https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/nvidia-pascal-announcement.57763/page-95#post-1933199
Another brick in the wall
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Another brick in the wall
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Another Mac port gets cancelled due to Apple's poor graphics support
- Thread starter Cougarcat
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So the situation with Apple's graphics problems are two-fold. One is the software/graphics API situation which we've discussed, but is is also the hardware component.
Apple is likely to stick with AMD for their "high-end" GPU vendor this generation. With the Polaris 11 (a lower power/heat version of the Polaris 10) rumored to exist solely for Apple so they can stick a GPU in their unnecessarily thin hardware. We didn't know how much performance would be lost or how it would compare to the bigger brother. Well, with the release of the 460, polaris 11 finally was released and benchmarked:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-amd-radeon-rx-460-4gb-review
Yeah, it's pretty awful, about 1/2 the speed of the 470 and not much more power efficient either. I don't know what Apple is thinking in regards to GPUs in their machines, but this sounds like a poor solution. Here's hoping we get external GPU solutions, because if this is the best Apple can offer, this is not good enough for me to want to stick it in a $2500 laptop.
I'm just flabbergasted that they want to skimp their "pro" computer GPUs so much. They don't skimp the GPU side nearly as badly for their iOS devices.
Apple is likely to stick with AMD for their "high-end" GPU vendor this generation. With the Polaris 11 (a lower power/heat version of the Polaris 10) rumored to exist solely for Apple so they can stick a GPU in their unnecessarily thin hardware. We didn't know how much performance would be lost or how it would compare to the bigger brother. Well, with the release of the 460, polaris 11 finally was released and benchmarked:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-amd-radeon-rx-460-4gb-review
Yeah, it's pretty awful, about 1/2 the speed of the 470 and not much more power efficient either. I don't know what Apple is thinking in regards to GPUs in their machines, but this sounds like a poor solution. Here's hoping we get external GPU solutions, because if this is the best Apple can offer, this is not good enough for me to want to stick it in a $2500 laptop.
I'm just flabbergasted that they want to skimp their "pro" computer GPUs so much. They don't skimp the GPU side nearly as badly for their iOS devices.
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iOS devices are gaming devices. Macs are only for PROS (it says so on their name plates). Don't you see all those PROS sitting at Starbucks? They're doing PRO stuff like editing their PRO Facebook pages and PRO Tweets. PROS don't need GPUs. PROS just need a command line and thus the reason the GPU is an after-thought only meant for NASA scientists to model black holes for that dude in the wheel chair who says aliens are coming to kill us so we should stop transmitting M.A.S.H. re-runs into outer space lest they think us a violent war-like race! Oh wait....
Its also what happens with some big corporate companies, we have one in the UK called the BBC (British Broadcasting Compnay) It gives the public what THEY think we should watch on TV/Radio NOT what the public wants or tells them they would like. Apple has gone down the same road of NOT listning to what their customers want, they do not understand a greater part of there buying public, they think they are all all as has been said, all PROS in Starbucks doing their stocks n shares etc. Forget Iphones and Ipads etc there are loads of companies putting out phones pads etc now, get back to your base Apple where you came from, producing desktops that beat other desktops.
May I ask you guys one thing? Is GTX 960M on which level will be RX M480, or whatever will it be called, be able to be packed in 35W Thermal envelope?
No. GTX 960M is 65W GPU(It has higher clocks on both core and memory than desktop GTX 750 Ti). And that would not fit with 85W power supply in MacBook Pro.
No. GTX 960M is 65W GPU(It has higher clocks on both core and memory than desktop GTX 750 Ti). And that would not fit with 85W power supply in MacBook Pro.
This doesn't justify why most of the - so called - macbook pro models come with an integrated only gpu.
Besides that, this doesn't justify why other laptops manage to have 9xxm gpus, unless apple's global good-for-everything poor excuse about thermal envelopes is taken seriously. But buying this excuse is tough since, imho, thermal envelopes and cases should be adjusted to support performance instead of the other way around.
Form over function is the god apple worships during the last few years, sacrificing many things in the process. The rest of the IT world (pros and non-pros) has seen this for some time now. Especially regarding games (as this thread's title suggests) the word "mac" is considered equivalent of a joke in the general gaming community (not in the insult way, but literally).
Come on now, the GTX 960M is a 28nm chip with a design first revealed in March 2014.
At the current rate of development do you honestly believe that Nvidia couldn't manage to do better than that with Pascal in 16nm (soon to be shrunk to 14nm)?*
*If so would you mind disclosing how much stock in $AMD you own?
