Five Games Worth Firing Up to Show Off Your New MacBook Pro

[therockyroad]

I'd be curious how they run on the M1 Mac.

I get about 30FPS for Deus Ex MD on the M1 Macbook Air. Dont remember the exact setting or res but its not too high.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

I admit it. M1 Max is as powerful as mobile RTX 3080 even with Rosetta 2. At this point, it's up to game developers to support Apple Silicon for native performance just like Baldur's Gate 3.

That's impressive. Out of curiosity, does that mean the M1 Pro is as powerful as a 3060 or 3070?

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Build it, and they will come...

 

[sunny5]

That's impressive. Out of curiosity, does that mean the M1 Pro is as powerful as a 3060 or 3070?

No actual reviews so far.

 

[ipponrg]

There are already many AR/VR titles so I wouldn't say it's "niche". At some point, you have to ask yourself if it appears to be niche because of software limitations or hardware?

Is VR accessible to most people? Does the best pair of VR goggles that money can buy today provide the kind of experience customers expect for the money they spend? Admittedly, the field is wide open and that's exactly why gaming for Mac has a bright future because Apple is the company best positioned to solve all these problems.

You can't make predictions about the future purely based on the trajectory of the past. Otherwise, you can never see the success of the iPhone coming and you'd think Sony would dominate AV forever. If you can't see what a game-changer Apple Silicon is by now, there is no point in trying to convince you. To each his own. We'll talk in a few years.

It's niche because of both software and hardware. I don't think the average customer cares for VR. We've been talking about VR for nearly a decade, if not more. When there's a thread like this, there's always people that say Apple has the best hardware so PC better watch out. I'm still waiting for this to actually happen.

I own the M1 Max, so I am aware of how "game changing" it is. The silicon is quite impressive, but honestly I am in the MR audience where I play new games on a PC and do my work on a Mac. That could change if you're right, but you're not still as of today.

 

[Stella]

Ask the Google god how the performance of Nvidia GPU has changed from year to year. There is really no point in arguing over this. I'm talking about GPU of the same tier, not comparing cards across tiers. The improvement is marginal in every sense of the word. In fact, if you factor in power consumption and measure performance per watt, the efficiency of some cards actually got worse.

Mac has not been traditionally good for gaming because:

1. Apple favour all-in-one solution in their mid-range and entry-level offerings, which are not amenable to customization. High-end graphics cards are usually not available as options in this product line.
2. High-end Apple desktops are prohibitively expensive.
3. Prior to the advent of Metal, Apple has to rely on OpenGL, a standard they don't control. They are also dependent on Nvidia and/or AMD (ATI prior to 2006), graphics cards they don't design and make themselves. It is famously said by engineers at these companies that they have a hard time making graphics cards that are up to Apple's exacting standards (as graphics cards often need to be custom-made for Mac).
4. After their row with Nvidia, Apple's sole graphics card supplier is AMD, whose offerings weren't as great as Nvidia's (and still aren't).

Apple Silicon pretty much solved all of the above. This is not to mention whatever higher specs required by games ported to the Mac are more than met with the superior processing power of Apple Silicon. It's really no coincidence that Metal Developer Tools on Windows was introduced last year. The foundation that they laid for gaming is about to bear fruit.

The tight integration of macOS/iOS and software/hardware not only incentivizes game developers to develop games for both platforms but also allows Apple to take a lead in AR/VR over its competitors as a tightly integrated software/hardware environment makes developing games much easier.

Metro Exodus is really a harbinger of things to come. The kind of solution favoured by gamers, i.e. eGPU or customized desktop, will have lost its attraction by the time Apple completes its transition to Apple Silicon (around 2023) then it will start to decline. Why get a $3000 graphics card when a MacBook Pro (of 2023) will offer the same kind of performance for $4000 or less? This is also assuming that you can find a high-end graphics card for sale.

If AMD, Intel, and consoles do switch to ARM, then it only adds to the likelihood of the scenario of Apple Silicon becoming a dominant force in gaming because games will be just that much easier to port to the Mac when everyone is on ARM.

And all Apple really needs is a blockbuster game. They might even develop that game themselves. Once game developers see Mac as a viable platform for their games and start developing games native to Macs, there is really no stopping the Apple Silicon train.

