A gamer's lament: Apple please let us game on the Mac!

[groove-agent]

When Apple came out with EGPU support, I saw a dim light at the end of the tunnel. I could dual boot my Mac and run a decent graphics card, even if there was a slight loss in frames from thunderbolt.

Now with Apple Silicon, the support for EGPUs have been dropped, and you no longer can dual boot and run Windows natively. So now if you want to game, you have to have a separately maintain another system or settle for Apple Arcade (yawn). Right now, I maintain a PC for gaming. I pull out a separate keyboard, mouse, audio interface each time I want to casually play. Each time I use a Microsoft product, I want to hang myself and makes me appreciate the Apple ecosystem more.

Gaming isn't just for nerds anymore. It's a common form of entertainment. The phrase "Macs don't game" really needs to die. Hopefully Apple Silicon can produce some killer GPUs to persuade gaming studios to develop their games on this platform.

This is my dream.

 

[VertPin]

When Apple came out with EGPU support, I saw a dim light at the end of the tunnel. I could dual boot my Mac and run a decent graphics card, even if there was a slight loss in frames from thunderbolt.

Now with Apple Silicon, the support for EGPUs have been dropped, and you no longer can dual boot and run Windows natively. So now if you want to game, you have to have a separately maintain another system or settle for Apple Arcade (yawn). Right now, I maintain a PC for gaming. I pull out a separate keyboard, mouse, audio interface each time I want to casually play. Each time I use a Microsoft product, I want to hang myself and makes me appreciate the Apple ecosystem more.

Gaming isn't just for nerds anymore. It's a common form of entertainment. The phrase "Macs don't game" really needs to die. Hopefully Apple Silicon can produce some killer GPUs to persuade gaming studios to develop their games on this platform.

This is my dream.

The issue is that NVIDIA and Apple won't collaborate with each other. The both of them have no desire to start pumping GPU's for the Mac. While AMD could, it is very unlikely that would be the case as well.

This is not a pursuit Apple has any interest in, neither does AMD or NVIDIA.

 

[AxiomaticRubric]

The issue isn't the hardware, necessarily. The issue is getting AAA content creators interested in macOS as a platform. The fact that macOS still represents a small niche of the overall PC market means the top studios choose to ignore it. Add to that the cost of developing games for a platform that is very different from the dominant market devices (Windows PCs and consoles). The return on investment simply doesn't exist.

If we ever get true AAA titles for macOS they will come directly from Apple, or a game studio collaborating with them.

 

[trevpimp]

When Apple introduced M1 to both iOS and MacOS who knows what's to come out of the box

They also said they will allow iOS apps to be played on Macs and I have played a few that played very well on MacOS

Only time can tell whether they will give us what we want. I just hope they don't restrict us from anything

 

[sunny5]

macOS itself is a huge problem. I dont think game developers from PC are interested in macOS for several reasons.

1. OS market share is extremely lower than Windows. One of the biggest platform, Steam, shows that 93% of players are using Windows. It's easy to imagine about the market share on other platforms.
2. Therefore, less profits to create from a few Mac gamers. Velheim developer said macOS is extremely unprofitable.
3. Game related technology is bad and inferior compared to PC. MS invested a lot of money on gaming technology such as direct storage and directX.
4. Nvidia is dominating the game market and there are many Nvidia friendly games.
5. Mac itself is extremely expensive for gaming. You get better specs with less price from PC.
6. Apple GPU is poor for gaming. Cant deny the fact.
7. There aren't many Mac players on Mac. Way more on PC/Console.
8. Apple themselves are not interested in PC/Console games instead of mobile games.
9. Apple is preventing other gaming platform to enter macOS and other Apple OS.
10. Apple is not developing their own killer titles to attract players like Halo on MS.
11. macOS platform isn't good for gaming because of all those reasons.

