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Major gaming news at WWDC: Metal and New games
- Thread starter Homy
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How long and how closely have you been following Mac gaming? For me, it’s been a long time, since the 90s.
Historically, transition periods have been the least productive for developers (and we’re in the middle of one right now), so I guess I’m more measured with my expectations. I know it’s more difficult to wait to see what we end up getting from it.
Also, remember that Metal 3 has been out as you say for about a year, and will be replaced by Metal 4 sooner than later. Metal 3 is a blip on the developmental roadmap.
Do we think Apple coming out with a new version of Metal every year is going to hamper adoption of the newer version of the API?
I don’t think so. Certainly no more than Microsoft doing so on their own schedule, with DirectX.
Is there a magic number for how often you should or need to update an API? I don’t know, but as long as those new versions can be justified with something new that we couldn’t see otherwise, I’m fine with it.
Maybe Apples way of doing it is cleaner than MS. We have had DX12 for like 7 years but it has "iterated" 5 times.
Actually Playstation Studios head Herman Hulst said Playstation games on PC will have a year gap between releases with the exception of multiplayer games, those will be day in date, so the upcoming Last of Us Factions will be day one on PC.
However with the poor state The Last of Us Part 1 is in right now, I worry about Factions
If they can fix the Engine issues, assuming Factions uses the same Engine, then it will probably be fine.
I wanna know what happened. Uncharted didn't have these issues, the worst issue it had was mouse aim didn't work right, which got fixed quickly. None of the other ports of their had any issues like this.
The last port before this Returnal, was absolutely fantastic, even better than it was on PS5.
It has? it’s at best 9 months since WWDC 2022. Ventura released end of Oct, so that’s 5 months. Yes expect MacOS 14 to expand upon metal 3 to encompass improvements towards porting from PC platform. RE quite a good example even if this time nothin else has trickled out yet. Want to see metal 3 or 4 advance to allow MS/Blizzard port of Diablo4
Is Metal missing something that DX has that is preventing Diablo4 from being ported?
I can't imagine they'll update from 3 to 4 in year. We'll probably get 3.X releases yearly until 4 is ready, similar to 2.
Metal was a 2014 release, Metal 2 was 2017, and Metal 3 in 2022. So maybe ~4 years for Metal 4?
Reference
Recommended Requirements
- OS: 64-bit Windows 10
- Processor: Intel Core i5-4670K or AMD R3-1300X
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon RX 470
- DirectX: Version 12
- Storage: SSD with 45 GB available space
- Internet: Broadband Connection
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The decision to not have a macOS version of D4 has been made before development started. It has nothing to do with technical requirements. That is in contrast to D3 which was always developed as a cross-platform title.
The only way this will ever see the light of day on a Mac is if Apple pays MS/Blizzard for a port.
The only way this will ever see the light of day on a Mac is if Apple pays MS/Blizzard for a port.
Well the Direct X 12 Metal3/4 support would be against many potential game companies ports. Also blizzard will see a new owner.
Yes, DX12 to Metal can always be a problem. But this is a decision that's been made for financial reason based on years and years of experience with macOS games dating back to the classic days in the 90s. It's not just a normal port, which can be difficult enough, it's a start-from-scratch project except art design. And a new owner won't change that, given the previous finances to develop and maintain a game. With MS involved, it's even less likely. As I said, it's up to Apple to step up on this and pay for a port.
It's the Activision side of things at ABK that blocked Mac development for D4 from the start. They have been forcing the Blizzard division to do more with less over the last few years, and the proverbial belt tightening has only gotten worse in the leadup to Microsoft proposing to buy ABK outright.
Yes, you're wrong. As stated above it's been only 9 months since Metal 3 was announced and 5 months since Ventura was released. Apple did also announce No Man's Sky, Grid Legends and just last month The Medium so RE Village is not the only announcment.
Other Mac games released or confirmed since then are Inscryption, Stranded Deep, Cult of the Lamb, The Wandering Village, X-plane 12, Return to Monkey Island, Prodeus, Lego Bricktales, Football Manger 2023, Juno: New Origins, Gas Station Sim, Firmament, Everspace 2, Isonzo, Arctic Awakening, Hollow Knight: Silksong and Edge of Eternity among others. Activision also announced Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile for iOS.
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Do you have any proof of this? Because with all this proverbial belt tightening we've seen a lot more ports of Blizzard games to new platforms starting with Diablo 3. I think they realized they make a lot more money porting to PS4 or Xbox One than Mac.
The Diablo franchise has been ported to consoles dating back to the original game in the series, so there's been no change to Blizzard's practices there. In actuality, we have seen less new IP being ported to the Mac over the last decade or so (Overwatch, Diablo Immortal, Diablo II Resurrected all lack Mac OS versions, as do some of the Activision titles also offered via the Battle.net app such as COD Black Ops 4). Bobby Kotick (the head of ABK) has basically been making the Blizzard side of the company produce more and more new content, which means there is no time or resources available for porting apps to the Mac. Those apps which do have Mac and PC support were all created at a time when simultaneous development for both platforms was both logistically feasible and supported by upper management in the company.
There was no Blizzard console ports (except some GBA ports of pre-Blizzard name titles) between 2000 after StarCraft 64 and 2013 when Diablo III came out on Xbox 360 and PS3 the year after it originally released. And that was a huge deal. There was no Diablo II port to consoles until Resurrected either. So no, it was a change.
Blizzard games have been popping up on more and more platforms lately except Mac. Diablo 4 is launching on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4 and PS5. That's 3 (or 4) more platforms than what Diablo III launched on. Resources are spent porting games to where money will be made. Mac just ain't worth the effort it seems.
I was looking at how crossover (compatabily layer) Mac was faring against D4.
3/21/23
Did anyone get into the Beta and had a chance to test if it works with Crossover on Intel/Arm MACs?
I installed Battle.net via Crossover on M1pro Arm and that works fine. But the Beta was already closed so didn't get a chance to download/test
the actual client.
3/22/23
That game requires DirectX 12 and Crossover Mac does not yet have support for DirectX 12. There is DirectX 12 support in Crossover Linux and the Codeweavers team is reportedly working on it for Crossover Mac.
Of course no idea to how long from now, but at least they are likely trying to still get it accomplished for increased variety of game support.
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oh, just few years back… with Beyond Dark Castle and Ancient art of War on a Mac Plus.
Of those 4 only one has been released.
Yes… not too bad.
I hoped for more focus/investment from Apple on Gaming after the Metal 3 announcement. It seems like suddenly Apple was trying to highlight gaming on Mac. Maybe it takes time…