Mac – OfdmFORUM

Apple’s new Proton-like tool can operate Windows online games on a Mac

June 19, 2023 Audrey

If you are hoping to see a lot more Home windows online games on Mac then those dreams might lastly arrive accurate quickly. Apple has dropped some huge news for game builders at its yearly Around the globe Builders Meeting (WWDC) this week, creating it far less complicated and faster to port Home windows game titles to Mac thanks to a Proton-like surroundings that can translate and run the most recent DirectX 12 Home windows video games on macOS.

Apple has designed a new Game Porting Toolkit that is related to the perform Valve has completed with Proton and the Steam Deck. It is powered by resource code from CrossOver, a Wine-primarily based option for running Home windows online games on macOS. Apple’s software will promptly translate Home windows games to run on macOS, permitting developers to start an unmodified edition of a Windows video game on a Mac and see how well it runs prior to entirely porting a video game.

Mac gaming has been a extensive managing meme between the Computer system gaming neighborhood, irrespective of Resident Evil Village and No Man’s Sky ports being some unusual the latest exceptions to macOS gaming remaining mostly dismissed.

“The new Activity Porting Toolkit provides an emulation environment to operate your existing unmodified Windows game and you can use it to rapidly realize the graphics attribute utilization and efficiency probable of your recreation when running on a Mac,” clarifies Aiswariya Sreenivassan, an engineering undertaking manager for GPUs and graphics at Apple, in a WWDC session previously this 7 days.

The Match Porting Toolkit can just operate Home windows online games on macOS.

Graphic: Apple

This Activity Porting Toolkit even supports DirectX 12 games like The Medium, with Sreenivassan demonstrating jogging the sport by way of Apple’s translation layer. A great deal like how Wine and Proton merge to generate a computer software layer to translate Home windows API phone calls to Linux, Apple is carrying out some thing very similar in this article to convert these Home windows API phone calls to its Metallic API.

Apple’s new Sport Porting Toolkit interprets Intel-based x86 instructions and Windows APIs to Apple Silicon instead. APIs similar to keyboard, mouse, controller input, audio playback, networking, the file technique, and Immediate3D are all translated to the corresponding APIs in macOS.

The final result is Windows games functioning on macOS with no any porting or modification. Apple claims this is extra for evaluating games appropriate now in advance of they are ported across to macOS, but there is very little halting macOS users from putting in this Recreation Porting Toolkit and making an attempt games out.

Apple’s Video game Porting Toolkit allows builders instantaneously run DirectX 12 Windows game titles on macOS.

Picture: Apple

The significant challenge will be accurately how games run in this ecosystem. Most will not be optimized by this instrument and there are certain to be performance difficulties and bugs right up until builders make their personal ports. Reddit customers have

Mac mini M2 review: Apple’s cheaper, tiny but mighty computer | Apple

February 14, 2023 Audrey

Apple’s cheapest desktop computer has had a price cut and a power upgrade – making it one of the smallest, cheapest and most adaptable Macs yet.

The Mac mini starts at £649 ($599/A$999) – £50 less than the 2020 model – and has Apple’s latest M2 or M2 Pro chips as used in the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro to great effect.

The tiny aluminium box is about the size of a hardback book, measuring just under 20cm each side and less than 4cm thick. It is easy to fit just about anywhere: on a desk, mounted under one, in a TV cabinet, on the back of the monitor, stuck to a wall – wherever you can reach with a power cable.

The back of the Mac mini M2 Pro showing various ports. — The power button is on the back. It has a small speaker for basic sounds, but no microphones or cameras. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

Like a normal desktop PC you simply plug the Mac mini into a screen, keyboard and mouse, all of which can be bought with it at great expense – or you can use your existing gear. I connected an Asus 4K monitor and Logitech Bluetooth mouse and keyboard to the mini to set it up, using them during the length of the review without issue.

It runs macOS 13.2 Ventura like all recent Macs and has the same screen-sharing and proximity features as the MacBook laptops. That means you can use a recent iPad as a second screen, use the attached mouse and keyboard to control an iPad or other Mac and use an iPhone as a wireless webcam, which works really well.

