New gaming Apple TV coming with maybe the M1?

[leman]

Though, how does Apple deal with the idea of 1 triangle per pixel (micropolygons)?

Like this level of polys seems extreme, but then again it gets you out of having to have detailed texture maps, right?

Small polygons like that (as well as very thin/long triangles) are terrible for any GPU. Hardware processes triangles in rectangular batches for both rasterization and shading to make best possible use of its vector (SIMD) processing units. For example, most current GPUs (AMD, Nvidia, Apple) have ALU width of 32, so they have to shade 32 items/pixels at once. If a triangle does not cover all the pixels in such a batch, the hardware gets underutilized. So if a triangle only covers a single pixel, you still do 32 operations, but discard 31 of them. That’s really bad.

Actually, Apple should do considerably better in this case than others, since they collect pixels into tiles before doing the shading shading (that’s what DR in TBDR stands for). So small triangles will reduce the rasterizer efficiency, but the shaders will still be able to be executed efficiently (as they shade all pixels in a tile at once, not pixels in a triangle). Then again, Apple must bin the triangles into tiles first, so if you are bombarding your GPU with miriads of tiny triangles, you will quickly run it of the tile buffer space and trigger tile flushes which again is bad for performance.

Bottom line: using too many tiny tiny triangles is just a waste of GPU resources. If that’s what you need to do, maybe look into some sort of voxel rendering using compute shaders.

 

[Blair Paulsen]

1st) Until fairly recently, in developed areas, it was common to have a desktop or laptop computer somewhere in one's home. Sales data indicate that, at least in the USA, most people are able to meet their needs with a phone or tablet. Still plenty of laptops in use, but the replacement rate has slowed considerably.

2nd) Flat screen TV pricing has been dropping fast and newer models typically have ports (HDMI/DP) (and some wireless options) that make using them as computer monitors easily accessible for most consumers. Phones and tablets can cast wirelessly to newer models via AirPlay and similar tech.

3rd) The average size of new displays sold is nearing 50" and most are UHD/4K. In addition to a big picture for entertainment content, with a BlueTooth keyboard/mouse/trackpad they can double as computer monitors.

4th) Deployment of AR/VR/MR headsets that don't require tethering are highly likely to need close proximity hardware assistance for many years.

5th) Consuming media and playing games on phones and tablets is very popular, but giant panels and next gen headsets offer a different level/type of experience. Dedicated hardware will handily outperform anything sent wirelessly from your personal device. Heavy posterization (banding) can be very pronounced on a 65" display.


Whatever it's called (I like "Nerve Center"), I believe that a display companion device that also supports home networking, some local storage, AAA games, home automation, etc has a place in the modern digital ecosystem. Apple could "borrow" several of the features developed for their phones/tablets and integrate them into the device - starting with a camera/LIDAR array for gaming/Zoom/etc. To some degree, you could achieve this kind of functionality right now by simply connecting an M1 MacMini to a large display and adding a wireless keyboard/pad.

In some ways, this is the HTPC concept expanded in scope and shrunk in size. Apple Silicon's performance per watt, combined with ever more affordable flash storage, should make it possible to develop a device quiet enough to live anywhere. A little bigger than the MacMini, cooling via heat sinks (maybe even rear fins) so no fan, no spinning rust and TB breakout cables to support everything from HDMI to optical audio to 10GigE.

Note: While I do agree that adding gaming chops to Apple's portfolio could help it stay relevant as gaming continues to swell in popularity, I don't think it can be the primary calling card. Winning over serious gamers, even IF the hardware was superior, would take years to accomplish best case. IMO, casual gaming and unique interactive experiences with some game adjacent elements is far more possible than trying to beat the consoles at their game.

 

[unsui_grep]

Small polygons like that (as well as very thin/long triangles) are terrible for any GPU. Hardware processes triangles in rectangular batches for both rasterization and shading to make best possible use of its vector (SIMD) processing units. For example, most current GPUs (AMD, Nvidia, Apple) have ALU width of 32, so they have to shade 32 items/pixels at once. If a triangle does not cover all the pixels in such a batch, the hardware gets underutilized. So if a triangle only covers a single pixel, you still do 32 operations, but discard 31 of them. That’s really bad.

Actually, Apple should do considerably better in this case than others, since they collect pixels into tiles before doing the shading shading (that’s what DR in TBDR stands for). So small triangles will reduce the rasterizer efficiency, but the shaders will still be able to be executed efficiently (as they shade all pixels in a tile at once, not pixels in a triangle). Then again, Apple must bin the triangles into tiles first, so if you are bombarding your GPU with miriads of tiny triangles, you will quickly run it of the tile buffer space and trigger tile flushes which again is bad for performance.

