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AnandTech's Deep Dive Into M1 Pro and M1 Max Highlights Performance and Efficiency Improvements

Michael Scrip said:
But theoretically couldn't a game developer make games for whatever Apple offers?
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Of course... and probably spectacular games if coded to make the most of Pro or Max. There's no programming obstacles to coding great games for Apple Silicon. Big programming teams simply want what Apple wants: "more money, more money, more money" If Apple would show programmers how to make the MOST profit coding for Apple Silicon, the big teams would leap to coding exclusives for Apple. How could Apple do that? As is, that probably means reaching in their vault and spending a big (to everyone else but small to Apple) chunk of those billions to subsidize game development exclusives... much like the AppleTV+ model is funding original video programming for that service.

Without something like that, there's simply much more profit coding for Windows and mainstream consoles. At best with Apple tech, iPhone games being coded to take advantage of additional features/power available in PRO and MAX.
 
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Michael Scrip said:
But theoretically couldn't a game developer make games for whatever Apple offers?
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Theoretically they could. But AAA games cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make. Developers want to release on multiple platforms at once to ensure they get the return on that investment. If Apple made it easy there would be lots of ports. But Apple make it hard.
 
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huge_apple_fangirl said:
The memory advancements are really cool. But the graphics performance in games is kind of disappointing. I don't think they really talked about GPU compute either? On the whole, great SoCs, but I feel like M1 was more impressive overall, especially in power efficiency.
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I asked Andrei about the Geekbench compute scores if that’s what you’re asking about:

forums.macrumors.com

So M1 Max with 32 Core GPU matches RTX 3080 Mobile.

I've asked Andrei/Ryan to comment about the Geekbench scores and the high performance mode. EDIT: Andrei responded And Ha! I'm wrong! https://www.anandtech.com/comments/17024/apple-m1-max-performance-review/760308 Take that me! Reading his response the issue is that the bigger Apple GPUs take...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com

Basically lack of scaling is due to GB kernels running too short and the M1 Max completing before it can fully spin up (it must spin up its clocks more slowly than the smaller GPUs). If you test on beefier benchmarks, the M1 Max’s theoretical compute performance is indeed 4x the OG M1 and where you would expect a 10TFLOP GPU.
 
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KPOM said:
I think the issue with games is that there aren't very many optimized for Apple Silicon, either the CPU or Metal.
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huge_apple_fangirl said:
Very possible. Apple has put a lot of effort into graphics on the hardware side, but they need to improve Metal and be more proactive about getting developer support for it.
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The software is not there but there is also a lack of focus from the hardware, just compare it to the customizations you see from a PS5 on top of desktop gpus that are geared for gaming. This is not a question about capability, more of an intentional focus for hardware design.

aohus said:
they're not going to make a push for it. gamers tend to be toxic. its a branding issue. apple wants to be productivity/creative centered
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jmgregory1 said:
It might be true that Apple doesn’t want to be associated with the classic gamer market, but I would bet the bigger issue is that the market is just too small for it to be worthwhile. At some point, game developers will realize that making games that are huge energy hogs is going to cost them, not just cost the end user.
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That just describes some internet sub-communities, this would not have any effect on whether they make a push for the market. They are after all just an extension of the App Store gaming market. Game developers have been making significant returns from the high end AAA space for decades, but they are working with hardware manufacturers that are catering to that area. If the consoles make the jump to ARM next gen, I can see that easing ports to MacOS for future hardware.
 
Spidder said:
MoltenVK is a (buggy) workaround for a problem that Apple has created: Not supporting Vulkan
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Vulkan and Metal are two different APIs with not just different ways of expressing the same things but different expectations of what the underlying hardware is. Expect further divergence over time. Nvidia did the same thing to OpenCL for the longest time and even now OpenCL is a good deal slower on Nvidia GPUs than CUDA, not even because of intentional crippling just the API is tailored to the hardware. Lastly in the marketplace Vulkan place third fiddle to DX and the native PlayStation/Nintendo APIs. Yes they support it, no it isn’t what developers primarily use.

Oh and right now Apple’s solution for supporting OpenCL while it still exists on macOS? Apparently it could be basically called MoltenCL ;) - it translates OpenCL to Metal Compute.
 
bitcloudrzr said:
The software is not there but there is also a lack of focus from the hardware, just compare it to the customizations you see from a PS5 on top of desktop gpus that are geared for gaming. This is not a question about capability, more of an intentional focus for hardware design.



