb

Very interesting! I'm quoting people who had read the license agreement. If Codeweavers can use it it's great.

Oskar Gargas wrote:

Human wrote:

As said elsewhere though the license doesn't seem to allow any commercial products being ported this way. It's only for use with Game porting toolkit so I guess Codeweavers must find their own solution.

Why is that? It looks Apple released code under GNU LGPL 2.1. It's same as WINE or vkd3d. You can use it in commercial product as long as you release the source code. Codeweavers already does that.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/apple/homebrew-apple/main/Formula/game-porting-toolkit.rb

Devs say "Changes to Wine are open source. The DirectX12 to Metal translator is not."

This is the license agreement for Game porting toolkit I downloaded and it's not allowed to be used for commercial purposes.

  1. Permitted Agreement Uses and Restrictions.

A. License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, you are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, personal copyright license to (i) install, internally use, and test the Apple Software for the sole purpose of developing, testing, or evaluating video games for use on Apple-branded products; (ii) sublicense the Apple Software to your third-party service providers (“Third-Party Service Providers”) solely for the purpose of exercising the foregoing Section 2A(i) rights on your behalf; and (iii) distribute the Apple Software solely for non-commercial purposes. You may make only as many internal use copies of the Apple Software as reasonably necessary to use the Apple Software as permitted under this License; provided that you reproduce on each copy of the Apple Software or portion thereof, all copyright or other proprietary notices contained on the original. You will be responsible for Third Party Service Provider’s compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

Human wrote:

Oskar Gargas wrote:

Human wrote:

As said elsewhere though the license doesn't seem to allow any commercial products being ported this way. It's only for use with Game porting toolkit so I guess Codeweavers must find their own solution.

Why is that? It looks Apple released code under GNU LGPL 2.1. It's same as WINE or vkd3d. You can use it in commercial product as long as you release the source code. Codeweavers already does that.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/apple/homebrew-apple/main/Formula/game-porting-toolkit.rb

Devs say "Changes to Wine are open source. The DirectX12 to Metal translator is not."

This is the license agreement for Game porting toolkit I downloaded and it's not allowed to be used for commercial purposes.

  1. Permitted Agreement Uses and Restrictions.

A. License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, you are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, personal copyright license to (i) install, internally use, and test the Apple Software for the sole purpose of developing, testing, or evaluating video games for use on Apple-branded products; (ii) sublicense the Apple Software to your third-party service providers (“Third-Party Service Providers”) solely for the purpose of exercising the foregoing Section 2A(i) rights on your behalf; and (iii) distribute the Apple Software solely for non-commercial purposes. You may make only as many internal use copies of the Apple Software as reasonably necessary to use the Apple Software as permitted under this License; provided that you reproduce on each copy of the Apple Software or portion thereof, all copyright or other proprietary notices contained on the original. You will be responsible for Third Party Service Provider’s compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

I guess they can't use the source, but they can look at it to see how Apple are achieving the translation and use it to inspire their own code. I can see Apple's position: they want developers to port their games, not have them running through translation layers and getting low performance.

1

Congratulations, and no surprise, as CrossOver is the best. This a great official endorsement of all your hard work, and how it has helped so many of us.

This is fantastic! I can't wait to play Diablo 2 Resurrection on my Mac using Crossover!

I think the shader translator will be a part of macOS. So while its license won't allow the developer to use its code in the game's code, they will be able to simply call it from their game. These features are already related to macOS anyway.

Apple clearly recognises that Codeweavers have done an awesome job on Crossover. That said, I have so many question, including if and how this development links to Jeremy White recently stepping down as CEO, and whether that means Apple will contribute to closing the most glaring (remaining) holes in Wine and MoltenVK for Mac gaming, and/or to Wine in general...

Yeah but Apple's secret sauce D3DMetal is not open source and the license does not allow distribution 😭

This is excellent news for you guys... Hopefully, I can play all the games I want on my m1 mac.

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