If macOS is good for gaming, the hardware wouldn't be a problem. Nintendo Switch is a good example. Poor ARM chip and yet, there are many AAA games and Nintendo themselves have their own IP which they can attract many players like FCPX on Mac.

At this point, it's a delusional to think about gaming on Mac. So far, there are only 3 native games. WoW, Asphalt, and other one.

 

[MacCheetah3]

What @AxiomaticRubric said. A couple of decades ago it was different, many titles — even highly acclaimed — included Mac OS in their cross platform compatibility out of the gate. I still remember some games as if it were only a few years ago that I spent many hours with back in the ‘90s:

Old school Bungie, how we miss you. As many commenters stated, there has never been a comparable replacement for this game.

I did play a couple of the sequels as well.

He didn’t even shoot the barrel! Lame… Still a great classic.

ANY WHO….

Now, Mac gamers need to transform to iPad gamers (or use cloud gaming).

 

[jdb8167]

Apple is preventing other gaming platform to enter macOS and other Apple OS

How is Apple preventing other gaming platforms on macOS? MacOS is open and anyone can put whatever software they like on it. I think you mean iOS.

 

[UBS28]

If you want to game, the Razer Blade 14 is a better choice. It is cheaper than the M1 MacBook Pro, yet it is faster (in multi-core performance) and it has a RTX 3060. Yet it is just as small as the 13” M1 MacBook Pro too.

It really shows what a MacBook Pro with AMD could have been.

And it also support CUDA.

 

[groove-agent]

The issue is that NVIDIA and Apple won't collaborate with each other. The both of them have no desire to start pumping GPU's for the Mac. While AMD could, it is very unlikely that would be the case as well.

This is not a pursuit Apple has any interest in, neither does AMD or NVIDIA.

I don't think Apple needs to collaborate with AMD/ NVIDIA when they're doing so well with Apple Silicon.

The issue isn't the hardware, necessarily. The issue is getting AAA content creators interested in macOS as a platform. The fact that macOS still represents a small niche of the overall PC market means the top studios choose to ignore it. Add to that the cost of developing games for a platform that is very different from the dominant market devices (Windows PCs and consoles). The return on investment simply doesn't exist.

If we ever get true AAA titles for macOS they will come directly from Apple, or a game studio collaborating with them.

Once Apple builds the hardware that can compete with PCs, I think that might change. Besides, Blizzard caters to MacOS, why do you think they do that?

macOS itself is a huge problem. I dont think game developers from PC are interested in macOS for several reasons.

1. OS market share is extremely lower than Windows.
2. Therefore, less profits to create from a few Mac gamers.
3. Game related technology is bad and inferior compared to PC.
4. Nvidia is dominating the game market and there are many Nvidia friendly games.
5. Mac itself is extremely expensive for gaming.
6. Apple GPU is poor for gaming.
7. There aren't many Mac players on Mac. Way more on PC/Console.
8. Apple themselves are not interested in PC/Console games instead of mobile games.
9. Apple is preventing other gaming platform to enter macOS and other Apple OS.
10. Apple is not developing their own killer titles to attract players like Halo on MS.
11. macOS platform isn't good for gaming because of all those reasons.

If macOS is good for gaming, the hardware wouldn't be a problem. Nintendo Switch is a good example. Poor ARM chip and yet, there are many AAA games and Nintendo themselves have their own IP which they can attract many players like FCPX on Mac.

At this point, it's a delusional to think about gaming on Mac. So far, there are only 3 native games. WoW, Asphalt, and other one.

At one time Intel dominated the CPU market. That picture looks a lot different now.

 

[sunny5]

At one time Intel dominated the CPU market. That picture looks a lot different now.

GPU is more important and Nvidia is dominating by 80%. Not only that, both software and developers are very Nvidia friendly. Intel is kinda doomed but Nvidia is still growing and they are even developing ARM based CPU. It will take a long time to take Nvidia down unlike Intel.

Once Apple builds the hardware that can compete with PCs, I think that might change. Besides, Blizzard caters to MacOS, why do you think they do that?

