Apple Event Next Week Likely to Emphasize High-End Gaming on Mac

[Razorpit]

Until Apple make a game controller this is DOA

I cringe thinking what it would look/feel like. Based on the last 2 decades of mouse and keyboard design, I’m thinking it would be terrible.

 

[cylack]

Apple, please pay Activision to port Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III to the Mac. The Mac needs a AAA FPS.

 

[ttyRazor]

They do make a game controller, it's called a mouse and keyboard.

The worst mouse possible for gaming doesn’t count. Hard to hold a right mouse button to zoom and click the left to shoot when there aren’t any buttons.

 

[jimbobb24]

Here's the needed announcements to actually bring AAA gaming to Mac:

• Apple is allocating an AppleTV+ like budget to a new unit focused on Gaming, like the AppleTV+ unit is focused on original programming... exactly like Microsoft and Sony does.
• Apple has purchased 1+ Game Studios for Exclusive Games only for Mac. Or Apple has purchased Nintendo... or Sony.
• Apple is actively hiring substantial gaming staff for the gaming division to code games, just like Microsoft and Sony.

In other words, MONEY is the key to AAA gaming on Mac. The competitors put up big money to subsidize AAA game creation, buy major gaming studios, etc. That money buys them AAA games and major exclusives. AAA game developers go where the money is abundant.

If it's a lot of talk about chip POWER but no money, we've seen this same movie many times before. And we know how it ends... over and over again. Apple certainly has the money to do it... IF they will put that money to work on AAA gaming... much like they decided to put substantial money and resources to be Netflix Junior.

Very simply: talk is cheap. Put your money where your mouth is.

Cue the classic line from Jerry Maguire (you know the one).

Or they could just let me stream PS5 games and MS games on the Apple TV since I can use the native controllers.

 

[thomsonr]

MacOS Ventura was supposed to have full support for steering wheels and pedals. Never happened. I bought an iMac M1 to replace my older iMac with bootcamp that worked fine with my Logitech wheel and pedals thinking I'd soon have support. Boy was I wrong.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Or they could just let me stream PS5 games and MS games on the Apple TV since I can use the native controllers.

See post #73 for those MS (Computer?) games if your PC has a NVIDIA card.

 

[Tymbo]

Could this mean ProMotion iMac is on the horizon?

 

[dmr727]

The iPad mini is perhaps Apple’s best portable gaming device. They should definitely include the iPad mini 7 update too at this event. 😉

I just discovered AltStore the other day, which allowed me to install several emulators to scratch my retro gaming itch. Even my old USB PlayStation controller worked perfectly. It really is a great form factor for this sort of thing!

 

[MallardDuck]

Until and unless they announce eGPU support for Nvidia cards, gaming on the Mac remains a niche, with a small stable of titles, mostly indie. The only way around that is for Apple to start paying publishers to port titles.

 

[MallardDuck]

I cringe thinking what it would look/feel like. Based on the last 2 decades of mouse and keyboard design, I’m thinking it would be terrible.

Thin, light, monochromatic, with two hour battery life, but lots of courageous hard corners and glass backs.

 

[chetzar]

but will it run Tetris?

But will it run Crysis?

 

[opuscroakus]

I apologize for my limited knowledge in this area, but I have a genuine question: Could Apple create a tool or something like Wine, but native, to run most, if not all, Windows games? Can they develop software or make programming adjustments to support the languages of those games? Or is it dependent on the hardware architecture?

They had such a tool, it was called Bootcamp.

 

[bradman83]

If the M1 is based on the A14, and the M2 is based on the A15, wouldn't the M3 be based on the A16?

Apple's not bound to make every version of the M series correspond to the core designs of the A series. Apple refreshes the A series annually but thus far has refreshed the M series on an 18 month basis (there's evidence they want to bump this to annually as that was likely their original). So Apple likely will skip over the A16 and use the A17 as the basis for the M3. The turn time is perfectly reasonable, the A14 and M1 both launched fall of 2020.

 

[barkomatic]

It would be awesome to play Nintendo games on a Mac or iPad though most people already bring along with them anyway. I know that's some serious dreaming because Nintendo has rebuffed Apple before.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

WTF, they have the ability to reduce the latency for AirPods by increasing the Bluetooth sampling rate? So why the hell is that not in itself a user adjustable setting? Gah, Apple, you frustrate me to the end of the earth.

