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Game Porting Toolkit

From AppleGamingWiki, the wiki about gaming on M1 Apple silicon Macs
Released 6th June, 2023 at WWDC23.
Released 6th June, 2023 at WWDC23.

Game Porting Toolkit is Apple's new translation layer released on 6th June, 2023. Game Porting Toolkit (GPT) combines Wine with Apple's own D3DMetal which supports DirectX 11 and 12[1]. This is less user-friendly method of installing Windows games on Apple Silicon Macs compared to CrossOver or Parallels, however it unlocks the ability to play many DirectX 12 games. A lot more games work using GPTK, however, games that use anti-cheat or aggressive DRMs generally don't work, along with games that require AVX/AVX 2, e.g. The Last of Us Part I.

Toolkit install instructions

Requirements

  • macOS Sonoma should be used, currently it is in beta. You can download the pkg installer from Mr Macintosh blog.
  • macOS Ventura causes large numbers of issues with steamwebhelper.exe crashing so it isn't recommended, use the macOS Sonoma beta.
  • Visit Apple Developer Downloads site, these files are now free to download use for any logged in Apple account.
    • Search for Command Line Tools for Xcode 15 beta and download the dmg file, then install it. *If you have an old version Xcode installed, remove it.
    • Search for Game Porting Toolkit and download it. Open the dmg file and then run the pkg.

Homebrew

Note: if you have ever installed Homebrew before, then it is advised to remove ARM64 Homebrew as this can interfere with this build process. Either use a Homebrew uninstall script or delete the folder /opt/homebrew/bin. If you prefer to keep both ARM64 and x86 versions of brew installed, you may add a "brew-switcher" to your .zshrc file to allow either version to be used depending on the active architecture. You may follow the steps at the end of this section after installing Brew to achieve this.

Open Terminal (search in Spotlight on macOS).

Install Rosetta: 

softwareupdate --install-rosetta

Enter an x86_64 shell to continue the following steps in a Rosetta environment. All subsequent commands should be run within this shell. 

arch -x86_64 zsh

Install the x86_64 version of Homebrew if you don't already have it. 

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Set the path: 

(echo; echo 'eval "$(/usr/local/bin/brew shellenv)"') >> /Users/[your macOS username]/.zprofile
eval "$(/usr/local/bin/brew shellenv)"

Make sure the brew command is on your path: 

which brew

If this command does not print /usr/local/bin/brew, you should use this command: 

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:${PATH}
Optionally retain both ARM64 and x86 versions of Brew

(Optional) If you want to have both ARM64 and x86 versions of Brew installed, begin by editing your .zshrc file: 

nano ~/.zshrc

Scroll down (by using the arrow keys or Control + V) to the bottom of the file, and paste the following script: 

if [ "$(arch)" = "arm64" ]; then
    eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"
else
    eval "$(/usr/local/bin/brew shellenv)"
fi

You may now restart your terminal and use the following command to return to an x86_64 shell: 

arch -x86_64 zsh

Your shell will now select the right installation of Brew, depending on your architecture.

Build

Run this command to download Apple tap: 

brew tap apple/apple http://github.com/apple/homebrew-apple

Install the game-porting-toolkit formula. This formula downloads and compiles several large software projects. How long this takes will depend on the speed of your computer. It can take over 1 hour to complete depending on the speed of your Mac. 

brew -v install apple/apple/game-porting-toolkit

If during installation you see an error such as “Error: game-porting-toolkit: unknown or unsupported macOS version: :dunno”, your version of Homebrew doesn’t have macOS Sonoma support. Update to the latest version of Homebrew and try again. 

brew update brew -v install apple/apple/game-porting-toolkit

Preparing the toolkit

Make sure the Game Porting Toolkit dmg downloaded earlier is mounted at /Volumes/Game Porting Toolkit-1.0. Use this script to copy the Game Porting Toolkit library directory into Wine’s library directory. 

ditto /Volumes/Game\ Porting\ Toolkit-1.0/lib/ `brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit`/lib/

Put the 3 scripts from the Game Porting Toolkit DMG into here /usr/local/bin using this command: 

cp /Volumes/Game\ Porting\ Toolkit*/gameportingtoolkit* /usr/local/bin

Wine prefix

A Wine prefix contains a virtual C: drive, similar to a Bottle in CrossOver. You will install the toolkit and your game into this virtual C: drive. Run the following command to create a new Wine prefix named my-game-prefix in your home directory. This will create a Wine prefix called my-game-prefix but could be renamed to anything. 