I've seen the performance improvements between Nvidia generations myself... so, I'm not going to debate this, I don't agree with you. Since I have a PC desktop for gaming, I'm less concerned about power consumption and measure performance per watt, and more concerned about performance, unless power consumption is excessive, which the Nvidia 3000 range is not. So, that's really a mute point, for me.

I'm well aware of why gaming on Macs has failed, so there's really no need to rehash it.

Metro Exodus is not a harbinger of anything. PCs are just far too customizable in terms of hardware and flexible for software. if I want to increase storage, RAM and GPU, in my PC, I can do that. Apple? I have to buy a whole new device!! There are a lot of third party tools that integrate directly into games that iOS isn't going to displace PC gaming anytime soon. iOS is too restrictive. Macs are too expensive; Like I said, gaming PCs are just simply better value than a Mac and have a longer shelf life due to it's upgradability. Gamers are not jumping on board iOS / Macs any time soon.

I admire your optimism, but gamers are sticking with Consoles and PCs for a long time yet. The landscape isn't going to change. We heard similar cheer leading when Macs went Intel, that gaming will become more popular. It didn't. Apple silicon is fantastic, but it isn't enough to move the gaming industry significantly. AMD, Nvidia and Intel aren't just going to sit by and watch Apple, they will counter what Apple does. Upgradability of PCs plays a large part of their popularity for gaming. Apple cannot match that flexibility.

 

[DStaal]

I get your point here, I always thought Shadow was the more intensive due to increased polygon count, further upgraded lighting and all the mud effects etc however didn’t think about the draw distances there, good catch!

Mostly I thought about it because I was wondering why my high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro with an external graphics card could do 60 FPS in Shadow with ease, but had trouble in Rise... Then I realized that Shadow has very close-in environments: Jungles, the city, etc. The few times you get a big vista there isn't actually anything else in the scene, it's just a set-piece for a moment. Rise on the other hand has quite open level environments - open valleys mostly, with some sparsely laid-out villages.

I think someone over at the development team realized they could get quite a bit more effective performance if they just designed the scene to have less visible to the player.

 

[DStaal]

Metro Exodus is not a harbinger of anything. PCs are just far too customizable in terms of hardware and flexible for software. if I want to increase storage, RAM and GPU, in my PC, I can do that. Apple? I have to buy a whole new device!! There are a lot of third party tools that integrate directly into games that iOS isn't going to displace PC gaming anytime soon. iOS is too restrictive. Macs are too expensive; Like I said, gaming PCs are just simply better value than a Mac and have a longer shelf life due to it's upgradability. Gamers are not jumping on board iOS / Macs any time soon.

I don't think hardware flexibility is necessarily a problem - gaming consoles do quite well after all, and they're less flexible yet, for the most part.

I think it's value proposition and audience. Macs aren't seen as gaming machines (and so therefore aren't seen to have an audience), and it's not particularly easy to port to them. For the small size of the perceived audience, it's not worth the money to make the effort. This is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem in that the audience isn't there because the games aren't there, and the games aren't there because the audience isn't there. Hardware wise most Macs are good enough - they may not match the high-end on a value proposition, but neither does a lot of the hardware that games are actually played on.

The one thing that Apple could really do to help this is to make it easier to port to Mac. That means supporting the most common current APIs, and committing to that support. Apple hasn't done that - they half-heartedly supported OpenGL for a while (without really keeping it updated), then replaced it with something custom. Metal may be a better graphics API, but it doesn't matter, the games aren't going to be developed for Metal, they'll be developed for the APIs the Windows, XBox, and Playstation all support.

If it's easy enough to port to Mac, some companies will do it because the value calculation makes sense. If they then make money on Mac, then other companies will follow. If the audience becomes big enough, then we may see things written for Apple's custom APIs - but you need to support the standard first to get the audience and the reputation.

 

[lysingur]

I've seen the performance improvements between Nvidia generations myself... so, I'm not going to debate this, I don't agree with you. Since I have a PC desktop for gaming, I'm less concerned about power consumption and measure performance per watt, and more concerned about performance, unless power consumption is excessive, which the Nvidia 3000 range is not. So, that's really a mute point, for me.

We're not talking about "you". We're talking about PC gamers in general. If you aren't even going to look at hard numbers when it comes to performance and only going to focus on your feelings, what's the point of pretending that you're being objective?

