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Asahi Linux’s bespoke GPU driver is running Windows games on Apple Silicon Macs (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/linux

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Games are technically run inside a virtual machine because of differences in how Apple Silicon and x86 systems address memory—Apple's systems use 16 KB memory pages, while x86 systems use 4 KB pages, something that causes issues for Asahi and some other Arm Linux distros on a regular basis and a gap that the VM bridges.

Rosenzweig's post shows off screenshots of Control, Fallout 4, The Witcher 3, Ghostrunner, Cyberpunk 2077, Portal 2, and Hollow Knight, though as she notes, most of these games won't run at anywhere near 60 frames per second yet.

"Correctness comes first. Performance improves next," she writes.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Can you show where they’ve gone further than apples game porting toolkit or game translation layers? Genuinely curious because I haven’t seen any comparison but do know several large profile games have come to apple silicon recently.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

It’s not quite as good as gptk. Gptk can run games like cyberpunk at 60+ fps on more powerful Mac’s but Asahi currently can’t run AAA games at 60 fps. Also gptk has support for avx which Fex technically has but doesn’t work on m1 because the chip lacks SVE(2). However I imagine in the future asahi will almost definitely be better.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I mean it more in terms of wider API support than in terms of outright performance. GPTK games, when they work, certainly run faster.