QEMU Classic Retro Games on MacBook Air M1 -- Counter Strike 1.6
8Valve's classic tactical FPS shooter, if the game were demo on Windows/Linux, QEMU with Linux KVM or Windows WHPX would have the game locked at 60 FPS gameplay in any circumstances. However, since the game is extremely popular with huge fans & community support, playing the game on Windows/Linux would be so easy even without resorting to Virtual Machine. So having the game played on MacBook Air M1 would deem to be an interesting demo instead despite lower frame rate and some stuttering. The game was demo locally and played against CPU bots, which could make the stress on CPU even worse for M1 without virtualization. In term of GPU graphics rendering, the M1 GPU is extremely capable and would manage the game at the best visuals at 1024x768 without a hitch. Perhaps with real online gameplay against real human players, the M1 may be able to sustain over 30 FPS at all time. Unlike other PC emulators with non-functional networking support other than web browsing, QEMU solid enterprise-grade networking would realize online networked games with the peaceful mind of VM isolation. QEMU SLIRP user-mode networking is fully capable of connecting to online game servers for playing such games.
So far, there are only 2 ways to play Counter-Strike 1.6 on Apple M1 with Parallel Desktop and CrossOver. QEMU will be the 3rd option with the fully open-source solution. I won't call the game perfectly playable on Apple M1 since the game would really appreciate high frame rate and stutter-free experience, but for casual shoot-outs I think the Apple M1 will just be fine.