Pretty unlikely as long as Apple refuses to support Vulkan. Even if they did, the whole Proton project is about Valve controlling their own destiny rather than being chained to someone else's platform, and Apple is just another Microsoft in that regard.
As far as I understand, there's actually an intermediate driver on macOS that implements Vulkan on top of Metal, similar to how Proton implements Direct3D on top of Vulkan.
The available low-level API is Metal, and the existing software stack is written for Vulkan, so it makes more sense to implement Vulkan than to write a new Metal backend.
Apple is big enough to not need gaming and their philosophy is to have the most control possible on their ecosystem and to be the most closed possible. For them it makes no sense to encourage steam to be big on mac (except as a way to jumpstart their own system before closing it). And it is especially true now that steam is making machines, so is a direct competitor
I mean, theoretically they could backport the D3DMetal wine driver from the Game Porting Toolkit. Also I remember there was some early preliminary work done on stock wine a few years ago.
Honestly right now there is so much overlapping between all the wine "flavors" and forks available (Stock wine, Crossover, Proton/Proton-GE/Wine-GE, Game Porting Toolkit, winevdm, probably a few more I'm forgetting right now) I'm not entirely sure how many features have been independently implemented already multiple times.
I believe that was part of the original plan for Proton, but with the success of the Steam Deck that got shelved and it moved to a focus purely on Linux.
I don't think it's ever likely to return any time soon, but it'd be cool if it did. Valve seemingly have very little interest in macOS at the moment.
CodeWeavers work closely with Valve and the Wine project to improve compatibility with games, and Apple's own Game Porting Toolkit is based on CodeWeavers work on Wine too. So all the pieces are there in theory.
Proton is just a fork of Wine that also translates from Microsoft's DirectX graphics API to the native graphics API of Linux (Vulcan) so you can run Windows games on Linux.
The new thing Proton is adding is translation from x86 to ARM.
Macs already have Wine, an x86 to ARM translation layer (Rosetta), and an Apple provided translation layer from Microsoft's DirectX to the Mac's native Metal graphics API (D3DMetal) which is integrated into upstream Wine.
I mentioned elsewhere — Right now, using Wine/Crossover is a hassle. Wanting "Proton on Mac" isn't about that specific fork of Wine, it's shorthand for wanting the user experience that Valve gives you on Linux.
But honestly at this point I’m destined to buy a Steam Machine despite having a hefty Mac that could do gaming if only it were possible. Valve have been amazing about open computing and Apple are basically the enemy at this point.
It makes me wonder about what using steam machine for all computing might look like, as the new home of open computing and gaming.
Pretty unlikely as long as Apple refuses to support Vulkan. Even if they did, the whole Proton project is about Valve controlling their own destiny rather than being chained to someone else's platform, and Apple is just another Microsoft in that regard.
> Pretty unlikely as long as Apple refuses to support Vulkan.
You would only translate into Vulcan when running on an OS that uses Vulcan as the native graphics API.
On a Mac, Wine translates directly into Metal.
Valve could implement a separate Metal backend for Proton, what I'm saying is they probably wouldn't want to spend their resources on that.
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As far as I understand, there's actually an intermediate driver on macOS that implements Vulkan on top of Metal, similar to how Proton implements Direct3D on top of Vulkan.
The available low-level API is Metal, and the existing software stack is written for Vulkan, so it makes more sense to implement Vulkan than to write a new Metal backend.
https://www.lunarg.com/lunarg-at-xdc-2025-kosmickrisp-overvi...
Wouldn't it be Apple's benefit to get more gaming on MacOS? Their goals might align with Steam.
Apple's native gaming story has been similar failure as their AI and Siri ventures. Time to fix it.
Valve seems to break free form depending on someone else’s walled garden.
Apple seeks to builds its own walled garden.
Their interests do not align. Apple doesn’t want portable software on their platform, they want exclusive software.
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Apple is big enough to not need gaming and their philosophy is to have the most control possible on their ecosystem and to be the most closed possible. For them it makes no sense to encourage steam to be big on mac (except as a way to jumpstart their own system before closing it). And it is especially true now that steam is making machines, so is a direct competitor
DXMT has been advancing very quickly: https://github.com/3Shain/dxmt
True, forgot about that. That said, Apple does have D3DMetal. A man can dream that they eventually opensource that.
I mean, theoretically they could backport the D3DMetal wine driver from the Game Porting Toolkit. Also I remember there was some early preliminary work done on stock wine a few years ago.
Honestly right now there is so much overlapping between all the wine "flavors" and forks available (Stock wine, Crossover, Proton/Proton-GE/Wine-GE, Game Porting Toolkit, winevdm, probably a few more I'm forgetting right now) I'm not entirely sure how many features have been independently implemented already multiple times.
I believe that was part of the original plan for Proton, but with the success of the Steam Deck that got shelved and it moved to a focus purely on Linux.
I don't think it's ever likely to return any time soon, but it'd be cool if it did. Valve seemingly have very little interest in macOS at the moment.
CodeWeavers work closely with Valve and the Wine project to improve compatibility with games, and Apple's own Game Porting Toolkit is based on CodeWeavers work on Wine too. So all the pieces are there in theory.
Proton is just a fork of Wine that also translates from Microsoft's DirectX graphics API to the native graphics API of Linux (Vulcan) so you can run Windows games on Linux.
The new thing Proton is adding is translation from x86 to ARM.
Macs already have Wine, an x86 to ARM translation layer (Rosetta), and an Apple provided translation layer from Microsoft's DirectX to the Mac's native Metal graphics API (D3DMetal) which is integrated into upstream Wine.
I mentioned elsewhere — Right now, using Wine/Crossover is a hassle. Wanting "Proton on Mac" isn't about that specific fork of Wine, it's shorthand for wanting the user experience that Valve gives you on Linux.
I did catch that the streaming stick for the Valve Frame in the announcement video was plugged into a computer that looked an awful lot like a Mac.
Yes! I rewound the video to double check
But honestly at this point I’m destined to buy a Steam Machine despite having a hefty Mac that could do gaming if only it were possible. Valve have been amazing about open computing and Apple are basically the enemy at this point.
It makes me wonder about what using steam machine for all computing might look like, as the new home of open computing and gaming.
I wonder if the video team uses Mac, and just shot a quick clip with the closest USB port on hand.