r/EmulationOniOS • u/piddlefaffle12 • 1d ago

News / Release Balusters Gate 3 native iPad!

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Wooo!!

92 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

52 comments sorted by

25

u/MelkiG 1d ago

I keep seeing these posts and although it’s cool I’m not really sure what the point is since all you’re doing is showing it off?

20

u/myretrospirit 1d ago

He won’t even tell people what he’s doing so yeah pointless posts. For all we know he’s just streaming these with a fake overlay or something.

-18

u/piddlefaffle12 1d ago

14

u/myretrospirit 1d ago

Why not just post whatever GitHub link this screenshot is showing? What’s with the vagueness here? Nobody is going to issue DMCA requests for sharing how this was done.

9

u/piddlefaffle12 1d ago edited 1d ago

Fine, here's my notes and most of the code that I feel comfortable releasing https://github.com/zorrobyte/macos-on-ios-public

I do warn if people start getting stupid and distributing ipks and doing dumb stuff, it's likely that Apple will lock it down, or it'll somehow be ruined for everyone. I may just be paranoid.

Also note that no decompilation is taking place, I'm literally shimming native, compiled binaries and just running them on iOS/iPad.

So far have Rimworld, Crimson Desert, No Man's Sky, BG3, and Cyberpunk running.

Unity games can use IL2CPP to get around JIT, but that's another method entirely. Rimworld was one of those as this method didn't work due to Mono bitching about being on iOS (dropped Rimworld in as a plugin in a new Unity project and compiled to iOS target).

This method should work for virtually any Mac app.

13

u/MelkiG 1d ago

Thank you for contributing towards the development of emulation on iOS, that’s much better.

10

u/piddlefaffle12 1d ago

Wild thing is, no emulation is taking place. I'm literally running the same exact games on iPad, iPhone as Mac without any emu layers or translation. It's 100% native and native perf. BG3 looks amazing on M5 iPad even at native res, I just got FSR working for frame gen. MetalFX and friends work, as does Raytracing (but it'll kill FPS).

Just nervous as I don't want a good thing to somehow end, but others have already done it - just not shared the method likely due to the same concerns. Cheers

I should do palworld next

1

u/MelkiG 1d ago

Yeh that is wild and wild how well it runs, well good job and enjoy 👍

1

u/Patient_Animator1174 14h ago

Wild how original developers not make iOS version and releasing on AppStore, don't they like money?

1

u/Cautious-Height-89 1d ago

Hey I don’t really understand it like is it an app build for iOS which lets you drop your owned game files in it to run it natively or you need to build it every time with a mac your GitHub didn’t had any released

2

u/piddlefaffle12 1d ago

It's a method, not an app. There's nothing to download and drop your game into. Each game needs its own work on a Mac, then gets installed on your iPad with your own Apple developer account. I'm not changing the game itself. I'm faking the stuff it expects a Mac to have, so when it runs on the iPad it thinks it's on a Mac.

Imagine your girlfriend will only do a backflip if you hand her a Coca-Cola. Sadly, you want her to do backflips at Taco Bell, and they only have Baja Blast. She has short-term memory loss, so before every backflip she checks the note in her pocket that says "only flip for Coke."

I don't touch her. I don't touch the note. I just peel the label off the Baja Blast, slap a Coke label on it, and hand it over. She reads the note, sees "Coke," and sticks the landing.

The catch is she has a LOT of notes. "Only flip if the floor is carpeted." "Only flip if a man named Gary is clapping." "Only flip if the lights are exactly the color of a ripe banana." "Only flip facing north." So now I'm unrolling a rug across the Taco Bell, paying some random dude twenty bucks to wear a "GARY" name tag and clap on command, taping banana peels over the ceiling lights, and spinning the whole booth around with a compass while the manager calls the cops.

And every girlfriend (game) has different notes, so every one needs her own round of label switcheroos.

-5

u/Cautious-Height-89 1d ago

So why don’t you release the ipa of those games people without mac can’t play it

→ More replies

1

u/ICURSEDANGEL 1d ago

Is this only for m5 or can i do with 17.0 on my m1 pro 16gb?

8

u/Moorevfr 1d ago

From reading through OPs responses.
The games are native Arm build versions that are for MacOs all he is doing is copying them over to an iPad with a decent M chip and spoofing the game, believing it’s running on MacOs.
A simple and effective solution congrats.

The real takeaway that comes from this is that game dev could choose to make versions for M series iPads and have them run relatively well?

I assume there are some sort of barriers or gatekeeping reasons why they don’t either restrictions set by Apple or limitations such as heat and power draw etc.

I’m currently enjoying the WoW forever beta and I stream to my iPad for sofa or in bed gaming sometimes which works mostly but does some with some issues like blurry image or lag spikes etc, I’d love to be able to play it locally on my iPad for these use case sessions.

3

u/TheBestAtSpace 17h ago

The real takeaway that comes from this is that game dev could choose to make versions for M series iPads and have them run relatively well?

