Nvidia Corp., the world’s largest supplier of discrete graphics processing units (GPUs), and TransGaming, a maker of tools that let games developed for Windows computers to run on Macintosh systems, announced a collaborative effort under which the companies work together to improve compatibility of Windows games on Macintosh systems.

TransGaming already sells its Cider, a portability engine that allows Windows games to be run on Intel Macs without any modifications to the original game source code.  Cider works by directly loading a Windows program into memory on an Intel-Mac and linking it to an optimized version of the Win32 APIs. According to TransGaming, games are “simply wrapped up in the Cider engine” and they work on the Mac.

According to a statement by TransGaming, Cider now can run high-level shaders created for Microsoft’s Direct3D platform using the Nvidia’s CgFX framework Potentially, this reduces compatibility issues between games and Cider or improves performance.

”The collaboration between TransGaming and Nvidia is an important step for Mac gaming. Our collaborative efforts with Cg provide a sophisticated alternative implementation of Direct3D compatible high level shaders on the Mac; this is important because Microsoft restricts the distribution of Direct3D on non-Microsoft platforms. We look forward to releasing many blockbuster titles this year with Cg”, stated Vikas Gupta, chief executive and president of TransGaming.

Currently various Apple’s Macintosh computers with Intel Core and Core 2 processors feature built-in graphics cores from Intel Corp., ATI Radeon X1600-series and X1900-series graphics cards from AMD or Nvidia’s GeForce 7300-, 7600- and Quadro-series boards.