It’s highly unlikely that you have purchased a Macbook or Mac Desktop for gaming. Over the years, Apple computers and notebooks have long been renowned for their impressive power and blazing-fast performance, but gaming has never been a significant focus for Apple.
Macs have not been widely utilized for gaming despite their remarkable hardware capabilities. Nevertheless, Apple appears to be trying to enter the lucrative gaming industry by introducing the Game Porting Toolkit.
Follow along as I walk you through Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit and its features. I’ll also explain how to use it and whether or not you should opt for it.
Let’s get going.
What Is Apple Game Porting Toolkit?
In March 2023, Apple unveiled the Game Pro Toolkit, which could be one of the most exciting launches by the company in years. By providing a way to run a wide variety of unsupported gaming titles on a Mac machine, this toolkit will surely fill the gap between the two widely used operating systems worldwide.
While primarily designed for testing purposes, the software serves as a means for developers to assess the compatibility of their games when ported to a Mac environment. Interestingly, with a bit of technical know-how, it is possible to run the toolkit on your Mac by employing a workaround.
But before that, let’s have a detailed look at the program itself.
The Toolkit is a recently introduced feature of the Metal API, designed to offer developers access to hardware-accelerated graphics capabilities on high-performance Macs.
It allows developers to quickly assess how their game will perform on a Mac in its current state before embarking on porting it to macOS. This toolkit provides developers with valuable insights into the game’s performance on Mac systems before undertaking further optimization and adaptation for the macOS platform.
Game Porting Toolkit System Requirements:
Regarding hardware compatibility, the Game Porting Toolkit is designed to work seamlessly with the latest Macs and MacBooks recently released. So the only basic requirement to download and run the Game kit is that your system must be running on macOS Sonoma, the upcoming major upgrade to Mac operating systems, which is scheduled to be officially launched in the fall.
Nevertheless, you can download the macOS Sonoma beta for free now. Breaking past traditions, Apple has made this year’s beta software available to all Apple ID holders, not just developers. It is important to note that the beta version is still in the testing phase, so there may be occasional instability due to potential bugs and optimization challenges.
To safeguard your important data, it is recommended to have a backup in place before proceeding with the installation process. Additionally, it is advisable to consider installing macOS Sonoma on a separate partition to maintain the stability of your current macOS version.
How To Download Game Porting Toolkit?
Before you download the Toolkit, your system must have macOS Sonoma installed on it. To verify that your system is running on the most recent macOS, check System Settings, and click on Software Updates.
1. Download And Install macOS Sonoma Beta:
If your Mac is currently operating on Ventura 13.4, you are ready to download the Sonoma Developer Beta. Simply visit Apple’s developer portal and log in using your Apple ID and password. Agree to the Apple Developer agreement, and your system will be prepared for the macOS 14 beta update.
Take the following steps afterward:
- Launch System Settings.
- Go to General > Software Update.
- Locate the info icon next to Beta Updates and click on it.
- In the window that appears, select macOS Sonoma Developer Beta and click Done.
- When macOS 14 Beta is shown in the Software Update panel, click Upgrade Now.
- Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the macOS Sonoma installation.
Once the installation is finished, your Mac will be ready for the Game Porting Toolkit.
2. Download Game Porting Toolkit DMG :
Next, download the Game Porting Toolkit from Apple’s official website. Here are the steps you need to take:
- Open Safari and Go to https://developer.apple.com/games/.
- Scroll down to Game Porting Toolkit and click on Download.
- Sign in using your Apple ID and password and agree to the terms and conditions.
- Click View Details, then download the Game Porting Toolkit DMG file.
- Open the .dmg file but minimize it as it needs to stay open to be mounted for the next steps.
3. Install Command Line Tools For Xcode 15 Beta:
To get the Toolkit ready on your computer, you must install Command Line Tools for Xcode 15 Beta. These tools help your Mac get the latest updates that are not available for download directly from the terminal window yet.
Here are the steps to follow:
- Next, head to the Apple Developers page, and in the search box, type Command line tools for Xcode 15 beta and hit Enter.
- Click on Xcode 15 – Apple Developer.
- On the top right of the screen. Click on Download and select Xcode 15 beta from the drop-down menu.
- Sign in using your Apple ID and password and agree with the terms and conditions.
- Click on the file below the description to download it.
- Go to the Download location and click on the downloaded .dmg file.
- Double-click on the .pkg file and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation process.
How To Install And Use Game Porting Toolkit?
Once you have both files downloaded, we need to run several commands on the macOS terminal to finish the installation process. While keeping the Game Porting Toolkit .dmg file open in the background, you can open the Terminal in two ways:
- Press Command + Space to open Spotlight Search, type Terminal, and press Enter.
- Alternatively, you can navigate to Applications > Utilities and find the Terminal application there.
Once on the Terminal, you need to run the following commands. Type each command exactly as mentioned and press Enter. Please remember that some commands may require you to enter the system password. If you don’t see any characters after typing your password, don’t worry; make sure you typed the correct password and move on to the next command by pressing Enter key.
