Software compatibility on the Mac is fine, unless you mean emulating Windows for gaming like the Steam Deck does so well. In that case, I’ve gotten Fallout 4 to work with Whisky, but that’s not a huge accomplishment. I have an M2 Pro Mac mini from 2023 and Fallout 4 came out in 2015. It’s not a great platform for gaming in any case. I play Blue Prince on it and that looks good. Stray, too. Those are newer games, but not particularly demanding. They look okay, but the framerate isn’t good. Xbox (Series X) is a better platform for both.
I’m not discounting or disregarding the Deck, I just haven’t got one so I cannot say what it can or can’t do. I’ve only heard good things about it. I have a friend who may be trying to unload one, I just can’t spare the cash right now and I’m not that interested in owning one. And I think he does have the most expensive version. And I think he’s upgraded the SSD in it. So sure, it would be a good deal and he’d make a good deal for a friend, I just don’t really have the room for it. Still, it is tempting.
I’m aware, but I’m not fully educated on the difference between the two.
It’s like alien dogs — the creature is not a dog per se, it’s not a canine, but you call it a dog (as a writer) so the reader understands it serves the same role, socially. I think there are a lot of colloquial terms like “dog” that get reused in science fiction where it’s not that thing, but it’s like that thing and that’s what people understand.
So you can explain why WINE is not an emulator (that’s actually what WINE stands for) but at the end of the day, it’s a program that lets you run programs designed for another machine or operating system. It accomplishes the same goal for the end user as an emulator, even if it does so a little differently. I guess it’s like Boomers calling Xbox and PlayStation “Nintendo.” They’re technically wrong, but they just see video games and go with the name they know.
Emulators have far more performance overhead compared to a compatibility/translation layer that WINE tries to accomplish. There can even be performance improvements overall due to the lack of additional Windows overhead.
This makes it different from say, DOSBox or PCEmu, since a machine with the same hardware specifications that the software was initially designed to run on can work well, or even exceed expectations. Emulators usually require much more power than the original core system.
Tbf, I haven’t touched a Mac in ages (and never personally owned one in my life), because the combination of the “luxury™” device tax and Apple’s vindictive anti-repair stance (and their walled garden on principle but that’s not relevant here) basically put them on my “never buy and never recommend” list. I have heard of good work being put on a compatibility layer similar to Wine on their front, but I’d imagine specialist software that depends on GPU acceleration (in my case, CAD software) would struggle to run in that scenario on Apple Silicon.
(Plus, a used thinkpad is cheap as cheap can be and again, an entry-level, fully repairable and upgradeable deck will run you around $300 with much better game performance for it’s portable weight class)
To be clear, Apple’s compatibility layer is mostly inaccessible to the user. Even with the latest macOS, so you should have GPTK (Game Porting Tool Kit), you can’t just run a Windows game. You have to do some work… or use something like Whisky. And the guy who made Whisky stopped working on it so people could pay subscription fees to CrossOver (which is not a bad product; in fact, it funnels money into WINE which helps everyone). So in theory with CrossOver your CAD software may work… or may not… but it sounds like it wouldn’t be worth it for you to try.
But wait — just out of curiosity, how upgradeable is a ThinkPad? Typically the motherboard limits what you can do (e.g. if it’s an AMD system, an AM4 means you can use most of the newest stuff, but there’s some stuff locked behind AM5 you won’t be able to touch, but it’s the same on the Intel side as well). So, just curious how far you can actually take a $300 used ThinkPad. I used to build, so it’s just that, a curiosity.
The Steam Deck is the most upgradeable, you can do all sorts of crazy stuff (I probably phrased that poorly in the prior comment), but the used thinkpad’s milage probably varies based on which model you buy. Standard stuff like RAM, storage, and so on are easily upgraded though (unlike Apple who SOLDERS THEM IN for some “fuck you” reason).
