Major gaming news at WWDC: Metal and New games

[bousozoku]

Ehhh. That’s true of every platform except perhaps PC and even then not really. If I want to play Astrobot, I need a PS5. Windows doesn’t have it. if I want a Zelda game, I need a Switch. Let’s not pretend any single platform has all the games. Yes the Mac has fewer games than PC, PS etc. it’s also undeniable that the situation is better than it was, which is all people are saying

People love to suck the joy out of everything if they personally don’t like it. They think it’s reality when it’s often their bias.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, I bought quite a few games for Mac, such as Quake III Arena, RTCW, and the Unreal and Unreal Tournament series.

Now, I find it difficult to find anything I want to play but I have a Steam Deck and a Windows 11 laptop computer, along with an M1 MacBook Air.

Many of the games I would like to play are only for Windows, but from time-to-time, one more of my games on Steam gets a Mac version. It's unrealistic to hope for all of them to have a Mac version, but I still hope.

Games like Lies of P and Shadow of the Tomb Raider are the exceptions.

Lately, I'm seeing sequels to games on Mac turn into huge, hulking processor-killing monsters that need the biggest hardware just to do as well as they will on my Steam Deck. I'm not expecting my M1 MacBook Air to play everything, but so many seem to want the Pro to be the minimum with the Max or Ultra hardware to be acceptable.

 

[Homy]

Lately, I'm seeing sequels to games on Mac turn into huge, hulking processor-killing monsters that need the biggest hardware just to do as well as they will on my Steam Deck. I'm not expecting my M1 MacBook Air to play everything, but so many seem to want the Pro to be the minimum with the Max or Ultra hardware to be acceptable.

Can you mention some examples?

 

[Homy]

It looks as if Februari is going to be the month of Mac gaming. Civilization VII, Control Ultimate Edition, Assassin's Creed Shadows and now Palworld will all be released in Feb. I wonder if it's a coincidence or due to some Apple event. I wonder if Robocop Rogue City, Sniper Elite 4 and Dead Island 2 will join the club too.

 

[bousozoku]

Can you mention some examples?

Baldur's Gate 3 and Everspace 2 come to mind immediately. I'll have to think about others that I removed from my wishlist. There have been too many. There are a number of them that don't run on Mac.

It just amazes me that people can develop something like Starfield, not caring how badly it runs and then, tell people to upgrade their equipment, if they want to run it.

 

[bousozoku]

It looks as if Februari is going to be the month of Mac gaming. Civilization VII, Control Ultimate Edition, Assassin's Creed Shadows and now Palworld will all be released in Feb. I wonder if it's a coincidence or due to some Apple event. I wonder if Robocop Rogue City, Sniper Elite 4 and Dead Island 2 will join the club too.

They're all going to run on the 4th generation iPhone SE. 😄

 

[Pet3rK]

It looks as if Februari is going to be the month of Mac gaming. Civilization VII, Control Ultimate Edition, Assassin's Creed Shadows and now Palworld will all be released in Feb. I wonder if it's a coincidence or due to some Apple event. I wonder if Robocop Rogue City, Sniper Elite 4 and Dead Island 2 will join the club too.

I think it’s a coincidence. Civ 7 have its released date already at February early on.

That said, do you think Civ 7 is ok to be pre-ordered? It looks like a good upgrade from Civ 6 and it runs great on my Mac despite having a high graphical settings.

 

[Homy]

Baldur's Gate 3 and Everspace 2 come to mind immediately. I'll have to think about others that I removed from my wishlist. There have been too many. There are a number of them that don't run on Mac.

It just amazes me that people can develop something like Starfield, not caring how badly it runs and then, tell people to upgrade their equipment, if they want to run it.

Not sure what you mean about BG3 running better on Steam Deck than your MBA M1. It's the other way around. M1 runs it with 30fps without FSR at 900p Medium/Low. Steam Deck runs it with 30 fps with FSR at 800p Low.

Baldur's Gate 3 - Steam Deck Performance Review

Baldur's Gate 3 is the most impressive cRPG I've played, and while it has some performance issues on the Steam Deck, I'd still recommend it!

steamdeckhq.com

 

[Homy]

I think it’s a coincidence. Civ 7 have its released date already at February early on.

That said, do you think Civ 7 is ok to be pre-ordered? It looks like a good upgrade from Civ 6 and it runs great on my Mac despite having a high graphical settings.

Never have played Civilization so can't say.

 

[goro123]

Never have played Civilization so can't say.

I think it’s a coincidence. Civ 7 have its released date already at February early on.

That said, do you think Civ 7 is ok to be pre-ordered? It looks like a good upgrade from Civ 6 and it runs great on my Mac despite having a high graphical settings.

I played Civ 1 😅 on a Performa 5200 ; a great game, a little too good maybe? I remember starting a game late-afternoon, being completely captivated by it, and the next time I look at the clock it's suddenly 2am.