WINEPREFIX=~/my-game-prefix `brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit`/bin/wine64 winecfg
  • A “Wine configuration” window should appear on your screen.
  • Change the version of Windows to Windows 10.
  • Choose Apply and then OK to exit winecfg.

If the “Wine configuration” window does not appear, and no new icon appears in the Dock, verify that you have correctly installed the x86_64 version of Homebrew as well as the game-porting-toolkit formula.

Now you are ready to install a launcher or individual Windows games into this Wine prefix, see below.

Steam

Download the Windows version of Steam and place in your Downloads folder.

Install Steam 

gameportingtoolkit ~/my-game-prefix ~/Downloads/SteamSetup.exe

Run Steam 

gameportingtoolkit ~/my-game-prefix 'C:\Program Files (x86)/Steam/steam.exe'

Log into Steam

A common issue is that Steam will present with a blank black window.

Alternate way of launching Steam (after installing): 

MTL_HUD_ENABLED=1 WINEESYNC=1 WINEPREFIX=~/my-game-prefix /usr/local/Cellar/game-porting-toolkit/1.0/bin/wine64 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam.exe'

If this continues then close the Terminal window and then re-open and try again, repeat until the login screen opens. Now you should be able to download and launch Windows games through Steam.

Battle.net

Download the Windows version of Battle.net and place in your Downloads folder.

Make a new Wineprefix for Battle.net, you can choose to use my-game-prefix or change this to anything else. 

WINEPREFIX=~/my-game-prefix `brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit`/bin/wine64 winecfg
  • A “Wine configuration” window should appear on your screen.
  • Change the version of Windows to Windows 10.
  • Choose Apply and then OK to exit winecfg.

If you are running Diablo IV, then you need to run this script to update the Wineprefix to appear as a more recent version of Windows: 

WINEPREFIX=~/my-game-prefix `brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit`/bin/wine64 reg add 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion' /v CurrentBuild /t REG_SZ /d 19042 /f
WINEPREFIX=~/my-game-prefix `brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit`/bin/wine64 reg add 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion' /v CurrentBuildNumber /t REG_SZ /d 19042 /f
WINEPREFIX=~/my-game-prefix `brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit`/bin/wineserver -k

Run Battle.net launcher 

gameportingtoolkit ~/my-game-prefix ~/Downloads/Battle.net-Setup.exe

Be aware that there is an issue launching Battle.net once installed, the only current way to re-login is to 'install' the launcher again.

Start individual game without the launcher using this command: 

arch -x86_64 gameportingtoolkit-no-hud ~/my-game-prefix 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Diablo IV\Diablo IV Launcher.exe'

Epic and GOG.com support with the Heroic Games Launcher

This is particularly useful because as it currently stands, the real Epic Games Launcher fails to install under the Game Porting Toolkit. Heroic supports Epic and GOG.com games.

