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

[Spanky Deluxe]

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

There are some; I'd say Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a AAA game.

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 you could buy a graphics card!

In all seriousness though, I do hope that Mac gaming starts picking up a bit as it's an area Apple has long really been crap in. With M1 chips, the baseline graphics performance has had a huge boost and it should mean that each generation of M chip has a good level of base graphics performance. It wouldn't take much for a developer that's ported their game to iPad to get it to run in MacOS as a dedicated app and the more overall games that come through to the Mac platform, the more likely it will be that AAA companies will port their games over to the Mac too (hopefully that might also mean more AAA games going through to the iPad too). While Apple's never been a gaming platform in the same league as Windows, before the transition to Intel, it was substantially better as all Macs *had* to have a dedicated graphics chip. A decade of Intel's integrated graphics has just sucked though and meant that the lowest common denominator in terms of graphics performance was literal *******.

 

[Nautilus007]

What monitor is that?

 

[nathansz]

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

this is an interesting way to make a point. you claim that there are NO AAA games for mac and then sort of let us know what your definition of a AAA game is

 

[LiE_]

I'm completely OK with no games on Mac. When I bought a Mac it was to do work and home office tasks, gaming for me happens in the living room with a PS5 connected to a large OLED TV.

 

[perplx]

Apple has no AAA games now but I think that will change in the future, intel mac always had bad graphics performance per $. That changes with AS. Also Apple has so much money they could just pay rockstar to make GTA 6 mac exclusive for 3 months, so its really just a matter if apple cares or not.

 

[idktbh]

so this means 12hz-15hz options. nice.

 

[blazerunner]

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.

What's the point in doing things like adaptive sync, improving CPU and GPU power and expanding platforms when you're limited to some mobile games like World of Tanks?

The state of gaming on Mac OS was beyond pathetic 20 years ago and it's only gotten WORSE. It's a disgrace now. Even decent games that ARE supported have terrible ports, ie; I've got a 5700 XT with a 1440p 165hz monitor. I tried Grid Autosport in Ultra settings via Mac OS Catalina with old drivers that get me a Metal score of about 47,000 in Geekbench. New drivers in Big Sur? 80,000. And my framerates in the game between both operating systems? Avg 75fps in Catalina, 69 in Big Sur. In Windows? Double.

Nobody is going to care what bells and whistles Apple throws at you; their GPUs are trash, especially now that you can't even spec any MacBook or iMac with anything from AMDs new lineup, the games are missing and the ones that are there are old and dated, and when they are available, they run like ass because the ports SUCK.

 

[blazerunner]

Apple has no AAA games now but I think that will change in the future, intel mac always had bad graphics performance per $. That changes with AS. Also Apple has so much money they could just pay rockstar to make GTA 6 mac exclusive for 3 months, so its really just a matter if apple cares or not.

That's because Apple was cramming in garbage mobile GPUs into terribly cooled iMacs. Even if they didnt give you poorly executed hardware, you'd STILL be gimped with lousy ports that run at half the performance compared to Windows.

Nothing's going to change likely EVER. It's been like this since OS X debuted 20 years ago and it's only gotten worse.

 

[pray2crom]

when is apple going to release monitors with higher refresh rates? Their pro display is only at 60hz yes?

 

[tevion5]

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

Not entirely true. The selection is small but there are some.

Metro Exodus is a very demanding game from 2019, available on the Mac App store with Metal support.
Performance on M1 is remarkably decent, and that's a low end MBA chip, and via Rosetta.
We're not talking 2D indie games here.

If something like this was compiled for Apple Silicon natively and for say an M1X, it's plausible to see Mac's as capable gaming devices for arguably the first time since the 90s. All dependent on developer support at this point tbh. With Apple Silicon, Metal and iOS/MacOS interoperability Apple has done a lot to make the job easier, if developers want to do it.

 

[peglegjack]

I’m playing Bioshock Remastered on my M1 Mini right now at 60fps, 1440p, all effects on. It’s awesome. I’m probably not hardcore or whatever but that works for me, someone who dips into gaming from time to time.

Would this mean if I hooked my M1 Mini up to my LG C1, I’d get 120Hz?

 

[4jasontv]

this is an interesting way to make a point. you claim that there are NO AAA games for mac and then sort of let us know what your definition of a AAA game is

Typically, AAA games involve 500 or more employees and or over 100 million USD to develop. It's a measure of the development process and nothing more. It has nothing to do with being fun, or good, or functional.

 

[nathansz]

....

 

[Marshall73]

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

Cyberpunk is FAR from a AAA game 🤣

 

[LiE_]

Cyberpunk is FAR from a AAA game 🤣

Yea more like a B- 😂

 

[4jasontv]

Not entirely true. The selection is small but there are some.

