Major gaming news at WWDC: Metal and New games

[Homy]

Apple seems to be working on ray tracing and had added the feature to their A16 GPU in iPhone 14 prototypes but found it to draw much more power than expected, impacting the device's battery life and thermal management.

This means they could easily add it to their Macs so I really hope we'll get it with M2 Pro/Max or M3.

iPhone 14 Pro Faced 'Unprecedented' Setback Leading to Removal of New Graphics Processor

Apple planned a major generational update for the iPhone 14 Pro's graphics capabilities, but was forced to scrap plans for the new GPU late in...

www.macrumors.com

 

[Realityck]

Apple seems to be working on ray tracing and had added the feature to their A16 GPU in iPhone 14 prototypes but found it to draw much more power than expected, impacting the device's battery life and thermal management.

This means they could easily add it to their Macs so I really hope we'll get it with M2 Pro/Max or M3.

iPhone 14 Pro Faced 'Unprecedented' Setback Leading to Removal of New Graphics Processor

Apple planned a major generational update for the iPhone 14 Pro's graphics capabilities, but was forced to scrap plans for the new GPU late in...

www.macrumors.com

None of use would be surprised by metal3 continues to be made more capable by next WWDC2023. See the related WWDC2022 video below.
cmaf.m3u8

 

[FrostLK8]

Apologies if this isn't the right place to ask, but does anyone maybe know if there are any plans to bring the Metal Performance Hud to iOS?

I read some time ago from someone who was involved in testing that it was supposedly going to release with iOS 16.x and be present in Developer Mode on new devices, but that was last I've heard of it and I haven't been able to get an answer or clarification out of him since.

 

[Homy]

Apologies if this isn't the right place to ask, but does anyone maybe know if there are any plans to bring the Metal Performance Hud to iOS?

I read some time ago from someone who was involved in testing that it was supposedly going to release with iOS 16.x and be present in Developer Mode on new devices, but that was last I've heard of it and I haven't been able to get an answer or clarification out of him since.

Haven't heard anything about MPH on iOS. It's still in development for macOS so I suppose it would take longer to come to iOS. In macOS you need to use Terminal to activate it and iOS lacks Terminal as far as I know.

 

[Homy]

Don't know if it's good news but Fortnite may be coming back:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1609305400498683904

 

[diamond.g]

We all assume they are referring to side loading, right?

 

[blakespot]

Sadly, no No Man's Sky for Apple's platforms by the close of the year. I haven't heard an updated timeframe from Hello Games or Apple (though, as far as I have been able to tell, HG has not - themselves - made mention of the coming iPad version that Apple revealed in their post-keynote WWDC presser).

I'm sure the macOS version will land soon.

bp

 

[Irishman]

Don't know if it's good news but Fortnite may be coming back:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1609305400498683904

Maybe, but he didn’t mention Fortnite in the tweet, though. Maybe he meant Jazz Jackrabbit?

I hope it’s referring to Fortnite, because it’s costing Epic more to support two different versions of the game, and to silo the ones that run on Apple devices, which is what they’re doing now.

If #freefortnite was aimed at getting the Apple player base all riled up at Apple then it failed. If it was trying to get Apple to offer side loading, well then that failed too. Epic already lost the court case that had led to them pulling the #freefortnite stunt in the first place.

If it returns, you think that Mac gamers will get the upgrade to UE 5.1?

 

[diamond.g]

Maybe, but he didn’t mention Fortnite in the tweet, though. Maybe he meant Jazz Jackrabbit?

I hope it’s referring to Fortnite, because it’s costing Epic more to support two different versions of the game, and to silo the ones that run on Apple devices, which is what they’re doing now.

If #freefortnite was aimed at getting the Apple player base all riled up at Apple then it failed. If it was trying to get Apple to offer side loading, well then that failed too. Epic already lost the court case that had led to them pulling the #freefortnite stunt in the first place.

If it returns, you think that Mac gamers will get the upgrade to UE 5.1?

Yeah, though isn’t Lumen and Nanite still broken on macOS? Seems like that is the only reason to care about UE5.1.

 

[Nugat Trailers]

A few days ago, the Apple editorial staff put together a list of 10 must-play Mac games.

‎Must-play Mac games : App Store Story

‎Learn about collection Must-play Mac games featuring Psychonauts 2, Asphalt 8: Airborne, Asphalt Legends: Unite and many more on Mac App Store. Enjoy these apps on your iPhone, iPad and Mac.

apps.apple.com

For a tl;dr, the list is:

Psychonauts 2
Asphalt 8 and 9
Gris
Resident Evil Village
Myst
Inscryption
Civilization 6
Life is Strange 1 and 2
Divinity Original Sin 2
Disco Elysium

I'd say it's a fairly solid list, overall. Probably a good chance that we'd have played at least two of those titles.