  • Install the native macOS Heroic Games Launcher or from Homebrew.
  • Open Heroic, and log into your Epic Games and/or GOG.com account.
  • Go to the "Wine Manager" and install a numbered version of Wine, such that it won't auto update- we are going to modify it.
    • At the time of writing this, the newest numbered version of Wine-Crossover is Wine-Crossover-Wine-22.1.0
  • Press the folder icon that appears after installing it to open the directory containing Heroic's Wine installations.
  • Right-click on the version of Wine you just installed and press "Show Package Contents".
  • Open this directory in the Terminal.
    • If you have "OpenInTerminal" this is one button, otherwise press "Show Path Bar" and navigate where it says with "cd".
    • It should be something like cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/heroic/tools/wine/Wine-crossover-wine-22.1.0.
  • cd Contents/MacOS
  • Remove the existing Wine: 
    rm wine
  • Create a symlink to Game Porting Toolkit's Wine:
    • If using Game Porting Toolkit Wineprefix: 
      ln -s `/usr/local/bin/brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit`/bin/wine64 wine
    • If using Whisky: 
      ln -s /Applications/Whisky.app/Contents/Resources/Libraries/Wine/bin/wine64 wine
  • cd ../Resources
  • Remove the existing Wine: 
    rm -rfv wine
  • Create a symlink to Game Porting Toolkit's Wine
    • If using Game Porting Toolkit Wineprefix: 
      ln -s `/usr/local/bin/brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit` wine
    • If using Whisky: 
      ln -s /Applications/Whisky.app/Contents/Resources/Libraries/Wine wine
  • We are now done with Terminal. Install any games you want to try playing.
  • Select the game you want to play, and press the settings button in the top-right.
  • Make sure the version of Wine you just downloaded and modified is selected.
  • Make sure your Game Porting Toolkit Wine Prefix is selected. If you followed Apple's guide this is /Users/you/my-game-prefix.
  • If you Open the "Other" section you can also add any environment variables you want like WINEESYNC=1" and "MTL_HUD_ENABLED=1"
  • Close the settings and try running the game.

Commands

Installing individual exe games: open your Wine prefix’s virtual C: drive in Finder (open ~/my-game-prefix/drive_c) and copy your game into an appropriate subdirectory.

A. Standard launching 

gameportingtoolkit ~/my-game-prefix 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam.exe'

This launches the given Windows game binary with a visible extended Metal Performance HUD and filters logging to output from the Game Porting Toolkit.

B. Launching without a HUD 

gameportingtoolkit-no-hud ~/my-game-prefix 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam.exe'

C. Launching with Wine ESYNC disabled 

gameportingtoolkit-no-esync ~/my-game-prefix 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam.exe'

To enter Winecfg: 

gameportingtoolkit ~/my-game-prefix winecfg

Shortcut

Made by user Omsier.
Made by user Omsier.

You can make a shortcut for Steam for example by using macOS built-in Automator app.

  • Open Automator.
  • Select New Application.
  • In the 2nd column select Run Shell Script.
  • Copy and paste this code into the box:
#!/bin/zsh

export PATH="/usr/local/bin:${PATH}"

arch -x86_64 gameportingtoolkit ~/my-game-prefix 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam.exe'
  • Save the shortcut somewhere e.g. Applications.
  • Above shortcut can be customised to any Wineprefix or game.
  • Add an icon by selecting the shortcut, pressing ⌘ Command+I to Get Info, then dragging and dropping a PNG file onto the top left of the window.

Logging

The provided bin/gameportingtoolkit* scripts can be copied onto your path to facilitate different forms of logging and launching. You can run these scripts from any shell; you don’t need to switch to the Rosetta environment first.

Logging output will appear in the Terminal window in which you launch your game as well as the system log, which can be viewed with the Console app found in Applications ▸ Utilities. Log messages from the Game Porting Toolkit are prefixed with D3DM. By default the gameportingtoolkit* scripts will filter to just the D3DM-prefixed messages.

Troubleshooting

Steam login black screen issue.
Steam login black screen issue.

Steam login black screen

Close the Terminal window and then reopen and retry the command, repeat several times.

Alternate way of launching Steam (after installing): 

MTL_HUD_ENABLED=1 WINEESYNC=1 WINEPREFIX=~/my-game-prefix /usr/local/Cellar/game-porting-toolkit/1.0/bin/wine64 'C:\Program Files (x86)/Steam/steam.exe'

If still not working then try using CrossOver and create a Steam bottle, then login, then redirect this WINEPREFIX to that bottle: 

WINEPREFIX="/Users/[username]/Library/Application Support/CrossOver/Bottles/Steam/"

Steam crashes straight after opening

Disconnect any external monitors.

Battle.net launcher won't re-launch

Re-install the launcher to reopen, no other fix at the moment.

