Asahi Linux distro can now run AAA games like Cyberpunk 2077 or The Witcher 3 on Apple Silicon chips

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Highly anticipated: A few years after introducing Linux support for Apple's custom-designed Arm chips, Asahi developers are now shifting their focus to gaming. Getting modern Windows games to run on Apple Silicon isn't exactly a straightforward task, but the devs are clearly enjoying the challenge.

Asahi Linux is an ambitious project aimed at bringing a "polished" Linux experience to Apple Silicon Macs. The system was created by Hector Martin, known as "Marcan," a renowned Spanish hacker who reverse-engineered Apple's new SoCs. Marcan has a long-standing interest in gaming and hacking home consoles like the PS4 and Wii.

Asahi developer Alyssa Rosenzweig recently announced that gaming on Linux is finally a reality for M1-based systems. Rosenzweig, who has been developing the graphics drivers for Asahi, detailed the challenges the team faced in achieving this milestone, noting the work will improve support for other non-gaming x86 applications as well.

Windows games are typically x86 binaries that render graphics through DirectX APIs, Rosenzweig explained, while Asahi's goal is to make these binaries run on Arm Linux using Vulkan. This requires a significant amount of emulation overhead, which is why the most demanding games need 16GB of system memory to run properly.

Asahi's new gaming stack consists of three key components: Fex, an x86 ISA emulator for Arm; Wine, which translates Windows APIs to Linux; and the DXVK + vkd3d-proton combo to convert DirectX calls to Vulkan. Beyond graphics APIs, Windows applications also handle memory management differently, particularly when it comes to page sizes, adding another layer of complexity.

Every Windows game running on Asahi is virtualized through a compact virtual machine, thanks to the muvm project. Game content and inputs are passed through devices like the GPU and controller, allowing both the hardware and the game to function smoothly. Gamers can finally play Fallout 4 on their brand-new Apple Silicon machine, Rosenzweig noted.

Running complex graphics engines, such as DirectX, through an advanced Vulkan driver presents a significant challenge, but progress is being made quickly. The official Fedora-based Linux distro, Fedora Asahi Remix, now supports demanding, last-gen games like Control, The Witcher 3, and Cyberpunk 2077. While many games are already playable, newer AAA titles still struggle to achieve 60fps-level smoothness.

"Correctness comes first. Performance improves next. Indie games like Hollow Knight do run full speed," Rosenzweig said.

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Asahi Linux distro can now run AAA games like Cyberpunk 2077 or The Witcher 3 on Apple Silicon chips

 

[VemigoAmigo]

Struggle to hit 60 fps smoothness? You don't say. I would be amazed even if they hit 30 fps in demanding games. Gaming on Linux in demanding games is a joke to begin with. Now add several compatility layers and slower hardware on top.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Asahi is exciting mostly because it'd make the Macbooks a legitimate target for usage. I like the idea of the macbooks and the power they offer is incredible but the total lack of vulkan support is just asinine. Cmon apple!

Struggle to hit 60 fps smoothness? You don't say. I would be amazed even if they hit 30 fps in demanding games. Gaming on Linux in demanding games is a joke to begin with. Now add several compatility layers and slower hardware on top.

Somebody hasnt tried Steam on Linux in quite a while. Linux running on the same hardware frequently returns the same if not better results than Windows, due to the lack of bloat.

Stop The Cap!

 

[DanteSmith]

If it opened and rendered something on the screen then it is running XD

 

[bviktor]

Asahi is exciting mostly because it'd make the Macbooks a legitimate target for usage. I like the idea of the macbooks and the power they offer is incredible but the total lack of vulkan support is just asinine. Cmon apple!

Somebody hasnt tried Steam on Linux in quite a while. Linux running on the same hardware frequently returns the same if not better results than Windows, due to the lack of bloat.

Stop The Cap!

I mean, yeah, the HW is great, but the biggest selling point for me is battery life. Now, that you lose when you dump macOS.

Not to mention the extremely annoying keyboard layout with the utterly nonsensical keyboard combos and the constant random switching between Cmd and Ctrl as modifiers for random shortcuts. I'll never get used to this. Been trying for a decade, nope.

 

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Struggle to hit 60 fps smoothness? You don't say. I would be amazed even if they hit 30 fps in demanding games. Gaming on Linux in demanding games is a joke to begin with. Now add several compatility layers and slower hardware on top.

Dunno about that. I recently messed with 3D games in VM, and I experienced some really surprising performance results (on my 2020 high-end gaming hardware and 32GB of RAM, mind you).

So I think everything's possible, at this point. I still hate Arm and Apple with a force of a thousand suns, though :-D

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I mean, yeah, the HW is great, but the biggest selling point for me is battery life. Now, that you lose when you dump macOS.

Not to mention the extremely annoying keyboard layout with the utterly nonsensical keyboard combos and the constant random switching between Cmd and Ctrl as modifiers for random shortcuts. I'll never get used to this. Been trying for a decade, nope.

My hope is that, since asahi is only for ARM Mac's, there will be more optimization then a typical Linux install.

I hardly see a difference between Linux and winblows on my laptop now.

 

[trparky]

OK sure, this is great and all but why not put the effort into making an easy-to-use compatibility layer that'll run atop MacOS to allow for games to run?

 

[ZedRM]

Struggle to hit 60 fps smoothness? You don't say. I would be amazed even if they hit 30 fps in demanding games.

Give it time. Chances are, they're going to. Of course, aiming at Apple hardware is nuts, but whatever.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

OK sure, this is great and all but why not put the effort into making an easy-to-use compatibility layer that'll run atop MacOS to allow for games to run?

Because MacOS doesn't support Vulkan, it uses Metal. The reason Proton and Wine have come so far on linux is Vulkan translation of DX11/12 code is beyond piss easy. IIRc it can natively run a lot of the calls. Doing it via Metal requires significantly more work, and somethings may not work at all.

Honestly if it were that easy, Valve likely would have already done it. They were not afraid to push Steam on Mac back in the late 2000s.

 

[VemigoAmigo]

Asahi is exciting mostly because it'd make the Macbooks a legitimate target for usage. I like the idea of the macbooks and the power they offer is incredible but the total lack of vulkan support is just asinine. Cmon apple!

Somebody hasnt tried Steam on Linux in quite a while. Linux running on the same hardware frequently returns the same if not better results than Windows, due to the lack of bloat.

Stop The Cap!

Yes I have, and you are 100% clueless if you think all games on steam runs on Linux and runs better haha. Most don't even run, unsupported, and 99% of the games that will even start, runs worse.

Most multiplayer games won't let you play due to anti cheat either. Most won't start either.

Linux continues to be a joke for gaming and no-one with high-end gaming hardware will want to run Linux as main OS.