 

[Homy]

Maybe, but he didn’t mention Fortnite in the tweet, though. Maybe he meant Jazz Jackrabbit?

I hope it’s referring to Fortnite, because it’s costing Epic more to support two different versions of the game, and to silo the ones that run on Apple devices, which is what they’re doing now.

If #freefortnite was aimed at getting the Apple player base all riled up at Apple then it failed. If it was trying to get Apple to offer side loading, well then that failed too. Epic already lost the court case that had led to them pulling the #freefortnite stunt in the first place.

If it returns, you think that Mac gamers will get the upgrade to UE 5.1?

He kind of did with a screen shot in a following tweet the next day; or maybe we're reading too much into it. It's important enough to announce it on Tweeter and what could be more important for Epic on iOS than Fortnite:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1609415084211683329

 

[Irishman]

Yeah, though isn’t Lumen and Nanite still broken on macOS? Seems like that is the only reason to care about UE5.1.

Well, the 5.1 update is still less than 3 months old, and it exacts such a high performance penalty on machines that do support it that it’s not possible to play Fortnite at 120 fps with Lumen and Nanite enabled. 60 fps is all it can manage.

MacOS runs about half that frame rate.

But, if there’s a silver lining at all, it’s that Epic is continuing to develop UE 5.1 for the Mac

 

[diamond.g]

Well, the 5.1 update is still less than 3 months old, and it exacts such a high performance penalty on machines that do support it that it’s not possible to play Fortnite at 120 fps with Lumen and Nanite enabled. 60 fps is all it can manage.

MacOS runs about half that frame rate.

But, if there’s a silver lining at all, it’s that Epic is continuing to develop UE 5.1 for the Mac

Yeah even the 4090 can't do it @120FPS native (4K).

 

[Homy]

Disney Dreamlight Valley is out on Mac App Store only for M1. It has an empty Steam depot. Wonder if it's another exclusive deal Apple has made.

 

[diamond.g]

Disney Dreamlight Valley is out on Mac App Store only for M1. It has an empty Steam depot. Wonder if it's another exclusive deal Apple has made.

That took a while. Glad it is available.

 

[Nugat Trailers]

While not exactly Mac gaming related, Apple's announced the titles coming to Arcade this month.

One of them is GameFreak's (yes, the Pokemon one) first Mac title, a remake of the 3DS eShop exclusive, Pocket Card Jockey.

 

[diamond.g]

While not exactly Mac gaming related, Apple's announced the titles coming to Arcade this month.

One of them is GameFreak's (yes, the Pokemon one) first Mac title, a remake of the 3DS eShop exclusive, Pocket Card Jockey.

The Verge says the game is a good one, so this is a plus, right?

 

[Nugat Trailers]

Back in... I think 2008ish, Gamefreak launched a program where they would accept pitches for smaller games from their developers, to help avoid burnout. It's still ongoing, afaik, and they released a fair few titles.

Pocket Card Jockey's one of the more interesting ones, it had an iOS version that was Japan exclusive, plus the worldwide 3DS eShop release.

It received pretty good reviews, but it really depends if you're into horse racing/solitaire.

 

[Homy]

A slower month but a small increase for AS on Steam.

 

[Nugat Trailers]

Yeah, since we're now at the half way mark, I think we'll see the amount of M series Macs appearing on Steam slow dramatically. Where as before, we had 3-4% increases per month, we'll probably only see at most 1.5% from now on.

 

[Homy]

Baldur's Gate 3 got an official release date, Aug 2023.

 

[Nugat Trailers]

It seems that No Man's Sky for Mac might be at CES 2023.

There's a video currently on r/macgaming, showing Monica Chin from the Verge playing No Man's Sky on a Mac mini, according to her.
The clip's only 10 seconds long, however.

TikTok · The Verge

100 likes, 2 comments. “Join Senior Reviewer Monica Chin at CES 2023.”

www.tiktok.com

 

[Homy]

It seems that No Man's Sky for Mac might be at CES 2023.

There's a video currently on r/macgaming, showing Monica Chin from the Verge playing No Man's Sky on a Mac mini, according to her.
The clip's only 10 seconds long, however.

TikTok · The Verge

100 likes, 2 comments. “Join Senior Reviewer Monica Chin at CES 2023.”

www.tiktok.com

Good catch!

 

[diamond.g]

Wonder what settings they are running it with. Is really really smooth 60fps?

I hope it comes to Steam as I am unlikely to buy it a third time (PC, PlayStation)

 

[Nugat Trailers]

Update: It's No Man's Sky running on a M1 Mac Mini...

Through nVidia GeForce Now.