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

[tevion5]

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

Yeah I'm pretty picky too but this is a the low end Apple Silicon chip, running under Rosetta, and still gets 45fps in a rather beefy game.

Think it's fair to say we can expect a lot better from something similar running natively on a higher end chip.

 

[macmac30]

Great! Hopefully this will fix the problem where I have to UNPLUG my USB-C cable from the back of the Mac mini every time my Samsung G9 monitor goes to sleep in order to wake it back up. I can't believe this hasn't been fixed yet. Is there a known solution? Tons of people on the Internet with this problem!

 

[blazerunner]

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.

How many of those games still work with Catalina / Big Sur? Most of my games in steam are no longer compatible thanks to 32bit support being gone.

The problems with Macs and gaming is endless. It's an embarrassment to Apple.

 

[tevion5]

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.

Maybe it's not EA and Activision but in terms of technology it's definitely on the forefront of graphically demanding.
AAA is a bit of a wonky definition imo anyway.

The point was it's becoming possible to make games at this level for Macs and it's probably going to get easier as we move into the Apple Silicon era.

Whether or not developers and publishers decide to make use of that, much harder to tell.

 

[l0stl0rd]

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

yeah my Macbook Air M1 it plays diablo 3 fine too and that is not even native.

 

[Orionfox]

WoW is M1 native.
Final Fantasy XIV was a crossover game sold as native but is supposed to be going M1 as well.

For everyone that argues M1 systems vs system with a discrete GPU is not a fair comparison have it backwards. It doesn't matter if they are built differently, what matters is if they can have the same outcome.

If the M1 can't do the job, no matter how wonderful it is in certain conditions (like performance per watt), it doesn't do the job. The only reason to have a PC over an iPad or iPhone anymore is simply to play PC games. everything else can be done on your iPhone or your iPad.

 

[iBug2]

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!

Actually M1 is a pretty good hardware for games. A Macbook Air has M1 and it runs circles around Intel graphics. An M1 can play World of Warcraft at 120 fps at 2560p resolution. My 2017 iMac cannot do that and I have a Radeon 580. Granted, that's a bit due to the insane single thread CPU speed of M1 but still. An entry level Macbook Air can play at least one popular game much better than an iMac with a dedicated gaming GPU.

 

[Orionfox]

An M1 can play World of Warcraft at 120 fps at 2560p resolution.

If that were the case, I would have a new M1 tomorrow to replace my 2020 Mini with 560 eGPU.

I have seen several videos and followed the WoW forums and most I have seen is 50-60 with dips in particle effect heavy areas.

If you have video of 120 FPS I would love to see it

15 FPS in SL on brand new, fully patched iMac

Title says it all. 24" iMac, M1, 2021 Memory: 8GB FPS: 15 with setting at 6 and 100% render.

us.forums.blizzard.com

15 FPS in SL on brand new, fully patched iMac
Title says it all.

24" iMac, M1, 2021
Memory: 8GB
FPS: 15 with setting at 6 and 100% render.

 

[iBug2]

If that were the case, I would have a new M1 tomorrow to replace my 2020 Mini with 560 eGPU.

I have seen several videos and followed the WoW forums and most I have seen is 50-60 with dips in particle effect heavy areas.

If you have video of 120 FPS I would love to see it

I also saw it on Youtube. The guy basically put all the special fx settings like shadows to 0 but most of the other settings were at 60%. He got 120 fps in many areas, and over 80 fps in dungeons.

Wow is CPU heavy and M1 basically has 50% faster cpu than most intels out there when it comes to single thread performance. So that's a big factor.

 

[MikhailT]

If that were the case, I would have a new M1 tomorrow to replace my 2020 Mini with 560 eGPU.

I have seen several videos and followed the WoW forums and most I have seen is 50-60 with dips in particle effect heavy areas.

If you have video of 120 FPS I would love to see it

Why not wait for m1x / m2 at this point. You still have to wait for Monterey this fall for any games to benefit from adaptive sync support in that OS release.

 

[iBug2]

If that were the case, I would have a new M1 tomorrow to replace my 2020 Mini with 560 eGPU.

I have seen several videos and followed the WoW forums and most I have seen is 50-60 with dips in particle effect heavy areas.

If you have video of 120 FPS I would love to see it

15 FPS in SL on brand new, fully patched iMac

Title says it all. 24" iMac, M1, 2021 Memory: 8GB FPS: 15 with setting at 6 and 100% render.

us.forums.blizzard.com

15 FPS in SL on brand new, fully patched iMac
Title says it all.

24" iMac, M1, 2021
Memory: 8GB
FPS: 15 with setting at 6 and 100% render.

