Feral: Apple Silicon Opens Up 'Exciting Opportunities' for the Future of Mac Gaming

[dabi]

The problem is that Apple refuses to support common APIs to make gaming viable, like Vulkan, and instead focuses on supporting horrible iOS games. I doubt the M1 hardware will change anything in terms of gaming on a Mac, you want to game - it's still PC or console only.

 

[squidcat]

A full third of my guild plays WoW on Mac, and we all bought M1s to do it.

I played Wrath of the Lich King on a 27" iMac from 2009 and it sounded like it was about to blow up every time. It's nice to see M1 Macs able to handle video games much better.

 

[pmiles]

A company whose sole existence is in doing ports... of old games.

For gaming on a Mac to be realized, they need to be written natively for the Mac from the onset. No one is jumping on that bandwagon... in fact, they've been losing developers right and left.

And for all those fools who bought M1's to play WoW... hate to tell you this, but they have little to no Mac development team. Mac support during Shadowlands has been abysmal. Worse than any expansion to date. You guys are the least important customers to Blizzard. Buying a Ferrari to play Tetris isn't exactly a shout out to the prowess of Macs for gaming. You shouldn't need that sort of power to play WoW. There are plenty of other titles out there that are far more demanding than WoW and guess what, won't run on a M1 no matter how much juice you put behind it.

 

[Homy]

Great article MR! More interviews like this with game developers/porting studios about the future of Mac gaming.

One big discovery! Andrew Tsai discovered that in this case you have to have your Mac connected to the charger to get good frame rate. Only on battery there will be a 30 fps cap in the game:

 

[acastic]

Gaming is an industry that requires some level of communication from multiple parties.

Unfortunately, a lot of parties seem unable to actually... respond, or acknowledge.

It is not just Apple however. When was the last time you saw Metro Exodus, Total War Rome Remastered, Baldur's Gate 3, even Farming Sim 2022, reviewed, reported on, by one of the Mac media websites, such as MacWorld?

When was the last time you heard of DEVOUR becoming M1 native, or Tails of Iron, or Neverwinter Nights? What about Myst? Timberborn? Stacklands? TUNIC?

What about Beseige being updated to 64 bit in January? Did you know that Desperados III is on Mac?
What about the recent Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe?

Perhaps MacRumors can contact Valve and ask for their plans about the Mac? Or Microsoft? Or Square Enix?

They should also ask Feral how many Mac OS games they currently have in development. If you look at the Feral Radar on their website, that would be 0.

Aspyr is no longer developing for Mac OS. Hell, they released a crap port with no support of Civ VI on iOS and then bailed.

As a Mac user for over 30 years, Mac gaming is basically dead at this point unfortunately. It's sad to see. We'll get the occasional indie game and there are some real gems to be had there but AAA gaming? We're lucky to get one a year.

 

[syklee26]

Sounds like Feral asking Apple to buy Them.

 

[Homy]

They should also ask Feral how many Mac OS games they currently have in development. If you look at the Feral Radar on their website, that would be 0.

Aspyr is no longer developing for Mac OS. Hell, they released a crap port with no support of Civ VI on iOS and then bailed.

As a Mac user for over 30 years, Mac gaming is basically dead at this point unfortunately. It's sad to see. We'll get the occasional indie game and there are some real gems to be had there but AAA gaming? We're lucky to get one a year.

We'll see how it will turn out for the new Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and and Metro followup. If those won't come to Mac it's a very bad sign.

 

[Horselover Fat]

Until Apple sits down with game publishers and asks, "WHAT DO YOU WANT US TO DO TO HELP YOU OUT," then any speculation is irrelevant.

My feeling is that their answer would be: "Make sure that your platform is much more widespread than it is now." (meaning: make it more affordable). We know that Apple would never follow such a strategy.

 

[SamuelFleming]

I was feeling a little upbeat when I read the article. Then I read the comments and I'm depressed again. I don't need the latest AAA games all the time, but quality Mac OS/Apple Silicone native games would really be cool.

 

[Maxkraft12]

I have been gaming on the Mac since the 68k days. Apple has always found away to mess-up gaming on the Mac. The only games you can expect to see on Apple system are games made on platforms that already support it. Systems like epic and unity. And with Apple way behind in new GPU features and gaming performance don't expect devs to be jumping to make Apple supported games.