 

[diamond.g]

Not sure what you mean about BG3 running better on Steam Deck than your MBA M1. It's the other way around. M1 runs it with 30fps without FSR at 900p Medium/Low. Steam Deck runs it with 30 fps with FSR at 800p Low.

View attachment 2455240View attachment 2455241

Baldur's Gate 3 - Steam Deck Performance Review

Baldur's Gate 3 is the most impressive cRPG I've played, and while it has some performance issues on the Steam Deck, I'd still recommend it!

steamdeckhq.com

Am I the only one who thinks it is wild they both look fairly similar even though the settings are different?

 

[MRMSFC]

Baldur's Gate 3 and Everspace 2 come to mind immediately. I'll have to think about others that I removed from my wishlist. There have been too many. There are a number of them that don't run on Mac.

It just amazes me that people can develop something like Starfield, not caring how badly it runs and then, tell people to upgrade their equipment, if they want to run it.

I think Bethesda should’ve focused on making a game worth running first.

 

[M4pro]

It looks as if Februari is going to be the month of Mac gaming. Civilization VII, Control Ultimate Edition, Assassin's Creed Shadows and now Palworld will all be released in Feb. I wonder if it's a coincidence or due to some Apple event. I wonder if Robocop Rogue City, Sniper Elite 4 and Dead Island 2 will join the club too.

I think the timing is intentional. Apple can then name-drop the games when they announce the M4 MacBook Air.

 

[Mac_fan75]

I think the timing is intentional. Apple can then name-drop the games when they announce the M4 MacBook Air.

You mean M5 MacBook Air, and the Air laptop is not supposed to be a game machine. I rather hope them to drop some leet M4 Hydra Mac Studio with real powers so I can replace my M2 Max Studio.

 

[diamond.g]

For gaming they kind of need a 16CPU core 80GPU core variant.

 

[Pressure]

For gaming they kind of need a 16CPU core 80GPU core variant.

Gaming doesn't need a 16-core CPU 😅

Better with 8 cores that can clock faster.

 

[diamond.g]

Gaming doesn't need a 16-core CPU 😅

Better with 8 cores that can clock faster.

I figured 16 would work since there is no SMT and the current consoles can utilize it. Well at least 12 threads.

 

[Homy]

 

[goro123]

View attachment 2455742

I am glad Stray got selected. That's an awesome game from a small French studio. Very unexpected of them to support the Mac. And the game is so original, highly recommended.

 

[damienDevZ]

I am glad Stray got selected. That's an awesome game from a small French studio. Very unexpected of them to support the Mac. And the game is so original, highly recommended.

Grabbing it as soon as it goes on sale. I’d buy it full price but already have a backlog for Mac/iOS games so I have no issue waiting.

 

[ErikGrim]

Anyone else have massive audio crackling in Cyberpunk 2077 running Crossover Preview? I used to have this in Bootcamp but solved it with turning down the sampling rate with the Scarlett Solo drivers. Not working in Crossover of course, and even using AirPods or internal speakers I'm still getting crackling so it can't just be the interface.

This is the 20 core M4 Pro so CPU/GPU isn't an issue. The game runs at a perfect locked 60fps on Ultra with FSS/FSR3.

 

[ProQuiz]

I wonder if the recently announced Alien: Isolation sequel will get a macOS port. The first game did get a macOS (and iOS) port.

 

[diamond.g]

View attachment 2455742

I enjoyed playing Stray.

 

[Homy]

Anyone else have massive audio crackling in Cyberpunk 2077 running Crossover Preview? I used to have this in Bootcamp but solved it with turning down the sampling rate with the Scarlett Solo drivers. Not working in Crossover of course, and even using AirPods or internal speakers I'm still getting crackling so it can't just be the interface.

This is the 20 core M4 Pro so CPU/GPU isn't an issue. The game runs at a perfect locked 60fps on Ultra with FSS/FSR3.

Strange! I've read all the Preview reports and searched in the Crossover forum but there are no reports about audio issues.

 

[Pressure]

I wonder if the recently announced Alien: Isolation sequel will get a macOS port. The first game did get a macOS (and iOS) port.

They weren't ported by the same team. The macOS port is running OpenGL 😂

The iOS version is superior and much better optimized for TBDR GPUs (in-tile Gbuffer/Lighting, optimized shaders for hair/skin/shadow filtering, properly handling load/store ops etc.) as well as improvements from the the Switch port. It supports Playstation and Xbox button mappings as well as support for Dualsense controllers (which the PC / macOS version also lacks).

 

[Homy]

They weren't ported by the same team. The macOS port is running OpenGL 😂

The iOS version is superior and much better optimized for TBDR GPUs (in-tile Gbuffer/Lighting, optimized shaders for hair/skin/shadow filtering, properly handling load/store ops etc.) as well as improvements from the the Switch port. It supports Playstation and Xbox button mappings as well as support for Dualsense controllers (which the PC / macOS version also lacks).

Feral ported both the Mac and iOS versions. They just didn’t update the old Mac port because nobody would pay them to do it.