Specifications

Processor: Apple M2 or M2 Pro
RAM: 8GB, 16GB, 24GB or 32GB
Storage: 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB or 8TB SSD
Operating system: macOS 13.2 Ventura
Connectivity: wifi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, 2x USB-A, 2 or 4x USB 4/Thunderbolt 4, HDMI 2.1, Ethernet, headphones
Dimensions: 197mm x 197mm x 35.8mm
Weight: 1.18kg to 1.28kg

M2 power and efficiency

The bottom of the Mac mini M2. — A plastic foot sticks out of the base to slightly lift the mini’s aluminium frame. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

The new M2 and M2 Pro chips offer decent performance gains on the previous M1 and M1 Pro chips, with a 10% to 20% improvement in CPU speed and up to 25% faster graphics. That puts them at the top of the pile alongside some of Intel and AMD’s latest top chips, but at much lower power consumption, and a giant leap over previous Intel-powered Macs.

With that level of performance, the Mac mini has become not just a small Apple computer but one of its more powerful and adaptable options. The M2 version will be more than enough for most general computing tasks, with the more expensive M2 Pro option and up to 32GB of RAM available for those who need more power. It sits below the Mac Studio, which is a beefed up version of the mini for those who need a lot more graphics or computing power.

The beauty

How to check out if anyone is spying on your personal computer (Personal computer or Mac)

May 1, 2022 Audrey

We all know the experience. You might be scrolling by your cell phone, and there it is. An ad that you can tie back again to a current dialogue with a mate. Tap or simply click in this article for very simple methods to make advertisers end tracking you.

Undesirable habits could spill even a lot more of your secrets. If you go the straightforward route and use your Fb or Google account to log in to other web pages and apps, knock it off. Faucet or click listed here to see how much of your knowledge Big Tech and some others are acquiring freely.

It’s possible it’s not advertisers or Significant Tech tracking. Here’s a look at to see if there is a thing pretty sinister going on – a copy of all the things you do on your Pc or Mac is currently being collected and despatched to who is familiar with who.

1. Check out the Activity Supervisor or Exercise Keep track of

Malware will come in various types that often behave in another way. Some are unattainable to overlook – like ransomware – and other individuals retain a low profile.

Spyware is subtle in comparison to other types of malware. It hides in your process, trying to keep track of just about every password you type, every video contact you make and just about every electronic mail you send out.

Although these pieces of application are sneaky, they do go away guiding breadcrumbs. Your initial end is the Process Manager if you are on a Windows Pc or your Action Keep an eye on on a Mac. Both of those give you an overview of almost everything happening on your machine.

Computer system consumers: Observe these ways

• Open up the Job Manager by hitting Ctrl + Shift + Esc. Under the Procedures tab, you are going to see the apps and track record processes working on your Personal computer.

Appear by means of the listing. If you see a identify you don’t realize, do a lookup to see what turns up. From time to time, these plans and background procedures are authentic and of no issue, even if you really do not know the title at 1st glance.

To close out an app or procedure, ideal-simply click and strike Stop activity.

Mac people: Adhere to these steps

• To open up the Action Watch, hit Command + Spacebar to open Highlight Search. Then, variety Activity Watch and push Enter. Look at around the record for anything at all you do not acknowledge.

To shut out a plan or system, double click on, then hit Quit.

Listen UP: Spyware can be planted by a hacker, a jealous ex, a relative, or even your manager. In this podcast episode, I dive into how “bossware” works and almost everything your workplace may know about you and your tech patterns.

2. Know what to expect

One telltale indication of a malware an infection? Processes

Apple Mac Studio review: finally

March 21, 2022 Audrey

The Mac Studio is the computer everyone wanted the Mac Pro to be.

Apple’s 2019 desktop release was supposed to be the computer that professional Mac users had been waiting for. It was endlessly configurable with powerful Intel processors and AMD graphics chips, and its top-end configuration hovered around $52,000. After the abject failure of the trashcan 2013 Mac Pro, it was poised to be the first Apple machine that could legitimately provide the power that professionals in creative fields — historically, the folks who turn out in droves to buy these Apple machines — really need.

