Metal Developer Tools on Windows Offer New Gaming Opportunities

[Woochoo]

As other mates have said here, comparing Metal and Vulkan is irellevant the moment you aren't doing it in the same platform/OS and same hardware executing the same software/game, as otherwise it would be comparing apples with oranges.

I honestly don't know why Apple wanted to put all that effort and time into Metal when they belong to Khronos group and Vulkan was already implemented. One thing is to have Swift which maybe has some features/a strong framework behind aimed at iOS/iPadOS and macOS that maybe other languages don't have, but the other thing is to have a "closed" graphic API when another exists with basically same or even more features, being cross-platform, and already well established.

Edit: On the "there's no way Apple can achieve that (RDNA 2.0, etc.) level", it seems like people ain't learning. People has been saying the same for ARM since rumours just started years ago, and in just a few months they'll just have to shut and accept they were wrong. If there's a business in this world that can do whatever they want for the good and for the bad, it's Apple as they basically have unlimited budget and leverage to hire top tier engineers to design what they feel like.

 

[amarcus]

If Metal is faster then why do people bootcamp Windows on the same Mac to play games?

Most PC games are not available for Mac or get ported long after launch. Mac games (and game engines) that do use Metal are usually built for DirectX/Vulkan first and Metal support merely added as an afterthought.

 

[RaoulDuke42]

Nintendos sales are completely revolved around their exclusives. Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Super Smash, Mario Kart etc.

There is no competing against Nintendo and exclusives. That's a lost "battle" before it even starts.

I'm not much of a gamer, so I'm hesitant to have any strong opinions on this matter one way or the other, but your "there's no competing..." statement smacks of 2006 iPhone skepticism, or early opinions on the iPod. Again, I could be very wrong and Apple has whiffed in the gaming arena repeatedly, but history would suggest they've got a chance if they're serious this time. Interesting times in any case.

 

[eatrains]

As other mates have said here, comparing Metal and Vulkan is irellevant the moment you aren't doing it in the same platform/OS and same hardware executing the same software/game, as otherwise it would be comparing apples with oranges.

I honestly don't know why Apple wanted to put all that effort and time into Metal when they belong to Khronos group and Vulkan was already implemented. One thing is to have Swift which maybe has some features/a strong framework behind aimed at iOS/iPadOS and macOS that maybe other languages don't have, but the other thing is to have a "closed" graphic API when another exists with basically same or even more features, being cross-platform, and already well established.

Edit: On the "there's no way Apple can achieve that (RDNA 2.0, etc.) level", it seems like people ain't learning. People has been saying the same for ARM since rumours just started years ago, and in just a few months they'll just have to shut and accept they were wrong. If there's a business in this world that can do whatever they want for the good and for the bad, it's Apple as they basically have unlimited budget and leverage to hire top tier engineers to design what they feel like.

Vulkan wasn’t ready until two years after Metal came out.

 

[Tucom]

PS5/XBox One 2020 are RDNA 2.0 based GPUs. Nothing Apple will do will match that level. They are both custom AMD SoC with Zen 2/RDNA 2.0 designs.

Wrong, so wrong.
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You know OpenGL is a standard and it is up to each developer/manufacturer to implement it? That's why a lot of games that have native macOS clients perform much worse on macOS than in Boot Camp. Sometimes Windows (Boot Camp) client is even up to twice as fast (FPS).

What I'm getting at - if Apple is comparing Metal to its own OpenGL implementation then of course it's going to be A LOT faster. You know why? Because Apple's implementation of OpenGL was lackluster since its conception. That's why this comparison is the way it is - Vulkan is compared to OpenGL on Android. It's not apples to apples comparison.

In essence Vulkan, Metal and DirectX 12 should perform equally as good because they function very similarly. Vulkan has richer feature set than Metal at the moment but Metal is catching up quickly. However in reality Metal performance leaves much to be desired. There's no way to compare those two APIs fairly because there's no Vulkan for macOS (MoltenVK is just a wrapper around Metal). However there are games with native clients on macOS that use Metal renderer (World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2) and in Boot Camp they still perform much better on DirectX (11 and 12).

