It’s fair to say that the new M1 Macs are surprising everyone since their release last week.
Benchmarks are repeatedly coming out with scores that are rivalling even this year’s iMac models, a model that isn’t even on M1 as yet.
However, a big part of this transition that users are anxious about, are games. With the M1 running on ARM and not x86 architecture, users are worried that games from the past will refuse to run.
Thankfully, Apple and some savvy users have prepared for this.
A Rosetta Spreadsheet
First of all, Apple have ‘Rosetta 2’, which is their utility that can emulate, or translate an x86 app, to run on an M1 Mac. This means that apps that aren’t native to the M1 chip, can still run thanks to this, and this also extends to games.
Right now, it’s difficult to tell which games can run unless you run it yourself. But thanks to Thomas Schranz, he’s been able to collate a spreadsheet that lists hundreds of games already in how they run on the M1 chip.
So far there’s over 220 entries on which games run well on these new Macs, from the resolution to even the type of graphics API they run on.
It’s an impressive sheet, with over 40 people consistently on the sheet, adding and editing entries based on users’ experiences.
READ MORE: How to connect your DualSense to a Mac.
M1 to the Future
The Macs are at an interesting point, and so to is the iPad. Both run the same ARM chip from Apple, but with different names, but iPad applications can run natively on an M1 Mac.
However, it raises the question as to when there’s M1-native games on the Mac. In theory, this also means that they will be able to be played on iPad, as its the same architecture. There’s been no confirmation as yet, but it would be good to see desktop-quality games in the form of ‘Fallen Order’, ‘BioShock’ and many more come to iPad if they come to the M1 Macs first.
Games are admittedly small-potatoes for Apple if it isn’t on their App Store, or as part of their ‘Apple Arcade’ package, but to see ‘Half Life 2’ or even ‘Steam’ be converted to M1 would be a great step.
As the sheet shows, even Rocket League is working through ‘Rosetta 2’, so it will be interesting to see if game developers decide to bring games, previous and upcoming, to the M1 Macs and iPads in unison.
READ MORE: M1 Benchmarks prove just how much more powerful they are over Intel.
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