…in terms of performance on modern hardware.
Please read. There is a reason why no os is using OpenGL as their main graphics api.
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Major gaming news at WWDC: Metal and New games
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Please read. There is a reason why no os is using OpenGL as their main graphics api.
Oddly, openGL supports for Apple Silicon seems to have improved in Sonoma.
Just more fuel to the fire to why Apple should just swallow their pride and adopt Vulkan. We gave Metal a try, now it's time to get back to the standard
Fuel to the fire? What fire? More like a puff of smoke or a loud fart. A standard? the overwhelming number of games and AAA games use DirectX. Vulcan and Metal are both afterthoughts in comparison. At least Metal has a chance.
In no way should Apple adopt the painful to use, awful for compute, Vulcan API. A ridiculous idea. Metal was around before Vulcan and is better than it. I could get behind DirectX if that were available, alas it isn’t.
Railgrade and Star Trek: Infinite are now released for Mac.
store.steampowered.com
store.steampowered.com
RAILGRADE on Steam
RAILGRADE is the train RTS game! Construct dense vertical railroads, build cities, construct vast factory chains with train automation! Restore an off world colony's economy all in the intense story driven campaign or relaxing sandbox mode!
Star Trek: Infinite on Steam
Star Trek: Infinite is a grand strategy experience that lets you play your own Star Trek story as the leader of one of four major factions in the galaxy. Follow the specially crafted story or blaze your own trail in the first Star Trek grand strategy game.
Vulkan doesn't give you ”the best super-resolution seen on mobile devices” with MetalFX.
Apple has to consider a lot of things regarding Vulkan vs Metal. I think their pride is the least problem. Quite interesting how "sensitive" Vulkan can be and break things while people complain about macOS.
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Metal is probably more widely used than Vulkan (thanks to iOS) and predates Vulkan. Apple has no interest in being tied to the decisions of the committee that made openGL the mess it is today.
With Metal, Apple can design their own GPUs and APIs at a much faster pace.
Because unless you're using subpasses on Vulkan (which no one is on the desktop space), your performance on TBDR GPUs (Apples) will be terrible. Then there is the extension nightmare that is Vulkan (Proton wouldn't be functional without a huge amount of optional extensions that aren't part of the core spec).
Vulkan is also terrible for GPGPU compared to MSL. Many reasons to not use Vulkan.
Not to mention hardly anyone actually uses it directly... For games it's almost all DX11/12 on PC, and Vulkan is really just a Linux thing.
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Apple introduced Metal 2015 and ended support for OpenGL in 2018. After the introduction of Apple Silicon 2020 Arenanet announced 2021 their discontinuation of Guild Wars 2 for Mac. The thing is they never used OpenGL for the Windows version, only DX. So they had three years to update the game to Metal and three more years to Apple Silicon but didn't. They didn't even have to update it to AS, just to Metal since it still works in Rosetta. Techland updated Dying Light from OpenGL to Metal last year without making any noise. They even released a patch for crossplay between Steam, Epic, GoG or Windows, Mac OS or Linux.
Technology evolves and new tech makes old tech break or obsolete. If Apple would live by the philosophy ”if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” they would have to wait for every developer to update their old SW before they could take a step forward. It has always been the developer’s responsibility to stay up to date with the latest tech/OS if they don’t want to be left behind but Apple also in many cases helps game developers for example to solve problems for free so it’s not completely a one-sided relationship.
New SW breaking old SW/HW is nothing new and in fact can be more common on the Windows side since MS only makes the SW and not the HW and has to support a vast majority of different system configurations built by different manufacturers or users themselves or rely on Intel, AMD, Nvidia or others to do so. That’s actually one advantage of game development for consoles and Apple Silicon with their unified architecture. Game development for PC is often described as ”Wild West”.
Someone saying macOS updates break two-year-old games can’t have had much experience of Mac gaming. While it can happen on all systems it’s rarely true regarding macOS. Most 64-bit Mac games work year after year. My own experience with Sonoma has only been more than positive so far. I was on Monterey and installed Sonoma on a separate partition to not break any old games, especially those using OpenGL. Not only some bugs have disappeared but I get 20-60% performance boost in OpenGL games. It’s as if I’ve suddenly got a few extra GPU cores. So despite jumping up two systems all years old games work better.
