Windows games coming to Intel Macs

TransGaming today released the "Cider" portability engine for Intel-based Macs, offering game developers and publishers the ability to deploy Windows-based games on new Macs quickly and easily, without the need for traditional arduous porting. "TransGaming's Cider product will change the landscape of the Mac gaming market. Mac gamers have always patiently waited many months for access to only a handful of titles. With Cider, game developers and publishers can easily extend their triple A portfolio to Intel Mac without any effort or delay, which means that avid Mac gamers will have access to triple A video games coincidental with the Windows release," said Vikas Gupta, president and CEO of TransGaming. The company already has agreements in place with a number of the top tier video game publishers to bring their titles to Intel-based Macs, saying that Mac gamers can expect the release of these titles in the next few months. [updated]

Cider is a sophisticated portability engine allowing Windows games to run on Intel-based Macs without any modifications to the original source code. The software works by directly loading a Windows program into memory on an Intel-based Mac and linking it to an optimized version of the Win32 APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). Games are wrapped up in the Cider engine to work on the Mac, requiring developers to only have one code base to maintain. Cider-powered games use the same copy protection, lobbies, game matching, and connectivity as the original title.