That just describes some internet sub-communities, this would not have any effect on whether they make a push for the market. They are after all just an extension of the App Store gaming market. Game developers have been making significant returns from the high end AAA space for decades, but they are working with hardware manufacturers that are catering to that area. If the consoles make the jump to ARM next gen, I can see that easing ports to MacOS for future hardware.
Click to expand...

I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to say here as Apple’s SOC design is in many ways similar to the console APU design - although in many ways taken to an extreme.

Edit: don’t get me wrong I’m not arguing that people should buy this expecting a gaming machine. But that’s more to do with software availability. It’s just that a lot of the hardware customizations that you’d find in a console are here - as well as many customizations found in workstations.
 
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I always enjoy reading all the comments when Apple releases new hardware, but this time I have to post a grumpy old man response.

Apple have released a laptop that can run circles around many desktop systems at both a lower cost and using a lot less power. You can throw into your backpack what you earlier had to put in your trunk and Apple have even added ports for what you should not care about or already have dongles for.

Stop whining about your HDMI port not being 2.1 or a notch that you won’t notice after a few days of work.
And no, it’s not a gaming console, so get an Xbox or a PlayStation.

I am a developer and jumped on the first generation M1 and as much as I would like a new MacBook Pro I simply cannot justify it since no matter what I throw at what I have now, it just keeps asking for more.

What is it you want from Apple? Do you know yourselves?
 
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crazy dave said:
I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to say here as Apple’s SOC design is in many ways similar to the console APU design - although in many ways taken to an extreme.
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I was referring to gpu specific customization, not that the apu was worse or that they could not design for that.
 
crazy dave said:
Vulkan and Metal are two different APIs with not just different ways of expressing the same things but different expectations of what the underlying hardware is. Expect further divergence over time. Nvidia did the same thing to OpenCL for the longest time and even now OpenCL is a good deal slower on Nvidia GPUs than CUDA, not even because of intentional crippling just the API is tailored to the hardware. Lastly in the marketplace Vulkan place third fiddle to DX and the native PlayStation/Nintendo APIs. Yes they support it, no it isn’t what developers primarily use.

Oh and right now Apple’s solution for supporting OpenCL while it still exists on macOS? Apparently it could be basically called MoltenCL ;) - it translates OpenCL to Metal Compute.
Click to expand...
Apple basically created OpenCL. It surprised me when Apple deprecating OpenCL.
 
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Is this the death knell for Intel 8086 series of chips? I think so, but time will tell. The CISC vs. RISC war is definitely favoring Apple.
 
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The fact that the M1 Max is getting near server class performance sipping power the way it efficiently does, in a laptop quite portable device, is really remarkable. People can argue all day about the design with the notch etc. (which doesn’t bother me at all), but there is no arguing Apple has delivered a product that is very much a result of Apple listening to their power users.
 
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bitcloudrzr said:
I was referring to gpu specific customization, not that the apu was worse or that they could not design for that.
Click to expand...

To be clear, I fundamentally agree that people should not get this expecting to do hardcore AAA gaming. But that to me has more to do with software.

As far as I can remember, most of the kinds of customizations AMD did for the consoles are here - things like a wider memory bus with unified memory. Stuff like that. In fact in some ways (not every way) Apple’s is the same but bigger. The same idea taken to its extreme. But I’ll admit it’s been awhile since I read about them, so what additional modifications did AMD make to the console GPUs?
 
Or Anandtech could have just done this:

Apple Silicone Explained.png
 
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crazy dave said:
To be clear, I fundamentally agree that people should not get this expecting to do hardcore AAA gaming. But that to me has more to do with software.

As far as I can remember, most of the kinds of customizations AMD did for the consoles are here - things like a wider memory bus with unified memory. Stuff like that. In fact in some ways (not every way) Apple’s is the same but bigger. The same idea taken to its extreme. But I’ll admit it’s been awhile since I read about them, so what additional modifications did AMD make to the console GPUs?
Click to expand...
Sony for example have gpu cache scrubbers to increase memory efficiency and have customized their geometry engine on top of what RDNA2 has for the PS5. I guess these are more unique console specific hardware implementations that are not going to move the performance by large amounts. Personally not familiar enough with the software side of things like their api, so I cannot comment on that, although I assumed there would be work to do with Metal.
 
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