The SSAO bug which tanked Alien Isolation (2015) is gone and the gameplay is smoother. Steam fps counter doesn’t work in Sonoma even though the overlay works but it’s the same thing with Mad Max (2016), it runs smoother. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (2015) is 25% faster and Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition (2016) is up to 60% faster. So not only these old OpenGL games run, they run much better than before. Don’t think I have to mention that my Metal games run as usual.
Regarding Victoria 3 Paradox stated last year they don’t have a dedicated Mac development team and they are not that large a studio and won’t support Apple Silicon so it’s not surprising but that problem apparently was solved in just one day. When it comes to BG 3 if you read the comments there are many that have had the opposite experience with major performance boost and no glitches after updating to Sonoma so it doesn’t appear to be a general problem with Sonoma.
In the same thread another user writes ”You're going to love 14.1 because from preliminary testing, it nearly doubles FPS in some games, while also removing a lot of stutter”.
I also found a statement from Unity about Sonoma. It seems that Intel Macs are having more problems.
And if you think Windows is much better you should play more PC games to discover the problems or use Windows more instead of complaining about a platform you have very little interest in. Just less than 7 months ago in March Microsoft released Windows 11 21H2 KB5023774 update which broke RDR 2, preventing it from launching at all. Microsoft didn’t offer any fix but suggested the only solution was to update to 22H2. Many didn’t want to but those who did were punished by an even bigger havoc. Many got boot failure, performance drop by 80% from 120fps to 30 fps, Gsync broke completely, CPU usage dropped from 80% to 5%, insane stuttering, system slowdowns following the installation of KB5030219, network connection problems and internet access failing among other things.
Games like Rocket League, Cyberpunk and even Starfield was affected by errors, crashes and performance glitches. KB5030219 is a mandatory security update released just last month and Starfield also only a month old. So if people think macOS breaks 2-year-old games with every update they should take a look at Windows which breaks fresh new games every few month. So much for Windows being stable…
www.thegamer.com
www.windowscentral.com
www.windowslatest.com
www.techradar.com
uk.pcmag.com
www.digitaltrends.com
My games are ALL CRASHING after a windows update...
New SW breaking old SW/HW is nothing new and in fact can be more common on the Windows side since MS only makes the SW and not the HW and has to support a vast majority of different system configurations built by different manufacturers or users themselves or rely on Intel, AMD, Nvidia or others to do so. That’s actually one advantage of game development for consoles and Apple Silicon with their unified architecture. Game development for PC is often described as ”Wild West”.
Someone saying macOS updates break two-year-old games can’t have had much experience of Mac gaming. While it can happen on all systems it’s rarely true regarding macOS. Most 64-bit Mac games work year after year. My own experience with Sonoma has only been more than positive so far. I was on Monterey and installed Sonoma on a separate partition to not break any old games, especially those using OpenGL. Not only some bugs have disappeared but I get 20-60% performance boost in OpenGL games. It’s as if I’ve suddenly got a few extra GPU cores. So despite jumping up two systems all years old games work better.
The SSAO bug which tanked Alien Isolation (2015) is gone and the gameplay is smoother. Steam fps counter doesn’t work in Sonoma even though the overlay works but it’s the same thing with Mad Max (2016), it runs smoother. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (2015) is 25% faster and Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition (2016) is up to 60% faster. So not only these old OpenGL games run, they run much better than before. Don’t think I have to mention that my Metal games run as usual.
Regarding Victoria 3 Paradox stated last year they don’t have a dedicated Mac development team and they are not that large a studio and won’t support Apple Silicon so it’s not surprising but that problem apparently was solved in just one day. When it comes to BG 3 if you read the comments there are many that have had the opposite experience with major performance boost and no glitches after updating to Sonoma so it doesn’t appear to be a general problem with Sonoma.
In the same thread another user writes ”You're going to love 14.1 because from preliminary testing, it nearly doubles FPS in some games, while also removing a lot of stutter”.
I also found a statement from Unity about Sonoma. It seems that Intel Macs are having more problems.