Cant. The price is the problem and most importantly, macOS itself is a worst platform for gaming. In order to attract gamers, they really need to make their own AAA games only for Mac so that people can buy Mac to play. Nintendo is a great example. Bad device, outstanding IPs.

 

[Colstan]

I've never particularly liked the term "AAA" games, because that's an arbitrary term which means whatever the individual wants it to mean. I stopped gaming in 2006, when I switched to the Mac. In the past three years, I got back into it. Given the Mac's reputation, I was surprised that 90%+ of the computer games that I want to play have a Mac version. I play a very specific niche, isometric turn-based RPGs, but almost all of them have Mac support. You can easily spend hundreds of hours playing each of these, but because they didn't cost $10 million to make, I guess they aren't "AAA" games.

I was concerned that the "big two" for this year, namely Baldur's Gate 3 and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, wouldn't have Mac versions, because it wasn't mentioned when these games were announced. When the actual system requirements were released, sure enough, both have Mac versions planned for release alongside the Windows version. I would note that Owlcat dropped Linux for Wrath, so the Mac must be profitable for them, while Linux is not. For at least some developers, there is a financial reason to have Mac support.

Regardless, I realize that I am am among a very specific demographic, so in that respect I am fortunate. Whenever I feel like playing a different genre of game, I haven't had too much issue finding an alternative. I do use Boot Camp to play an occasional Windows game, but I can live without it.

I'm also confused whenever anyone tells others to "switch to Windows". That's a reductionist attitude that takes out the human element. I only spend time at the Windows desktop long enough to launch a game, then get out back to macOS, my preferred environment. No game is going to get me to switch to Windows simply for that reason. No amount of tech features from Intel, AMD, or Nvidia are going to convince me, either. I'd rather find a way to deal with Linux if for some reason the Mac became unusable.

While there are probably a number of reasons that more developers don't release Mac versions, relatively low marketshare and poor graphics performance are the biggest issues. With the release of Apple Silicon Macs, both marketshare and graphics performance are increasing. Meanwhile, the crutch excuse of telling Mac owners to use Boot Camp is going away.

I know this is an unsatisfactory answer, but we will probably continue to get new games released that use multi-platform engines like Unity, titles from Mac friendly developers like Larian and 4A, and ports from the good folks over at Feral, who are doing us Mac users a great service.

In other words, the computer games situation will probably be more or less the same as it has been for the Mac, in my opinion. If that isn't enough, then a dedicated gaming PC, console, or games streaming service may be necessary to supplement your needs. I don't consider working within the boundaries of ARM Windows with Parallels or trying to use Crossover to be satisfactory experiences, except for old or less demand games, which isn't the topic of this post.

The situation might improve marginally, but I don't see a sudden influx of new game titles happening anytime soon. Apple Silicon will likely offer a great experience for game titles that do support the Mac, but those that do will always be somewhat limited compared to what Windows offers.

 

[Spindel]

Gaming on mac really isn’t Apples problem. The APIs are there the hardware is there it’s just up to the developers to use it.

While the graphics hardware isn’t as powerful as you can get on other platforms it sure as hell isn’t an excuse to not make good games. Heck look at Nintendo and all the awesome games they can make on ”weak” hardware.

Better graphics does not make for a better game, I wish developers in general focused more on game play than shiny exterior.

 

[acorntoy]

IOS IAP type gaming is too profitable, Apple will always focus on it. Apple is a very profit focused company (when you were once almost bankrupt/obsolete it can certainly change workplace culture). If they do try to support gaming more aggressively with ARM it won’t be the games your thinking of.

 

[acorntoy]

Gaming on mac really isn’t Apples problem. The APIs are there the hardware is there it’s just up to the developers to use it.

While the graphics hardware isn’t as powerful as you can get on other platforms it sure as hell isn’t an excuse to not make good games. Heck look at Nintendo and all the awesome games they can make on ”weak” hardware.