My game won’t run because it thinks the version of Windows is too old. Some games detect specific minimum versions of Windows and need to be updated. Use this script to update your wineprefix with build 19042 which should work for most games e.g. Spider-Man Remastered. 

WINEPREFIX=~/my-game-prefix `brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit`/bin/wine64 reg add 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion' /v CurrentBuild /t REG_SZ /d 19042 /f
WINEPREFIX=~/my-game-prefix `brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit`/bin/wine64 reg add 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion' /v CurrentBuildNumber /t REG_SZ /d 19042 /f
WINEPREFIX=~/my-game-prefix `brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit`/bin/wineserver -k

steamwebhelper.exe crashes

This is caused by Steam being run through macOS Ventura or below, most users should upgrade to macOS Sonoma. You can use the CrossOver workaround to login to Steam but you'll experience constant crashing.

My game won't run and crashes with an invalid instruction

AVX and AVX2 games are not supported by Apple's arm64 chipset.

My game won't run because its anti-cheat or DRM software is incompatible with Wine translation.

Likely there will be no fixes for any games that use anti-cheat, e.g. Easy Anti Cheat. Some games have workarounds e.g. Elden Ring. Other games that use say Denuvo may also be incompatible until that DRM is removed by the game's developer.

My game won’t run because it requires Mono, .NET, or the MSVCRT runtime.

The game porting toolkit’s evaluation environment does not pre-install these runtime support packages. If your game makes use of one of these packages, consider searching for and downloading appropriate installers (.exe or .msi) and installing them to your evaluation environment. Additional runtime installers can be run on your environment by just launching the installer and following its installation instructions: 

WINEPREFIX=~/my-game-prefix `brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit`/bin/wine64 <some-installer.exe>

And .MSI packages can be installed by launching the Windows uninstaller application and choosing to install a downloaded .msi package: 

WINEPREFIX=~/my-game-prefix `brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit`/bin/wine64 uninstaller

Controller issues

Issues may be fixed by enrolling into the Steam beta.

My game looks pixelated and the display resolution is limited

Enable Retina (high resolution) mode: 

WINEPREFIX=~/my-game-prefix `brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit`/bin/wine64 reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Mac Driver' /v RetinaMode /t REG_SZ /d 'Y' /f

Some games will not run with Retina mode enabled. To disable it: 

WINEPREFIX=~/my-game-prefix `brew --prefix game-porting-toolkit`/bin/wine64 reg add 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Mac Driver' /v RetinaMode /t REG_SZ /d 'N' /f

Game compatibility list

Working games:

  • Astroneer
  • Assassins Creed 3 Remastered
  • Batman: Arkham Knight - launches with steam
  • Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
  • Brick Rigs
  • Geshin Impact 3.7 (m2max with 4k 60fps stable)
  • Control (DX12 mode, if downloaded from Heroic, needs to be ran by Terminal)
  • Crysis Remastered
  • Cuphead
  • Cyberpunk 2077
  • Deep Rock Galactic
  • Deceive Inc. - works well if launched without EAC
  • Derail Valley (awesome performance, no missing manuals - in-game objects for train operation - like on CrossOver)
  • Diablo IV [1]
  • Dyson Sphere Program (some objects and main character weren't visible before)
  • Elden Ring
  • Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade (~50 FPS on High settings at 1080p with M1 Pro)
  • Friends vs. Friends
  • God of War (Works somewhat well on M1 Pro (16gb), wouldn't recommend lesser hardware.)
  • Going Medieval
  • Guilty Gear Strive
  • Grand Theft Auto V
  • Green Hell
  • Halo 3 (MCC - No Online due to Easy Anti-Cheat Compatibility) [2]
  • Halo Reach (MCC)
  • HI-Fi RUSH
  • Hogwarts Legacy - launches fine first time but then won't relaunch - can be fixed by deleting ~/my-game-prefix/drive_c/ProgramData/Hogwarts Legacy - these are the files that are created at first launch that prevent relaunching
  • Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix+ - works with Retina mode; DivaModLoader and DivaNoSpy recommended; run Steam with WINEDEBUG=-all WINEESYNC=0 WINEDLLOVERRIDES="dinput8.dll=n,b"; may randomly crash at the title screen: use IntroPatch as a workaround
  • Kena: Bridge of Spirits
  • Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
  • Overwatch 2
  • QUBE 2
  • People Playground
  • Risk of Rain 2 (does not require `-disable-gpu-skinning` like Crossover 22)
  • Scarlet Nexus
  • Sonic Omens
  • Sonic P-06
  • Spider-Man (2018)
  • Spider-Man Miles Morales - requires Windows ver fix
  • SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake
  • StarCraft: Remastered - Game runs fine but opening Option menu the second time will cause game not recognizing any inputs.
  • Tetris Effect: Connected - Game window likes to be uncooperative; really doesn't like retina mode, works otherwise
  • V Rising
  • Warframe - To get installer/launcher working add dwrite (disabled) to library overrides in winecfg