Hmmm, I wonder if these instructions work... https://www.idownloadblog.com/2021/05/13/how-to-improve-bluetooth-audio-mac/

PS - as part of my planned switch from iPhone to Pixel 8, I am also planning on switching from AirPods to Sony
WF-1000XM5.

 

[emmab2006]

Watching closely with my M2 studio 38 core. I use this for X Plane 12, any hardware changes for next year's M3 Max interest me....

 

[Lerenard3000]

Apple yesterday announced that it will be holding an online event on Monday, October 30 starting at 5 p.m. Pacific Time, and there are several reasons to believe that gaming on the Mac will be one of the major focuses of the event.

Below, we have recapped Apple's recent gaming-related efforts on the Mac and other clues heading into the event next week.

Hardware-Accelerated Ray Tracing

Apple silicon chips often have architecture similarities. Like the A17 Pro chip in the iPhone 15 Pro, Apple's upcoming M3 series of chips for Macs will likely feature hardware-accelerated ray tracing for significantly improved graphics rendering compared to software-based ray tracing. M3 series chips are also expected to be manufactured with TSMC's 3nm process for faster performance and improved power efficiency compared to M2 series chips. These advancements pave the way for more AAA games to launch on the Mac.

Apple Hints at More AAA Games on Mac

Apple hinted at more AAA games launching on the Mac in a recent interview with gaming publication IGN. When asked if the new games that Apple announced for the iPhone 15 Pro last month would eventually be compatible with Apple silicon Macs, Apple VP Tim Millet said "the developers are going to work with us to do it." These games include a Resident Evil 4 remake, Death Stranding Director's Cut, and Assassin's Creed Mirage.

Capcom and Sony Hints

Japanese game developer Capcom recently announced that Resident Evil Village will be available on the iPhone 15 Pro and on iPad models with the M1 chip and newer starting October 30, which is the same day as Apple's event next week.

It's possible that the release date lining up with the event is merely a coincidence, but it could hint at additional Mac-related gaming news to come from Apple and Capcom, and perhaps other game developers. A source informed us that Apple is holding its online event at the unusual time of 5 p.m. Pacific Time because it will fall during business hours in Japan, and claimed that the event will include a major tie-in with a Japanese game developer, but we have not independently confirmed the accuracy of this information.

While the App Store says the Resident Evil 4 remake is set to launch on Macs with the M1 chip and newer on December 31, this date is a placeholder, and it is possible the release will be pushed up following Apple's event. The game was already released for Windows PCs, the PS4/PS5, and the Xbox Series X/S in March.

As for Sony, it plans to launch cloud streaming for PS5 games in North America on October 30. Could there be a tie-in with Apple?

Game Mode

macOS Sonoma features a new Game Mode that temporarily prioritizes CPU and GPU performance for gaming. Game Mode also lowers AirPods audio latency, and reduces input latency with popular third-party game controllers by doubling the Bluetooth sampling rate.

Game Porting Toolkit

At WWDC 2023 in June, Apple released a new toolkit that makes it easier for game developers to port Windows games to the Mac. The toolkit provides an emulation environment that allows developers to run their existing, unmodified Windows game on the Mac and quickly evaluate how well the game could run on macOS before writing any code.

Article Link: Apple Event Next Week Likely to Emphasize High-End Gaming on Mac

I have WiFi 6e iPhone ultra fast ps5 connection inside the house, and my iPhone 15 pro is still lagging like hell with the official ps remote app, how can anyone expect playing any game seriously with Sony cloud which adds even more lag? Argh…. Promises..

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Honestly, why would they? Genuine question.

Apple is known for being aggressively forward moving. Like when they nuked 32bit support. It was just cut off with 1 year notice. Games don’t get recoded frequently and can live on for a long time. Like GTA 5 or even people playing Quake. Apple likes to deprecate APIs and cull quickly.

I am not really understanding their play here.