Better graphics does not make for a better game, I wish developers in general focused more on game play than shiny exterior.

I mean it’s up to a point. The newest games have been lagging on switch during presentation (reminds me of the iPad 3 reveal) so it’s obviously time to upgrade things, even old games like smash bros and sword have periods of lag/stutter. Nintendo has shown if you focus you can be 2-3 years behind on hardware and still be relevant. The Wii U was too weak for when they introduced it however and they learned a harsh lesson. It’s a balance, if they don’t release a pro soon sales will plummet, 2015 power on the switch is a stretch at this point.

 

[JouniS]

The issue isn't the hardware, necessarily. The issue is getting AAA content creators interested in macOS as a platform. The fact that macOS still represents a small niche of the overall PC market means the top studios choose to ignore it. Add to that the cost of developing games for a platform that is very different from the dominant market devices (Windows PCs and consoles). The return on investment simply doesn't exist.

I see things differently. Apple's market share in the price range AAA developers are interested in is high. The cost of developing multiplatform games is not that high, because most games use an existing engine. And while PCs and consoles have converged recently, they used to be quite different.

Apple's hardware design priorities are a bigger issue, because they are not compatible with the demands of gaming:

• Apple uses high-quality high-resolution displays, while gamers would prefer high refresh rates and low response times.
• Gamers spend a lot of money on the GPU, while Apple has always used relatively weak GPUs compared to the rest of the hardware.
• Games are often big, but Macs come with small SSDs unless you choose an expensive BTO upgrade.

A good baseline gaming Mac would have 32 GPU cores, 16 GB RAM, and 1 TB SSD, which is comparable to current-generation consoles. If Apple chooses to sell a laptop with such specs for $1500 and a desktop for a bit less, the platform could be quite attractive for gaming. If you have to pay $2500 for such specs (as seems likely based on current MBP prices), the platform is much less attractive, because most Macs will not be good enough for current-generation games.

 

[Jeaz]

macOS itself is a huge problem. I dont think game developers from PC are interested in macOS for several reasons.

1. OS market share is extremely lower than Windows.
2. Therefore, less profits to create from a few Mac gamers.
3. Game related technology is bad and inferior compared to PC.
4. Nvidia is dominating the game market and there are many Nvidia friendly games.
5. Mac itself is extremely expensive for gaming.
6. Apple GPU is poor for gaming.
7. There aren't many Mac players on Mac. Way more on PC/Console.
8. Apple themselves are not interested in PC/Console games instead of mobile games.
9. Apple is preventing other gaming platform to enter macOS and other Apple OS.
10. Apple is not developing their own killer titles to attract players like Halo on MS.
11. macOS platform isn't good for gaming because of all those reasons.

If macOS is good for gaming, the hardware wouldn't be a problem. Nintendo Switch is a good example. Poor ARM chip and yet, there are many AAA games and Nintendo themselves have their own IP which they can attract many players like FCPX on Mac.

At this point, it's a delusional to think about gaming on Mac. So far, there are only 3 native games. WoW, Asphalt, and other one.