Software compatibility on the Mac is fine, unless you mean emulating Windows for gaming like the Steam Deck does so well. In that case, I’ve gotten Fallout 4 to work with Whisky, but that’s not a huge accomplishment. I have an M2 Pro Mac mini from 2023 and Fallout 4 came out in 2015. It’s not a great platform for gaming in any case. I play Blue Prince on it and that looks good. Stray, too. Those are newer games, but not particularly demanding. They look okay, but the framerate isn’t good. Xbox (Series X) is a better platform for both.
I’m not discounting or disregarding the Deck, I just haven’t got one so I cannot say what it can or can’t do. I’ve only heard good things about it. I have a friend who may be trying to unload one, I just can’t spare the cash right now and I’m not that interested in owning one. And I think he does have the most expensive version. And I think he’s upgraded the SSD in it. So sure, it would be a good deal and he’d make a good deal for a friend, I just don’t really have the room for it. Still, it is tempting.
Steam Deck (or any Linux device) does not emulate Windows for games. A translation layer is much different.
I’m aware, but I’m not fully educated on the difference between the two.
It’s like alien dogs — the creature is not a dog per se, it’s not a canine, but you call it a dog (as a writer) so the reader understands it serves the same role, socially. I think there are a lot of colloquial terms like “dog” that get reused in science fiction where it’s not that thing, but it’s like that thing and that’s what people understand.
So you can explain why WINE is not an emulator (that’s actually what WINE stands for) but at the end of the day, it’s a program that lets you run programs designed for another machine or operating system. It accomplishes the same goal for the end user as an emulator, even if it does so a little differently. I guess it’s like Boomers calling Xbox and PlayStation “Nintendo.” They’re technically wrong, but they just see video games and go with the name they know.
Emulators have far more performance overhead compared to a compatibility/translation layer that WINE tries to accomplish. There can even be performance improvements overall due to the lack of additional Windows overhead.
This makes it different from say, DOSBox or PCEmu, since a machine with the same hardware specifications that the software was initially designed to run on can work well, or even exceed expectations. Emulators usually require much more power than the original core system.
Tbf, I haven’t touched a Mac in ages (and never personally owned one in my life), because the combination of the “luxury™” device tax and Apple’s vindictive anti-repair stance (and their walled garden on principle but that’s not relevant here) basically put them on my “never buy and never recommend” list. I have heard of good work being put on a compatibility layer similar to Wine on their front, but I’d imagine specialist software that depends on GPU acceleration (in my case, CAD software) would struggle to run in that scenario on Apple Silicon.
(Plus, a used thinkpad is cheap as cheap can be and again, an entry-level, fully repairable and upgradeable deck will run you around $300 with much better game performance for it’s portable weight class)
All fair.
To be clear, Apple’s compatibility layer is mostly inaccessible to the user. Even with the latest macOS, so you should have GPTK (Game Porting Tool Kit), you can’t just run a Windows game. You have to do some work… or use something like Whisky. And the guy who made Whisky stopped working on it so people could pay subscription fees to CrossOver (which is not a bad product; in fact, it funnels money into WINE which helps everyone). So in theory with CrossOver your CAD software may work… or may not… but it sounds like it wouldn’t be worth it for you to try.
But wait — just out of curiosity, how upgradeable is a ThinkPad? Typically the motherboard limits what you can do (e.g. if it’s an AMD system, an AM4 means you can use most of the newest stuff, but there’s some stuff locked behind AM5 you won’t be able to touch, but it’s the same on the Intel side as well). So, just curious how far you can actually take a $300 used ThinkPad. I used to build, so it’s just that, a curiosity.
The Steam Deck is the most upgradeable, you can do all sorts of crazy stuff (I probably phrased that poorly in the prior comment), but the used thinkpad’s milage probably varies based on which model you buy. Standard stuff like RAM, storage, and so on are easily upgraded though (unlike Apple who SOLDERS THEM IN for some “fuck you” reason).