Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

rosenzweig.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 382 posts

Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#11

Post by bee_rider »

saagarjha wrote: post #9
bee_rider wrote: post #5

The M-series chips from Apple have some special hardware to help emulate x86 with near-native performance, right? I wonder if they take advantage of those features (actually I forget exactly what the features were). I mean this is an incredible achievement either way. Everything is emulated, but they are still running AAA games. Wow.

No reason they can’t.

If every layer of abstraction and emulation is set up to allow it to pass through. It still seems really impressive to me, like lining up a bunch of targets and shooting an arrow through to get multiple bullseyes or something, haha.

Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#12

Post by sumuyuda »

bee_rider wrote: post #5

The M-series chips from Apple have some special hardware to help emulate x86 with near-native performance, right? I wonder if they take advantage of those features (actually I forget exactly what the features were). I mean this is an incredible achievement either way. Everything is emulated, but they are still running AAA games. Wow.

They are using it:

Other than the page size issue, FEX and Rosetta are comparable technologies (both are emulators, despite what Apple marketing might have you believe). Both FEX and Rosetta use the unique Apple Silicon CPU feature that is most important for x86/x86_64 emulation performance: TSO mode. Thanks to this feature, FEX can offer fast and accurate x86/x86_64 emulation on Apple Silicon systems.

From: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-asahi-remix/x86-...

Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#13

Post by cherryteastain »

mikhael28 wrote: post #10

Fantastic! A great proof of concept on Linux - lots of AAA gaming is already possible on Mac with Crossover and/or Parallels or VMWare Personal, which is free! While I have a Steam Deck, gaming on Mac works for me - I refuse to play Baldurs Gate 3 on a controller.

You can hook up a monitor, mouse and keyboard to your Steam Deck to be fair.

Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#14

Post by zaptrem »

mikhael28 wrote: post #10

Fantastic! A great proof of concept on Linux - lots of AAA gaming is already possible on Mac with Crossover and/or Parallels or VMWare Personal, which is free! While I have a Steam Deck, gaming on Mac works for me - I refuse to play Baldurs Gate 3 on a controller.

Don’t forget Apple’s GamePortingToolkit based on Crossover/Wine and the open source client for it Whisky. I think it supports most games Linux Proton does now.

Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#15

Post by rowanG077 »

saagarjha wrote: post #9
bee_rider wrote: post #5

The M-series chips from Apple have some special hardware to help emulate x86 with near-native performance, right? I wonder if they take advantage of those features (actually I forget exactly what the features were). I mean this is an incredible achievement either way. Everything is emulated, but they are still running AAA games. Wow.

No reason they can’t.

Why not? In fact they are using it right now.

Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#16

Post by ojdon »

spease wrote: post #7

This is super cool. So, wait, does this mean that gaming is better on Linux, on a Mac?

Yeah it has been for a while. The steam deck runs Linux out of the box.

Valve and open source devs have put a lot of effort over the years on projects like Photon which is a translation layer for Windows games.

Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#17

Post by andrewmcwatters »

I think at the moment, this is probably the only way to feasibly game on a Mac. Crossover and other Wine-based apps as well as Parallels are... not really truly possible. If you bought the top-of-the-line MacBook Pro 16-inch, 2021 with M1 Max and tried to play anything reasonably modern on it, you'd find the performance is basically not playable .

Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#18

Post by brookman64k »

ojdon wrote: post #16
spease wrote: post #7

This is super cool. So, wait, does this mean that gaming is better on Linux, on a Mac?

Yeah it has been for a while. The steam deck runs Linux out of the box. Valve and open source devs have put a lot of effort over the years on projects like Photon which is a translation layer for Windows games.

Proton, not Photon. ;-) Here is a list with games and their support status: https://www.protondb.com/

Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#19

Post by bee_rider »

rowanG077 wrote: post #15
saagarjha wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No reason they can’t.

Why not? In fact they are using it right now.

I think the comment was saying “there isn’t any reason they can’t.” Which is true in theory, but in the practice it seems to be a lot of stuff to line up.

Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#20

Post by hu3 »

spease wrote: post #7

This is super cool. So, wait, does this mean that gaming is better on Linux, on a Mac?

I've been gaming on Linux since Warcraft 3 days.

Wine is wonderful and with Valve's help it only got better.

But why would gaming on a mac be better? Maybe one day, but for now:

FTA: "While many games are playable, newer AAA titles don’t hit 60fps yet."

Post reply on HN