But while it was a gorgeous and powerful computer, it also had some issues. We bought a $16,599 model, and while that wasn’t the most specced-out option, it was one that creative professionals around The Verge and Vox Media felt could handle their heavy editing workloads. We gave that computer to all kinds of artists, producers, and designers. And they didn’t love it. They didn’t feel it was any faster than their years-old setups, and they ran into all the same issues they always did. In particular, not enough software was optimized for that Mac Pro’s approach to high-performance desktop computing, especially when it came to GPUs.

Since then, Apple has committed to making its own Apple Silicon chips, moving away from Intel and AMD. The first line of those chips, the M1 series, has been a smashing success in Mac laptops, the iMac, and the Mac Mini. And now it’s in the new Mac Studio, which comes in configurations with the M1 Max and new M1 Ultra chips. The Studio is Apple’s first professional computer running Apple Silicon, and with it comes a new way of designing chips that makes it easier for apps to access all the performance available.

I’ve, once again, given this device to a host of professionals on The Verge’s team, and the reactions I saw couldn’t be more different from those we saw in 2020. They were impressed. For their workloads, it’s faster than anything they’ve ever used. It’s changed what they can do.

So I’m relieved that I can finally, finally write this in a review: the Mac Studio is the computer professional Mac users have been waiting for.

The Mac Studio is a nice-looking, compact computer. Someone mentioned to me that it looks like two Apple TVs stacked on top of each other, and now I can’t unsee it. You might also see it as a taller Mac Mini — either way, it’s a design Apple fans have seen before.

Like the Mac Mini, the Studio is designed to sit on your desk — it has the exact same footprint, just about twice as tall. It’s not like the Mac Pro that lives on

Here is how to navigate computer system shortcuts amongst Mac and Home windows

December 18, 2021 Audrey

Q: I have been a Mac person for a prolonged time, but have to use Windows for my new position, which helps make it complicated when I try to use shortcuts.

A: Functioning on both the Windows and Mac platforms on a frequent basis has become a great deal extra typical and for all those that use a lot of keyboard shortcuts can be a little bit discouraging.

Not only are keyboard shortcuts somewhat unique, but the keyboards themselves also have some discrepancies that can acquire a bit of obtaining utilised to as nicely.

Command & CTRL

Most shortcuts in the macOS start with the ‘command’ vital, which in the Windows planet is the CTRL important.

For instance, Command+C (copy) in Mac is CTRL+C in Windows Command+A (pick all) is CTRL+A and Command+V (paste) is CRTL+V.

If you can simply shift your intellect concerning the Command & CTRL keys when doing the job with every working procedure, the most frequently applied shortcuts ought to be straightforward to execute.

Home windows Emblem Essential
There are a range of shortcuts that aren’t a simple substitution of the CTRL key for the Command important, as Windows employs the symbol crucial as an alternative of the CTRL essential in quite a few cases.

Here are some of the extra useful shortcuts that start out by pressing the Home windows symbol key:

+L = Lock the Laptop

+D = Display screen or cover the desktop

+A = Open the Action middle

+C = Tells Cortana to start listening (offered you have turned it on in the Setting menu)

+E = Open up the File Explorer (Mac’s Finder equivalent)

+I = Open Settings

+M = Reduce all windows

+P = Opens presentation exhibit method possibilities

+R = Open up Operate dialogue box

+S = Open research

+Change+S = Choose a screenshot of a chosen section of your display screen

+V = Open up the clipboard (offered you have turned on Clipboard history in the Configurations/System menu)

+Shift+V = Cycles by way of notifications

Alt Essential

Windows also can make use of the Alt vital for a lot of helpful shortcuts such as:

+F4 = Close or Exit the existing merchandise, which include Home windows by itself

+Tab = Toggle involving applications

+Esc = Toggle as a result of things in the get that they were opened

+Enter = Display screen qualities for the selected item

+Spacebar = Open up the shortcut menu for the energetic merchandise

Function Keys

The top rated row of keys that are labeled F1-F12 are incredibly diverse in the two operating methods.

Here are some of the most valuable operate keys in Windows:

F1 = Universal Aid Key

F5 = Refresh the current monitor

F11 = Toggle fullscreen manner

A lot of of the operate keys are also utilised in blend with the CTRL, Shift and ALT keys dependent upon the software you are applying.

Discovering New Shortcuts

The are hundreds of shortcuts in Windows that go nicely over and above the