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Future for Mac games in M1 era
- Thread starter cocoua
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But even Bootcamp did not change the fact that Apple GPUs were underpowered compared to the even entry-level gaming laptops at the same price range. M1 evens the playing field somewhat. And virtualization under M1 is extremely efficient. Some older games and benchmarks I tried via Windows 10 ARM ran surprisingly well (comparable to entry-level dedicated Nvidia GPUs). The bigger issue is compatibility. But if Microsoft officially releases Windows 10 for Apple Silicon Macs (e.g. in collaboration with Parallels) AND they solve some of the x86-to-ARM compatibility issues (e.g. utilize Apple custom memory ordering mode CPU extensions), Windows gaming on entry-level Macs might be a reality — at least to a degree. The same could not been said about 13" Intel Macs.
P.S. Bootcamp also had odd compatibility issues with WiFi and Bluetooth as well as the annoying refusal of AMD to ship up to date GPU drivers. Fortunately third-party efforts like bootcampdrivers.com made it more tolerable.
The integrated graphics on the Mac mini and the MacBook Pro are pretty good for gaming. Baldurs Gate III runs pretty good, so I think your selling it short. Could it be better? Probably, but if you were to get a Windows equivalent with really good gaming hardware and the same great display on the MB Pro, you’d probably be spending more money on it.
In what way would it be on par with RTX 3060? That GPU produces 12.74 TFLOPS. 16-core M1 would produce about 5.2 TFLOPS. Not that TFLOPS is everything but 3060 is on par with RX 5700 XT according to Techpowerup.
Apologies, I should have been more precise. I meant a mobile version of the RTX 3060 configured for around 60-80 watts. Extrapolating known benchmarks would put a 16-core Apple GPU with ~ 120GB/s RAM bandwidth at ±10% of that Ampere GPU.
1-If you just want Macs to run any game casually then that was always the case, there was always mac games. There is currently a nice selection of Frost Punk, Tomb Raider, Civ VI, Borderlands 2, The Sims 2. Now that iOS games are playable on Big Sur the choices are a lot. None the less, when we talk about gaming we are talking about being on par with the Windows counter part.
2-So if Windows developers will use Direct3D and Apple want their developers to use Metal... why make Vulkan in the first place? I thought Vulkan was the future where we do not have to rely on D3D and by using Vulkan games can be published to Mac, Linux, and Windows.
I don't know what you are talking about, or which model exactly, but my MBP 2015 integrated GPU sounds like its about to lift off even running DosBox games from Steam. I can't imagine how it will do running something modern. I believe Civ 5 turned the heat to 185F/85C on low settings. Thats a none action game.
Yes, but entry-level Macs always had rather lackluster GPU performance, and — which is arguably even worse, quite bad driver stability that impacted overall experience (glitches, driver bugs, lags even on powerful GPUs). Even the meager M1 10W GPU is a huge step up performance-wise, and the driver stability is a massive improvement over the Intel or even AMD graphics.
Vulkan was created as a cross-platform low-level GPU API. Apple was in the design group but they left when it was clear that the API was not meeting their goals.
And yes, you can absolutely use Vulkan to target Macs. MoltenK works really well.
Doesn't Apple write their own drivers for their AMD/Intel GPU's? I seem to recall that being a deal breaker for nvidia (ignoring the failing GPUs for that one/two generation of Macs).
I think your comparison is still too optimistic. Apple will for sure change M1 GPU in many ways in the future but a 16-core M1 GPU in its current state would be something like Radeon Pro 5500 XT in iMac 27", not 3060 M.
M1's memory bandwidth peaks at 68.25 GB/s, not 120 GB/s, compared to 3060 M's 336 GB/s. Do you mean 8 extra cores doubles the memory bandwidth? Even then 3060 M has 3x the memory bandwidth.
M1 16-core GPU FP32: 5.2 TFLOPS
3060 M FP32: 10.94 TFLOPS
For gaming FLOPs don't matter as much as you may think it should (of course this is assuming you are still using rasterization). Interestingly FLOPs don't matter for RT either.
