Metal Developer Tools on Windows Offer New Gaming Opportunities

by

Game developers are now able to more easily develop games for Apple devices using Windows machines, thanks to a new set of Metal developer tools released by Apple (via Reddit).

metal og

Apple quietly released a set of Metal Developer Tools for Windows 10 at WWDC this year, which enables Metal Shading Language (MSL) compilation on Windows into Metal Library Objects targeting Apple platforms. This means that game production teams may now use PCs to compile games developed on Windows for macOS and other Apple operating systems.

Many game development studios have established game or graphics asset production pipelines that use the Microsoft Windows infrastructure. One of the key final steps in the asset creation process is compiling the graphics and compute shaders for inclusion in the game.

Since Apple is transitioning the Mac to custom silicon, developers that bring their games to Metal will be able to run them on iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and macOS. Apple's API automatically translates all inputs to whatever the available input method may be, such as touch, controller, or keyboard and mouse. Developers targeting the Apple platform can now develop for iPad, iPhone, Mac, and Apple TV simultaneously. This may make the Apple platform more attractive to game developers as they will have access to a far larger market share than on macOS or iOS alone.

Although it is not possible to develop games for Apple devices on Windows entirely, since a Mac is still needed to sign software and for testing, the availability of gaming-oriented Apple developer tools for Windows marks a significant step in gaming on Apple devices.

As Apple moves the Mac to custom silicon, where it will no longer support Boot Camp, it is interesting that Apple is releasing developer tools specifically for gaming with regards to Windows. Seeing that these new developer tools allow Windows games to be compiled into Metal for Apple platforms, rather than being completely rebuilt, it should now be easier for developers to port native PC games and AAA titles to the Mac.

Update: Max Tech also has a good video covering the topic:

Tags: Mac Gaming, Metal

Popular Stories

ios 26 1 slide to stop

iOS 26.1 Brings Back 2007 Feature in New Way

Friday October 31, 2025 1:40 pm PDT by
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a small but helpful change for iPhones, and it could prevent you from running late to something important. Specifically, when an alarm goes off in the Clock app, there is a new "slide to stop" control on the screen for turning off the alarm. On previous iOS 26 versions, there is simply a large "stop" button, which could be accidentally tapped. The new ...
Read Full Article • 58 comments
M5 MacBook Pro

Waiting for New Macs? Apple Just Shared Bad News

Friday October 31, 2025 7:32 am PDT by
Apple has just given a strong indication that it will not be releasing any additional new Macs for the remainder of the year. Apple's CFO Kevan Parekh dropped the hint during the company's earnings call on Thursday:On Mac, keep in mind, we expect to face a very difficult compare against the M4 MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac launches in the year-ago quarter.Parekh essentially gave a heads up ...
Read Full Article • 96 comments
iPhone 17 Pro Cosmic Orange

8 Reasons to Wait for Next Year's iPhone 18 Pro

Thursday October 30, 2025 4:42 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max. One thing worth...
Read Full Article • 119 comments
iOS 26

6 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 26.1

Wednesday October 29, 2025 4:22 am PDT by
Apple is about to drop iOS 26.1, the first major point release since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least six notable changes and improvements to look forward to. We've rounded them up below. Apple has already provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 26.1, which means Apple will likely roll out the update to all compatible...
Read Full Article • 62 comments
Apple Foldable Thumb

iPhone Fold: Launch, Pricing, and What to Expect From Apple's Foldable

Friday October 31, 2025 8:52 am PDT by
Apple is expected to launch a new foldable iPhone next year, based on multiple rumors and credible sources. The long-awaited device has been rumored for years now, but signs increasingly suggest that 2026 could indeed be the year that Apple releases its first foldable device. Below, we've collated an updated set of key details that have been leaked about Apple's foldable iPhone so far. Ove...
Read Full Article • 79 comments
Coffee Burgundy and Purple iPhone 18 Pro Mock 1

Leaker Outlines Potential New Colors for iPhone 18 Pro

Friday October 31, 2025 8:28 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone 18 Pro models could be available in new rich and warm color option, according to a known leaker. The Weibo user known as "Instant Digital" today suggested that next-year's iPhone 18 Pro models will be available in at least one of the following color options: Coffee, purple, and burgundy. The iPhone XR, iPhone 11, iPhone 12, iPhone 14, and iPhone 14 Pro were all available in ...
Read Full Article • 133 comments
apple tv hd

Apple Launched Its Big New Vision for TV 10 Years Ago Today

Thursday October 30, 2025 8:58 am PDT by
Apple launched the Apple TV HD, the Siri Remote, tvOS, and their accompanying App Store a decade ago today, marking a major overhaul of the device. The new vision for the Apple TV was unveiled on September 9, 2015 during Apple's "Hey Siri" event in San Francisco, where CEO Tim Cook introduced the device with the statement, "The future of TV is apps." The announcement represented a major...
Read Full Article • 87 comments
iOS 26

