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Don't worry, there's some True Believers™ in the Mac & PC Games message board here who will absolutely excoriate you with a 10,000 word-vomit about how awesome Mac gaming really is any minute now. The Stockholm syndrome is boggling.

I'd rather pay extra to game on actual gaming platforms than do it for free on the Mac.
Or you can be in the complete denial camp where no matter what Apple does, you'll still disbelieve gaming can happen on the Mac.
 
And killed it when they moved to ARM, and eliminated eGPU support. Without access to real GPU’s, even if Microsoft decided to allow boot camp on ARM, performance would still suck because of Apple’s insistence on rolling their own graphics hardware.
Please explain your logic. ANY Mac out there, even base M1, is way better than the Nintendo Switch. So if the Switch can get decent games, still to this day, any Mac can. It doesn't need the requirement of access to 4090 graphics cards. This is why these gaming threads are tiresome.
 
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The shift to apple silicon has been great because for the first time in Apple's history the Mac has decent graphics across the board by default on an architecture that is easy enough for developers to port over to. Intel unfortunately never cared about pushing integrated graphics as much as AMD did so it made the proposition that much more difficult.

Will your Mac replace your PlayStation, XBOX or Gaming PC? Probably not, BUT it does give a better chance of the more popular titles to come over. Such as stated in the OP - Resident Evil 4, Assassin's Creed etc.

Apparently the M1 GPU performance should be able to handle gaming similar to what a GTX 1050 Ti would. Granted a pretty old nvidia card, but even that is listed in the system requirements for Resident Evil Remake. I have an M2 MBA so I will definitely give them a run to see what happens, but my expectations are that it will run on low/medium settings.

The M1/M2 Pro+ chips should be able to handle more demanding games such as starfield if this trend continues.
 
You would have to be fairly nutty in the head technically to believe that Apple is going anywhere in gaming. Even steam doesn't support Apple anymore and dismiss it however you want that's a huge massive crazy big deal.
What are you smoking? Steam is still supported on Macs, and recently got the redesign also. It's still not apple silicon native, but at least now has hardware acceleration and is more stable.
 
And killed it when they moved to ARM, and eliminated eGPU support. Without access to real GPU’s, even if Microsoft decided to allow boot camp on ARM, performance would still suck because of Apple’s insistence on rolling their own graphics hardware.

The reason Bootcamp is not available on macOS ARM is not due to Apple’s choice, but rather because of the exclusive decade-long agreement currently in place between Microsoft and Qualcomm. As soon as this agreement expires in 2024, Bootcamp will also be available in the ARM version of macOS. I would like to add that if Bootcamp were enabled today, it could result in serious legal actions from Microsoft and Qualcomm, as it is currently not authorized. Therefore, it is much better to wait until 2024. ☺️
 
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apple m series chips are more than capable of amazing graphics in AAA games, it's (m max) far more powerful than ps5 or xbox series x and look at what those consoles are outputting... the problem is the developers need to OPTIMIZE their games to use metal and actually put in some effort to learn the optimization - same as how later generation ps/xbox games have way better graphics than the initial games, because devs have experience and know how by then.

Instead of just half assed conversions or going through the non-native route. That's the blocker, devs just dont want to invest the effort and i dont blame them given apple's complete lack of interest on gaming for desktop macs. It's not the mac hardware or software, if dev spent just half the time they do on ps5/xbox games, the end product for mac will look beautiful. Baldur gate 3 is a prime example of that.

Also just to set some expectations as there seem to be so many clueless newbies whose only experience with gaming is ios. If you have a baseline m chip with 8gb of memory, you are not running 4k ultra setting aaa games, just because it's mac doesn't mean the cheapest hardware will run aaa games, it's ludicrous to cry about that, just like trying to run it on a celeron pc with integrated graphics.... On PC you need a ~$1500-2000 machine which will get you a rtx 3070 with 16+ gb memory to run it at high setting. Same for mac, m# max is where it's at for high setting aaa gaming.

With m3, i expect a major bump for gpu power in addition to ray tracing, a m3 max should be able to stand toe to toe with a very decent high end gaming pc. It will also be curious to see how m3 ultra works if they fixed all the problems, they had a lot of issues with m1/2 ultra not working expected with games (ie lower frame rate than m max etc..) i guess due to connecting 2x max chip together....generally for mac gaming, you avoid m ultra. m max is where it's at....but if apple ever fixes all those problems, then m3 ultra will be a beast.
 
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Until Apple make a game controller this is DOA
In this context, it is not necessary, as all of Apple’s operating systems (iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, etc…) are perfectly equipped to support all existing controllers, including those from the major gaming consoles. To be more specific:

• DualShock 4 Controller (PS4)
• DualSense Controller (PS5)
• DualSense Edge Controller (PS5)
• Xbox Controller with Bluetooth (model 1708)
• Xbox S Controller
• Xbox X Controller
• Xbox Elite Controller (s2)
• Xbox Adaptive Controller
• NES Gamepad
• SNES Gamepad
• Nintendo 64 Gamepad
• Sega Genesis Gamepad
• Nintendo Switch Joy-Con
• Nintendo Switch Pro-Controller (hybrid)

So, I don’t see what your concern is! Of course, third-party controllers are also supported.
 
