Feral Releases 'Total War: Warhammer III' Optimized for Apple Silicon Macs

[MacRumors]

Feral today released Total War: Warhammer III, an Apple silicon optimized version of the latest part in the Total War series based on Games Workshop's Warhammer fantasy fictional universe.

Like other titles in the Total War series, the game features turn-based strategy and real-time tactics in which players move armies around the map and manage settlements, engaging in diplomacy with, and fighting against, computer-controlled factions or other gamers online in multiplayer battles.

WARHAMMER III plunges players into a cataclysmic power struggle between mortals and daemons with each aiming to save or exploit the power of a dying god. Featuring seven diverse playable races - including the video-game debuts of Grand Cathay and Kislev - alongside ground-breaking new features such as the Realm of Chaos campaign, eight-player multiplayer, and the customizable RPG-like Daemon Prince Legendary Lord.

In addition to the above lands, the game features a Prologue campaign, which promises a new Total War experience designed for both new players and those requiring a refresher course on the game's mechanics. In this narrative-driven mode, players learn basic and advanced techniques of tactical warfare before going on to engage in the main Warhammer III campaign, which takes place within the Realm of Chaos, said to be the source of all magic in the Warhammer Fantasy setting.

Total War: Warhammer III was originally released on Windows PC in February 2022, so this port from Feral is not too far behind. To play Total War: Warhammer III requires macOS 12.0.1 or later and a Mac powered by Apple's M1 chip (8-core CPU/7-core GPU) or better, 8GB of RAM, and 125GB of storage space. The game can be purchase directly from the developers at the Total War: Warhammer III store or on Steam.

Article Link: Feral Releases 'Total War: Warhammer III' Optimized for Apple Silicon Macs

 

[andrewxgx]

it requires a Mac with M1? so it doesn't work at all on Intel Macs?

 

[darngooddesign]

it requires a Mac with M1? so it doesn't work at all on Intel Macs?

Intel Macs can run the PC version via BootCamp.

 

[EntropyQ3]

it requires a Mac with M1? so it doesn't work at all on Intel Macs?

That appears to be correct.
A bit earlier than expected but it makes sense, and should mean better performance for AS macs.

 

[icanhazmac]

Sweet, another baby step towards real Mac gaming.

 

[biffuz]

The toughest requirement is the 125GB space... take that, base-model advocates!

 

[Isengardtom]

The toughest requirement is the 125GB space... take that, base-model advocates!

Yeah, I’m starting to regret I only took 256 GB on my M1 iMac.

I used to love Rome Total War. So maybe should give it a try
Glad to see these kind of games heading to Apple Silicon Macs (I’d love to see games like this come to the M1 iPads)

 

[opeter]

Slowly you can see such system requirements for some games:
Darwinia - 10000th Anniversary Edition

 

[PsykX]

The toughest requirement is the 125GB space... take that, base-model advocates!

It always depends if you can install it on an external drive or not.

I have a 256GB iMac and it has become a daily struggle with Xcode. Yes, daily. I regret it. It's the best Mac I ever owned, but it's also the most frustrating Mac I ever owned.
Even if I move it to an external drive, most of the files stay on the internal drive.

 

[Treq]

The toughest requirement is the 125GB space... take that, base-model advocates!

I got the base studio and have externals for my game and media libraries. Load times aren’t even that noticeable, but I guess I could get a fast ssd thunderbolt drive if I was worried about it. Gaming on the M1 macs is great. Just wish they would develope more for it.

 

[leman]

Feral has confirmed on Twitter that the game binary is Intel because of limitations of some third-party libraries that have to rely on, but the game itself is optimized for Apple Silicon GPU and system architecture. Sounds like a very reasonable tradeoff for now.

 

[singularity0993]

Require an M1

To play Total War: Warhammer III requires macOS 12.0.1 or later and a Mac powered by Apple's M1 chip (8-core CPU/7-core GPU) or better, 8GB of RAM, and 125GB of storage space.

So they’re starting to make apps that don’t support Intel any more…. before the AS transition is even complete?

 

[leman]

Require an M1

So they’re starting to make apps that don’t support Intel any more…. before the AS transition is even complete?

Well, there are probably already as many if not more M1 macs in the wild as Intel Macs on which this game is playable, and the amount of M-series will only increase. Combine it with the fact that Apple Silicon is easier to develop and test for, and that dropping Intel allows them to fully commit optimizing for the modern Mac, and it sounds like a smart choice. Why spend significant developer resources in supporting a handful of machines you know will be phased out on the coming year or two anyway?

 

[laptech]

I cannot believe what I am reading from some people in here. A games publisher makes a game that is optimised for Apple Silicon, something that mac users and a huge majority of MR members have been asking for ages and now you get some people moaning about it with regards to Intel Macs!!!

 

[darngooddesign]

Well, there are probably already as many if not more M1 macs in the wild as Intel Macs on which this game is playable, and the amount of M-series will only increase...

Exactly. Every M1 laptop can run this game well, the same is not true for 13" Intel laptops.

Besides, Intel Macs with sufficient specs can run it in Boot Camp.

