A few years ago, the idea of running PC games on a Mac, in Linux, or on Arm processors would have been laughable. But the developers behind Asahi Linux—the independent project that is getting Linux working on Apple Silicon Macs—have managed to do all three of these things at once.

Asahi Linux, the main project for porting Linux to M1 and M2 Mac computers, has announced tools for a much improved gaming experience. The toolkit leverages x86 emulation and Windows compatibility to make many games playable, and it could benefit other ARM desktops too.

Asahi Linux is an ambitious project aimed at bringing a "polished" Linux experience to Apple Silicon Macs. The system was created by Hector Martin, known as

If you're running Asahi Linux and want to game on your M-series Mac, then there's good news, but you'll probably want to play games literally in any other way until it is more streamlined — if then.

Compared to PCs, gaming on Apple Macs is somewhat of an understated affair, mostly due to the much smaller catalogue of Mac-compatible games. However, one software is aiming to make that a thing of the past by combining a multitude of emulators and application translators into a single operating system called Fedora Ashahi Remix.

Apple users can already play Windows AAA games on their M-Series Macs thanks to Asahi Linux and its translation layers.

The Fedora Asahi Remix GNU/Linux distribution is now shipping with alpha versions of OpenGL, OpenCL, and Vulkan graphics drivers that allow you to play some games on Macs with M1 or M2 series processors. But there are a few things to keep in mind.

It's astonishing to imagine the technical wizardry involved in Asahi Linux, running on Apple's own publicly undocumented and unsupported silicon. That you can now play AAA Windows games on it is mindblowing: Windows/DirectX on top of Linux/Vulkan on top of ARM Mac/Metal.