Facts don't care about your feelings. Nvidia's GPU has only made incremental/marginal improvements from year to year. This isn't something I said. This has been common knowledge amongst serious gamers. How much of a gamer are you if you think this is a debate? Seriously, what games do you play and how many Nvidia GPUs have you gone through?

Power consumption is indeed central to this discussion because Nvidia GPU consumes so much power that it has become the bottleneck to its performance. And surely you know this, right? And what's a "mute" point? Did you mean "moot"?

Metro Exodus is not a harbinger of anything. PCs are just far too customizable in terms of hardware and flexible for software. if I want to increase storage, RAM and GPU, in my PC, I can do that. Apple? I have to buy a whole new device!! There are a lot of third party tools that integrate directly into games that iOS isn't going to displace PC gaming anytime soon. iOS is too restrictive. Macs are too expensive; Like I said, gaming PCs are just simply better value than a Mac and have a longer shelf life due to it's upgradability. Gamers are not jumping on board iOS / Macs any time soon.

Macs aren't more expensive than the best graphics card in the market today. Not sure if you get the point but customization is overrated. Can you customize a console? No. But people still buy consoles, yes? Did you ever ask yourself the reason? You're arguing in circles here. PCs are customizable and gamers will stick with consoles and PCs, yet consoles aren't customizable. What gives?

It all comes down to cost-benefit. If Macs are powerful enough and affordable enough than the competition, people will buy Macs for games. It's not difficult to understand at all. And in this case, Macs with Apple Silicon offers the best bang for your buck.

I admire your optimism, but gamers are sticking with Consoles and PCs for a long time yet. The landscape isn't going to change. We heard similar cheer leading when Macs went Intel, that gaming will become more popular. It didn't. Apple silicon is fantastic, but it isn't enough to move the gaming industry significantly. AMD, Nvidia and Intel aren't just going to sit by and watch Apple, they will counter what Apple does. Upgradability of PCs plays a large part of their popularity for gaming. Apple cannot match that flexibility.

I don't know where you were when Macintosh adopted Intel chips but pre-Intel, there are a paltry of games for the Mac platform. So you're dead wrong when you said gaming isn't more popular on the Mac after adopting Intel. Just look at the number of games available on Steam for macOS. Again, you don't know what you're talking about. You're a casual.

Upgradability of PC plays a big part in its success because it's made it cheap. Now Mac is going to be cheapER because Apple Silicon is so efficient and powerful it essentially future-proofs itself against Intel, AMD, and Nvidia.

Also, see the breakdown of gaming revenue. Mobile gaming takes up more than 50% and growing. And who's the king of Mobile? Apple has much more leverage in the gaming industry than you "feel". Microsoft will be stuck with x86 architecture for at least a decade so they can't get into that new space of AR/VR games and you won't see major improvements in performance on the PC side for just that long. What makes matter worse is most graphics cards and console processors are based on the x86 architecture too so it doesn't really matter how much customizability is offered by a desktop PC, PC gamers will be stuck with inferior performance. Meanwhile, Apple Silicon will allow gamers to play AAA titles at 1080p at the very minimum of 60 fps by the year 2023 on a LAPTOP!

I'm not optimistic. I'm realistic. My predictions are based on facts. Well, Stella, let's talk in a couple of years. Meanwhile, enjoy your Nvidia and desktop PC.

 

[amartinez1660]

Windows uses C / C++ / C#

If you make a game on Windows, it works on Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo, Sega, etc.

Wanted to mention on this beginning part of the comment: Nintendo Switch is already ARM and tons of ARM ports are made for it which I gather… they would just work or are almost close to done.

 

[Denzo]

This has to be cool for max owners.
I honestly am not that blown away by the upgrades on PC. I had a GTX295 back in the day and when upgraded to a 7970 HD I was like cool. Some better frame rates. Tomb Raider chick got better looking hair. Then I jumped in and got the almighty 1080Ti Asus RoG gtfoh edition. And again, better frame rates and the card is a beast to look at etc.. but did I feel like I got my $1500aud worth? Not at all. Hence why idgaf about the 3080 etc. it’s the same **** every year. Some mild improvements at astronomical cost because they know all the kids will beg their parents for these video cards which cost what, like $2000 now? I bought a PS5 for $749 and for the first time in years of gaming I was impressed. By the whole package. Graphics speed all of it.
And I’d imagine this is what it’s like for max users with this power. An actual difference that gives you a sense of value. I just don’t get that from of gaming like I used to. The leaps just aren’t there TO ME.

