Latest Asahi Linux Brings AAA Windows Games to Apple M1 MacBooks With Intricate Graphics Driver and Translation Stack

[Cpt.Jank]

While Apple laptops have never really been the first stop for PC gaming, Linux is slowly shaping up to be an excellent gaming platform, largely thanks to open-source development efforts as well as work from the likes of AMD and NVIDIA, who have both put significant work into their respective Linux drivers in recent years. This makes efforts like the Asahi Linux Project all the more intriguing. Asahi Linux is a project that aims to bring Linux to Apple Silicon Macs—a task that has proven rather difficult, thanks to the intricacies of developing a bespoke GPU driver for Apple's custom ARM GPUs. In a recent blog post, the graphics developer behind the Asahi Linux Project showed off a number of AAA games, albeit older titles, running on an Apple M1 processor on the latest Asahi Linux build.

To run the games on Apple Silicon, Asahi Linux uses a "game playing toolkit," which relies on a number of custom graphics drivers and emulators, including tools from Valve's Proton translation layer, which ironically was also the foundation for Apple's Game Porting Toolkit. Asahi uses FEX to emulate x86 on ARM, Wine as a translation layer for Windows apps, and DXVK and vkd3d-proton for DirectX-Vulkan translation. In the blog post, the Asahi developer claims that the alpha is capable of running games like Control, The Witcher 3, and Cyberpunk 2077 at playable frame rates. Unfortunately, 60 FPS is not yet attainable in the majority of new high-fidelity games, there are a number of indie titles that run quite well on Asahi Linux, including Hollow Knight, Ghostrunner, and Portal 2.



Amusingly, the custom driver used by Asahi Linux is the only driver currently available for Apple Silicon that conforms to OpenGL, OpenCL, and Vulkan APIs. Gaming, of course, isn't the only focus for Asahi Linux, and the team has already started implementing general purpose x86 emulation to Asahi Linux for more generalist and workstation workloads. Asahi Linux is based on Fedora 40, and ships by default with KDE Plasma as the desktop environment, and it has support for all manner of Mac computers with M1 through M2 Pro and M2 Max SoCs, with varying degrees of hardware support. The distribution is freely available to download on the Asahi Linux homepage for anyone wanting to try it out—be sure to check out the support matrix to know what hardware is and isn't supported, since it is still an alpha, and there may be issues with audio, certain ports, and features like Touch ID.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[GoldenX]

The work the Asahi team is doing is priceless.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

The work the Asahi team is doing is priceless.

And the fact that Apple doesn’t lock down the Mac platform. They get some flack for mobile OSes being locked down, but the Mac platform and macOS do allow for projects like this. I wonder if any Apple programmers are quietly contributing to the project.

 

[Vya Domus]

And the fact that Apple doesn’t lock down the Mac platform.

Apple absolutely loathes the idea of non Apple software on their hardware, that's why there is no support for things like OpenGL or Vulkan in the first place, they replaced as much industry standard software from their systems as they could, it's pretty clear that they do want to lock down the mac platform and sooner or later they'll make it impossible to install other OSs as well, it's inevitable.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Apple absolutely loathes the idea of non Apple software on their hardware, that's why there is no support for things like OpenGL or Vulkan in the first place, they replaced as much industry standard software from their systems as they could, it's pretty clear that they do want to lock down the mac platform and sooner or later they'll make it impossible to install other OSs as well, it's inevitable.

I don't know how you can make that claim, considering they haven't stopped you from installing another OS on a Mac since at least 2006. It's actually even possible to install Linux on old PowerPC Macs, but back then Linux was far more difficult to get started and installed on any platform. iOS devices have never been open to tinkering, but Macs have been for a long, long time. Yes, they don't use OpenGL and Vulkan on macOS, but they made that move over 4 years ago, and that has done nothing to the openness of the Mac to other OSes. This Linux project has been going on since the launch of M1 in 2020, and Apple hasn't stopped a thing. If they indeed "loathed" the idea, I have no doubts that they could have easily killed this project 4 years ago when Asahi started. Apple has also said that they won't stop MS from bringing WOA over, but MS hasn't made a move, and they don't sell WOA as a standalone product.

It's also interesting how Apple has never formally gone after hackintoshes either. They don't make things easier, but they haven't taken any steps to stop that either. I've never heard of them going after a Hackintosher. The only time they've jumped in legally is when someone tries to turn it into a formal business.

 

[Nanochip]

This is what Apple itself should’ve done but no they don’t do that.

 

[Caring1]

Asahi Brewery? It's a Japanese Beer.

 

[Vya Domus]

If they indeed "loathed" the idea, I have no doubts that they could have easily killed this project 4 years ago when Asahi started.

It's also interesting how Apple has never formally gone after hackintoshes either. They don't make things easier, but they haven't taken any steps to stop that either. I've never heard of them going after a Hackintosher. The only time they've jumped in legally is when someone tries to turn it into a formal business.

macOS has an established presence with some professionals/academics, completely locking it down would drive those people away, however macOS is still a minuscule fraction of total systems and so Apple has no interest in killing off this small but loyal customer base. Should that ever change they will put the lock on macOS make no mistake about it, complete control over software is Apple's signature strategy.

You're just refusing to accept the facts if you think Apple isn't slowly but surely locking everything down, macs had far wider support for both software and hardware in the past. Think about this, you have to install a totally different OS or slow buggy translation layers if you want to use industry standard software, that's pretty much the most draconian measure to prevent people from using your products in ways you don't want them to while keeping the excuse of "hey you can still totally do this if you want to".

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

macOS has an established presence with some professionals/academics, completely locking it down would drive those people away, however macOS is still a minuscule fraction of total systems and so Apple has no interest in killing off this small but loyal customer base. Should that ever change they will put the lock on macOS make no mistake about it, complete control over software is Apple's signature strategy.

You're just refusing to accept the facts if you think Apple isn't slowly but surely locking everything down, macs had far wider support for both software and hardware in the past. Think about this, you have to install a totally different OS or slow buggy translation layers if you want to use industry standard software, that's pretty much the most draconian measure to prevent people from using your products in ways you don't want them to while keeping the excuse of "hey you can still totally do this if you want to".

I don't know man. You are arguing against a point I'm not making. I never claimed anything about macOS and what it does or doesn't support. My comment is entirely about Apple allowing other OSes on the platform of Mac, which is something they've done dating all the way back to PowerPC. They introduced Metal in 2014, and you could still boot other OSes on a Mac. They brought Metal to Mac in 2017, and you could still boot other OSes on a Mac. In 2020, they changed their entire CPU and GPU architecture, and they still left the ability to boot other OSes on a Mac. We are nearing the 4th generation of Apple silicon, and there are no signs of them removing this ability. Even then, I think you are wrong in your claim. With the losses Apple had in the EU courts, they now have no choice but to open up platforms never open before (iOS). For them to take Mac the other direction would just be an invite to more EU scrutiny. I'm sure I could be wrong, but I don't see any reason why they'd remove this ability when they appear to have intentionally left it in there when they changed architectures. We wouldn't even be in this discussion if Apple had killed this ability with the AS rollout.