There are pros and cons. MS Windows is still backwards compatible with ancient tech, which allows ancient critical business software to keep on chugging along, which is great. The flip side is that MS Windows is hamstrung by a lot of old crud that holds it back from improving in many ways. To be fair, they mostly deal with it ok. The rise of ARM, and thus the still maturing ARM version of Windows, which has the potential to become the main version of Windows, seems like the one stroke of luck that lands MS the opportunity to start afresh. Even though I have zero plans or desires to move away from macOS, it would be fabulous to have a Windows OS and laptops that run it, running well enough that they could tempt me away from Apple. Or perhaps hell will freeze over first

 

[Hastings101]

What is with the big focus on gaming all of a sudden anyway? They happily let Mac gaming flounder for pretty much the past decade and iOS gaming has never really evolved beyond freemium besides a few releases and Apple Arcade (and what a success that has been).

I'm not complaining, I'm just confused.

 

[jimbobb24]

Why is this a concern. There are scores of BT and USB game controllers. Or does it only count is it costs double and has an Apple logo?

Use the PS5 which is the best controller in the world. Or the Xbox controller which is the 1.1th best controller in the world. Apple supports both of these and they are both amazing

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Yes, but will all of this make Safari snappier?

In all seriousness, Apple does seem to be moving towards making gaming easier to develop on the Mac, though the path from iOS to macOS appears to be the one they are focused on. If they are serious about getting top shelf games, they are going to have to work on making Metal easy to port to, as well as supporting gaming hardware (i.e. making drivers easier to build). Some will argue that they need to support graphics cards, though the way the M processors are going that might not be as critical as it used to be. It would be great if Apple really pursues this seriously, but we've been watching them say they wanted to support gaming for decades and failing to, so I guess we'll see.

I agree, they seem to be growing more serious about gaming. There is big money in it, which means Scrooge McCook has probably had his eye on it for a while.

I have no doubt that Apple intend to keep all the hardware in house. This upcoming "Scary fast" event could be more interesting that I imagined.

I'm not a gamer myself, but my son is. He has an old 2014 MBA, but also a PS4, and also a gaming PC that he built himself, complete with a fancy pants high power GPU, flashing LEDs, and cooling fans galore. The thing purrs, but isn't exactly mobile. I've been half planning on buying him a new 13" M3 MBA for his birthday next year, so it would be a nice bonus if the M3 had a sudden leap in gaming performance, along with a flurry of decent game titles that run on it.

 

[canon-cinema-0r]

I think this might be where Apple eventually wants to go. They know they'll never be in a situation where people buy their hardware for gaming, but they might be able to convince existing MacOS/iOS users to use their Apple hardware instead of a console or PC. They know Steam is terrible on the Mac - they'll make their money by providing an alternative that integrates well into the ecosystem, and get their cut from the App Store or whatever.

I didn't get this notice about Steam being terrible on Mac, care to elaborate?

 

[amartinez1660]

Gaming is the last reason to upgrade any of my Macs, but that's just me ...

Agreed.
Also me personally when rarely there’s the free time to actually game the last thing I want to do is to sit on the same chair, use the same keyboard, mouse/trackpad, screen, desk, room that used to work 10+ hrs a day at times… feels like still working, I end up just firing up the seriously underpowered Switch or just watching a series (lately Silo, was epic) or just browse on an iPad stuff to learn.

However, there’s no doubt that gaming and gaming endeavors do bring up the overall performance of all things graphics related. These endeavors benefit things like Blender, Apple Motion/FCP, etc and viceversa… some more than others.

 

[Ethosik]

Honestly, why would they? Genuine question.

Apple is known for being aggressively forward moving. Like when they nuked 32bit support. It was just cut off with 1 year notice. Games don’t get recoded frequently and can live on for a long time. Like GTA 5 or even people playing Quake. Apple likes to deprecate APIs and cull quickly.

I am not really understanding their play here.

This was needed for Apple Silicon to be able to function, and that we would have up to date software we could use with Rosetta day 1. Blame the abandonware. Windows is not perfect, there is a reason why I still have a Windows XP and 98 gaming system around. Windows 11 doesn't play everything perfectly.

 

[Ethosik]

And once again they are gonna tell us the computers we just bought are total junk and to buy a brand new one just for ray tracing.

This is an aspect of gaming they will have to be careful about. PC gamers can just upgrade their video cards. Consoles release games targeting the same hardware for a decade. Apple cannot have it both ways but I get the feeling they are gonna try.

Ray tracing is a marketing gimmick and a meme at the moment. Even with my 4090 13900k setup, I still turn off Ray Tracing to gain 100+ FPS for free.