1. Definitely larger, that’s true. But remember that the absolute majority of those are business PCs. if you look at consumer PCs alone the difference isn’t massive. If you include iOS users the numbers are reversed. There’s a reason Windows will natively run Android apps soon.
2. While also true, if you look at numbers on Humble Bundle, Mac users often donate 3-4 times more than Windows users. We are willing to spend more money on games than your average PC user.
3. Metal isn’t bad. its arguably just as good as OpenGL and DirectX but it is different. It requires extra work. But now that you can make a game for both iOS and macOS with same code.
4. I guess but pretty much irrelevant. All games work with AMD GPUs as well. And most work with Intel GPU. It’s more about capability than that any games are made for Nvidia exclusively.
5. A Mac costs more than most PCs in most cases. But if you look at the iMac M1 as an example. The combined value is quite competitive.
6. up to now most have been high end mobile GPUs. They are of course always going to be not as good as their desktop siblings. What we’ve seen so far with M1 is really impressive. What m1X will bring is still unknown but it certainly looks like it’ll be a lot better than before. And my current iMac is 8 years old and can run most games “fine”. Also, the Switch is using a mobile GPU and seem to be doing quite ok. GPU power isn’t an absolute must for good gaming.
7. Definitely. its a bit like the chicken and hen here.
8. Steve Jobs was notoriously against gaming. But I think Apple today are quite interested but don’t really have the experience with it.
9. not true for macOS.
10. yeah. And that won’t happen. Arcade is the closest we’ll get. And there’s is some really interesting exclusives there, like Fantasian.
11. The biggest reason is the lack of gamers But with iOS and macOS gaming sort of merging. The potential is great. ”But I don’t want mobile games you say” and while I can agree in part with that, the difference isn’t as big as it used to. But more importantly, if this goes well, more will game on Macs. and when more game on Macs it’ll be more attractive to port AAA games again.

Right now, there’s a lot of insecurity about Mac gaming. But there is a lot of potential and I remain hopeful.

 

[arvinsim]

The day when Catalina obliterated my 32-bit gaming library on Steam is the day I quit gaming on the Mac and bought a separate PC for gaming.

Ironically, those 32-bit games were the non-graphic intensive games that were perfect for my Macbook.

Gaming on mac really isn’t Apples problem. The APIs are there the hardware is there it’s just up to the developers to use it.

It definitely is Apple's problem. Just because your APIs are open doesn't mean developers will automatically develop for it. Since Mac is a niche market, it's Apple's job to court AAA studios to develop games on the Mac.

While the graphics hardware isn’t as powerful as you can get on other platforms it sure as hell isn’t an excuse to not make good games. Heck look at Nintendo and all the awesome games they can make on ”weak” hardware.

Nintendo already has a strong gaming brand. Apple, on the other hand, has a reputation of being anti-gaming(cutting off Nvidia GPU support, not supporting eGPUs, removing 32-bit games in Catalina, etc).

Don't forget that AAA game studios are companies. The question they are asking is "Will developing games on the Mac make us profit?".

Better graphics does not make for a better game, I wish developers in general focused more on game play than shiny exterior.

Indie games got everyone covered on non-graphic intensive games. They even have less incentives than AAA game studios to support niche markets.

 

[l0stl0rd]

macOS itself is a huge problem. I dont think game developers from PC are interested in macOS for several reasons.

1. OS market share is extremely lower than Windows.
2. Therefore, less profits to create from a few Mac gamers.
3. Game related technology is bad and inferior compared to PC.
4. Nvidia is dominating the game market and there are many Nvidia friendly games.
5. Mac itself is extremely expensive for gaming.
6. Apple GPU is poor for gaming.
7. There aren't many Mac players on Mac. Way more on PC/Console.
8. Apple themselves are not interested in PC/Console games instead of mobile games.
9. Apple is preventing other gaming platform to enter macOS and other Apple OS.
10. Apple is not developing their own killer titles to attract players like Halo on MS.
11. macOS platform isn't good for gaming because of all those reasons.

If macOS is good for gaming, the hardware wouldn't be a problem. Nintendo Switch is a good example. Poor ARM chip and yet, there are many AAA games and Nintendo themselves have their own IP which they can attract many players like FCPX on Mac.

At this point, it's a delusional to think about gaming on Mac. So far, there are only 3 native games. WoW, Asphalt, and other one.

I am not sure if I agree on point 1. Osx has like 5 times the market share compared to Linus yet Linux has more AAA games.

 

[Shirasaki]

If apple is really serious about gaming instead of random PR bs and continue to talk the talk (Apple Arcade is NOT enough), they’d start developing their own titles of popular genres. An FPS from apple? How about some action games? Or a puzzle game like Portal? The list goes on and on. Apple is transitioning away from hardware company to more of a service provider, and in-house gaming would easily earn Apple big cash with not much effort.