Not working well:

  • Horizon Zero Dawn - slowdown issues
  • Genshin Impact - Launches, but stuck when calling menu using esc

Not working yet:

  • Apex (it will stuck because of anti-cheat)
  • Any games that use the EA Launcher
    • Need for Speed Heat
    • Need for Speed Unbound
    • Tom Clancy's The Division 2
  • Among Us
  • Assassins Creed Odyssey
  • Assassins Creed Valhalla
  • Company of Heroes 3
  • Doom (2016) - "FATAL ERROR: wglCreateContextAttribsARB failed" message on launch
  • F1 20 - Crash on launch (DX11 version running through GPT is slower compared to Crossover 21)
  • F1 21 - Crash on launch
  • F1 22 - Crash on launch ( "Exception": "C0000005 EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION at 0000000141bd8687")
  • Halo Infinite - Crash on launch
  • Hitman 3 - launcher works, crash at 0x0000014136dddd hitman3+0x136dddd: int $3
  • Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (Steam) - Crash on launch
  • Monster Hunter Rise - DX12 Game, it launches but window goes dark after compiling shaders.
  • Monster Hunter World - Black Screen on Launch
  • New World - Game loaded but couldn't connect to server due to Easy Anti Cheat
  • Red Dead Redemption 2
  • Rogue Company - anti-cheat conflict.
  • s&box - crashes right on launch. (it should be DX11)
  • Sea of Thieves - Launches, but the prompt to sign into an xbox live account appears blank and cannot
  • Saints Row IV: Re-Elected - Launches, but crashes when trying to load into game
  • Slime Rancher 2 - Launches, but can't into game from main menu
  • SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated - Crashes when loading
  • Teardown - When trying to launch, gives a error, "The program teardown.exe has encountered a serious problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition - the launcher gives a "The program teardown.exe has encountered a serious problem" message, not allowing us to get into the game
  • theHunter: Call of the Wild - Crash on launch (Unhandled exception: page fault on read access to 0x0000000000000000 in 64-bit code (0x00000140b227f8))
  • All DX9 games (duh, this is dx 11 & 12 only)
    • 30XX - "Failed to create D3D device" -> crash on launch; this is a rare 64-bit DX9 game
    • Black Mesa - Starts to load to main menu at first but then crashes
    • Killing Floor 1 - Crash on launch
    • Left 4 Dead 2 - Black screen -> crash on launch
    • Lego Batman: The Videogame - Black screen -> crash on launch
    • Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heros - Black screen -> crash on launch
    • Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham - Black screen -> crash on launch (You can switch to DX11 but are currently unable to do so since the game will not launch)
    • Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection - "Failed to create d3d9 device" -> crash on launch
    • Sonic Mania - Crash on launch
    • StarCraft II -> "Failed to initialize DirectX" error
    • Star Wars: The Old Republic
    • Battlefield 2 - DirectX installation failed, won't launch, see the error log


References

  1. ↑ Gokhan Avkarogullari: "@yiningkarlli @aras @romainguy…" - Gamedev Mastodon - last accessed on {{{date}}}
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