I like Apple but let's be honest for a minute. Their graphics performance was lackluster for decades now and it's not going to change overnight. They no longer compare themselves to PCs like in 90's and early 00's. They compare their devices to previous generations of their devices.

No, Metal performance is FAST and I have a few next gen game that run as fast if not faster than their Windows counterparts on the same hardware - or similar. Black Ops III and Deus Ex MD are both examples that show my Mac Pro, from 2010, w/ a new GPU can smoke some gaming PCs and equal others of similar spec.

Metal just WORKS, as well. Though being on a Mac that makes any quality gaming performance you get preferable over using Windows anyways, not because Windows is bad though, but because Windows loves to break at random times. But I still love it overall.

Finally, I'm building a gaming rig fwiw, I'm all for custom rigs running high quality games, but to say Metal "leaves a lot to be desired" performance wise is OBJECTIVELY false. Period.

 

[smulji]

That would be a huge boon for Apple. Nintendo’s vault is a goldmine. Just add it to Apple Arcade by creating another tier (“Apple Arcade+“?) and watch the revenue come in.

But there would be huge backlash from fans if Apple bought Nintendo.

I agree. And Apple doesn't have to create a 2nd tier of Arcade (Arcade+). They just need to add it to the current $4.99 Arcade and watch subscriptions roll in.

 

[LEOMODE]

Would this mean that normal Windows app will also be easier to be converted to ARM based Mac OS? I am still holding on Intel Mac because of critical Windows only apps that is mot available on Mac.

 

[69Mustang]

No, Metal performance is FAST and I have a few next gen game that run as fast if not faster than their Windows counterparts on the same hardware - or similar. Black Ops III and Deus Ex MD are both examples that show my Mac Pro, from 2010, w/ a new GPU can smoke some gaming PCs and equal others of similar spec.

Metal performance may be fast, but your examples of next gen games aren't supporting that argument. 4 and 5 year old games aren't next gen games, they're really old current gen games. Besides, simply listing old games that you can play on your computer doesn't show it can smoke anything, new GPU notwithstanding.

 

[Tech198]

lol... This is good... Developers can now create Metal based Windows games "that no one will be able to play" on Silicon.

All this work, better be worth it... Apple has something up their sleeves... They wouldn't be doing Metal for Windows 10 while at the same same boast "No Bootcamp support" on Silicon, where the major of gamer would play, without some shifty stuff happening. However it its "bit late" to the game Apple... Should have done it years ago when users wanted it.. Not just when your moving away from Intel.

That's like Commodore bringing out the A570 CD Rom for Amiga 500's AFTER the machine end of life.

 

[vadimyuryev]

This is from Max Tech youtube channel

Would have been nice if you at least mentioned „Max Tech“ in the article.

Thanks for the acknowledgement! Would have been nice if Macrumors gave credit. A lot from the article is basically paraphrasing what I said in the video. That's okay though, as long as the info goes out.

 

[topdrawer]

lol... This is good... Developers can now create Metal based Windows games "that no one will be able to play" on Silicon.

All this work, better be worth it... Apple has something up their sleeves... They wouldn't be doing Metal for Windows 10 while at the same same boast "No Bootcamp support" on Silicon, where the major of gamer would play, without some shifty stuff happening. However it its "bit late" to the game Apple... Should have done it years ago when users wanted it.. Not just when your moving away from Intel.

That's like Commodore bringing out the A570 CD Rom for Amiga 500's AFTER the machine end of life.

this is not Metal for windows. this is to compile metal shaders on windows to be used on mac/ios games.

 

[bergert]

And I believe the A12x/z competes with the xBox one (not X) and the PS4. But that’s basically 2 years old and running in a thermally constrained tablet.

They are not really trying:
On the A12 the CPU and GPU each use about 30% of the A12 die; the rest is the ML engine. Imagine two SoC where CPU and GPU each use the whole die - and a passive cooled heat-pipe. That would be considered "trying".

 

[VJNeumann]

It seems like Apple pundits always conflate the casual and AAA gaming market. Apple is bound to connect its massive mobile gaming service to Mac and TV-related products, but all of that basically exists in a parallel dimension to traditional console and PC gaming. Apple has already dominated the mobile sector for over a decade without any meaningful synergy. And yet there's always these headlines saying Apple is 'getting into gaming' with breathless editorials about how they're going to be neck and neck with Xbox, Steam and Playstation any day now.

