CodeWeavers CrossOver 23 will bring DirectX 12 games to macOS - sort of

Alfonso Maruccia

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In context: CodeWeavers' CrossOver is a software package designed to run Windows applications and games on macOS systems. The company describes its tool as a "completely unique approach" to cross-platform compatibility, one that doesn't need virtual machines, dual-boot configurations, or other OS licenses.

A year and a half ago, CodeWeavers announced they were working on a new compatibility layer which would bring support for DirectX 12 games to CrossOver Mac. The goal is still a long way off, but the software house has now provided some interesting news about the project. DirectX 12 support is still in its early stages, but the upcoming version of CrossOver (23) should be able to run the Windows version of Diablo II: Resurrected on Apple's newest Arm-based SoC (M2).

The Diablo II project is still filled with bugs, CodeWeavers QA and product manager Meredith Johnson explains, but the fact that the game is running at all can already be considered a "huge win." There is "no single magic key" to bring DirectX 12 support to macOS, Johnson said, and just getting the Diablo II remaster running on Mac was a tortuous journey that involved fixing many bugs in MoltenVK and SPIRV-Cross graphics libraries.

Like other well-known compatibility layers are doing for Linux and Steam Deck, CodeWeavers aims to "translate" API calls designed for DirectX 12 applications (mostly games) to something that can be natively interpreted by Metal, Apple's proprietary graphics API. Both DirectX 12 and Metal are low-level, low-overhead interfaces designed to provide optimized access to 3D and parallel computing hardware acceleration available on modern GPU architectures.

Valve's Proton and Wine can already run many modern and older DirectX games on the Steam Deck console and Linux-based operating systems, but cross-platform game compatibility will seemingly be much harder to achieve for CrossOver alone.

While they are still busy working on Diablo II: Resurrected, the developers will have to add support to DX12 games on a per-title basis. Each game will likely involve "multiple bugs" to fix in upstream projects like the aforementioned MoltenVK and SPIRV-Cross libraries.

Despite CodeWeavers' triumphant announcement, Mac systems will likely continue to get the very meager support from gaming publishers and developers they have been given thus far. The dream for some sort of "universal" cross-platform compatibility with modern, Windows-based gaming machines will probably continue to be that.

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Imagine Apple, after all these years, still not even trying to support (at the least) OpenGL. And then releasing Metal instead (where it's just yet another API that no one will want to support)...

Good ol' Apple doing right for gaming the worst way they can; their way....
 
Imagine Apple, after all these years, still not even trying to support (at the least) OpenGL. And then releasing Metal instead (where it's just yet another API that no one will want to support)...

Good ol' Apple doing right for gaming the worst way they can; their way....

Yeah, but did you see the new fishing goggles? It's the fuuuuuutuuuuure of everything! Sort of :-D
 
Good ol' Apple doing right for gaming the worst way they can; their way....

It is as simple as this:

- before, people could buy a Mac and run macos and windows, so both worlds were good

- now it's just MacOS which is very limited and Apple didn't change that. With the M chips (great by the way) people got fantastic photo and video editing, so the flow was kept.

- now no-one needs or wants more, at least as video editing is already superb. Now what?

- if people keep buying Mac then Apple won't do a thing; if people stop buying Mac, Apple will wake up and probably very late.

I have a Mac Mini M1 and that's enough. Why spend more money on a Mac if I get much better gaming or 3D from a Surface Pro 8 with an eGPU (rtx 3060ti)? Why keep trying to play games on a Mac if even Apple doesn't try?!

Yeah, but did you see the new fishing goggles? It's the fuuuuuutuuuuure of everything! Sort of :-D

Lol, yes... for sure... and at $3500 it will "sell" like crazy lololol

I saw such interesting decisions on Nokia and some other brands that don't exist anymore...
 
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It is as simple as this:

- before, people could buy a Mac and run macos and windows, so both worlds were good

- now it's just MacOS which is very limited and Apple didn't change that. With the M chips (great by the way) people got fantastic photo and video editing, so the flow was kept.

- now no-one needs or wants more, at least as video editing is already superb. Now what?

- if people keep buying Mac then Apple won't do a thing; if people stop buying Mac, Apple will wake up and probably very late.

I have a Mac Mini M1 and that's enough. Why spend more money on a Mac if I get much better gaming or 3D from a Surface Pro 8 with an eGPU (rtx 3060ti)? Why keep trying to play games on a Mac if even Apple doesn't try?!
Imagine Apple actually doing stuff for their customers (which they've been asking for proper gaming support for a long time). It's a general purpose OS that just neglects gaming, because Apple.

Like, they have more than enough resources to do it, and it would be convenient for a lot of their customers. But how dare they act like a PC! (or some nonsense like that)

It just reeks of that Apple "superiority".
 
Imagine Apple actually doing stuff for their customers (which they've been asking for proper gaming support for a long time). It's a general purpose OS that just neglects gaming, because Apple.