I am not sure if I agree on point 1. Osx has like 5 times the market share compared to Linus yet Linux has more AAA games.

Which means it is a problem. Linux is more free than macOS to develop games on, a bit like windows. That five times market shares are boosted by mostly tech plebs who uses Mac Pro to tweet their latest purchase of expensive yacht /s, not by gamers. Wealthy, but no desire to play any game (playing human is more fun so why playing games?).

 

[leman]

The issue isn't the hardware, necessarily. The issue is getting AAA content creators interested in macOS as a platform. The fact that macOS still represents a small niche of the overall PC market means the top studios choose to ignore it. Add to that the cost of developing games for a platform that is very different from the dominant market devices (Windows PCs and consoles). The return on investment simply doesn't exist.

The historical problem with gaming on Intel Macs was weak GPU performance on all but most expensive Pro-Level Macs as well as driver stability. Apple Silicon fixes both of these problems. A MacBook Air is already comparable performance-wise to an entry-level gaming laptop with a similar price. Couple of years from now, once the Apple Silicon rollout is finished, gaming-capable Macs will constitute about 20-30% of all gaming PCs, making the platform more interesting for game studios.

I also think that you are overestimating the effort to port/develop games for Mac. Most games out there use a middleware like Unity or Unreal Engine anyway — those natively support Mac. For games with custom engines it might be more tricky, but then again, there is MoltenVK. Metro Exodus is a practical example of how well an AAA game can run on Mac. Weirdly enough, the biggest issue right now are the game stores — neither Steam nor Epic offer native ARM utilities, which prevents the studios to ship native versions. Once Valve get's their crap together, we will see a lot of titles getting native M1 support.

Right now, there are at least three high-impact games that are optimized for the new Macs: Baldur's Gates 3, Metro: Exodus and World of Warcraft, and there are many more games that run just fine.

macOS itself is a huge problem. I dont think game developers from PC are interested in macOS for several reasons.

Let's get some fact checks here.

1. OS market share is extremely lower than Windows.

True, but then again, the share of gaming PCs is also rather low. The overwhelming majority of PCs are cheap office boxes with very weak GPUs. In contrast, all Apple Silicon Macs are capable of gaming. In a couple of years I expect the gaming-capable Macs to constitute at least 20% of all gaming-capable PCs.

3. Game related technology is bad and inferior compared to PC.

Absolutely untrue. Metal is a very capable API, and Apple has been improving their developer tooling in the last years. We now have state of the art GPU debugging.

5. Mac itself is extremely expensive for gaming.

MacBook Air starts at $999, and it's better at gaming than any other laptop in it's category. Yes, you can get a cheap gaming laptop for less, but it won't have the same utility or value. On the Windows side you have to choose between gaming and productivity, Apple Silicon makes this choice irrelevant.

6. Apple GPU is poor for gaming.

Completely untrue. It can run modern games at Full HD with medium/high settings with 40-ish FPS. Probably better if the game is properly optimized.

8. Apple themselves are not interested in PC/Console games instead of mobile games.

Apple gives you state of the art developer frameworks and tools to develop high-end games. Check out the WWDC session where they talk about optimizing Metro: Last Light and Baldur's Gates 3.

9. Apple is preventing other gaming platform to enter macOS and other Apple OS.

I am not sure what this is supposed to mean.

Which means it is a problem. Linux is more free than macOS to develop games on, a bit like windows. That five times market shares are boosted by mostly tech plebs who uses Mac Pro to tweet their latest purchase of expensive yacht /s, not by gamers. Wealthy, but no desire to play any game (playing human is more fun so why playing games?).

