Major gaming news at WWDC: Metal and New games

[Homy]

Once someone posted a list of games not coming to Mac as a proof of lack of interest among the devs. Without going into that discussion again one example mentioned was Company of Heroes 3. CoH 2 was previously ported to Mac by Feral. Now CoH 3 is released for PC and it has got many negative reviews. People complain about dated graphics, bad UI, bad sound and animations, bad camera angles and unit selection, useless zoom and many other things.

This is only one recent example of buggy unfinished games released too soon leaving the players disappointed with empty wallets. Is this something to really be happy about? I have always felt and said I'm fine with games coming to Mac later because by then most of such problems been solved and you also get more content for the same price, like the upcoming Grid Legends where you will get all the DLCs too at release. Yes, you get more games on PC but you get also more disappointed and bored when many games are rushed out and aren't actually good until a year or two later, about the same time when the Mac port comes out. Even many PC players don't pre-order or buy games on the release day any longer and wait months or a year until the games have matured. Not really impressive...

 

[nasmdhgf]

If you don't care about supporting Macs, then yes, you probably won't care about Metal. But I wonder, why are you on this forum then?

Frankly, I'd be very happy for a Metal-like library which translates to Vulkan or DX12 so that I can use Metal on other platforms. Metal is so much more convenient to work with.



I don't think TBDR is any different from any other rendering architecture in this regard. Pretty much any GPU will cull stuff outside the viewport and the mechanisms for doing that is the same for both IMR and TBR.

Who stipulates that people in this forum must like METAL and MAC? Who?

 

[vladi]

I wonder if AS being TBDR would help it save resources on the viewport that isn't actually shown. Do you know if this would be the case @leman?

Not sure hidden surface removal will do any better than latest texture compression to be honest. Btw memory bandwidth is so good that it should chew it up pretty darn quickly and savings for not rendering invisible surfaces are not that relevant. I could be wrong, I guess it depends from case to case.

 

[vladi]

Once someone posted a list of games not coming to Mac as a proof of lack of interest among the devs. Without going into that discussion again one example mentioned was Company of Heroes 3. CoH 2 was previously ported to Mac by Feral. Now CoH 3 is released for PC and it has got many negative reviews. People complain about dated graphics, bad UI, bad sound and animations, bad camera angles and unit selection, useless zoom and many other things.

This is only one recent example of buggy unfinished games released too soon leaving the players disappointed with empty wallets. Is this something to really be happy about? I have always felt and said I'm fine with games coming to Mac later because by then most of such problems been solved and you also get more content for the same price, like the upcoming Grid Legends where you will get all the DLCs too at release. Yes, you get more games on PC but you get also more disappointed and bored when many games are rushed out and aren't actually good until a year or two later, about the same time when the Mac port comes out. Even many PC players don't pre-order or buy games on the release day any longer and wait months or a year until the games have matured. Not really impressive...

A and AA Games are getting rushed because they try to hit the release window that doesn't collide with upcoming AAA titles. It's has never been easier to make and distribute a game than it is today, much like mobile apps.

God knows how many games get legit release each day. It's like Netflix, there is so much content that you can't even pick what you would like to watch and instead you either close Netflix all together or you watch Back to the Future for gazillionth time because you know it's good. There is a flood of indie games on Windows each freakin day and maybe one out of fifteen is good, problem is you have to play all 15 of them.

You can trust some gaming reviews but they mainly review the same game and leave others in the dust. For example Norco is a great point and click game and it's been reviewed all over the place but there are others that are good but come under the radar such as The Last Door which you probably haven't heard of.

 

[nasmdhgf]

Is Windows a test platform? Will bugs be reduced after logging in to the mac? Not necessarily. The core platform of many game companies is still Windows. However, more bugs will be tested and the game will be more perfect. After logging in to the mac, there are also many bugs. The support of each platform is different, and the problems caused by the api used are also different. Even if the rendering abstraction is used, errors will still be caused by factors such as the unskilled metal. So the more platforms supported, the more problems. The cost of maintenance is huge.