Apple This November: iOS 26.2 Beta, Rumored New Products, and More

Thursday October 30, 2025 12:42 pm PDT by
Tomorrow is Halloween, and then November is upon us. Below, we outline what to expect from Apple next month, as the slower holiday season approaches. Apple is expected to kick off November by releasing iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, macOS 26.1, watchOS 26.1, tvOS 26.1, and visionOS 26.1. With beta testing now wrapped up, the updates will likely be released this Monday, November 3 or Tuesday,...
Read Full Article • 18 comments
iOS 26

iOS 26.1 Coming Soon: New Features for Your iPhone and Release Date

Monday October 27, 2025 7:55 am PDT by
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a handful of new features and changes for iPhones, including a toggle for changing the appearance of the Liquid Glass design, "slide to stop" for alarms in the Clock app, and more. Below, we outline key details about iOS 26.1. Release Date Given that Apple has yet to seed an iOS 26.1 Release Candidate, which is typically the final beta version, the...
Read Full Article
iOS 18 Siri Personal Context

Apple CEO Tim Cook Says Revamped Siri on Track to Launch Next Year

Thursday October 30, 2025 1:50 pm PDT by
Apple CEO Tim Cook today said that a more personalized version of Siri remains on track to launch at some point next year, with the new set of features expected to debut on the iPhone as part of iOS 26.4 in March or April. "We're also excited for a more personalized Siri," said Cook, on Apple's earnings call for the third quarter of the 2025 calendar year. "We're making good progress on it,...
Read Full Article • 79 comments

Top Rated Comments

mi7chy Avatar
mi7chy
69 months ago
Why not adopt industry standard Vulkan ('https://www.khronos.org/vulkan/') instead of making developers learn another API?
Score: 31 Votes (Like | Disagree)
robinp Avatar
robinp
69 months ago
Apple game console incoming? All that controller / keyboard support. Apple silicon with GPUs surely competing / surpassing the current generation consoles. Seems kind of inevitable that the Apple TV becomes a serious gaming platform.
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mingistech Avatar
mingistech
69 months ago

Why not adopt industry standard Vulkan ('https://www.khronos.org/vulkan/') instead of making developers learn another API?
Metal provides a 10 times increase in draw calls compared to OpenGL ES 3,1 while Vulkan provides a 3.5 times increase in draw calls compared to OpenGL ES 3,1 ('http://www.androidauthority.com/opengl-vs-vulkan-performance-706408/').

Essentially Metal is faster.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
topdrawer Avatar
topdrawer
69 months ago

Why not adopt industry standard Vulkan ('https://www.khronos.org/vulkan/') instead of making developers learn another API?
why not adopt C# instead of swift? why move to sillicon? why be anything other than a PC? plus lazy game developers don't need to learn another anything. most use unity or unreal which spits out metal games automagically. most will never make or touch custom shaders
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Merode Avatar
Merode
69 months ago
If you've developed anything with low level graphics API, you'll know compiling shaders is just tiny piece of whole story. Without full Metal support for Windows or Linux these tools will be useless.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Merode Avatar
Merode
69 months ago

Metal provides a 10 times increase in draw calls compared to OpenGL ES 3,1 while Vulkan provides a 3.5 times increase in draw calls compared to OpenGL ES 3,1 ('http://www.androidauthority.com/opengl-vs-vulkan-performance-706408/').

Essentially Metal is faster.
You know OpenGL is a standard and it is up to each developer/manufacturer to implement it? That's why a lot of games that have native macOS clients perform much worse on macOS than in Boot Camp. Sometimes Windows (Boot Camp) client is even up to twice as fast (FPS).

What I'm getting at - if Apple is comparing Metal to its own OpenGL implementation then of course it's going to be A LOT faster. You know why? Because Apple's implementation of OpenGL was lackluster since its conception. That's why this comparison is the way it is - Vulkan is compared to OpenGL on Android. It's not apples to apples comparison.

In essence Vulkan, Metal and DirectX 12 should perform equally as good because they function very similarly. Vulkan has richer feature set than Metal at the moment but Metal is catching up quickly. However in reality Metal performance leaves much to be desired. There's no way to compare those two APIs fairly because there's no Vulkan for macOS (MoltenVK is just a wrapper around Metal). However there are games with native clients on macOS that use Metal renderer (World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2) and in Boot Camp they still perform much better on DirectX (11 and 12).

I like Apple but let's be honest for a minute. Their graphics performance was lackluster for decades now and it's not going to change overnight. They no longer compare themselves to PCs like in 90's and early 00's. They compare their devices to previous generations of their devices.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Read All Comments