Intel Mac, DirectX 12, and GPTK

by Rian

Apple Silicon is more than a mere brand name for Apple branded chips. It’s now a platform that is synonymous with every tools that come with it. This, in turns, has a side effect of “killing off” Windows compatibility softwares, for the lack of more broader term, on Intel Macs. Not that it doesn’t have a trump card in its sleeves.

Frostpunk 2 is on 72h early release, and the game runs only on DirectX 12. I believe this might be the first encounter I’ve had where a game with native Mac support run solely on DirectX 12. So I don’t know what 11bit studio has pulled to make it run on Apple Silicon, but one thing I do know is this —Intel Mac is officially not supported. The irony is in the details. Intel Mac Pro is currently the only Mac out there that supports dGPU or eGPU. While Apple pushed the boundaries on the power efficiency of the chip, the overall throughput of the chip itself, especially with the raw graphics processing power, is not always coming out on top, the price tag for non-modular design of Apple Silicon is an added insult to the injury.

Intel Macs do have a trick —I believe we’ve all seen the blatant foreshadowing— and that is the Bootcamp. Bootcamp in Apple Silicon era is non-existent. It’s not dead yet; it comes pre-installed on Apple Silicon Mac, as far as I am aware. My M2 MacBook Air has preinstalled Bootcamp that hasn’t seen the light of the day. It might be possible to install Linux distro natively on Apple Silicon Macs, but let’s not get distracted. The Mac setup with most powerful GPU currently available is somehow not on the list, not to mention developers are quickly abandoning the Intel boat.

What’s surprising is that on Apple Silicon side, DirectX 12 (released in 2015!) is finally supported via CrossOver as of yesteryear, with other solutions possibly coming later down the line. Perhaps we’d see Parallels supporting DirectX 12, and VMware, —VMware seems to be late in game as of late— but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. On Apple Silicon side, CrossOver has DirectX 12 support only for Apple Silicon, —possibly due to GPTK limitation— whereas on Intel Mac side, DirectX 12 is only available on Bootcamp. Conventional wisdom in certain community says more powerful machine gets better support, but the results say more popular machine gets better support.

The end of Intel Mac era is already announced. In fact, I don’t even know what lies before MPX modules and eGPU market Apple so craved with the Intel Macs. What intrigues me as a Mac user and a gamer is not how beefier Apple Silicon GPU will become, but rather it will finally support dGPU or eGPU so many people are asking for it. As the saying goes, let the experts do their magic.