But it's basically a category error. Apple *is* already in gaming in a huge way: mobile gaming. But the AAA gaming ship sailed into the horizon years ago, and is probably approaching Voyager I's location at this point. There no evidence Apple will catch up to it, or that it even really wants to.

Whether Apple chips can compete with the prosumer market is basically just academic until then.

 

[robinp]

You lost me right at the start.

It seems like Apple pundits always conflate the casual vs AAA gaming market

conflates... vs...?!

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Windows 10 though, is legitly up to par nowadays. Minus performance, battery, etc and other minor quirks maybe... but previous versions did leave me a bad taste, for example trying to connect Bluetooth headphones, god forbid if audio goes to sleep because of sound not being piped for a few seconds of inactivity.

I mean it's not like the OS X bluetooth stack is any better. Turning on a pair of headphones should never cause the settings app to freeze, but there it is...

 

[VJNeumann]

You lost me right at the start.




conflates... vs...?!

Casual and AAA market.

 

[Piggie]

It may just be me but I shudder at the term "Port"

When speaking of games over the past years, even back to Atari ST and Amiga days. Yes, back THAT far, and still as true today.
The very VERY LAST thing you ever wanted to be told was that your game was a "Port" from the game the platform was originally written for.
Generally that means worse.
A "Port" typically meant a lazy way to get the game to run on something else, and pretty much guaranteed it would not take advantage of any of the custom chips/methods that made your system run at it's best.

You wanted the game written specifically for your platform, and not just a quick port over.

 

[A MacBook lover]

Apple will make a GPU that can run 99% of AAA games at highest setting.

They ran tomb raider Maxed out, on an iPad chip...

with NO FAN?

And a PERFORMANCE HIT on Rosetta?

WHAT!?

 

[Exhale]

Metal just WORKS, as well.

Yeah, no. There have been way too many serious Metal-only bugs in WoW at this point to take that seriously. Bugs that have required OSX upgrades in order to resolve.

Most recent one is a bug where if there were too many particles rendering at once, the system would lock up (Touch Bar included) and possibly kernel panic. Only fix was to completely disable particle rendering, which isn't even a valid setting normally.

And too many particles could be triggered by activities such as:
* Island Expeditions
* Raiding

Sure the game runs, but it was a seriously compromised experience since particles cannot normally be disabled, and the game is designed with the assumption that they are there.

 

[-DMN-]

You know OpenGL is a standard and it is up to each developer/manufacturer to implement it? That's why a lot of games that have native macOS clients perform much worse on macOS than in Boot Camp. Sometimes Windows (Boot Camp) client is even up to twice as fast (FPS).

What I'm getting at - if Apple is comparing Metal to its own OpenGL implementation then of course it's going to be A LOT faster. You know why? Because Apple's implementation of OpenGL was lackluster since its conception. That's why this comparison is the way it is - Vulkan is compared to OpenGL on Android. It's not apples to apples comparison.

In essence Vulkan, Metal and DirectX 12 should perform equally as good because they function very similarly. Vulkan has richer feature set than Metal at the moment but Metal is catching up quickly. However in reality Metal performance leaves much to be desired. There's no way to compare those two APIs fairly because there's no Vulkan for macOS (MoltenVK is just a wrapper around Metal). However there are games with native clients on macOS that use Metal renderer (World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2) and in Boot Camp they still perform much better on DirectX (11 and 12).

I like Apple but let's be honest for a minute. Their graphics performance was lackluster for decades now and it's not going to change overnight. They no longer compare themselves to PCs like in 90's and early 00's. They compare their devices to previous generations of their devices.

Well put! Learned a lot just in that little paragraph lol

 

[MacBH928]

Vulkan, OpenGL, Metal...my head hurts...why can't we all agree on a standard?

Apple game console incoming? All that controller / keyboard support. Apple silicon with GPUs surely competing / surpassing the current generation consoles. Seems kind of inevitable that the Apple TV becomes a serious gaming platform.