Keep in mind when you make the leap in nvidia graphics cards for PC gaming, usually you need to up everything else which diminishes the value factor to me even more. Mobo, ram, cPU even monitors. Pass.

 

[ipponrg]

Macs aren't more expensive than the best graphics card in the market today. Not sure if you get the point but customization is overrated. Can you customize a console? No. But people still buy consoles, yes? Did you ever ask yourself the reason? You're arguing in circles here. PCs are customizable and gamers will stick with consoles and PCs, yet consoles aren't customizable. What gives?

Looks like you can get a Razer 3080 GTX laptop for $2999 vs a M1 Max Pro for $3099. Anandtech says that Apple's synthetic benchmarks don't quite match up to real world performance for the MBP.

Customization isn't overrated. Look at Twitch/YouTube streamers and ESports, and the market and sponsorships they are involved in.

Upgradability of PC plays a big part in its success because it's made it cheap. Now Mac is going to be cheapER because Apple Silicon is so efficient and powerful it essentially future-proofs itself against Intel, AMD, and Nvidia.

Also, see the breakdown of gaming revenue. Mobile gaming takes up more than 50% and growing. And who's the king of Mobile? Apple has much more leverage in the gaming industry than you "feel". Microsoft will be stuck with x86 architecture for at least a decade so they can't get into that new space of AR/VR games and you won't see major improvements in performance on the PC side for just that long. What makes matter worse is most graphics cards and console processors are based on the x86 architecture too so it doesn't really matter how much customizability is offered by a desktop PC, PC gamers will be stuck with inferior performance. Meanwhile, Apple Silicon will allow gamers to play AAA titles at 1080p at the very minimum of 60 fps by the year 2023 on a LAPTOP!

Success is a big part because of choice. Apple relies on brand, and PC relies on choice.

The mobile gaming rhetoric is a strawman. We're talking about gaming on laptops not mobile (also known as smartphone) gaming.

Inferior performance is a red herring. When is Back 4 Blood, Diablo 2 Resurrected, CoD Vanguard, Forza Horizon 5, etc. coming onto the Mac?

I'm not optimistic. I'm realistic. My predictions are based on facts.

This is in many ways a contradiction to what you told me:

You can't make predictions about the future purely based on the trajectory of the past.

And also your first prediction on this forum fell flat

For all his anti-Jobs qualities, one thing that Cook absolutely needs for Apple to continue to grow is an acuity on how technology is evolving and where it's heading. Somehow it doesn't feel like iWatch is 'it'.

 

[Stella]

I think quite a lot of your points are invalid. ipponrg above reply is good.

We will have to agree to disagree on a lot of points you and I raise. ( difference between 2080 vs 3080 are more than just "marginal" )

UserBenchmark: Nvidia RTX 2080 vs 3080

Nvidia RTX 3080 vs 2080: how much faster is Nvidia's new Ampere GPU?

You may not be able to buy it anywhere right now, but Nvidia's new RTX 3080 GPU has very much set the bar for next-gen …

www.rockpapershotgun.com

...and I could go on with the comparisons ( 3080 does well against the Super range too, but comparing like for like - compare 2000 Super range against the 3000 super range, if NVidia releases them )
( yes, 3080 does require more power, but gamers won't care too much - PSU are replaceable fairly cheaply )

We will see in a few years, and I don't think gaming on Macs will be in a significantly different position as we are now.

Consoles and PCs will still be the most popular gaming platform ( for non mobile games - that you suddenly changed the goal posts to - we aren't talking about mobile games ). Consoles are popular due to Price and they are dedicated gaming platforms - it's the price / performance / value ratio - they don't need to be flexible - games target that hardware for the life time ( and you shouldn't even need to ask "why are consoles popular if they aren't upgrade-able ).

There aren't that many popular ( even discounting AAA ) games on the Mac today. Yea, and I know the Steam situation on the Mac, and lets not forget about GOG either, it's overall, disappointing, which hasn't changed for years; this is a reason why I have a gaming PC ( self built, gone through a few generations of upgrades - last round of upgrades still cheaper and offering better performance than buying a Mac or replacing with new PC), because the games I want to play aren't available on the Mac.

