paying Microsoft for an operating system

To be fair, I haven't paid Microsoft for my OS...ever. And it's not even piracy.

I got a licence for free through my university when I was in uni. And Microsoft seemed happy to let me keep using it and even upgrading it. I started on Windows 8, upgraded for free to Windows 10. If my PC didn't have a processor that seemingly arbitrarily they decided can't run Windows 11, I could be on that today.

A bit of a guess, but it might be related to software cafés. They are a lot more common in the east.

Since multiple people can log into the same computer, it might over count them. They are also likely exclusively windows machines.

~~I think, like the rest of the world, we try to go away from US software. Windows is the big one, and China would like to go open source.

They do that because it's the strongest weapon against capitalism in the US. That country is nothing if they cant monetize on everything.~~

EDIT: I'm an idiot. Didnt read the article, but I did now. Just pass my stupid comment.

Holy shit, you're the John Linux?

I feel like I'm part of the minority when I say I'm highly excited for things like M5, APUs, smaller power efficient machines that barely draw power while doing boring work tasks yet can handle proper gaming loads (waiting for the last part still).

As soon as one of these checks all my boxes I'm selling my massive PC for it.

Ah, but no-one would question Mac support when you're developing new software. If you can support Mac, which is certified UNIX, then the jump to supporting Linux isn't all that much extra, and we can prove there's a growing install base.

Started the ball rolling, and it just keeps going faster.

A decade ago things were looking really positive for the future of Mac gaming. It felt like more and more games were coming out supporting it. I'm not sure if their transition away from Intel has hindered it, or if it's something else, but it definitely seems to have stalled.

Plus, the move to Apple Silicon has killed the back-up option of Bootcamp. Or I assume it has, I've not been a Mac user since before the transition, when my ageing MBP died and I just found I didn't need any laptop to replace it.

I have every OS and tons of computers. I used my m4 MacBook Air when I went to the hospital because the battery life is eternal and the speakers are uncomfortably good for something so small. I did play some games on it, and they ran incredibly for such a crazy small machine.

Alas.. the library that worked… SO SMALL! So many games are Windows/Linux only. I’d love to see that change, but luckily for me, that’s the only time I ever cared to try games on my MacBook.

There's only three players. It's more like the second Piston Honda.

show fastfetch or get out da here! 😂

I tried Crossover and it kinda sucks.

WDYM? It's Wine like Wine. With a GUI similar to PlayOnLinux and such.

I suspect Steam lacking Proton is the main reason you don't like it. That's easy to get used to, yes.

That might be, eh, sort of a business agreement between Valve and Codeweavers, the latter play a significant role in upstream Wine's development after all. And Crossover is their paid product.

No, there’s no way to easily install Windows on Apple Silicon like back in the days of Bootcamp on Intel. If there’s no native macOS version of a game, you have to use translation layers like you would on Linux - either Wine or Apple’s own Game Porting Toolkit.

There’s also no support for 32-bit apps any more, so many older games with native macOS releases don’t work anymore either.

That said, when I looked through my Steam & GOG libraries on Mac I was surprised at how many games do apparently run natively. Far more than I expected. But it’s just a curiosity really - if I want to play a game I’ll use my PC.

I recently got my custom game engine running on an M4 Macbook, and it was definitely a pain. Using MoltenVK to translate the API works, but there's a bunch of device features that are missing still I had to work around.

Off the top of my head it's missing drawIndirectCount, linePolygonMode, and the ability to set line thickness above 1 px, which are Vulkan 1.2 features. I also had to do some tweaking since several device limits are lower (can only reference ~500 textures at once instead of 64k like most systems)

this, if apple wants to be serious they have to support vulkan.