And if you think Windows is much better you should play more PC games to discover the problems or use Windows more instead of complaining about a platform you have very little interest in. Just less than 7 months ago in March Microsoft released Windows 11 21H2 KB5023774 update which broke RDR 2, preventing it from launching at all. Microsoft didn’t offer any fix but suggested the only solution was to update to 22H2. Many didn’t want to but those who did were punished by an even bigger havoc. Many got boot failure, performance drop by 80% from 120fps to 30 fps, Gsync broke completely, CPU usage dropped from 80% to 5%, insane stuttering, system slowdowns following the installation of KB5030219, network connection problems and internet access failing among other things.
Games like Rocket League, Cyberpunk and even Starfield was affected by errors, crashes and performance glitches. KB5030219 is a mandatory security update released just last month and Starfield also only a month old. So if people think macOS breaks 2-year-old games with every update they should take a look at Windows which breaks fresh new games every few month. So much for Windows being stable…
Microsoft Won't Fix Red Dead Redemption 2 After Windows 11 Update Breaks It
Just upgrade, Microsoft says.
www.thegamer.com
Windows 11 2022 Update causing games to stutter and frame rates to drop
Gaming PCs are running into issues after installing the Windows 11 2022 Update.
www.windowscentral.com
Windows 11 KB5030219 trashes PCs, gaming performance issues affect Starfield
Having issues with Windows 11 KB5030219? Many users see lag, performance drops & BSODs after the mandatory update.
www.windowslatest.com
Windows 11 update reportedly causes havoc, from gaming glitches to boot failures
The latest update sounds like a nightmare for some users
PC Game Performance Can Drop With Windows 11 22H2, Microsoft Warns
'Affected games and apps are inadvertently enabling GPU performance debugging features not meant to be used by consumers,' according to Microsoft, which is working on a fix.
It’s not just you: Microsoft confirms Windows 11 is having gaming issues
Microsoft has confirmed that the latest version of Windows 11 is causing a lag when running certain games and apps a month after the 22H2 update was released.
www.digitaltrends.com
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openGL is still supported for the time being. It's deprecated, which is different. I'm not sure why some developers stopped supporting their Mac version because of that. This looks like a bad excuse.
Vulkan bots are very weird because while this is the reality of Vulkan the thought process for ✌️saving✌️ Mac gaming is simply:
1. Vulkan
2. ???
3. Games!
And I just don't understand it.
I don't think it would save gaming on the Mac. Apple spending cold hard cash on games will save gaming on the Mac. If there is an October event to show off RT in a M3 MacBook Air, I wonder what game they would choose to show it off. I don't think any of the RE Engine games should be on the list. Maybe a "fixed" port of Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition? Or maybe behind the scenes Apple has given CDPR a bucket of cash to convert what is widely known as the Nvidia tech demo, I mean CyberPunk 2077 RT Overdrive, to run on Metal RT and they are gonna show that it can keep up with Nvidia in real time path tracing (which from their perspective is where all of this is going to go).
This is an interesting take. I literally have had to keep a windows desktop alongside my Mac because of AAA games. In fact it was easier to just switch to cross platform apps and ditch the Mac altogether than try to get Apex Legends, BG3 (which works now on HIGH END Macs), etc. working on my M1 MBA…Technology evolves and new tech makes old tech break or obsolete. If Apple would live by the philosophy ”if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” they would have to wait for every developer to update their old SW before they could take a step forward. It has always been the developer’s responsibility to stay up to date with the latest tech/OS if they don’t want to be left behind but Apple also in many cases helps game developers for example to solve problems for free so it’s not completely a one-sided relationship.
New SW breaking old SW/HW is nothing new and in fact can be more common on the Windows side since MS only makes the SW and not the HW and has to support a vast majority of different system configurations built by different manufacturers or users themselves or rely on Intel, AMD, Nvidia or others to do so. That’s actually one advantage of game development for consoles and Apple Silicon with their unified architecture. Game development for PC is often described as ”Wild West”.
Someone saying macOS updates break two-year-old games can’t have had much experience of Mac gaming. While it can happen on all systems it’s rarely true regarding macOS. Most 64-bit Mac games work year after year. My own experience with Sonoma has only been more than positive so far. I was on Monterey and installed Sonoma on a separate partition to not break any old games, especially those using OpenGL. Not only some bugs have disappeared but I get 20-60% performance boost in OpenGL games. It’s as if I’ve suddenly got a few extra GPU cores. So despite jumping up two systems all years old games work better.