Again, I still think you are being optimistic about the viability and popularity of Mac gaming in the future.

We're not talking about "you". We're talking about PC gamers in general. If you aren't even going to look at hard numbers when it comes to performance and only going to focus on your feelings, what's the point of pretending that you're being objective?

Facts don't care about your feelings. Nvidia's GPU has only made incremental/marginal improvements from year to year. This isn't something I said. This has been common knowledge amongst serious gamers. How much of a gamer are you if you think this is a debate? Seriously, what games do you play and how many Nvidia GPUs have you gone through?

Power consumption is indeed central to this discussion because Nvidia GPU consumes so much power that it has become the bottleneck to its performance. And surely you know this, right? And what's a "mute" point? Did you mean "moot"?



Macs aren't more expensive than the best graphics card in the market today. Not sure if you get the point but customization is overrated. Can you customize a console? No. But people still buy consoles, yes? Did you ever ask yourself the reason? You're arguing in circles here. PCs are customizable and gamers will stick with consoles and PCs, yet consoles aren't customizable. What gives?

It all comes down to cost-benefit. If Macs are powerful enough and affordable enough than the competition, people will buy Macs for games. It's not difficult to understand at all. And in this case, Macs with Apple Silicon offers the best bang for your buck.


I don't know where you were when Macintosh adopted Intel chips but pre-Intel, there are a paltry of games for the Mac platform. So you're dead wrong when you said gaming isn't more popular on the Mac after adopting Intel. Just look at the number of games available on Steam for macOS. Again, you don't know what you're talking about. You're a casual.

Upgradability of PC plays a big part in its success because it's made it cheap. Now Mac is going to be cheapER because Apple Silicon is so efficient and powerful it essentially future-proofs itself against Intel, AMD, and Nvidia.

Also, see the breakdown of gaming revenue. Mobile gaming takes up more than 50% and growing. And who's the king of Mobile? Apple has much more leverage in the gaming industry than you "feel". Microsoft will be stuck with x86 architecture for at least a decade so they can't get into that new space of AR/VR games and you won't see major improvements in performance on the PC side for just that long. What makes matter worse is most graphics cards and console processors are based on the x86 architecture too so it doesn't really matter how much customizability is offered by a desktop PC, PC gamers will be stuck with inferior performance. Meanwhile, Apple Silicon will allow gamers to play AAA titles at 1080p at the very minimum of 60 fps by the year 2023 on a LAPTOP!

I'm not optimistic. I'm realistic. My predictions are based on facts. Well, Stella, let's talk in a couple of years. Meanwhile, enjoy your Nvidia and desktop PC.

 

[Stella]

I don't think hardware flexibility is necessarily a problem - gaming consoles do quite well after all, and they're less flexible yet, for the most part.

I think it's value proposition and audience. Macs aren't seen as gaming machines (and so therefore aren't seen to have an audience), and it's not particularly easy to port to them. For the small size of the perceived audience, it's not worth the money to make the effort. This is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem in that the audience isn't there because the games aren't there, and the games aren't there because the audience isn't there. Hardware wise most Macs are good enough - they may not match the high-end on a value proposition, but neither does a lot of the hardware that games are actually played on.

The one thing that Apple could really do to help this is to make it easier to port to Mac. That means supporting the most common current APIs, and committing to that support. Apple hasn't done that - they half-heartedly supported OpenGL for a while (without really keeping it updated), then replaced it with something custom. Metal may be a better graphics API, but it doesn't matter, the games aren't going to be developed for Metal, they'll be developed for the APIs the Windows, XBox, and Playstation all support.

If it's easy enough to port to Mac, some companies will do it because the value calculation makes sense. If they then make money on Mac, then other companies will follow. If the audience becomes big enough, then we may see things written for Apple's custom APIs - but you need to support the standard first to get the audience and the reputation.

Flexibility and choice absolutely does play an advantage for PC gaming. Consoles are popular due to price and they do their main task extremely well, that is gaming.

