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Apple Explains How Game Mode Works in macOS Sonoma

hyena.ftw said:
... in a few years time we may see the new generation of gamers who would be preferring to play on Macs and iPads as opposed to gaming PCs and Consoles.
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That's funny. See the thread yesterday about an AAA game finally being available on Silicon for $60 and "our" reactions to the price of an AAA game.

The problem for AAA gaming on Mac is not about hardware. It's about MONEY. Microsoft & Sony heavily subsidize the creation of AAA games for their platforms... if not outright buying & owning whole gaming studios for AAA exclusives. Apple doesn't spend ANYTHING to do the same. With Apple, it seems to be only a "build it and they will come" delusion.

Apple fan gamers do NOT want to pay more than a dollar or two for any Silicon app (again see yesterday's thread to get a good sense of sentiment about $60). "We" also abhor any other kind of revenue model like:
  • in-app purchases: "I want the entire game unlocked for a single price"
  • subscription model: "I will never buy anything that costs a subscription*"
  • advertising model: "I hate all advertising in games- just give me the game"
*unless it's an Apple subscription, and then Apple can have any amount they want. ;)

If the lot of us really want AAA gaming in abundance on Mac, the key to success is to solve the MONEY problem. How do the developers make MORE money developing AAA games for Silicon than they can by taking lucrative subsidies from the other guys, including various mixes of the 3 bullets above in their games AND charging market rates for AAA games on the other platforms?

Until this MONEY problem is solved, we'll always be looking forward to the potential of rich AAA gaming on Silicon but never actually seeing it happen... as we have for the last 20+ years as Macs have advanced. Show developers MORE money and they will come. All other actions short of that is an impractical illusion, leaning too heavily on hope developers won't choose the much more lucrative money elsewhere.
 
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joptimus said:
I‘d rather see Apple throwing money at studios to optimize for AS, too.
Looking at you, Colossal Order and Cities Skylines 2…
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I was starting to think about replacing my hackintosh with a Mac Studio until I found out no cs 2 for Mac

I might buy a 6800 now instead
 
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ARM is a move that will push Apple forward in gaming. On top of that, their fantastic chip design and software support will definitely increase their footprint in the gaming market over the next 5 years.

All that is now needed are games to launch, which seems to already be in the pipeline
 
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Game mode is quite impressive, I've tested it and pubblished a vide on my YouTube channel. You can see bench, BT audio latency test, but the video is in italian

 
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BlairMALL said:
New version of Myst?!?!?! Is Riven far behind? Loved both though I am woefully far behind on keeping up with things in that world.
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New version of Myst in that it was rebuilt in the Unreal engine and is just absolutely stunning. Riven is also in the works from Cyan, but no timeframe. That is my all time favorite Myst game, so I am eagerly awaiting it.
 
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The part about reduced Bluetooth latency sounds particularly interesting. I don’t game on my Mac, but as a professional video editor I hate trying to make fine cuts to music or sound design things when my AirPods lag just a a couple frames behind the video.

Maybe DaVinci Resolve can reclassify itself as a “game.”
 
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CarAnalogy said:
That’s a very good point. The more performance gained from Game Mode, the more of an indictment it is that the operating system is running too high at what should be idle. It’s not like it makes the computer any faster.
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Seriously you suggest "the more of an indictment it is that the operating system is running too high at what should be idle. It’s not like it makes the computer any faster" ? That is nuts. M Macs have proven to be quite efficient, and many (perhaps most) folks like me buy a max box to get max performance.

We want to be able to gain the creative/productivity edge that reduced latency when switching among apps (especially when using multiple displays) provides. And M-series MBPs have excellent battery life already. MBP users' primary goal is not to lower the OS performance at idle.
 
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diamond.g said:
That is a 28% increase in performance. Wonder what background tasks are messing with things for that big of an increase (are you using the Steam version).
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My first guess would be Spotlight indexing. That can be quite a hog at times. Maybe one of the things that happens in gaming mode is housekeeping tasks like the Spotlight index builder get suspended. That'd be one of the first things I'd do if I was designing such a feature.
 
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Maybe all the optimizations possible are already implemented by developers and Apple in macOS, but if possible, I would love to see a sort of “Pro” mode that optimizes all system resources (RAM, CPU, etc.) for all pro apps like Photoshop, Lightroom, Final Cut, Premiere, etc. I don’t mind if system UI elements get super laggy if it makes the in-app experience smoother when dealing with heavier editing scenarios in any of these apps. Maybe just a general “turndown” of all basic system background operations / of anything “not” a pro app when the feature is turned on.
 
JerOhMy said:
Maybe DaVinci Resolve can reclassify itself as a “game.”
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Yeah Im kinda hoping I can 'brute force' Cubase into it too. Didn't even think about it last night after I updated and was testing out the DAW.. I was just happy everything works the same as it did in Ventura/Monterey so far..
 
hyena.ftw said:
Wishing Apple good luck with this. Should they keep up doing a good job, in a few years time we may see the new generation of gamers who would be preferring to play on Macs and iPads as opposed to gaming PCs and Consoles.
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Highly unlikely unless game developers start taking Apple platform seriously. Even Minecraft is not running native on MacOS and requires old Java to run. Many major hardware/software producers own popular game titles and Apple did nothing about it for decades. Game mode is a ridiculous imitation that they are taking gaming seriously.
 
aottke said:
Maybe all the optimizations possible are already implemented by developers and Apple in macOS, but if possible, I would love to see a sort of “Pro” mode that optimizes all system resources (RAM, CPU, etc.) for all pro apps like Photoshop, Lightroom, Final Cut, Premiere, etc. I don’t mind if system UI elements get super laggy if it makes the in-app experience smoother when dealing with heavier editing scenarios in any of these apps. Maybe just a general “turndown” of all basic system background operations / of anything “not” a pro app when the feature is turned on.
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Buy more RAM when you order the box!
 
Game Mode or Sonoma in general have seemed to break 7 Days to Die when trying to play on peoples servers. Originally I couldn't launch the game normally I had to launch the EAC mode, but now that won't even work since I updated. Still trying to figure it out, shut off game mode and it still isn't working.
 
InuNacho said:
Hard to predict RAM needs 2-5 years into the future.
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In relation to gaming, 16-32 GB is the way to go. As of right now games on macOS don't need that much ram (16GB is probably fine) but there could be games on the horizon (assumptions being made) that need more.
 
Tyler O'Bannon said:
ARM is a move that will push Apple forward in gaming. On top of that, their fantastic chip design and software support will definitely increase their footprint in the gaming market over the next 5 years.

All that is now needed are games to launch, which seems to already be in the pipeline
Click to expand...

They need to improve gpu performance first

Last I checked amd beats apple silicon even on metal benchmarks
 
diamond.g said:
In relation to gaming, 16-32 GB is the way to go. As of right now games on macOS don't need that much ram (16GB is probably fine) but there could be games on the horizon (assumptions being made) that need more.
Click to expand...

Cities skylines can use more than 16 GB of ram
 
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