macOS Monterey to Offer Smoother Gameplay With Support for Adaptive-Sync Displays on Newer Macs

[MacRumors]

As part of WWDC this week, Apple revealed that newer Macs will be gaining support for Adaptive-Sync external displays with variable refresh rates in macOS Monterey.

Apple says Adaptive-Sync displays will be supported on any Mac with Apple silicon, like the M1 chip, as well as "many" recent Intel-based Macs. When a supported Adaptive-Sync display is connected to a compatible Mac, users will be able to enable Adaptive-Sync mode by selecting a new variable refresh rate option in System Preferences > Displays.

Adaptive-Sync is a feature of the DisplayPort 1.2a specification, and it serves as the foundation of popular variable refresh rate display technologies like AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync, which will now be supported on newer Macs.

Macs gaining support for Adaptive-Sync displays will be particularly beneficial to gamers, as these displays can actively adjust their refresh rate to match a game's frame rate, providing smoother, lower-latency gameplay. Apps or games must be running in full-screen mode on macOS Monterey for Adaptive-Sync mode to function, according to Apple.

macOS Monterey is available now in beta for developers, with a public beta to follow in July. The software update will be released in the fall.

Article Link: macOS Monterey to Offer Smoother Gameplay With Support for Adaptive-Sync Displays on Newer Macs

 

[AgentMcGeek]

That’s pretty cool.

 

[Freeangel1]

Is there gonna be a surge in Mac games with Apple Silicon? Because there are not many out there now.
And you just lost the ability to install Windows on an M1 Chip Machine. Thats where all the games are at.

 

[blazerunner]

There are no AAA games for Mac (Battlefield, Cyberpunk, COD, etc). It's a nice feature.... but, pointless.

 

[cmaier]

Is there gonna be a surge in Mac games with Apple Silicon? Because there are not many out there now.
And you just lost the ability to install Windows on an M1 Chip Machine. Thats where all the games are at.

There may be. Now you can write a game for mac and have a much larger potential audience than before (both because mac sales have increased, and because your game can also run on recent iPads if you code it right)

 

[coolbreeze2]

Which recent iMacs will this work with?

 

[VictorTango777]

When a supported Adaptive-Sync display is connected to a compatible Mac, users will be able to enable Adaptive-Sync mode by selecting a new variable refresh rate option in System Preferences > Displays.

Adaptive-Sync is a feature of the DisplayPort 1.2a specification, and it serves as the foundation of popular variable refresh rate display technologies like AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync, which will now be supported on newer Macs.

Will this new variable refresh option be plainly visible in Displays preferences or will it require the user to hold the stupid Option key to make it appear, as Apple likes to do with so many other items?

MST hubs and daisy chaining have also been part of the DisplayPort standard for a while but MacOS still does not support MST. Is this a petty attempt by Apple to “convince” people to buy Thunderbolt monitors?

 

[SigEp265]

Wait, Razer makes monitors ?

 

[killramos]

There are no AAA games for Mac (Battlefield, Cyberpunk, COD, etc). It's a nice feature.... but, pointless.

All the people who keep being “blown away” by M1 would be turned a hilarious shade of purple at the dismal FPS they would get on M1 hardware compared to what true dedicated graphics on PC is able to generate.

this will make for a great angry birds experience though!

 

[10anta]

Does this mean apps for controlling external monitor brightness like Lunar will now properly work? Or is this a different/unrelated method to DDC needed for this purpose?

 

[MallardDuck]

Is there gonna be a surge in Mac games with Apple Silicon? Because there are not many out there now.
And you just lost the ability to install Windows on an M1 Chip Machine. Thats where all the games are at.

I wouldn't hold my breath. We will see iOS games ported to it, but top titles? Hardly.

 

[l0stl0rd]

not sure what the point is unless developers make games.

The M1 is mediocre with gtx 1060 like performance.

This is only worth it if we get AAA games and an M1x with like 3070-3080 performance.

Probably better off to buy a PS5 if I could find one lol.

 

[Serban55]

Is there gonna be a surge in Mac games with Apple Silicon? Because there are not many out there now.
And you just lost the ability to install Windows on an M1 Chip Machine. Thats where all the games are at.

there will be since a lot of new titles will come for iOS , AAA games with 120hz

 

[panjandrum]

Is there gonna be a surge in Mac games with Apple Silicon? Because there are not many out there now.
And you just lost the ability to install Windows on an M1 Chip Machine. Thats where all the games are at.

All we can do is hope. Realistically it will come down to numbers. Once Macs reach a high enough percentage of the computing market overall there is still going to be the huge hurdle that if you want a gaming machine you now build a Windows box. So even if Apple somehow manage to eventually get 1/3 of total worldwide PC sales, it's not going to matter if 99% of gamers stick with Windows (due to game availability).

It's really going to be a struggle for Apple to compete in this area, but in the end I sure hope to see more native Mac titles. That's a great thing overall for Mac users and it would be SO nice to have a stable underpinnings to a dedicated game machine (Windows 10 is still vastly more fragile than MacOS; it simply crashes a lot more and gets borked-up a lot more).

