• 2 min read
Windows games get a big Mac speed boost
New tests show Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit 4 beta can sharply improve Windows game performance on Macs, including a 66% jump for GTA V.
Image: 9to5Mac
Gaming has long been the biggest software caveat for anyone moving from Windows to Mac. According to 9to5Mac, that gap is narrowing as Windows games now run better than ever on Apple hardware, both through official ports and unofficial workarounds.
Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit is meant to help developers test how well their Windows games might perform on Mac and, ideally, encourage full Mac releases. But as Macworld’s Filipe Esposito noted, gamers have also been using it to run Windows software on Macs themselves.
After several days testing Game Porting Toolkit 4 beta on an M4 Pro MacBook Pro, Esposito said the update delivers a major jump in performance in some demanding titles. His clearest example was Grand Theft Auto V.
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“After spending several days testing Game Porting Toolkit 4 beta on my M4 Pro MacBook Pro, I found performance improvements that fundamentally change the experience of playing demanding Windows games […] Using the same M4 Pro MacBook Pro with 24GB of RAM, the same game settings, and the same benchmark tests, GTA V jumped from roughly 106 frames per second under GPTK 3 to around 176 fps with GPTK 4 beta. That’s an increase of about 66%. The game was running smoothly on medium to high settings at 2K resolution.”
Esposito added that not every game shows gains this dramatic. Still, he said he hopes the results will push more studios to treat the Mac as a viable gaming platform.
Computing Editor
Tomas lives in the terminal. He covers chips, laptops, and operating systems with a focus on performance and efficiency. He reads kernel changelogs the way other people read fiction, and he's always on the hunt for the perfect mechanical keyboard switch. If it processes data, Tomas has an opinion on it.
via 9to5Mac