Linux is absolutely awful for developing games. Linux has no ABI stability, which means that testing and deploying your game is a huge mess. Drivers are a huge mess. Supporting all the different hardware and software configuration is a huge mess. Yeah, you can target something popular like Ubuntu, but it's rarely worth the hassle. Linux is great for open-source software (if you bother to set up flexible configuration scripts). It is a major PITA for commercial software.

 

[diamond.g]

The historical problem with gaming on Intel Macs was weak GPU performance on all but most expensive Pro-Level Macs as well as driver stability. Apple Silicon fixes both of these problems. A MacBook Air is already comparable performance-wise to an entry-level gaming laptop with a similar price. Couple of years from now, once the Apple Silicon rollout is finished, gaming-capable Macs will constitute about 20-30% of all gaming PCs, making the platform more interesting for game studios.

I also think that you are overestimating the effort to port/develop games for Mac. Most games out there use a middleware like Unity or Unreal Engine anyway — those natively support Mac. For games with custom engines it might be more tricky, but then again, there is MoltenVK. Metro Exodus is a practical example of how well an AAA game can run on Mac. Weirdly enough, the biggest issue right now are the game stores — neither Steam nor Epic offer native ARM utilities, which prevents the studios to ship native versions. Once Valve get's their crap together, we will see a lot of titles getting native M1 support.

Right now, there are at least three high-impact games that are optimized for the new Macs: Baldur's Gates 3, Metro: Last Light and World of Warcraft, and there are many more games that run just fine.


Let's get some fact checks here.



True, but then again, the share of gaming PCs is also rather low. The overwhelming majority of PCs are cheap office boxes with very weak GPUs. In contrast, all Apple Silicon Macs are capable of gaming. In a couple of years I expect the gaming-capable Macs to constitute at least 20% of all gaming-capable PCs.




Absolutely untrue. Metal is a very capable API, and Apple has been improving their developer tooling in the last years. We now have state of the art GPU debugging.



MacBook Air starts at $999, and it's better at gaming than any other laptop in it's category. Yes, you can get a cheap gaming laptop for less, but it won't have the same utility or value. On the Windows side you have to choose between gaming and productivity, Apple Silicon makes this choice irrelevant.



Completely untrue. It can run modern games at Full HD with medium/high settings with 40-ish FPS. Probably better if the game is properly optimized.



Apple gives you state of the art developer frameworks and tools to develop high-end games. Check out the WWDC session where they talk about optimizing Metro: Last Light and Baldur's Gates 3.



I am not sure what this is supposed to mean.



Linux is absolutely awful for developing games. Linux has no ABI stability, which means that testing and deploying your game is a huge mess. Drivers are a huge mess. Supporting all the different hardware and software configuration is a huge mess. Yeah, you can target something popular like Ubuntu, but it's rarely worth the hassle. Linux is great for open-source software (if you bother to set up flexible configuration scripts). It is a major PITA for commercial software.

Metro: Exodus, not Last Light (which is available as well).

 

[leman]

Metro: Exodus, not Last Light (which is available as well).

Thanks for the correction!

 

[Shirasaki]

Absolutely untrue. Metal is a very capable API, and Apple has been improving their developer tooling in the last years. We now have state of the art GPU debugging.

Metal was released for a few years already. I don’t see many games optimised for that. Some was optimised for OpenGL and they went nowhere ever since.

On the Windows side you have to choose between gaming and productivity, Apple Silicon makes this choice irrelevant.

More like you have the power of the gaming laptop whether you like it or not. One can use $3000 M1 MacBook Pro to tweet his dog at his mansion, and companies deploying macs would not be able to physically stopping employees from playing games on it. I know, software solution, which will work fine most of the time, but on windows side, you can shut it down by not buying GPU in the box. Heck, one could install all office PC with GTX 1660Ti.

Apple gives you state of the art developer frameworks and tools to develop high-end games. Check out the WWDC session where they talk about optimizing Metro: Last Light and Baldur's Gates 3.