But it basically comes down to this. When apple dumped 32 bit support I had to by a pc to run my older games. Why would I go back. I mean its not like my 12900k is slower than a 5,000 dollar Mac. Also PC users have been able to play their games uninterrupted for decades. Its a better platform for long term support.

Apple gaming is dead. Maybe there will be a new generation. But unless apple wants to buy a gaming studio don't expect it.

 

[Nugat Trailers]

They should also ask Feral how many Mac OS games they currently have in development. If you look at the Feral Radar on their website, that would be 0.

Aspyr is no longer developing for Mac OS. Hell, they released a crap port with no support of Civ VI on iOS and then bailed.

As a Mac user for over 30 years, Mac gaming is basically dead at this point unfortunately. It's sad to see. We'll get the occasional indie game and there are some real gems to be had there but AAA gaming? We're lucky to get one a year.

Mm. Like Feral said, though, the vast majority of Macs have been, well, integrated graphics. Back in October 2020, the most common graphics cards on Macs on Steam were

Intel HD Graphics 6000 - 14.12%
Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 - 11.90%
Intel UHD Graphics 630 - 5.77%
Intel Iris Graphics 6100 - 5.09%
Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200 - 4.98%

Which seem to be 2015 to 2017 MacBook Airs and 21.5 inch iMacs, 2017/2018 13 inch MBPs and mid range 21.5 inch iMacs, 2018 Mac Minis, 15 inch and 16 inch MBPs (shared with 5300 and 5500Ms), 2015 13 inch MBPs, and 2013/2014 21.5 inch iMacs and 15 inch MBPs.

It's worth noting that those numbers have fallen pretty drastically between then and now, though.

 

[erikkfi]

When Apple employees see the phrase “Mac gaming” it’s like Delores on Westworld seeing a photo of the outside world: “it doesn’t look like anything to me.”

 

[zoozx]

WHAT FUTURE? You mean iOS microtransaction games?

It doesn't matter what kind of processor there is if game makers aren't going to go for it. Until Apple sits down with game publishers and asks, "WHAT DO YOU WANT US TO DO TO HELP YOU OUT," then any speculation is irrelevant.

They aren't coming here. They're staying in Windows.

Exactly.
Apple has **** the bed for years on gaming, it's not a new issue, should have been addressed years ago.
Believe it when you see it, until then,
expect new emoji's a another update to the WORTHLESS Siri or a new color iPhone!

 

[H3LL5P4WN]

The performance just isn't there yet, and asking devs to code for oddball CPUs and graphics APIs doesn't help. Games are written for consoles then ported for the most part, that means X86 and Direct X on the Series X side, and X86 and GNM (an Open GL derivative) on PS5. PC then gets a port of the Series X codebase with added support for DLSS and RT.

None of that works on Macs.

WoW runs above 50fps and often up to 120fps on my regular M1 MBP.

I can only imagine how well it’d run on the Mac Stack with the M1 Ultra.

 

[H3LL5P4WN]

I played Wrath of the Lich King on a 27" iMac from 2009 and it sounded like it was about to blow up every time. It's nice to see M1 Macs able to handle video games much better.

To be fair, it still gets to the uncomfortable side of warm; I wouldn’t want it literally on my lap or have to use the built in keyboard. I have it plugged into a dock, with a gaming mouse & keyboard and an external monitor.

But it’s DEFINITELY quieter than when my RTX 3080 in my tower gets mad.

 

[BrightDarkSky]

No it isn't.

Even their best graphics options can struggle with after effects, which is a very well-known quantity for decades.

The integrated graphics will seemingly always have disadvantages compared to the discrete beast hardware out there. I don't even see how this is being debated.

So yeah, these guys can keep dreaming, games on mac will never be back, and you can thank Apple for that. No one wants to deal with Apple shenanigans, it's a tough market to deal with already. These are the same guys who turned off the Nvidia driver even with millions of Nvidia gpus in thier older machines. The performance nosedive, and if Nvidia didn't come out with their webdriver, it would have basically destroyed a usability of my old but still in use iMac. Apple would tell me that this machine is too old, however I use it for 90% of my creative cloud work. And this is a 2013 machine with a 4 gig nvidia card!!👍💪💪💪

Apple and gaming just don't mix. Apple and flexibility just don't mix. Apple and playing fair just don't mix. It's a disaster for anyone who wants to put out a game. It's useless pointless just let the dog stay dead.