I won't be surprised, Apple is expanding into everything from financial services to film production. Its a slippery slope that they will regret, no company expanded into all products and services. Google failed social media, Facebook failed in hardware, Microsoft failed with phones and mp3 players.

 

[Gerdi]

Does that imply the assumption Apple will do nothing?

There is nothing special about RDNA 2.0. Ray Tracing isn't API / anything GPU specific either. Apple could add Ray Tracing if it seems fits. ( Not saying they will as I dont see how RT will work on Mobile at the moment )

Not sure i do understand this correctly. For raytracing you need in the first place an API extension and in the second place HW support for ray intersection tests. Both is not available for Metal or Apple GPUs.
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Curious question, can you try at least to run whatever was written on Windows Metal on that Windows environment? Maybe a software reference driver to make sure that at least it works maybe? Or with a connected device?

A Metal driver on Windows could be very useful, because you can directly test you Metal application under Windows. However i have seen no indication that it is provided.

 

[Azrael9]

Game developers are now able to more easily develop games for Apple devices using Windows machines, thanks to a new set of Metal developer tools released by Apple.

Since Apple is transitioning the Mac to custom silicon, developers that bring their games to Metal will be able to run them on iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and macOS. Apple's API automatically translates all inputs to whatever the available input method may be, such as touch, controller, or keyboard and mouse.

Developers targeting the Apple platform can now develop for iPad, iPhone, Mac, and Apple TV simultaneously. This may make the Apple platform more attractive to game developers as they will have access to a far larger market share than on macOS or iOS alone.

... the availability of gaming-oriented Apple developer tools for Windows marks a significant step in gaming on Apple devices.

Seeing that these new developer tools allow Windows games to be compiled into Metal for Apple platforms, rather than being completely rebuilt, it should now be easier for developers to port native PC games and AAA titles to the Mac.

Very intriguing indeed. Another step by Apple towards gaming on the new AS frontier...

Azrael.

 

[vir2l2k]

serious gaming on a mac is achieved when pro gamers go to esports events on a mac. as a serious gamer I know that gpus are less important than what most amateurs think. also, game developers hate proprietary apis and gpus. let‘s talk about pro peripherals like gaming mice, keyboards and displays incl. their drivers and their current ridiculously bad support for macs. or optimization on gpu drivers incl fine tuning options. or streaming capabilities. and the elephant in the room that serious gaming is still native 1080p and not 4k, 5k or 6k but with 144/240 hz displays. this will never fit to the apple philosophy of not wanting to give the customer any options and keep things simple. it may work for ios games which makes the most profit anyways compared to pc games. but it will always be like baby gaming.

 

[Azrael9]

Vulkan, OpenGL, Metal...my head hurts...why can't we all agree on a standard?

Apple now has the leverage with the App store to force the 'write once' and 'deploy to all' much larger target audience of iphone, ipad, atv, MacOS. It's their ace in the pack. Just waiting on AS Mac hardware to get the train going.

And they all run Metal. Why stay on the old, flabby middleware of Open GL when they can (themselves) tune for their apps and £££ app store can use it's fulcrum shift to take everybody Metal, an API Apple can build and optimise for their hardware.

Better than waiting for Id Software to do it's occasional port of Doom Whatever.

It creates a far more level playing field for all App developers. The big gaming engines can target Metal for the App store if they want to play on the £££ store.

For too long, we've had 2nd rate Open Gl that performed half as good on Mac gpus whilst Mac users were reamed for 1st rate prices. Compounded by 2nd rate ports by half hearted developers. 'Meh.'

Open Gl was rightly deprecated for the future Metal play and to 'force' people to get on board.

M$ having all the fun with its Direct X and PC Tower (and even Apple biased commentators...) gamers beating Mac owners with a stick because 'Macs suck at games?'

Those days are coming to an end.

We'll see consumer Macs with ARM that will have instant access to all those iPhone and iPad games for starters. Scoff some may. But that's seismic. Fully expect the AS Mini, 13 Macbook and iMac 24 to toast their consumer Intel counterparts. Not that it's a very high bar. It's likely the Mac ARM consumer products will make decent gaming machines.

Azrael.