Is gaming officially dead on Macs?

[Huntn]

The storage requirements of games that I found via Activision/Blizzard site were large for sure. The below article shows that games made by Activison (Call of Duty series) is actually the worst offender. But the installer sizes very by platform/OS.

25 Of The Biggest PC Games By File Size, Ranked

Which PC game is going to take up the biggest slice of your hard drive? These are. Here are the ten biggest PC games according to their file size.

gamerant.com

Bigger Than Godzilla: Why Are Games Using So Many Gigabytes?

Do all the latest big budget games require over 100 GB of drive space? What's the average size of a AAA game today? We've investigated the figures...

www.techspot.com

I remember when games where a couple of MBs. It's a natural progression, of which the answer to the question is advancements in graphic/photo quality, realistic open world environments. I remember oh 20-30 years years ago where I looked at a single really high quality photo image, and I can't tell you how big it was, but for the time it was HUGE and this was just one image. I want to say it was in the 2-10GB range when my hard drive was something like 500MB. And 30 years before that computers took up entire rooms. 😲

 

[Realityck]

I remember when games where a couple of MBs. It's a natural progression, of which the answer to the question is advancements in graphic/photo quality, realistic open world environments. I remember oh 20-30 years years ago where I looked at a single really high quality photo image, and I can't tell you how big it was, but for the time it was HUGE and this was just one image. I want to say it was in the 2-10GB range when my hard drive was something like 500MB. And 30 years before that computers took up entire rooms. 😲

If one goes back in time far enough gaming really started on mainframe/minis with terminals. The following Colossal Cave and Star Trek examples are some of the earliest examples of gaming. What wonderful progress we made since then.

Star Trek (1971 video game) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Colossal Cave Adventure - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[mi7chy]

I remember when games where a couple of MBs.

Check out this game in 95KB.

https://www.myabandonware.com/game/kkrieger-chapter-1-cl1

 

[Realityck]

This CNN article is actually pretty good as far as illustrating best PC games.

https://www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/electronics/best-pc-games

Here's a steam game that is free to play on PC.

This South Korean massively multiplayer online (MMO) game was released back in 2019, but Amazon Games more recently brought it over to American and European regions. Now it’s one of the most played games on PC. Players can create and customize their own characters while completing the game’s storyline. Once players hit level 50, they get access to a wide range of endgame content, including dungeons and raids. To many players, Lost Ark has a sense of longevity that many MMOs are lacking, and that’s exactly how the game stands out amongst its competition

Lost Ark on Steam

Embark on an odyssey for the Lost Ark in a vast, vibrant world: explore new lands, seek out lost treasures, and test yourself in thrilling action combat in this action-packed free-to-play RPG.

store.steampowered.com

Install Steam

 

[diamond.g]

Check out this game in 95KB.

https://www.myabandonware.com/game/kkrieger-chapter-1-cl1

Weren't there a bunch of small games like this back then?

 

[Starfia]

Look how much effort devs need to do to get a game to work on the Switch. So if they do THAT amount of work on a Switch, they can do that for Macs just as easily (none of this is easy and different issues will be encountered but I said just as easy as its not even easy to make these changes for the switch).

Yeah! That's right about the Mac. It's never been the world's most popular game platform – it's an accessible, easy-to-use but customizable computer first – but there have always been lots of games for it.

Apple has done a lot in the last 15 years to make it easy to develop original games for Mac, and a fair amount to make it realistic to port them. But Windows is king of compatibility, and seems always to have insisted on that where Apple always insists on moving forward and cutting the tether on older technologies once they have a fresh replacement. It feels like a toss-up whether today's newly-released native Mac games will work with a Mac released in ten years.

 

[mi7chy]

Here's a steam game that is free to play on the Mac.

This South Korean massively multiplayer online (MMO) game was released back in 2019, but Amazon Games more recently brought it over to American and European regions. Now it’s one of the most played games on PC. Players can create and customize their own characters while completing the game’s storyline. Once players hit level 50, they get access to a wide range of endgame content, including dungeons and raids. To many players, Lost Ark has a sense of longevity that many MMOs are lacking, and that’s exactly how the game stands out amongst its competition

Lost Ark on Steam

Embark on an odyssey for the Lost Ark in a vast, vibrant world: explore new lands, seek out lost treasures, and test yourself in thrilling action combat in this action-packed free-to-play RPG.

store.steampowered.com

Install Steam

How did you get it to work on Mac? It says 'invalid platform' when I try to install it and AppleGamingWiki says it's 'unplayable' on Crossover and Parallels.