 

[The_Gream]

Wonder why people want all these half baked AAA games. I have found more games by indie/small developer teams that I enjoy playing on my Mac than any AAA game I have bought ether ported to Mac or on my PS4.
Plus, I am an eve online fan and though my M1 is not my main machine - I can max out the graphics hit 30fps and run smooth. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but you are talking about a windows game in a wine bundle being translated by Rosetta 2 to work. Smooth game play at max settings with two layers of translation - that is just mind blowing in its own way.
Plus a lot of indie/small teams will love this feature.

 

[iBug2]

To be honest, I think we will be shocked to see the gpu performance of the next generation of M2 macs exactly like how everyone was shocked at the CPU performance of M1 when Apple released it. I'm assuming that the next flagship iMac and Mac Pro will have Apple graphics that will be at least 70% faster than the highest end AMD offerings in intel Macs.

I think that's gonna be good enough incentive for developers to consider Mac as the better gaming platform, especially if you think the same game can run on iPad and iPhone as well.

 

[cmaier]

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

Civilization. C’mon man.

 

[Realityck]

To be honest, I think we will be shocked to see the gpu performance of the next generation of M2 macs exactly like how everyone was shocked at the CPU performance of M1 when Apple released it. I'm assuming that the next flagship iMac and Mac Pro will have Apple graphics that will be at least 70% faster than the highest end AMD offerings in intel Macs.

I think that's gonna be good enough incentive for developers to consider Mac as the better gaming platform, especially if you think the same game can run on iPad and iPhone as well.

We can all hope the gpu performance is significantly better with M2 for playing games, be it flagship iMac or MBP.

 

[Hexley]

That's a nice looking iMac Pro. Is that the 32" one?

 

[Realityck]

yeah my Macbook Air M1 it plays diablo 3 fine too and that is not even native.

Even when the performance scales higher and higher as dense packs with elites all being active simultaneously with GRs well above >110? I also recall this game still isn’t made for metal, still using OpenGL.

 

[iBug2]

We can all hope the gpu performance is significantly better with M2 for playing games, be it flagship iMac or MBP.

Well, M1 had 70% faster graphics than the intel graphics it replaced. Apple just has to hit the same target again.

 

[l0stl0rd]

Even when the performance scales higher and higher as dense packs with elites all being active simultaneously with GRs well above >110? I also recall this game still isn’t made for metal, still using OpenGL.

good question I have not played it in like forever. Perhaps I will try. Back then I just wanted to see how well it runs under Rosetta.

 

[neuropsychguy]

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!

You’re comparing an entry level, low power iGPU that can be used in a fanless system to dGPUs that cost almost as much as or more than an entire Mac to say the M1 is not as good?

 

[Menneisyys2]

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

BTW, using a decent TV (and not "just" a "dumb" monitor) with decent motion estimation can dramatically increase the avg frame rate with only a minimum of lag increase. For example, I play a Zelda: BoTW a lot on my Wii U connected to my Samsung Q60T. The latter using its default auto motion estimation mode. The lag in this mode is only around 75ms (which is acceptable at least for me; more figures: https://seekingtech.com/is-the-sams...s5-xbox-series-x-and-other-videogame-systems/ ) and the final framerate, particularly when panning (where the 30 vs 60fps difference is most visible), is 60 fps and not 30.

 

[Menneisyys2]

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

If I were you, I wouldn't hold my breath :/ The only (semi-)recent AAA game on the system is XCOM 2 and even it has major quality restrictions (low-quality textures etc.)

 

[Deliro]

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

There are AAA games for the Mac, obviously not as many as a Windows platform.

 

[oneMadRssn]

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.

See, this gives it away. You're not the target audience. You look down your nose on "mobile" games like WoT because it's not AAA. You count framerates and geekbench scores instead of just enjoying a game for what it is.

There is a big world of gaming outside of AAA games. Superhot, Firewatch, Stardew Valley, Hades, and similar award-winning games often launch of Mac and Windows at the same time.

I'm not anti-AAA (I prefer them on consoles). Those games are awesome. But I love playing indie games just as much. And frankly, I dgaf about GPUs, framerates, and benchmarks. I used to, but not anymore. It's just noise. As long as the game runs on something convenient for me to use, that's all that matters.

Full disclosure, I do not game on Mac (pretty sure my 12" MB would melt running solitaire), but I own all the above-listed games on Switch - another platform commonly derided by AAA by PC gaming snobs.

 

[sunny5]

Let me ask this questions:

Are there any M1 native games especially AAA grade games? Dont include mobile games. You see, Tomb Raider, Metro Exodus, Civilization, and more aren't M1 native and you have to use rosetta 2 which won't gonna exist forever.