Games are technically run inside a virtual machine because of differences in how Apple Silicon and x86 systems address memory—Apple’s systems use 16 KB memory pages, while x86 systems use 4 KB pages, something that causes issues for Asahi and some other Arm Linux distros on a regular basis and a gap that the VM bridges.
Rosenzweig’s post shows off screenshots of Control, Fallout 4, The Witcher 3, Ghostrunner, Cyberpunk 2077, Portal 2, and Hollow Knight, though as she notes, most of these games won’t run at anywhere near 60 frames per second yet.
“Correctness comes first. Performance improves next,” she writes.
I said it a while ago and it’s getting much closer now: Linux will become the OS for people who want to game on a Mac. With all the work going into this, hopefully the devs are getting nice donations. They seem to be doing a better job than Malus at getting games to run.