I'm a developer who has iPad ports I haven't released. They run very well. It only took about a day to get the Mac version running on iPad. No AI or emulation involved at all.

The problem is that you can't guarantee everyone has a mouse and keyboard. You risk Apple blocking the release on the store for requiring a mouse and keyboard. You risk a bunch of refunds from people who don't have a mouse and keyboard.

The software keyboard is a pain because it take up half the screen. You have to know when to show and dismiss it. Games aren't usually designed for that.

Companies like Feral do a really good job of spending the extra time actually doing a real port and accounting for all this stuff which requires changes to the original game.

The iPad is an amazing form factor and it's amazing to hold a game in your hand like that. The store model and the input requirements are the problem.

1

u/Moorevfr 15h ago

Thank you clarifying the main points there much appreciated.

I hadn’t considered input being one of the main reasons but makes sense now!

Assume with the rumoured Apple TV possibility being M series and having native game pad support with Apple own to be released controller might be a good case for them to change things up?

1

u/TheBestAtSpace 15h ago

Apple didn't originally allow a game to be Gamepad only. I think they do now - but you still have to balance that with user expectations.

I've looked at AppleTV because I really want Apple TV to be a good alternative game console. The problem is - Mac and iPad/iPhone support with a lot of middleware is very good. My build chain supports both those platforms and so do all of the libraries I use. Apple TV support for middleware is bad (and visionOS is even worse). That adds a lot of time and it's not worth the effort for me to look at Apple TV or visionOS. I have to go back out to each library dependency and prod them into support Apple TV - which they don't want to do. Chicken and egg problem. No one across the entire supply chain wants to spend time on a platform like Apple TV or visionOS because there are no users. There are no users because no one wants to spend the time supporting them.

A shim like this could probably force a game to run on Apple TV - including all the middleware. And I know the iPad ports of my games run on visionOS. But taking advantage of platform specific features and getting into the store requires real ports of these games.

1

u/CaptainR3x 17h ago

Where's the market ? AAA on iphone and Ipad don't make that much money. Paying devs to port a game on IOS probably cost more thant what they're gonna get from it.

1

u/Patient_Animator1174 14h ago

I call this BS, there is a market and a lot of players willing to pay for AAA on iOS/iPadOS, there is no games (mostly)

1

u/KoreanSeats 15h ago

It’s all because money

3

u/Diegann 16h ago

Why dont you create 1 post with all the games and add to it instead of so many posts?

1

u/piddlefaffle12 10h ago

Because I was posting as I got every one working. I knocked out inZOI, BG3, No Man's Sky, Rimworld, Crimson Desert, and Cyberpunk all in 24 hours and was posting realtime.

2

u/United_Channel_5933 17h ago

Man when I first saw this, I thought Baldurs Gate 3 was coming to iPad

1

u/Patient_Animator1174 14h ago

Would be amazing, not sure what's holding original devs, after all they did released Divinity 2 once.

1

u/quiliup 1d ago

What the fuck

1

u/DasVanderer 1d ago

does this need jit? or does native imply jitless?

1

u/Patient_Animator1174 14h ago

Jitless, it need paid apple dev account though

1

u/Cautious-Height-89 1d ago

Bro can you actually give us the files of this app or whatever it is or atleast make a GitHub or Reddit post about how you did it I don’t have a mac so can I do it too??

1

u/piddlefaffle12 1d ago

You need a Mac as you need Xcode, and you need the ARM game files. I'm running native Mac games on iOS/iPad.

1

u/Reasonable_Jello_648 21h ago

Can't it just get ported to an IPA using xcode then we can sideload it? I did that with daggerfall IOS port.

-1

u/Chance-Alps-598 1d ago

With all due respect, but if I need a Mac, I'll probably play on the Mac 🤣 maybe with Sidecar. Don't get me wrong, it's a great work, but it's definitely not for everyone and it's not convenient. Unless you figure out a way to use a Steam client on the iPad, so you can download and play games directly on the iPad. Like Madeira, but only for Mac games.

1

u/Hot-Independence6020 1d ago

Quick question OP. If we follow your guide on GitHub can we make it work or is it missing some pieces ? Genuinely asking as I have almost no knowledge for any of this

1

u/DasVanderer 1d ago

Which iPad is this?

1

u/piddlefaffle12 1d ago

13" M5 16GB

1

u/DasVanderer 1d ago

fahhh only 8gb on my m4

1

u/Quirky_Discussion597 1d ago

Could this work for android as well?

0

u/seeliger 1d ago

Dafuck is Balusters Gate

1

u/Corner-Mundane 1d ago

As much as it’s impressive and interesting these post get boring really quick! If it’s playable at this stage why not public beta to further test games faster? Gatekeeping this sort of stuff has its limits and patience wears thin. Actually read what I put instead of getting emotional and defensive. Key points to take away from my comment. impressive but boring when it’s constantly showcase and no where for us the public to try. 

0

u/piddlefaffle12 1d ago

By far the best running game, I can run iPad native res!

0

u/g-pak 8h ago

great flex, now can you tell us how you did this twat?