If you are talking about a recent session then time will tell. Otherwise, I wonder why developers are not fond of “state of the art developer frameworks and tools” for developing their AAA games.

I also think that you are overestimating the effort to port/develop games for Mac. Most games out there use a middleware like Unity or Unreal Engine anyway — those natively support Mac. For games with custom engines it might be more tricky, but then again, there is MoltenVK. Metro Exodus is a practical example of how well an AAA game can run on Mac. Weirdly enough, the biggest issue right now are the game stores — neither Steam nor Epic offer native ARM utilities, which prevents the studios to ship native versions. Once Valve get's their crap together, we will see a lot of titles getting native M1 support.

I’m not an engineer of the field or a developer so I will accept any correction necessary. However, even with those engine support, even with Apple Arcade, few if any big titles come to Mac. World of Warcraft is kind of like “yeah we supported Mac for StarCraft so why not”, and I never heard of the other two. Instead, RDR2, Cyberpunk 2077, Shadow of the Tomes Raider (this one seems to have Mac version) are more well known titles. Mac might have a chance if those games are ported to the platform.

If M1 iPad Pro can just run genshin impact with maxed out settings without getting hot, Apple still has a bit of way to go, a year or two id argue.

 

[leman]

Metal was released for a few years already. I don’t see many games optimised for that. Some was optimised for OpenGL and they went nowhere ever since.

Most games that run on macOS nowadays use Metal, especially titles released in the last years. Some indy games still use OpenGL, but that's their (bad) choice.

If you are talking about a recent session then time will tell. Otherwise, I wonder why developers are not fond of “state of the art developer frameworks and tools” for developing their AAA games.

Apple Silicon is still very new, as are the tools. These things won't happen overnight. It will take a couple of yeas at least.

I’m not an engineer of the field or a developer so I will accept any correction necessary. However, even with those engine support, even with Apple Arcade, few if any big titles come to Mac.

Because big titles mean big publishers and those are a very specific kind of greedy folks. They only deal with the mainstream.

It's kind of funny that smaller publishers and indy devs — with much less recourse — have no problems shipping fully functional Mac versions of their games, but not big, rich studios.

World of Warcraft is kind of like “yeah we supported Mac for StarCraft so why not”, and I never heard of the other two. Instead, RDR2, Cyberpunk 2077, Shadow of the Tomes Raider (this one seems to have Mac version) are more well known titles. Mac might have a chance if those games are ported to the platform.

M1 should be able to run Cyberpunk rather well, if the engine were ported properly, but that is not going to happen. CD Project Red can't even make a properly working console version, why would they invest resources into a new and unproven platform? Give it four of five years, if Apple continues it's momentum, it's likely that big studios will consider targeting the Mac as well.

As to "I never heard of the other two" — Metro Exodus won the Best Action Game of 2019 and Baldur's Gates 3 is one of the most hyped RPGs recently that sold over a million copies within a first week of early access. If you are a person who is passionate about games, I am fairly surprised that you don't know about them.

 

[diamond.g]

Because big titles mean big publishers and those are a very specific kind of greedy folks. They only deal with the mainstream.

It's kind of funny that smaller publishers and indy devs — with much less recourse — have no problems shipping fully functional Mac versions of their games, but not big, rich studios.



M1 should be able to run Cyberpunk rather well, if the engine were ported properly, but that is not going to happen. CD Project Red can't even make a properly working console version, why would they invest resources into a new and unproven platform? Give it four of five years, if Apple continues it's momentum, it's likely that big studios will consider targeting the Mac as well.

As to "I never heard of the other two" — Metro Exodus won the Best Action Game of 2019 and Baldur's Gates 3 is one of the most hyped RPGs recently that sold over a million copies within a first week of early access. If you are a person who is passionate about games, I am fairly surprised that you don't know about them.

To be fair Cyberpunk 2077 should have never come out for the 8th Gen consoles. Those systems are very CPU limited and the streaming system they use shows that.