Like, they have more than enough resources to do it, and it would be convenient for a lot of their customers. But how dare they act like a PC! (or some nonsense like that)

It just reeks of that Apple "superiority".
Exactly. Nokia did that on other things but the same "superiority"; Microsoft also did some of that with their mobile OSes/ hardware and when it woke up, it was too late, the game was over.

My Mac Mini M1 was my first and probably my last Mac: the hardware is great and beautiful. The OS is very limited for a general os and even worse for 3D/ gaming. I missed so much stuff from the W11 that I had extra to buy a Surface Pro. On W11 big 4K monitors are not an issue, I see transfer speed (and not only time) but also windows management, etc etc; on W11 it's too easy.
 
Imagine Apple, after all these years, still not even trying to support (at the least) OpenGL. And then releasing Metal instead (where it's just yet another API that no one will want to support)...

Good ol' Apple doing right for gaming the worst way they can; their way....
Yeah I always found it strange they didn't just use Vulkan, but they design their own GPUs/CPUs so I guess they want everything super optimized and tightly integrated
 
I honestly don't see why anyone would buy a Mac at this point. For a handful or programs you can't get on Windows? If you have 32gb or more of RAM, setting up a macOS VM is pretty simple. Just remember to give it lots of video RAM, otherwise it will run like an absolute dog. I recommend having 32GB on your PC so you can give the virtual Mac a full 16gb of VRAM.
 
Yeah I always found it strange they didn't just use Vulkan, but they design their own GPUs/CPUs so I guess they want everything super optimized and tightly integrated
I mean, they can do both? They really don't have an excuse.
 
I mean, they can do both? They really don't have an excuse.
They have an "excuse", they want developers to be forced to bet on Metal and to be "in". If you give them Vulkan, then they won't bet on metal (more optimized on Mac but more effort and time spent).
 
Imagine Apple, after all these years, still not even trying to support (at the least) OpenGL. And then releasing Metal instead (where it's just yet another API that no one will want to support)...

Are you sure there's no OpenGL support in macOS? What does the mac versions of the several Steam Games use, metal?

In the other hand, DX is ONLY available in Windows, which makes Microsoft a genius in marketing by convincing a lot of people that sticking to a proprietary API is the best way forward; their proprietary API, of course, not Apple's or anyone else (and let's ignore the open ones, like OpenGL or Vulkan)
 
Are you sure there's no OpenGL support in macOS? What does the mac versions of the several Steam Games use, metal?

In the other hand, DX is ONLY available in Windows, which makes Microsoft a genius in marketing by convincing a lot of people that sticking to a proprietary API is the best way forward; their proprietary API, of course, not Apple's or anyone else (and let's ignore the open ones, like OpenGL or Vulkan)
They aren't trying to support it, and are actually deprecating it.

And that's an easy answer: DX became standard for games on PC because no one else was competing (because Apple was doing jack all), and because it did more than just graphics API.
OpenGL is supported in many places now. Vulkan is too new to expect that.
 
I honestly don't see why anyone would buy a Mac at this point. For a handful or programs you can't get on Windows? If you have 32gb or more of RAM, setting up a macOS VM is pretty simple. Just remember to give it lots of video RAM, otherwise it will run like an absolute dog. I recommend having 32GB on your PC so you can give the virtual Mac a full 16gb of VRAM.
ram to vram??????
 
They aren't trying to support it, and are actually deprecating it.
Wow, is not that "they are" deprecating it, is that they pulled the plug. They didn't even cared to move to Vulkan instead, they just got the Microsoft playbook and went all in with pushing their proprietary thing (Metal).

I don't think it will work for them, I don't see a lot of people eager to make the same mistake again. Even though macs are usually used by people with deeper pockets, that's basically the main issue: they will never be mainstream, not in their current form, which means that even when they have that captive audience, the size is not big enough to build the momentum needed to push the developers towards this.

I would say that it won't change in the near future because the macs have a very short use life. They lose support real quick, for computer standards, which means that no one is running "old macs", it's basically the very same people "refreshing" their macs to the new versions. It's really sad, since most of them have very powerful hardware (for the time) which probably still outperforms entry level and even mid-level hardware of Today. On the bright side you could use bootcamp to install Windows and run games with DX and all for a longer time.
And that's an easy answer: DX became standard for games on PC because no one else was competing (because Apple was doing jack all), and because it did more than just graphics API.
OpenGL is supported in many places now. Vulkan is too new to expect that.
That's not it: by the time Microsoft started working on DX the OpenGL API had been around for 2 years already. But Microsoft being Microsoft did what Microsoft always does: their own proprietary "take" on the existing stuff (see Powershell). You tie that to the growing number of people getting Windows (for any amount of reasons) and that's how you end up "standardizing" a proprietary API.
 
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