The SSAO bug which tanked Alien Isolation (2015) is gone and the gameplay is smoother. Steam fps counter doesn’t work in Sonoma even though the overlay works but it’s the same thing with Mad Max (2016), it runs smoother. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (2015) is 25% faster and Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition (2016) is up to 60% faster. So not only these old OpenGL games run, they run much better than before. Don’t think I have to mention that my Metal games run as usual.
Regarding Victoria 3 Paradox stated last year they don’t have a dedicated Mac development team and they are not that large a studio and won’t support Apple Silicon so it’s not surprising but that problem apparently was solved in just one day. When it comes to BG 3 if you read the comments there are many that have had the opposite experience with major performance boost and no glitches after updating to Sonoma so it doesn’t appear to be a general problem with Sonoma.
View attachment 2295184
View attachment 2295185View attachment 2295186View attachment 2295188
In the same thread another user writes ”You're going to love 14.1 because from preliminary testing, it nearly doubles FPS in some games, while also removing a lot of stutter”.
View attachment 2295190
I also found a statement from Unity about Sonoma. It seems that Intel Macs are having more problems.
View attachment 2295193View attachment 2295194
And if you think Windows is much better you should play more PC games to discover the problems or use Windows more instead of complaining about a platform you have very little interest in. Just less than 7 months ago in March Microsoft released Windows 11 21H2 KB5023774 update which broke RDR 2, preventing it from launching at all. Microsoft didn’t offer any fix but suggested the only solution was to update to 22H2. Many didn’t want to but those who did were punished by an even bigger havoc. Many got boot failure, performance drop by 80% from 120fps to 30 fps, Gsync broke completely, CPU usage dropped from 80% to 5%, insane stuttering, system slowdowns following the installation of KB5030219, network connection problems and internet access failing among other things.
Games like Rocket League, Cyberpunk and even Starfield was affected by errors, crashes and performance glitches. KB5030219 is a mandatory security update released just last month and Starfield also only a month old. So if people think macOS breaks 2-year-old games with every update they should take a look at Windows which breaks fresh new games every few month. So much for Windows being stabil…
Microsoft Won't Fix Red Dead Redemption 2 After Windows 11 Update Breaks It
Just upgrade, Microsoft says.Windows 11 2022 Update causing games to stutter and frame rates to drop
Gaming PCs are running into issues after installing the Windows 11 2022 Update.Windows 11 KB5030219 trashes PCs, gaming performance issues affect Starfield
Having issues with Windows 11 KB5030219? Many users see lag, performance drops & BSODs after the mandatory update.Windows 11 update reportedly causes havoc, from gaming glitches to boot failures
The latest update sounds like a nightmare for some usersPC Game Performance Can Drop With Windows 11 22H2, Microsoft Warns
'Affected games and apps are inadvertently enabling GPU performance debugging features not meant to be used by consumers,' according to Microsoft, which is working on a fix.My games are ALL CRASHING after a windows update...It’s not just you: Microsoft confirms Windows 11 is having gaming issues
Microsoft has confirmed that the latest version of Windows 11 is causing a lag when running certain games and apps a month after the 22H2 update was released.
So I don’t know where you find this stuff, but PC gaming needs to be left out of this lol.
Yeah about that...
Developers fear for Mac gaming as Apple deprecates OpenGL support
Game developers are concerned about their games breaking in future macOS releases.www.pcgamer.com
That was true in 2018 when it happened.
2 years before the start of the Apple Silicon transition.
Do you have any headlines from this year that show that developers have a similar fear now of Metal? Five years later?
I do agree with this. There's also including iOS in this and marketing, which they seem to be doing now. But I agree cash (and their willingness to part with it) is most important.
The developers of "guild wars 2"
They apparently want to use openGL. I don't think they are representative of other developers of games for the Mac, most of which use Metal.
You have to be more precise than a 😆 emoji and "lol" comment. You didn't discuss anything in my post but just told us you switched to a platform with 97% share on Steam for playing more games which is quite normal if gaming is your priority. The discussion was about whether macOS is so bad that it breaks 2-year-old games with every update or not, the latest Sonoma update and if Windows is so much more stable and reliable.
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I am not sure iOS helps per se. While it should help with games on macOS, you run into the same market share issue that typically prevents large publishers from naturally making games for macOS.