 

[star-affinity]

People over at Steam don't seem too positive about the game's current state when it comes to bugs:

Mac users, read the reviews. Don't get scammed like we did into buying a clearly unfinished product for full price. You at least get the chance to benefit from our misfortune.
You owe it to yourself to check out the roadmap minimum before you buy this, if nothing else (I'm assuming of course that they're going to fix the replenishment issues for some races at the same time as Windows in Q3.)

Total War: WARHAMMER III coming to the macOS! :: Total War: WARHAMMER III Events & Announcements

View full event information here: https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/1142710/announcements/detail/3211640176290177137

steamcommunity.com

 

[TheMacDaddy1]

Yeah, I’m starting to regret I only took 256 GB on my M1 iMac.

I used to love Rome Total War. So maybe should give it a try
Glad to see these kind of games heading to Apple Silicon Macs (I’d love to see games like this come to the M1 iPads)

Well you can just upgrade the M.2 SSD in your Ma.....oh wait....sorry.

 

[TheMacDaddy1]

Well, there are probably already as many if not more M1 macs in the wild as Intel Macs on which this game is playable, and the amount of M-series will only increase. Combine it with the fact that Apple Silicon is easier to develop and test for, and that dropping Intel allows them to fully commit optimizing for the modern Mac, and it sounds like a smart choice. Why spend significant developer resources in supporting a handful of machines you know will be phased out on the coming year or two anyway?

I know Apple is selling a lot of M1 Mac's but by and far the current pool of Mac's in use today, is vastly more on the Intel side of things.

 

[aeronatis]

I know Apple is selling a lot of M1 Mac's but by and far the current pool of Mac's in use today, is vastly more on the Intel side of things.

He is talking about the number of Macs this game would be playable on:

"Well, there are probably already as many if not more M1 macs in the wild as Intel Macs on which this game is playable"

 

[Homy]

From Facebook: "At the current time this title is only supported on M1 machines; there are performance issues on Macs with AMD GPUs that mean we cannot support them in this first release. We are currently working to add support for AMD GPUs. Intel Macs with an integrated Intel GPU will not be supported."

 

[The_Gream]

Good thing I have both Intel and Apple Silicon based macs.

Really wish they could a master/slave based system in the OS so I could daisy chain computers and the OS would run the software on the best processor.

 

[Homy]

I know Apple is selling a lot of M1 Mac's but by and far the current pool of Mac's in use today, is vastly more on the Intel side of things.

According to Steam the Intel Mac user base is decreasing 1-5% per month while the M1 user base is increasing 1-5% every month. The transition is happening fast. Since Dec 2021 the Intel Mac user base has shrunk by 11% while M1 Mac user base has increased by the same amount.

 

[commander.data]

From Facebook: "At the current time this title is only supported on M1 machines; there are performance issues on Macs with AMD GPUs that mean we cannot support them in this first release. We are currently working to add support for AMD GPUs. Intel Macs with an integrated Intel GPU will not be supported."

I do wonder how much of this is waiting on Apple? Apple's turnaround on bug/performance fixes for games in their graphics drivers on Intel Macs has historically left something to be desired and I imagine despite Apple saying Intel Macs will be fully supported for the foreseeable future, GPU driver optimization for Intel Macs is even less of a priority than before. It's quite possible game developers will quickly transition away from Intel Macs for high-end games not necessarily because the more recent Intel Macs don't have the hardware for it, but because the drivers aren't in the right state and never will be.

 

[Homy]

I do wonder how much of this is waiting on Apple? Apple's turnaround on bug/performance fixes for games in their graphics drivers on Intel Macs has historically left something to be desired and I imagine despite Apple saying Intel Macs will be fully supported for the foreseeable future, GPU driver optimization for Intel Macs is even less of a priority than before. It's quite possible game developers will quickly transition away from Intel Macs for high-end games not necessarily because the more recent Intel Macs don't have the hardware for it, but because the drivers aren't in the right state and never will be.

Feral explained further on Twitter: "It's Apple Silicon-only, but not native. The game uses a number of libraries for online multiplayer that do not support Apple Silicon, meaning we can't release it as an M1-native title. The good news is that it performs just as well via Rosetta 2 as it does when running natively."

 

[CalfCanuck]

It always depends if you can install it on an external drive or not.

I have a 256GB iMac and it has become a daily struggle with Xcode. Yes, daily. I regret it. It's the best Mac I ever owned, but it's also the most frustrating Mac I ever owned.
Even if I move it to an external drive, most of the files stay on the internal drive.

There are some easy "hacks" help you.

I have a 2TB SanDisk Extreme Pro hooked up to my 2017 iMac, formated as APFS, which I use to store my large Lightroom Library, as my internal 1TB SSD is too small. I get 939 MB/s write, 949 MB/s read in Blackmagic. Note the regular, non-Pro Sandisk Extreme model only tests in the low 500 MB/s.

While my internal SSD gets over 2000 MB/s, for daily use the Extreme Pro is an acceptable trade-off in terms of price-performance-ease of integration. Current Amazon price is about $325 for the 2TB model (make sure you get the latest generation, which I believe is listed as "up to 2000 MB/s"). Plus the portable SSD will migrate to your next computer.

I also have a OWC 8-bay ThunderBay drive bay, but SSD speeds for SATA top out int he 500's, unless you go to soft-RAID.