1. Rosetta Installation:
- for M1 and M2 Macs only
- Command – softwareupdate –install-rosetta
- Type A and press Enter to agree to the installation.
2. Entering Te x86_64 shell:
- Required to execute other commands
- Command – arch -x86_64 zsh
3. Installing Homebrew x86_64:
- Requires Admin password
- Command – /bin/bash -c “$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)”
- Press Enter again to complete the installation
4. Setting the Correct Path:
- Command – (echo; echo ‘eval “$(/usr/local/bin/brew shellenv)”‘) >> /Users/$USER/.zprofile
- Command – eval “$(/usr/local/bin/brew shellenv)”
To confirm the chosen path is correct, use the command which brew
- If the response is /usr/local/bin/brew, the path is correct.
- If you get a different response, use the command export PATH=/usr/local/bin:${PATH}
5. Tapping Source Code From Apple:
Command – brew tap apple/apple http://github.com/apple/homebrew-apple
6. Installing Homebrew:
- It may take around 2 hours to complete
- Command – brew -v install apple/apple/game-porting-toolkit
Note 1 – If you have an older version of Xcode on your Mac, it is necessary to uninstall it before proceeding further.
Note 2 – If you receive an error message that says ‘Error: game-porting-toolkit: unknown or unsupported macOS version: :dunno’ while installing the Game Porting Toolkit, it means that your current version of Homebrew is not compatible with macOS Sonoma. To fix this issue, update Homebrew to the latest version and try the Game Porting Toolkit installation again.
Note 3 – If you have ARM64 Homebrew installed on your Mac, it is advisable to remove it as it could potentially cause issues with downloading. To uninstall it, delete the /opt/homebrew/bin folder or execute a Homebrew uninstall script.
Setting Up Game Porting Toolkit:
Before downloading and storing games, you must set up a Wine Prefix, which will provide a virtual C: drive to install both the Toolkit and your chosen games. Take the following steps to continue:
1. Create A New Wine Prefix:
Execute the Command WINEPREFIX=~/my-game-prefix brew –prefix game-porting-toolkit/bin/wine64 winecfg and hit Enter. After a short moment, a Wine Configuration window will appear. You need to modify the Windows version to Windows 10 in this window. Click on Apply and then OK to save the changes.
2. Copy Toolkit’s Library To Wine Library:
To bring Game Porting Toolkit’s library directory to Wine, run the command ditto /Volumes/Game\ Porting\ Toolkit-1.0/lib/ brew –prefix game-porting-toolkit/lib/ and press Enter. Make sure that Game Porting Toolkit.dmg is mounted in the background.
3. Move The Scripts To /usr/local/bin Folder:
Execute the command cp /Volumes/Game\ Porting\ Toolkit/gameportingtoolkit /usr/local/bin and Press Enter key.
Game Porting Toolkit Steam Installation:
Once you have set up your Wine Prefix in the Toolkit, it’s time to install the client for your preferred gaming store. This will enable you to download and install Windows games on your Mac. In this guide, we will use Steam as an example.
Before installing the Steam client, you must obtain the Windows installer for Steam. Simply download the Steam setup file and save it in the Download folder (or any other folder of your choice). For convenience, we will use the Downloads folder as a reference.
1. Install Steam In Game Porting Toolkit:
Execute the command gameportingtoolkit ~/my-game-prefix ~/Downloads/SteamSetup.exe and Press Enter. This will initiate the Windows version of the Steam installer. Simply follow the instructions on the screen to complete the installation process. Once the installation is finished, Steam should launch automatically.
2. Run Steam Client
If Steam doesn’t launch by itself and you see an empty gray window, run the command gameportingtoolkit ~/my-game-prefix ‘C:\Program Files (x86)/Steam/steam.exe and hit Enter.
Finally, Game Porting Toolkit is ready to use. After the Steam client opens, you can access your library and download and install your favorite games. However, don’t expect seamless gaming as the platform hasn’t been optimized for gaming but testing.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Game Porting Toolkit is the latest feature released by Apple, which allows developers to leverage Macs’ hardware and graphics capabilities to test their games. It’s a developer tool for testing games to figure out how much optimization will be needed to port a given game to macOS
Game Porting Toolkit beta is available to download on Apple’s developer page. Follow this link and navigate to Game Porting Toolkit : https://developer.apple.com/games/
Game Porting Toolkit is compatible only with the upcoming macOS Sonoma.
Final Word:
There you have it! Game Porting Toolkit presents a great opportunity to run Windows games on Macs. But is it suitable for gamers? Not.
It’s worth noting that these games aren’t optimized for Mac, resulting in subpar performance as they cannot fully utilize the powerful hardware of Apple computers. The performance of some games is mediocre, while others may not even launch successfully. Additionally, if you are not familiar with Mac’s terminal, you will find it hard to set up the toolkit and download games on it.
For non-developers, I would strongly advise you not to get your hands dirty with this complex toolkit download process. On the other hand, if you are a game developer, it’s a great chance to test how your Windows games hold on Mac.
I am an engineer by education, tech writer by profession, and a motor sport fan by heart.