That is not what I am saying. Nvidia can do better than that. However, for that we have to wait another few months for GP107. GTX 1060 has 65W TDP. Will Apple wait another few months, when they have lower powered chip with similar performance, that can fit in MBP?Come on now, the GTX 960M is a 28nm chip with a design first revealed in March 2014.
At the current rate of development do you honestly believe that Nvidia couldn't manage to do better than that with Pascal in 16nm (soon to be shrunk to 14nm)?*
*If so would you mind disclosing how much stock in $AMD you own?
Metal SUCKS on OS X proper. If Microsoft can have DirectX AND OpenGL/OpenCL/Vulcan on Windows Apple can do the same. Someone at Apple with enough influence needs to put a stop to Apple's pig headed behavior of turning their backs of open standards and ignoring industry standard UI/UX development. It hasn't been since the late 80's and early 90's that Apple has been this out of sorts as it relates to being against the industry versus swimming at the head of the pack.
OS X OpenGL performance always have been awful. The lack of OpenCL 2+ for so long is ridiculous if you want to have some high end software development for your platform. Metal, Obj-C made it so Apple is painting itself into a corner which I think will be the end of OS X soon enough. The new not so swift Swift language doesn't help either, they seem to have use it into OS X and it show by the down into the toilette performance we see into OS X since X.6. From X.0 to X.6 every update was a speed up, then iOS hell broke loose and plagued OS X down to his knee. On the other corner you have Microsoft who did a great job lately with open sourcing C# with cross platform. They also made Visual Studio cross platform. I really like what they did lately, I wasn't a fan at all before, but I have to admit when looking at both offering now, Mac is so far behind it's sad that such a nice OS end up like this! OS X will be my BeOS 2 in a way.
The software performance side are abysmal, but that's nothing compare to the crapy video hardware they use into the entire Mac lineup.
The only think that could save OS X at this point is embarrassing the C# and ditch that swift/Obj-C propriatary language (open source with a single platform is totally bs). If they manage to support DirectX (microsoft does the port) that would be nice and could save the day (since the OpenGL team at Apple seem either under founded or under staffed).
I for one had to give up on OS X (did used it since X.0 to X.12 lately) but my old iMac was the last Mac I brought (and was on min of X.12 and that would be it for me owning any Mac any time soon). Next will be a good PC, Windows 10 (with Linux sub system) and Linux (Gentoo) dual boot.
The software performance side are abysmal, but that's nothing compare to the crapy video hardware they use into the entire Mac lineup.
The only think that could save OS X at this point is embarrassing the C# and ditch that swift/Obj-C propriatary language (open source with a single platform is totally bs). If they manage to support DirectX (microsoft does the port) that would be nice and could save the day (since the OpenGL team at Apple seem either under founded or under staffed).
I for one had to give up on OS X (did used it since X.0 to X.12 lately) but my old iMac was the last Mac I brought (and was on min of X.12 and that would be it for me owning any Mac any time soon). Next will be a good PC, Windows 10 (with Linux sub system) and Linux (Gentoo) dual boot.
Telling that Obj-C is cutting edge is putting is head into the sand! Just do a quick search on the web there's a ton of people and web site that can tell you what's wrong or features lacking Obj-C is, and it goes wide: collections, memory management with lambda, no generic, weird enum, bulky syntax, weak IDE (Xcode)...
Even C++ is catching up lately with C++14 and soon C++17 would solve many problems.
The other negative point about Obj-C and Cocoa, try to port your OS X code to another platform and see how much fun you would get! Obj-C is a niche market and OS X port will still have problems for as long as this is the de facto language.
Long live Qt and C/C++! At least you get something that can run on most platform. They still have a long way to go on mobile but still they are heading into the right way.
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I can certainly buy an off the shelf Windows 10 computer with a decent video card for less that most outdated hardware Mac lineup right now. For the Linux part, if you can't do it yourself, it's probably not for you anyway, stick with cygwin then ;-)
Other than iOS, I gave up on native Mac gaming about 2 decades ago. The prices on the new MBPs are such that my latest MBP (arriving anyday now) is lacking dedicated graphics because although I could afford it, I could not justify $3k. As is, I'm still paying more for my MBP than a PC gaming laptop, because the only serious gaming I do is at home on my PC. However, once it arrives, I will install Windows and explore it's abilities on both the Mac and Windows side.