Metro Exodus is a very demanding game from 2019, available on the Mac App store with Metal support.
Performance on M1 is remarkably decent, and that's a low end MBA chip, and via Rosetta.
We're not talking 2D indie games here.

If something like this was compiled for Apple Silicon natively and for say an M1X, it's plausible to see Mac's as capable gaming devices for arguably the first time since the 90s. All dependent on developer support at this point tbh. With Apple Silicon, Metal and iOS/MacOS interoperability Apple has done a lot to make the job easier, if developers want to do it.

Besides a few comments, I can't find any evidence that Exodus is, in fact, a Triple-A game. None of the developer's previous games were AAA, and based on the size of the studio they would have needed a lot more support to qualify.

 

[4jasontv]

yes i’m aware

and?

You questioned someone giving examples. I provided a functional definition.

 

[Marshall73]

Yea more like a B- 😂

Even thats pretty generous 😝

 

[soulreaver99]

that's great, now lets eliminate the black bars from the iPad when connected to an external display, or is that way too difficult?

 

[genovelle]

There are some; I'd say Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a AAA game.

If you could buy a graphics card!

In all seriousness though, I do hope that Mac gaming starts picking up a bit as it's an area Apple has long really been crap in. With M1 chips, the baseline graphics performance has had a huge boost and it should mean that each generation of M chip has a good level of base graphics performance. It wouldn't take much for a developer that's ported their game to iPad to get it to run in MacOS as a dedicated app and the more overall games that come through to the Mac platform, the more likely it will be that AAA companies will port their games over to the Mac too (hopefully that might also mean more AAA games going through to the iPad too). While Apple's never been a gaming platform in the same league as Windows, before the transition to Intel, it was substantially better as all Macs *had* to have a dedicated graphics chip. A decade of Intel's integrated graphics has just sucked though and meant that the lowest common denominator in terms of graphics performance was literal *******.

I believe the key for these game companies to come in force will be Apple investing in 1st party games by buying an up and coming game studio and giving the the support and resources to compete on a crazy level and use their marketing know how to to make the next hit franchise. It needs to be kept as a separate brand like Beats, but run on Apple hardware and in more limited form as a webapp that infiltrates windows, saving the best performance for the Mac. They have avoided this for years, but it’s what had to be done in, office productivity, music production, photography, and video editing. They were always at the mercy of 3rd parties being wooed by Microsoft and giving Macs limited subpar updates. Once Apple had their own product the others suddenly started putting effort into the Mac platform. Even Maps is an example of this. Google refused to give us turn by turn for years while they used it as a differentiator for Android to take customers from Apple. As some as Apple surprised them with the internal Apple Maps, Google released their own Google map app to iOS with turn by turn several months later.

 

[Naraxus]

Far too little too late. Anyone that's serious and cares about gaming stays as far away from Macs as humanely possible.

Macs are not and never will be good for any sort of gaming

 

[BuffaloTF]

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

There are/were... for example, Tomb Raider (save for the 3rd) is available. Older ones especially... Borderlands 2, Elder Scrolls Online, Bioshock, Guild Wars 2, among others... it's dried up again as of late.

But to that point, if they want to see more of them... open up some GPU support. The M1 smokes Intel Integrated Graphics, but that's barely setting the bar above floor level and isn't a good long term solution. The move to ARM instructions should be their opportunity to jump into the field and court some development. Maybe kiss and make up with Nvidia, since they control ARM itself now -- that might hasten some development for actual drivers on ARM instead of the current home-brew ones.

 

[arvinsim]

Metro Exodus is a very demanding game from 2019, available on the Mac App store with Metal support.
Performance on M1 is remarkably decent, and that's a low end MBA chip, and via Rosetta.
We're not talking 2D indie games here.

Personally, any game that doesn't output at least 60fps is unplayable for me.

 

[ikir]

I have little time to game but me and my friend, old time hardcore gamers now with too much work, all play on Macs. For sure we have very little AAA games but there are tons of other games that will benefit from this. Lately we are getting games optimized with Apple help like Metro Exodus and Divinity Original Sin 2. Things are moving in the right direction so stop whining with every good news.

 

[MikhailT]

AAA games not required to enjoy adaptive sync.

The whole point is avoid tearing at too fast or too slow fps vs native screen.

In other words, if you have a game that has no fps cap and does 40fps, your monitor will sync at 40hz for smoother experience. 90fps, boom 90hz, no tearing.

M1 SoC is the same in both iPad Pro and Macs with m1 and iPad Pro has promotion display with variable refresh rate support.

So if upcoming iPhone comes with promotion display, Apple now has a complete stack of hardware that supports variable refresh rate monitors.