 

[GrumpyCoder]

Less than a month away and with new content dropped from Capcom recently is RE4 Remake... still no word on a Mac version, which is puzzling, given it's using the exact same engine, same everything as RE Village. Missed opportunity .
But hey, still about a month left... so we'll see what happens.

 

[GrumpyCoder]

Is Windows a test platform? Will bugs be reduced after logging in to the mac? Not necessarily.

Of course not. RE Village took ages to come to the Mac and with it a control breaking bug other versions didn't have. It took a while and an OS update to fix it instead of supplying a hotfix quickly.

 

[Irishman]

Is Windows a test platform? Will bugs be reduced after logging in to the mac? Not necessarily. The core platform of many game companies is still Windows. However, more bugs will be tested and the game will be more perfect. After logging in to the mac, there are also many bugs. The support of each platform is different, and the problems caused by the api used are also different. Even if the rendering abstraction is used, errors will still be caused by factors such as the unskilled metal. So the more platforms supported, the more problems. The cost of maintenance is huge.

I like that Apple seems prepared to fight for their share of the A, AA and AAA games on MacOS. Apple is interested in long-term support for making each generation of Macs better than the last for playing great games on.

And that can happen even if you never write a line of code in Xcode.

But, never say never!

 

[diamond.g]

I like that Apple seems prepared to fight for their share of the A, AA and AAA games on MacOS. Apple is interested in long-term support for making each generation of Macs better than the last for playing great games on.

And that can happen even if you never write a line of code in Xcode.

But, never say never!

I wonder if Apple is talking to WB to get Hogwarts ported over.

 

[Irishman]

I wonder if Apple is talking to WB to get Hogwarts ported over.

Given Tim Cook's support of LGBTQ issues, I'd say that might have a snowball's chance in Hell of happening.

But, then again, never underestimate the power of cash!

 

[goro123]

Hi, any opinion/review of the M2 Mini for gaming? Seems like one the best deal ever regarding gaming-performance / pricing (on macOS).

The Mini M2 Pro has 2 configs :
1. CPU 10 - GPU 16
2. CPU 12 - GPU 19

The GPU 19 gets a bit expensive but probably quite capable.

Seems like the only missing piece now is… having some games to play.

 

[diamond.g]

Given Tim Cook's support of LGBTQ issues, I'd say that might have a snowball's chance in Hell of happening.

But, then again, never underestimate the power of cash!

I thought about saying Atomic Heart, but that kind of game doesn't really seem like an Apple Gamers Tea... Though it is very similar to BioShock...

Hi, any opinion/review of the M2 Mini for gaming? Seems like one the best deal ever regarding gaming-performance / pricing (on macOS).

The Mini M2 Pro has 2 configs :
1. CPU 10 - GPU 16
2. CPU 12 - GPU 19

The GPU 19 gets a bit expensive but probably quite capable.

Seems like the only missing piece now is… having some games to play.

It's fine. There isn't really anything that runs on Apples Hardware that cannot be played on the M2 (base or otherwise).

 

[Homy]

Hi, any opinion/review of the M2 Mini for gaming? Seems like one the best deal ever regarding gaming-performance / pricing (on macOS).

The Mini M2 Pro has 2 configs :
1. CPU 10 - GPU 16
2. CPU 12 - GPU 19

The GPU 19 gets a bit expensive but probably quite capable.

Seems like the only missing piece now is… having some games to play.

Here is how the base Mini with 10 GPU cores performs:

 

[goro123]

Here is how the base Mini with 10 GPU cores performs:

Thanks ! Looks promising but we are really missing more recent games.