Due to price, performance and expected years of life, Console's don't require as much customization - because there's no need - games are targetted towards the specific hardware ( which is extremely well optimized ) - something that is often forgotten. It's fairly cheap to upgrade a Console, unlike a Mac, or indeed a PC, if all major components require replacing. But a PC has the advantage, components can be upgraded incrementally, to keep up - someone could upgrade the GPU, as a long as the CPU is good enough, it's far cheaper than buying a new machine. Unlike a Mac - it's all or nothing.

The reason why gaming isn't more popular on a Mac, is Apple. Offering crappy GPUs in the past, stopping complete support for OpenGL, hasn't helped the gaming situation at all. Absolutely agree with your points!

 

[Realityck]

The $3499 M1 Max 32GB 1TB model playing a number of existing games in this video.

M1 Max MacBook Pro Gaming Review - 00:00 Windows Gaming using Parallels 17 - 1:10 Windows Gaming using Crossover 21 - 1:45 Rocket League (Crossover) - 2:54 Hearthstone Card Game (x86 Rosetta)- 4:06 Diablo 3 (x86 Rosetta) - 5:01 Starcraft 2 (x86 Rosetta) - 6:39 World of Warcraft (Native) - 8:01 Grand Theft Auto V (Crossover) - 10:35 Dota 2 (x86 Rosetta) - 13:48 Counter Strike: GO (x86 Rosetta) - 15:23 Path of Exile (x86 Rosetta) - 17:07 Minecraft (86 Rosetta) - 18:25 League of Legends - 19:50 Witcher 3 (Crossover) - 21:25 Overwatch (Parallels 17) - 23:37 Use the Coupon Codes in Description! - 25:41

 

[MallardDuck]

What I see is that some AAA games released as recently as 1-2 years ago run well on the mac, a platform that has been lambasted as incapable of running AAA games.

Let's see what happens in the next 2-3 years, when all macs have capable hardware.

Question is if we'll get native ports using metal. If that happens, then I think we'll see amazing performance. Until then, we'll always be lagging a few years in what we can run.

Still, it's better than nothing....and performance in parallels is good enough for the titles I play that I cancelled my shadow.tech account.

 

[lysingur]

Customization isn't overrated. Look at Twitch/YouTube streamers and ESports, and the market and sponsorships they are involved in.

I don't think you get what people generally mean or what Stella meant by customization when it comes to gaming PC. It doesn't mean you customize your mouse with different weights or LED. It means swapping out GPUs, processors, hard drives, and other types of hardware. And the latter has very little to do with eSports sponsorships.

Why don't you find me a couple of pro gamers in eSports talking about customizing their gaming PCs?

Looks like you can get a Razer 3080 GTX laptop for $2999 vs a M1 Max Pro for $3099. Anandtech says that Apple's synthetic benchmarks don't quite match up to real world performance for the MBP.

And then you contradict yourself by giving us an example of a gaming LAPTOP that cannot be customized, which actually adds weight to my point. It's exactly because Razer's gaming laptop can't be customized like a desktop PC that's it's cheapER. EXACTLY the same way Apple Silicon will keep MacBook Pro and MacBook Air cheapER than they otherwise would have been.

Success is a big part because of choice. Apple relies on brand, and PC relies on choice.

The mobile gaming rhetoric is a strawman. We're talking about gaming on laptops not mobile (also known as smartphone) gaming.

Inferior performance is a red herring. When is Back 4 Blood, Diablo 2 Resurrected, CoD Vanguard, Forza Horizon 5, etc. coming onto the Mac?

I don't actually quite understand what you're trying to say here. PC's success is not just by offering choice, but by being affordable. It has very little to do with "brand." There are big brands in PC as well. You eat your own words again by giving us the example of Razer, which is a very successful brand. Razer doesn't necessarily make the best products. In fact, if you go on Reddit, you'll see that their mice and keyboards aren't exactly the most durable, especially for the exorbitant price they charge but they rely on their famous gamers for their branding. So you're wrong that "PC relies on choice (and) Apple relies on brand." PC makers rely on branding too.

You almost make me want to stop responding because you don't know what you're talking about. I already doubt if you are a gamer and now I even doubt if you know about Apple's ecosystem and the PC industry, in general, to be making such vacuous and unsubstantiated claims. Mobile gaming isn't a strawman. The whole idea behind "converging" macOS and iOS is so developers have an easier time writing programs for both, hence APFS, Metal, and Catalyst (the list goes much longer if you include minor improvements they made, e.g. improved keyboard and mouse support on iOS/iPadOS). They even made a big deal when they introduced the new iPad Pro in early 2020. Where were you, buddy? Try not to accuse other people for strawmaning the discussion just because you can't put two and two together.