I don’t think this was ever clarified definitively, at least not to my knowledge. Personally, I don’t think that Apple wrote all these drivers. But it doesn’t matter who wrote them, the quality of those drivers has always been somewhat lacking.
I was extrapolating from the available benchmarks, but it’s certainly possible that my estimates are off.
A 16-core variant would need to have its memory bandwidth doubled (256-bit interface instead of 128-bit interface), or it just doesn’t make any sense. And of course, dGPUs will always beat Apple Silicon in raw memory bandwidth, but that doesn’t matter. Apple GPUs need considerably less RAM bandwidth to reach the same performance levels because of how they operate. Traditional GPUs are much more wasteful in this regard. That’s why the 10W M1 performs as well as a dedicated GPU with 3x power consumption and much faster dedicated VRAM.
FLOPS numbers are a marketing figure. There is no doubt that Ampere is more capable (and also more complex) than M1, but doubling of its shader cores over Turing is a sleight of hand. Despite an impressive improvement in the spec sheet, the mobile 3060 is just 20-25% faster in games compared to 2060 at the same power consumption level. The simple truth is that most of the performance increases in desktop Ampere come from cracking up the power usage and using faster (and more power hungry) RAM, but you cant really scale that to mobile.
Definately but it will never be enough unless the number of gamers increased to make developers, well, develop. For someone like me who plays very little, I make do with what is available. But the reality I fear is that not even Mx chips will encourage developers to run different teams to make their title work on different platforms. Just not going to be cost effective.
Money does, Apple could spend (lot of) money helping devs port games (or make their engines cross compatible). That they do not seems to be a good indicator to the state of things.
Indeed, but it still comes down to the numbers of available gamers, Apple can spend money helping get devs to port games but it still does not help on the next game if there are insufficient buyers.
I certainly believe the number of gamers could easily increase due to Mx chips, I just don't think there are enough Mac users that are so interested in gaming or enough PC/Mac users that would abandon PC in favour of a Mac for various reasons not least the custom build and upgrade ability of the PC.
Time will tell but I don't think much will change in the next few years.
Metal Developer Tools on Windows Offer New Gaming Opportunities
Game developers are now able to more easily develop games for Apple devices using Windows machines, thanks to a new set of Metal developer tools...
www.macrumors.com
It would seem to me, that if they aren't willing to invest in the very architecture that their game will run on, they aren't interested in that architecture. Nothing is worse than a game ported for a platform that wasn't thoroughly tested on that platform before it gets released.Metal Developer Tools on Windows Offer New Gaming Opportunities
Game developers are now able to more easily develop games for Apple devices using Windows machines, thanks to a new set of Metal developer tools...
Which is why you're not really looking for a port but to have them actually develop the game side by side the other platforms at the same time. That's called a native game. Ports are like dubbed movies. Done after the fact and poorly at that.
And yes, that really does mean, a windows programmer, a Mac programmer... etc. Costs money. It's why very few companies do it. Even Blizzard is really no longer doing it.
Honestly, I am not sure Apple has the desire to make a GPU capable of competing with the likes of AMD and NVidia. That means that even though they have very capable CPU’s, porting top-end console and PC titles is going to stay problematic. Things like Metal tools on Windows are a small help, but if you have to hamstring your rendering budgets to hit a decent fps target you will still be stuck.
But you don’t have to cater to those titles, in hardware or software. Games for a low-polygon budget have to be specifically designed for that, with an art style and assets to match, but it can be done. Nintendo has been doing it for decades with Wii and Switch. You don’t want to try and bring the latest shooters to an M1 based machine, instead bring titles like Inside, the Sims and World of Warcraft. Titles which are somewhat stylised and have a timeless look, but don’t require tons of rendering power.
But I do think that Apple have to be proactive to build a gaming identity for their M1 products, by functioning as at least an engaged partner in the process. I would like to see them build up a stable of first-party products, much like a console publisher does, to ensure that there are some exclusives which drive gaming on the Mac and the Apple TV.
But you don’t have to cater to those titles, in hardware or software. Games for a low-polygon budget have to be specifically designed for that, with an art style and assets to match, but it can be done. Nintendo has been doing it for decades with Wii and Switch. You don’t want to try and bring the latest shooters to an M1 based machine, instead bring titles like Inside, the Sims and World of Warcraft. Titles which are somewhat stylised and have a timeless look, but don’t require tons of rendering power.