I am playing Doom3 RoE (with Dhewm on m1) these days. Still great

 

[Homy]

Steam February stats

- Apple Silicon Macs 53.98% +1.67%
- Intel Macs 45.97% -1.69%

Also patch 2.4 is out now for Total War: WARHAMMER III on macOS! With this update, the immense Immortal Empires campaign is out of Beta and available to all owners of WARHAMMER III.

https://www.feralinteractive.com/en/news/1164/

 

[diamond.g]

Steam February stats

- Apple Silicon Macs 53.98% +1.67%
- Intel Macs 45.97% -1.69%

View attachment 2167238

Also patch 2.4 is out now for Total War: WARHAMMER III on macOS! With this update, the immense Immortal Empires campaign is out of Beta and available to all owners of WARHAMMER III.

https://www.feralinteractive.com/en/news/1164/

Annoyingly macOS lost marketshare last month.

 

[Homy]

Annoyingly macOS lost marketshare last month.

Only -0.24% but so did Linux by -0.11%. Not necessarily meaning there are fewer Mac gamers but rather a few more PC gamers.

 

[nasmdhgf]

No matter how hard Valve tries to encourage the mac and linux platforms, the market is still dominated by Win10.
This is why Microsoft is confident to launch DX12, because they believe that users of DX will not be taken away by Vulkan.
EA's engine development staff revealed that the operating system's support for native APIs has always been better than that of multi-platform APIs.

 

[diamond.g]

No matter how hard Valve tries to encourage the mac and linux platforms, the market is still dominated by Win10.
This is why Microsoft is confident to launch DX12, because they believe that users of DX will not be taken away by Vulkan.
EA's engine development staff revealed that the operating system's support for native APIs has always been better than that of multi-platform APIs.

It is a weird stance for them to take since they have to support at least 2 API's anyways (DX for XBox and GNMX for Playstation). Supporting Metal shouldn't be seen as a bridge to far IMHO.

 

[quarkysg]

It is a weird stance for them to take since they have to support at least 2 API's anyways (DX for XBox and GNMX for Playstation). Supporting Metal shouldn't be seen as a bridge to far IMHO.

My take is that it’s never about APIs. If there’s money to be made, they will do it, even if it means coding in assembly. What Apple needs to do is to grow the install base.

 

[diamond.g]

My take is that it’s never about APIs. If there’s money to be made, they will do it, even if it means coding in assembly. What Apple needs to do is to grow the install base.

But isn't mobile where all the money is (micro-transactions for the win)? So why would all these games not exist in iOS (and thus with a "simple" switch flip also on macOS)?

I know the argument is contrived, but it seems like no one would make PC/Console games since all the money is in Mobile.

 

[nasmdhgf]

My take is that it’s never about APIs. If there’s money to be made, they will do it, even if it means coding in assembly. What Apple needs to do is to grow the install base.

Yes, the only way to make game developers compromise is to make them feel that this will have greater value. If the purchase volume of MacOS computers continues to increase and the gap between MacOS computers and win10 computers narrows, then even if I don't like it, I will consider adding metal interfaces and try to make money in this regard.

 

[quarkysg]

But isn't mobile where all the money is (micro-transactions for the win)? So why would all these games not exist in iOS (and thus with a "simple" switch flip also on macOS)?

I know the argument is contrived, but it seems like no one would make PC/Console games since all the money is in Mobile.

Mobile is restricted in what can be done. For one, it doesn’t have the horsepower but also have limited storage. But I think the most limiting factor is that mobile users got used to cheap or free to play games.

 

[GrumpyCoder]

Capcom Spotlight broadcast scheduled for next week, so there's a chance to show their and Apple's commitment to gaming and they could pull a "surprise" announcement.
Featured titles to include:

And since working in Unity on macOS this week brought me closer to a heart attack, I sure hope Apple will generally improve things a bit. They're not wrong...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1630843879678259201

https://twitter.com/x/status/1630834607942930432

https://forums.swift.org/t/yo-apple-xcode-debugging-swift-is-still-horribly-broken/62702/42?page=3

I have my hopes up for some pleasant (and needed) surprises at WWDC.

 

[Homy]

Black Desert Mobile now works on Macs with Apple Silicon. "Free" to play but be aware it's not for everyone with its expensive in-game purchases. Read the Steam reviews.