This is in many ways a contradiction to what you told me:

Saying I'm making predictions based on facts isn't a contradiction to "You can't make predictions about the future purely based on the trajectory of the past."

I'm getting the impression that English probably isn't your first language that you have a hard time grasping why contradictions don't exist between the two statements. The gist is you pick which facts are relevant and which aren't to construct the kind of trajectory you deem meaningful. And I emphasize "purely". Nonetheless, the prediction is fact-based in either case. Whereas Stella's was mostly feelings.

For all his anti-Jobs qualities, one thing that Cook absolutely needs for Apple to continue to grow is an acuity on how technology is evolving and where it's heading. Somehow it doesn't feel like iWatch is 'it'.

So what was your "prediction" about wearables back in 2014? I commend your efforts for digging through my history. And for being such a big fan of mine, you should know that that's probably the only thing I've gotten wrong so far.

This particular post is about Tim Cook and his acumen when it comes to technology and actually not about "iWatch" per se. And I still maintain that he isn't on par with Steve Jobs when it comes to getting technology right.

 

[lysingur]

I think quite a lot of your points are invalid. ipponrg above reply is good.

Apparently you don't even know what validity connotes. It's a scientific term and to invalidate something, you need facts, which you have few.

We will have to agree to disagree on a lot of points you and I raise. ( difference between 2080 vs 3080 are more than just "marginal" )

UserBenchmark: Nvidia RTX 2080 vs 3080

Nvidia RTX 3080 vs 2080: how much faster is Nvidia's new Ampere GPU?

You may not be able to buy it anywhere right now, but Nvidia's new RTX 3080 GPU has very much set the bar for next-gen …

www.rockpapershotgun.com

...and I could go on with the comparisons ( 3080 does well against the Super range too, but comparing like for like - compare 2000 Super range against the 3000 super range, if NVidia releases them )
( yes, 3080 does require more power, but gamers won't care too much - PSU are replaceable fairly cheaply )

Okay, onto 2080 and 3080:
1. They are full two years apart and if you divide the average fps gain it's about 10% per year. Considering 30 series (Nvidia GF RTX 3090) in November 2021 (a full three years after 2080 was introduced) is still the best card you can get, the actual year-to-year real-world gain is in the single digits.
2. If you don't think single-digit gain for a $1000 plus graphics card is marginal, then you should really be in awe of Apple Silicon's A series' near 20% gain from year to year.

We will see in a few years, and I don't think gaming on Macs will be in a significantly different position as we are now.

Consoles and PCs will still be the most popular gaming platform ( for non mobile games - that you suddenly changed the goal posts to - we aren't talking about mobile games ). Consoles are popular due to Price and they are dedicated gaming platforms - it's the price / performance / value ratio - they don't need to be flexible - games target that hardware for the life time

Price/performance ratio is where Apple Silicon shines. So thank you for proving my point. 2023 will be the beginning of the beginning. You just wait.

( and you shouldn't even need to ask "why are consoles popular if they aren't upgrade-able ).

Do you know what a rhetorical question is?

I'm pointing out the contradiction in your line of argument (see above).

There aren't that many popular ( even discounting AAA ) games on the Mac today. Yea, and I know the Steam situation on the Mac, and lets not forget about GOG either, it's overall, disappointing, which hasn't changed for years; this is a reason why I have a gaming PC ( self built, gone through a few generations of upgrades - last round of upgrades still cheaper and offering better performance than buying a Mac or replacing with new PC), because the games I want to play aren't available on the Mac.

Again, I still think you are being optimistic about the viability and popularity of Mac gaming in the future.

Yeah, don't move the goalpost. You were comparing the pre-Intel era and the Intel era, not how many Mac games there are on Steam compared to PC. There are way more games during the Intel era compared to pre-Intel. That's just facts.

Just because some AAA games aren't on the Mac TODAY isn't an argument against a prediction about the kind of success Apple Silicon is going to have.

