The developers behind Asahi Linux have achieved what was once considered impossible – running PC games on Mac, Linux, and ARM processors simultaneously.
As explained by Asahi Linux GPU lead Alyssa Rosenzweig, the success of this project hinges on a combination of the FEX project, which translates x86 CPU code to Arm, the Wine project for running Windows binaries on Linux, and DXVK and Proton projects for translating DirectX 12 API calls into Vulkan API calls.
It also involves the Asahi project’s Vulkanconformant driver for Apple’s graphics hardware.
The games are run inside a virtual machine to bridge the gap caused by different memory addressing systems used by Apple Silicon and x86 systems — Apple uses 16 KB memory pages, while x86 systems use 4 KB pages.
This virtual machine approach resolves memory-addressing issues commonly faced by Arm Linux distributions.
Screenshots showcased by Rosenzweig include popular games like Control, Fallout 4,
The Witcher 3, Ghostrunner, Cyberpunk 2077, Portal 2, and Hollow Knight.
Although most of these games do not yet achieve 60 frames per second, Rosenzweig emphasizes that “correctness comes first, performance improves next.”
The work on Asahi’s Vulkan and OpenGL drivers stands out, especially since Apple’s own macOS graphics drivers do not support most of these APIs.Apple’s OpenGL support has stagnated at version 4.1 since 2013.
Rosenzweig’s progress, including releasing a Vulkan 1.3-conformant driver and subsequent support extensions for the DXVK translation layer, marks a significant advancement. Additionally, the Asahi driver has extended support to OpenCL 3.0.
The new driver and game compatibility are available in alpha through Fedora Asahi Remix distributions, with a 1.0 release planned.
The software supports M1- and M2-series Macs but has not yet been extended to M3 systems.
Most games will require 16GB of RAM due to emulation overhead.
Despite these caveats, the ability to run x86 Windows PC games on Arm Linux Macs is a significant technical achievement, highlighting the progress of Linux and these translation layers.