Tim announces Apple has bought Nintendo

Then we get a skit in which Bowser has captured Mother Nature.

Tim and Craig dressed as Mario and Luigi save the day as they use the new energy efficient M3 chips to take down Bowser.

Tim: now you can play the classics like Tetris on your Mac! We think you’re going to love it!


Thank me now Gurman for the leak!
 
Would love to see decent gaming on Mac.
I play Baldur’s Gate 3 and while people claim it runs smooth it’s not even close to my PS5.
Rooting for Apple to finally bring gaming to Mac.
It’s easier and cheaper, because some games are better with Mouse & KB and I am not interested in having a gaming PC as well…
 
I'm not a hard core gamer. I just want to play the occasional game. Like years ago when Neverwinter Nights came out. Along later with Skyrim. And now that Baldur's Gate 3 is out for the Mac, it would be nice to be able to play that too.

So it would be nice if Apple would be serious about having machines capable of playing AAA games. Not to mention gaming is a huge market and it would be wise for Apple to at least pay attention to it.
 
To be honest, I doubt that they‘ll ever get a foot in the door when it comes to gaming on PCs. Maybe if they surpassed Windows PCs significantly, and that’s not going to happen.
 
With Counter Strike 2, Valve showed us the way.

Unless Apple pays developers to port games to the Mac, it won't happen in a big way, just read Valve's statement.
But still, cutting off a game from an entire platform isn’t such a smart idea, because there are still players who were using macOS as a platform. Just because there aren’t enough players it doesn’t mean that there aren’t players.


But form a marketing and money platform the argument changes, signed it may be costly to support such a small amount of users…
 
If it's a genuine push to be interested in Gaming, it will be interesting to see the final pre-launch event for the Vision Pro as up to now, even mentioning VR gaming (which is the reason 99.9% of people buy this type of product in the 1st place) has been a dirty word and not even mentioned by Apple.

Apple COULD have produced the best gaming VR headset ever (as well as AR capabilities) so will be very interesting to see if they deliberately still choose to not even mention this as one of it's use cases.
 
If it's a genuine push to be interested in Gaming, it will be interesting to see the final pre-launch event for the Vision Pro as up to now, even mentioning VR gaming (which is the reason 99.9% of people buy this type of product in the 1st place) has been a dirty word and not even mentioned by Apple.

Apple COULD have produced the best gaming VR headset ever (as well as AR capabilities) so will be very interesting to see if they deliberately still choose to not even mention this as one of it's use cases.
It’s not just VR hardware and you’ll have the best gaming platform ever. Not everyone is VR compatible either.

Name any game that Apple has at the moment that runs better than the ps5 console or xsx let alone a PC gaming rig. There are none except left over scrap games from the past.

The biggest AAA title is COD taking in billions and Microsoft owns that now. Would they be interested in letting Apple run the game? Not from the minute user base and definitely not for 30% cut. Apple will never be a serious gaming platform ever. It’s not in apples DNA. Apple is only after profits. Nothing more.
 
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?
Yes Apple could do that, but the problem people have cited is that if they make Windows programs run too well on Mac then developers won't have much incentive to make Mac native versions, they would just make Windows versions knowing Mac users could use those too, leaving less differentiating reason to have a Mac. This was famously the reason that IBM OS2 or something failed to get market share in the 1980s/1990s because it was too good at running Windows programs.
 
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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.
Now, VR is on the horizon and they need other reasons besides movies and productivity to compete with Meta Quest. Though I wish it was always a priority for them.
 
Current apple hardware is good enough for Mid to high settings but many gaming developers are stuck with publishers that are not sold on spending money on porting and developing for mac.

Apple is the other side of the coin refusing to support Vulkan, which would very quickly open up so many more opportunities for gaming on macOS
 
I guess has Apple becomes more and more an high end entertainment tech & content company, a cohesive and convincing all around gaming strategy is inevitable missing piece. Sooner or later this will happen. The question then when.

But the gaming realm is somewhat different than others ... their name is irrelevant to gaming. Yes they have the numbers for thumb gaming ... App Store .... I mean, a PS4 offers better realism in the living room and desk/bedroom, and PS5 or XBOX is incomparable, let's not talk about the PC.

With their laptops and iMac pricing already maxed out, plus high end gaming capabilities, what what will that cost for them to have a business at the lever they are used to? Don't think it's through here.

I think the option through a high end entertainment console (Apple TV) ... this is the device they have space to put better tech with tag. But it needs the wow fator, not only in words but in actual use ... that is the Apple way. Don't think they have that figured out yet, but who knows. When it comes to wow, it's an unpredictable company.

Will see.
 
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