Why don't we come back and argue this over again in 2023 and 2030? One good thing about MacRumors is you can never delete anything you post.

 

[Flight Plan]

?

Shadow of the Tomb Raider - 2018
Metro Exodus - 2035 - 2019
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - 2019
A Total War Saga: Troy -2020 - Woohhh
Baldur's Gate 3 - 2020 - Woohhh²

These aren’t games to show off anything hardware related… but they are fine to play.

Sounds like macOS still has nothing to offer, game wise, and this won’t change anytime soon.

Just recycled games!

Do yourself a favor and don’t buy Macs for games…

I work a full time job. All of those games would be new to me.

Talk about old crappy games!! You don’t buy a Mac to play games…

But maybe now you can play games for the Mac you bought for other stuff. ?

 

[Flight Plan]

Am I in the minority wishing games didn't exist for Mac at all?

Yes you are.

Well, to be fair, that's only because you're running it under Windows... running on a VM written in Cobol... with the Cobol interpreter written in Basic, running on a Commodore 64 emulator, running on the Mac.

?
What VM was written in COBOL? And what version of COBOL had an interpreter?

I would like to see more emphasis on games like The Sims 4, games that are more popular with Mac users and students.

I would like to see Cities:Skylines with all mods working on M1 Mac!

Yes, it’s weird to wish for someone to not have something just because you don’t like it or wouldn’t use.

Not that weird, and certainly not as rare as it should be. But jealousy and envy don't usually look good on anybody.

Activision Blizzard? The one company that literally abandons the entire StarCraft franchise? I’d be hard pressed to see they update all of their own “supported” game into something that can run natively on M1, let alone optimizing them.

Didn't Blizzard used to be the one who got all the lousy EA games starting with that awful awful release of SimCity 2013?

 

[Flight Plan]

I'll just sit here quietly in my corner and enjoy my ultimate MacBook Pro and Xbox Series S while you all put too much hopes and dreams into Mac ever being good at gaming when it's literally been the same story since the 90's.

Your post appeared on page 5. You must have posted before you read any of the many posts listing the games that work great on the M1 Mac.

All the power of M1 Max, and no games to play with.

I don't get this statement in light of what you wrote after it. There are probably 8 or 10 games just identified in the first 5 pages of this article response section, and it sounds like more will probably work fine.

Some may argue "Mac isn't made for gaming".. but then Apple spent the time and effort to design a 32-core GPU with 64GB unified RAM, just for FCP editing?

Good point!

It's up to the user whether they want to buy this $4500 machine for productivity, gaming, or a simple web-surfing? Just provide the content and let the consumers decide.

Yes, let the consumer decide. A lot of people here sound like they'd like to make that decision for the rest of us.

A $4500 Windows gaming rig doesn't care if it's built for gaming, rendering, photo editing, or videography. It'd chug along either way.

Also a very good point!

 

[Flight Plan]

2048 > 1920, I’ll take it!

If someone offered you 128 additional Cheeseburgers, what would you say?

Is this a gift that I won't have to gladly pay for next Tuesday?

 

[CarlJ]

?
What VM was written in COBOL? And what version of COBOL had an interpreter?

All user software for Hewlett Packard’s HP-2000, in the mid 70’s, was written in Basic (“HP-2000 Access Basic”), and their software library included a COBOL interpreter (written in their interpreted Basic). A friend of mine at the time used this as the basis for a “COBOL operating system” offering a command prompt and a bunch of “system level” commands one could run, both realistic and far-fetched. Access Basic was rigorously defined (I still have the manual somewhere) and comparatively limited, so programs written for it could be ported to other variants of Basic without enormous effort. As to a VM written in COBOL? That is left as an exercise for the reader (I’ve already provided the other half of the equation). I’ve no doubt someone has at least considered writing one at some point. Probably when not sober.

 

[CarlJ]

Why don't we come back and argue this over again in 2023 and 2030? One good thing about MacRumors is you can never delete anything you post.

If one pays a yearly fee to MacRumors to get rid of the ads, one of the perks is a delete button on your posts, so, actually, one can delete things they post.

 

[Wildkraut]

I work a full time job. All of those games would be new to me.

Yeah it‘s totally fine to play them, i have nothing against these games, i played a few of them too, they were good.
It’s simply nothing to „show off a new released hardware“ anymore.