 

[BrightDarkSky]

My $750 gaming laptop runs some games better than a MB Pro M1 Max. I think that Apple should release a Macbook Ultra with a M1 Ultra and Rtx 3080. That would be a great start for gaming on MacOs.

Exactly. These guys are dreaming. How many cores will Apple have to put into the already massive chipsets to compete? And apple controls the drivers? LOL this is never ever going to work.

 

[Ja50n]

I use Parallels to play Skyrim, with mods, on my M1 iMac. It's not perfect, but 30-60FPS at 1080P is very respectable, especially for a game in a virtual machine that isn't ARM-compiled and can't use Rosetta translation.

 

[BrightDarkSky]

We'll see how it will turn out for the new Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and and Metro followup. If those won't come to Mac it's a very bad sign.

When was there a good sign?

Anyone with experience with gaming on a Mac knows that this whole concept is out to lunch. It's been dead and it's not coming back.

Look at the egpu scenario. They introduce it and then they kill it and then they possibly may be introduce it again? I just paid $3,000 for a Mac that could barely play any games. Lol, my Xbox 360 plays games better than a Mac does.

Games are not happening, I'm not sure what business sense it makes to keep trying either.

 

[BabyBoii]

If mac's could game, I'd never EVER buy a PC again haha

 

[star-affinity]

A few thoughts from someone who has been following the Mac gaming market for decades – I could still be wrong, but here goes. 🙂

Some of the main problems when it comes to gaming on the Mac historically I think are due to:

1. For whatever the reason, the same game performing much worse on the Mac frame rate wise compared to how it runs when started up into Windows on the same hardware.

2. Much weaker graphics card hardware in Macs compared to what you get for your money on the Windows side of things. Desktop tower graphics cards are much more powerful than what the crammed space in a portable Mac and iMac can offer. It has only been the Mac Pro's that has been capable here, and how much of the Mac market share are those machines? Not that large because of the ”pro” price. There are many ”mid tier” desktop PC's out there that has relatively good GPU performance.

Now, if those two tings could be fixed, i.e. performance of a game on similar hardware (difficult to compare to a Windows PC when the CPU and GPU is different as with Apple's M1 chips, I know) and more capable graphics hardware in the hands of more Mac users – I think gaming on Macs could get at least closer to Windows.

The energy efficiency of Apple's Silicon also makes me feel like Apple should help make more games choose the Mac – so much potential energy to save. 😀

 

[Bustycat]

Is there any technology from Apple to compete with Nvidia’s DLSS and AMD’s FSR? The differences are not just the chips themselves.

 

[Macative]

Riiiiight. Because 15 years of Macs running on the same architecture as PCs wasn't the exciting opportunity.

 

[Macative]

A few thoughts from someone who has been following the Mac gaming market for decades – I could still be wrong, but here goes. 🙂

Some of the main problems when it comes to gaming on the Mac historically I think are due to:

1. For whatever the reason, the same game performing much worse on the Mac frame rate wise compared to how it runs when started up into Windows on the same hardware.

2. Much weaker graphics card hardware in Macs compared to what you get for your money on the Windows side of things. Desktop tower graphics cards are much more powerful than what the crammed space in a portable Mac and iMac can offer. It has only been the Mac Pro's that has been capable here, and how much of the Mac market share are those machines? Not that large because of the ”pro” price. There are many ”mid tier” desktop PC

Now, if those two tings could be fixed, i.e. performance of a game on similar hardware (difficult to compare to a Windows PC when the CPU and GPU is different as with Apple's M1 chips, I know) and more capable graphics hardware in the hands of more Mac users – I think gaming on Macs could get at least closer to Windows.

The energy efficiency of Apple's Silicon also makes me feel like Apple should help make more games choose the Mac – so much potential energy to save. 😀

Don't you think it's a little absurd how much raw compute (especially GPU) is needed for a PC game to run decently well today?

 

[Realityck]

The problem is that Apple refuses to support common APIs to make gaming viable, like Vulkan, and instead focuses on supporting horrible iOS games. I doubt the M1 hardware will change anything in terms of gaming on a Mac, you want to game - it's still PC or console only.

This is one of aspects that we hope changes with MacOS 13 aka Mammoth, that it includes more cross compatibility with other graphics standards support. One would think Apple is well aware of this after enough feedback with Monterey this last year with AS Macs.