Bottom line: using too many tiny tiny triangles is just a waste of GPU resources. If that’s what you need to do, maybe look into some sort of voxel rendering using compute shaders.

That's really interesting. I felt like I kind fo understood what was going on, but your explanation really solidified it for me. Thank you so much for taking the time to explain. Really appreciate that!

I was just reading some of the opening remarks from the lawsuit, seems like most analysts think Apple will prevail. Without cornering you into taking a position, do you have any thoughts about their relationship going forward, one way or the other?

 

[unsui_grep]

Whatever it's called (I like "Nerve Center"), I believe that a display companion device that also supports home networking, some local storage, AAA games, home automation, etc has a place in the modern digital ecosystem. Apple could "borrow" several of the features developed for their phones/tablets and integrate them into the device - starting with a camera/LIDAR array for gaming/Zoom/etc. To some degree, you could achieve this kind of functionality right now by simply connecting an M1 MacMini to a large display and adding a wireless keyboard/pad.

...

Note: While I do agree that adding gaming chops to Apple's portfolio could help it stay relevant as gaming continues to swell in popularity, I don't think it can be the primary calling card. Winning over serious gamers, even IF the hardware was superior, would take years to accomplish best case. IMO, casual gaming and unique interactive experiences with some game adjacent elements is far more possible than trying to beat the consoles at their game.

I couldn't agree more! I'm just a casual, if not enthusiastic, observer but this just seems exactly like something Apple would want to do. I've been all over this thread trying to argue that it's not gaming in and of it's self that would motivate Apple to build such a console, but that it hits in so many areas of interest. Bundling or borrowing many of the tech that already exists within its ecosystem seems like a compelling product that could lure gamer and non-gamer alike.

As for hardcore gamers, particularly PC gamers, it's always going to be a hard sell. They're like muscle car enthusiasts who endlessly thinker or mode their machines to squeeze out every drop of performance they can no mater the $$$ or thermal cost. To each their own. It seems like Apple silicon is the perfect time for Apple to enter the market with their own take. It's always going to be about the games and getting developers on board, but I think you're right. If Apple can develop the platform into something much more than games (especially in the hopefully soon post-Covid world), then I think they have a compelling product that could potentially sell many more satellite products and accessories.

Side note: I've never really been a hardcore gamer, more of an arcade kid from the 80s, who drifted towards books and film. I played the occasional Xbox or Playstation game, but I've gotten much more into it the last few years and my have things changed! The narrative development, nuance, and artistry of the AAA games coming out these days is stunning. I feel old more only just realizing this but gaming as really become a legit art form. I can see Apple wanting to have a voice in that.

 

[diamond.g]

That's really interesting. I felt like I kind fo understood what was going on, but your explanation really solidified it for me. Thank you so much for taking the time to explain. Really appreciate that!

I was just reading some of the opening remarks from the lawsuit, seems like most analysts think Apple will prevail. Without cornering you into taking a position, do you have any thoughts about their relationship going forward, one way or the other?

UE support on Apples hardware probably isn’t the bulk of sales. As far I know Unity has a higher share of iOS titles.

 

[unsui_grep]

UE support on Apples hardware probably isn’t the bulk of sales. As far I know Unity has a higher share of iOS titles.

For sure! I was reading a developer report recently that had some crazy numbers for Unity. I think Unity games accounted for something like 75% of sales. Something like that. Epic/UE games are like 8%, while they account for something like 2/3 of their sales. Not exactly sure but it's BIG! and as far as I understand it Sony's cut is 30% and they just invested another $250 million in Epic last week. Make you think.

UE5 looks amazing, though. Such incredible tech. Really wish this feud wasn't happening, at least in the nasty manner that it has.

 

[diamond.g]

For sure! I was reading a developer report recently that had some crazy numbers for Unity. I think Unity games accounted for something like 75% of sales. Something like that. Epic/UE games are like 8%, while they account for something like 2/3 of their sales. Not exactly sure but it's BIG! and as far as I understand it Sony's cut is 30% and they just invested another $250 million in Epic last week. Make you think.

UE5 looks amazing, though. Such incredible tech. Really wish this feud wasn't happening, at least in the nasty manner that it has.

Yeah on console and PC UE is much bigger fish, lol. Indy games still tend to use Unity though, I guess it is less expensive than UE?

 

[unsui_grep]

Yeah on console and PC UE is much bigger fish, lol. Indy games still tend to use Unity though, I guess it is less expensive than UE?

I've heard that it is. UE is also kind of designed for the type of AAA third person adventure/shooter game with larger development teams in mind. Unity also seems easier to get going on. There's visual scripting in both engines but C++ might be a barrier for some developers who have more casual gaming interests. There's a well known YouTuber out there that has a nice breakdown of why he moved to Unity. UE's long compile times was one of the major reasons he listed. I can see that being an issue for small indie devs.

