GeForce Now adds Apple Silicon support, making it sort of possible to game on a Mac

Enlarge (credit: Nvidia)

Nvidia released version 2.0.40 of its GeForce Now game-streaming app earlier this week, and among its new features is native support for newer Apple Silicon Macs.

Like most Intel-only Mac apps, GeForce Now could run on Apple Silicon Macs using the Rosetta 2 compatibility layer. Nvidia says that adding native support for Apple Silicon will reduce the app's power consumption and startup time and lead to an "overall elevated experience," though it notably doesn't mention gameplay factors like streaming quality or input latency.

Apple Silicon Macs from the M1 to the M1 Ultra all have reasonably powerful GPUs compared to similarly priced and specced PCs, but so far, that hasn't led to an influx of AAA PC titles on the platform. This is partly because Windows enjoys a higher usage share than macOS and is thus a bigger target for game developers. And on the software side, Apple focuses its energy on its own proprietary Metal graphics API rather than supporting the open Vulkan API or modern versions of OpenGL.

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