But I do think that Apple have to be proactive to build a gaming identity for their M1 products, by functioning as at least an engaged partner in the process. I would like to see them build up a stable of first-party products, much like a console publisher does, to ensure that there are some exclusives which drive gaming on the Mac and the Apple TV.
The other concern will be feature parity. Once developers stop supporting 8th generation consoles and really dig into 9th Gen Apple is going to need to be feature comparable if they are going to want ports (or native titles) made. Otherwise they will be behind, or be seen as a hinderance. Example being 4A Games updated 4A Engine to require RT, so Apple users just got a port that is basically outdated with no word on when the new engine will run on Apple hardware.
Well, Metal does have first class RT support, it’s just not accelerated on current hardware.
No, because tile shaders explicitly leverage TBDR functionality. I suppose that AMD and Nvidia could support persistent shared memory between compute shaders invocations (as far as I know they don’t, and it surprises me a lot).
Easily, they just don't care. Apple can buy both Nintendo and Sony in a blink of an eye, thats like 80% of the console market and I don't know how much of exclusive games.
Apple just don't care about games.
In the past Apple made computers for the average joe, a better alternative than the Windows counterpart. Today Apple makes premium computers for the high end user. Its very clear as the education market and low mac prices are the least of their worries. They keep raising prices without care for the average buyer budget. Just compare in the past how Jobs used to release better computer for cheaper prices.
Apple does not care about games and gamers, they don't see money in it for them and they understand their current user base is not the target. Thats why they went out of their way to make a movie production department over writing software(games) which is their bread and butter.
They actually are doing this in thier subscription Apple Arcade, but to the liking of their politics, social, and religeon directions just like their Apple TV+ . They make what they like not what the user like. You won't see something like GTAV and DOOM(2016) on Apple Arcade.
Apple could also buy Samsung and Huawei and get over 60% of the smartphone market share, but since they don't, clearly they don't care about phones.
This is such a ridiculous argument.
Again, the've been spending tons of effort and money to build custom gaming-capable GPUs with advanced capabilities as well as a state-of-the art GPU API + toolkits oriented at game development.
What are you even talking about. The plastic MacBook, arguably the most "average Joe" computer ever made by Apple, was selling between $1100-$1300 during most of its existence. For a brief period of time around 2009-2010 it was $999, same price as the current M1 MBA. Which is still more than twice the price of entry-level Windows laptops.
Macs have always been premium computers and they have never targeted the more budget-oriented customer. But they usually gave you best in-class at the given price level. Today's Macs, especially the M1 Air have the best value proposition of any Mac ever made.
It will be fun to see if all this effort Apple is putting forth pays off.
As it stands I am not sure Apple is going to ever see another Zenimax/Bethesda game, and with their spat with Epic most console ports are probably (maybe?) going to be out. That kind of leaves Unity (for big thirdparty game engines) and that engine hasn't produced any epic looking games (imo). It doesn't appear, as far as we all know, that Rockstar is interested in getting RAGE working on Apple hardware so that puts something like GTA6 in question. Same with CDPRs REDEngine.
Folks have been saying Apple needs first party games, so rumors have been that we are going to get a Breath of the Wild clone (so like Genshin Impact, or OceanHorn, or Immortals Pheonix Rising). Which could be a good start, maybe they will show it, or something, off at WWDC.
As it stands I am not sure Apple is going to ever see another Zenimax/Bethesda game, and with their spat with Epic most console ports are probably (maybe?) going to be out. That kind of leaves Unity (for big thirdparty game engines) and that engine hasn't produced any epic looking games (imo). It doesn't appear, as far as we all know, that Rockstar is interested in getting RAGE working on Apple hardware so that puts something like GTA6 in question. Same with CDPRs REDEngine.
Folks have been saying Apple needs first party games, so rumors have been that we are going to get a Breath of the Wild clone (so like Genshin Impact, or OceanHorn, or Immortals Pheonix Rising). Which could be a good start, maybe they will show it, or something, off at WWDC.