 

[sublunar]

Instead of making their own engine, maybe buying Unity Technologies would be better?

They'd have to support the existing licensees which is not what Apple like to do - they'd upset a lot of people by closing it off if hey were buying the tech to bring it in house. And I think they'd like top end visuals up front if they were aiming to make a rival to Stagecraft without having to deal with Epic Games and their Unreal Engine. I'm looking from the point of view of AppleTV+ rather than Apple Arcade here.

We will know in the next 18 months if Apple have the level of GPU expertise to rival AMD and NVIDIA's efforts - they can certainly throw money at it - but they'll never put their tech on the open market for PC gamers to buy.

The key will be how much effort they put into Metal.

 

[diamond.g]

They'd have to support the existing licensees which is not what Apple like to do - they'd upset a lot of people by closing it off if hey were buying the tech to bring it in house. And I think they'd like top end visuals up front if they were aiming to make a rival to Stagecraft without having to deal with Epic Games and their Unreal Engine. I'm looking from the point of view of AppleTV+ rather than Apple Arcade here.

We will know in the next 18 months if Apple have the level of GPU expertise to rival AMD and NVIDIA's efforts - they can certainly throw money at it - but they'll never put their tech on the open market for PC gamers to buy.

The key will be how much effort they put into Metal.

What I am really curious about is if Epic abandons Apple as a platform all together then what happens? They more or less have admitted that they don’t make any(much?) money on Apples platform. Especially if (when?) they lose the case.

 

[sublunar]

Yeah on console and PC UE is much bigger fish, lol. Indy games still tend to use Unity though, I guess it is less expensive than UE?

Both have licensing terms, but I suspect it's easier to get good looking results quickly. And in the film business time is money.

This Arstechnica article suggests Jon Favreau started with Unity for Lion King (2019) but switched to Unreal Engine with Stagecraft by the tie he was doing Mandalorian. And I believe Ewan McGregor is doing his Obi-Wan show using the same Stagecraft - Disney is a very high profile customer.

It would be just as easy for Apple productions to use Unreal/Stagecraft as well but with the Epic court case going on would Apple want to bring that into any future settlement or business between the companies?

Building it in house would be far better as they would be able to tailor it directly for Apple ARM but do Apple have the expertise and time and inclination to invest in such a big project?

 

[sublunar]

What I am really curious about is if Epic abandons Apple as a platform all together then what happens? They more or less have admitted that they don’t make any(much?) money on Apples platform. Especially if (when?) they lose the case.

I saw something to that effect - less than 7% of their revenue comes from iOS making it look like Epic are exaggerating the losses they are making.

I'm not sure it's a foregone conclusion that Epic will lose considering Microsoft just changed their App Store rules to accept just 12%. And Spotify appear to have the European Commission issuing antitrust charges for Apple.

It's perhaps more reason for Apple to take control of important features like Metal rather than relying on people to get OpenCL and OpenGL right in the end.

Without regular investment and support Metal will suffer in the end.

 

[unsui_grep]

Both have licensing terms, but I suspect it's easier to get good looking results quickly. And in the film business time is money.

This Arstechnica article suggests Jon Favreau started with Unity for Lion King (2019) but switched to Unreal Engine with Stagecraft by the tie he was doing Mandalorian. And I believe Ewan McGregor is doing his Obi-Wan show using the same Stagecraft - Disney is a very high profile customer.

It would be just as easy for Apple productions to use Unreal/Stagecraft as well but with the Epic court case going on would Apple want to bring that into any future settlement or business between the companies?

Building it in house would be far better as they would be able to tailor it directly for Apple ARM but do Apple have the expertise and time and inclination to invest in such a big project?

Ooh, I need to read that article. I had no idea they used Unity. Stagecraft is really cool but I don't think there's anything particularly unique about the underlying tech. I remember Favreau saying something about it was all just tech that was lying around, they just needed to put it together. I'm sure UE's workflow made it happen, but I don't think there's anything proprietary involved. I'm sure other production companies will follow suit, but I don't necessarily see Apple spearheading the effort. I wonder if we'll see more collaboration with Pixar. What could future Apple silicon due with their Renderman tech?!

 

[leman]

I was just reading some of the opening remarks from the lawsuit, seems like most analysts think Apple will prevail. Without cornering you into taking a position, do you have any thoughts about their relationship going forward, one way or the other?

I really couldn’t say. I can try to speculate on technological developments, but politics and business is something else entirely. In the end Epic took a big gamble, and I’m not sure it will pay off. I hope that in the end business sense will prevail and those companies will reestablish healthy relationship to the benefit of their customers. Then again, Sweeney is a d*** so who knows.

 

[George Dawes]

Definitely , especially after the news recently re game capture