 

[Realityck]

How did you get it to work on Mac? It says 'invalid platform' when I try to install it and AppleGamingWiki says it's 'unplayable' on Crossover and Parallels.

You're right you normally can't, corrected this to specify PC only.
The only verified method to running it on M1 Mac is to use a Cloud Gaming service like Boosteroid. Other's maybe possible but not verified are Xbox Cloud Gaming, Google Stadia, and Nvidia GeForce Now. A YouTube author used Boosteroid successfully as it has Lost Ark in its game library.

How to play Lost Ark on Mac - AppsOnMac

Read our new tips on how to play Lost Ark on Mac or MacBook. Step-by-step instructions for macOS.

apps-on-mac.com

 

[jayryco]

 

[MacsRgr8]

Nice!
Now let's hope this "Game Portal Toolkit" will be used a lot!

 

[dmccloud]

Nice!
Now let's hope this "Game Portal Toolkit" will be used a lot!

I just tested Cyberpunk 2077 using the method located here. I was impressed with the results (screenshot to show the graphics settings I was running)...

 

[jayryco]

I just tested Cyberpunk 2077 using the method located here. I was impressed with the results (screenshot to show the graphics settings I was running)...

View attachment 2215530

AMAZING! Really hope we see devs put this toolkit to use.

Who knows, perhaps 2024 is the year we see Mac gaming take off in a big way

 

[diamond.g]

I just tested Cyberpunk 2077 using the method located here. I was impressed with the results (screenshot to show the graphics settings I was running)...

View attachment 2215530

Is that resolution right? Running less than 1080p and using FSR doesn't look fuzzy?

 

[dmccloud]

Is that resolution right? Running less than 1080p and using FSR doesn't look fuzzy?

That was what it defaulted to - not sure if that was an artifact of DX12 conversion or something else.

 

[diamond.g]

That was what it defaulted to - not sure if that was an artifact of DX12 conversion or something else.

Does it let you change it? r/macgaming seemed to think it didn't matter what resolution you use the game is CPU limited so you get the same FPS either way. A solid 30FPS at >1440P should look quite nice, do you see any difference if you disable FSR (which shouldn't be needed if you are not using RT in CP2077).

 

[dmccloud]

I haven't tried changing the resolution or any other settings yet. I mainly just wanted to verify that it could run and get a baseline for performance on my system. The next game I want to test is Elden Ring.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Man WWDC 23 really made this thread age like milk (good thing too. Great things are ahead. Very fun things)

 

[LeeW]

This is interesting.

 

[AlphaMirage]

At least Mac desktops can still run Age of Wonders: Planetfall, which I am playing. However , I agree that Apple need to do a better job and effort to improve the mac gaming market.

 

[dmccloud]

Does it let you change it? r/macgaming seemed to think it didn't matter what resolution you use the game is CPU limited so you get the same FPS either way. A solid 30FPS at >1440P should look quite nice, do you see any difference if you disable FSR (which shouldn't be needed if you are not using RT in CP2077).

Update: That resolution is the maximum listed in the settings. I'm sure there's a way to modify that list, but I just wanted to see if it would run at all and if so, how well.

 

[diamond.g]

Update: That resolution is the maximum listed in the settings. I'm sure there's a way to modify that list, but I just wanted to see if it would run at all and if so, how well.

That is lame.

 

[dmccloud]

That is lame.

My guess is that the game is reading the (scaled) resolution the display is set to instead of the native resolution of the screen. Not terribly surprising given how it's being run on the machine.

 

[diamond.g]

My guess is that the game is reading the (scaled) resolution the display is set to instead of the native resolution of the screen. Not terribly surprising given how it's being run on the machine.

Fair point, still lame though. Can you switch your desktop display to a non-scaled resolution and see if it tracks?

 

[jayryco]

Sci-fi thriller ‘Fort Solis’ arrives on PlayStation 5, PC and Mac on August 22nd

If you're a fan of psychological, Fort Solis might just be your jam.

www.engadget.com

More gaming news for Macs! Genuinely looking like a new era of gaming on Apple devices is upon us!