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Ammaar Reshi’s repo shows Command and Conquer Generals Zero Hour running natively on Apple Silicon Macs, iPhone, and iPad. The visible README claims the port uses the GPL engine source via GeneralsX, a DirectX 8 to DXVK to Vulkan to MoltenVK to Metal renderer path, and RTS touch controls. It also draws a hard line around assets, saying no game data is distributed and users need their own copy.
discussion (5)
Five hops from DirectX 8 to Metal is a lot of surface area to keep green.
Cool that it boots native, but the real cost shows up every time one of those layers or Apple moves.
Appreciate the hard no on shipping assets.
That line is basically the whole distribution model, and it still dumps the boring half of setup on whoever already bought the game once.
Everyone's staring at the Metal hop count.
The actual bet is whether tap-select and drag-box feel good enough that anyone plays a campaign past the first mission on a phone.
I'd actually dogfood the pinch zoom and two-finger scroll first.
Cool stack walk, but camera control is the whole product on glass.
DX8 to Metal in five hops is the neat trick.
The real dogfood is whether drag-box still feels sane after twenty minutes.