This particular feature is very cool for the 5 hardcore Mac gamers out there though! 😂 No, I jest, it really is a cool feature and it will be great for those who wish to make use of it.

 

[panjandrum]

The M1 is mediocre with gtx 1060 like performance.

This is only worth it if we get AAA games and an M1x with like 3070-3080 performance.

This really depends on what you are doing. It's perfectly possible to game very, very well on more limited GPUs.

I get it, I'm *definitely* a hardcore gamer. I drive insane resolutions to a Pimax 5K+ VR HMD. So I have to render massively higher than even a traditional 4K gamer, plus the stereoscopy thrown in. Basically, I need to, as an absolute minimum, run 4K PER EYE to get the image sharp (and higher than that to get things really good), because it's my entire world (wide FOV). I also use FFB racing SIM equipment etc. etc. Oh, and I have to do that at 90fps minimum. 😂 😂 😂

But you know what? My daughter gets *phenomenal* 2560x1440 performance out of an older gaming PC upgraded with a simple Radeon RX 580 card. Absolutely no 3070-3080 level performance needed, at all. Not even 20xx series performance, and yet it performs absolutely fine for normal flat-screen gaming. The M1 has less than half the Metal score of the 580 of course, so Apple has a ways to go to even get into even that range, but at least these are indicators that Apple is finally interested in gaming, a little.

 

[nathansz]

This particular feature is very cool for the 5 hardcore Mac gamers out there though! 😂 No, I jest, it really is a cool feature and it will be great for those who wish to make use of it.

i wouldn’t have thought i was a “hardcore mac gamer” but maybe i’m one of the 5 because to me this is a very cool feature

the couple games i play happen to run perfectly fine at 4k in macos and i can’t be bothered to reboot my hackintosh in to windows just to gain a few fps.

being able to make use of free sync in macos is awesome!

 

[ThatGuyInLa]

While AAA gaming isn’t really a thing on Macs, there’s a rather large community of “retro gamers.” This feature has long been wanted for gaining support for the wacky timings old games and systems use. MAME, Atari, Amiga, etc.

We’ve enjoyed this massive frame rate improvement under Windows for some time. Glad to see it on Mac finally! (well, soon anyways)

 

[UltimateSyn]

Nice - really hope this is a sign of 120Hz coming to the MBPs.

 

[falkon-engine]

You know what else would be beneficial to gamers? Actual games!! LOL! I look forward to more AAA titles coming to the Mac.

 

[extrizyo]

Is it already enabled in beta 1 ? I want to test this

 

[Serban55]

not sure what the point is unless developers make games.

The M1 is mediocre with gtx 1060 like performance.

This is only worth it if we get AAA games and an M1x with like 3070-3080 performance.

Probably better off to buy a PS5 if I could find one lol.

agree, and lets not forgot its just first gen..the M2 will probably get around 25-30% more perf gpu and so on...so it will raise very fast, in 3-4 years we will have very high end gpu power just consuming 40-60W

 

[Techwatcher]

This is actually pretty crucial.

 

[Unggoy Murderer]

All the people who keep being “blown away” by M1 would be turned a hilarious shade of purple at the dismal FPS they would get on M1 hardware compared to what true dedicated graphics on PC is able to generate.

this will make for a great angry birds experience though!

If I can run a game like the recent Tomb Raider at 1080p and get 60fps on reasonable graphics (which they demoed last year, and on pre-M1 hardware), it's not too shabby.

Of course, a MacBook and new iMac won't be able to compete with the dedicated GPUs available - that's a bit of an unfair comparison, and anyway, one that very few will actually make. M1's an entry-level spec, and it'll blow any Intel i3 with its integrated graphics out the water across all meaningful categories - that's a fairer comparison.

 

[oneMadRssn]

There are no AAA games for Mac (Battlefield, Cyberpunk, COD, etc). It's a nice feature.... but, pointless.

Odd that you picked only FPS as examples. Also, AAA is not the only way to make money selling games. Look, I'll never consider Mac to be a gaming platform, but I also wouldn't be surprised if games like World of Tanks make as much money as some AAA titles, and being on every platform is important for games like that.

 

[H3LL5P4WN]

There are no AAA games for Mac (Battlefield, Cyberpunk, COD, etc). It's a nice feature.... but, pointless.

All the people who keep being “blown away” by M1 would be turned a hilarious shade of purple at the dismal FPS they would get on M1 hardware compared to what true dedicated graphics on PC is able to generate.

this will make for a great angry birds experience though!

not sure what the point is unless developers make games.

The M1 is mediocre with gtx 1060 like performance.

This is only worth it if we get AAA games and an M1x with like 3070-3080 performance.

Probably better off to buy a PS5 if I could find one lol.

My M1 MBP plays WoW just fine when hooked to my Samsung Odyssey G7.