Real status of Windows gaming and overall Windows use on M Macs?

[Donkey Man]

I currently have a Mac Pro 2019 with a bunch of Windows apps/games occasionally running on BootCamp, and am perfectly happy with that Mac.
Yet I was wondering about the future scenario of buying a Mac Studio once support starts to falter for the MP.
As I haven’t followed recent trends, I was wondering whether Windows on ARM can fully play recent Windows apps and games, and whether M series Macs can do that well. Or is there another possibility such as virtualization WITH GPU support on M Macs?
A summarized reply would be greatly appreciated.

 

[maflynn]

A summarized reply would be greatly appreciated.

Here's my summary

Now to be fair, if someone uses crossover to play games, they're counted as a windows player. My point in raising that is, publishers largely see the small percentage of mac gamers vs windows gamers and see little to no reason to port their games to mac. To put it another way, if someone is playing the game via crossover then the publisher has already made the sale.

Second point, the macOS marketshare is somewhere in the neighborhood of 14% vs 70% for windows. Now not every mac owner wants to play games, remove truly professional mac users (using macs for business purposes), consumers who have little to no interest in playing games. You're looking at a small subset of that 14% marketshare.

My point is that studios don't see the value of adding additional overhead to plan/port/support a macos version of their game - especially if they think those folks will just use crossover.

Third point, the number of independent studios has largely dried up, Microsoft and Sony own so many studios now, and neither company has signaled any desire to port games over to the mac AFAIK. Tencent is another publisher who owns a lot of studios and I don't believe they seem very mac friendly either.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I tried out the Crossover demo to get my Steam purchased copy of Tetris Effect up and running.

Works great, but I'm not sure I'm going to fork out $70 to be able to play it.

It's amazing to me that a game like Tetris Effect never released a native macOS version, as it's hardly stressing out my Mac Mini.

That really highlights the issue here I guess. 😞

 

[Shirasaki]

Windows on ARM isn’t great either, though lots of progress has been made afaik. I have a dedicated windows machine so no need for emulation. But if you want latest games to play, driver support for the M chip GPU will be a massive undertaking if any team even dare to try it. Qualcomm SOC ain’t gonna run the same as M chips after all. Emulation can only go so far, unless emulation can run NVIDIA RTX 4070 or equivalent with full speed.

My best bet for post MP era is to get a dedicated windows machine to use all sorts of windows software you may want to use natively. Sure it is cumbersome but Mac Studio doesn’t occupy tons of desk spaces so I think it is manageable.

 

[avro707]

Yet I was wondering about the future scenario of buying a Mac Studio once support starts to falter for the MP.

What about a top spec M4 Pro mini?

Really on the gaming side it’s probably going to be you getting a PC gaming desktop. The Mac emulation alternatives all seem to have downsides of one type or another.

Whole thing looks expensive.

 

[Donkey Man]

What about a top spec M4 Pro mini?

Really on the gaming side it’s probably going to be you getting a PC gaming desktop. The Mac emulation alternatives all seem to have downsides of one type or another.

Whole thing looks expensive.

Money is not really an issue for me; but I definitely wouldn’t get a separate Windows box - so if I understand the replies above correctly, at this point there’s NO well-performing alternative to the MP 2019 with BootCamp (or even virtualization).
So I will keep the MP until it breaks or I feel no need to use Windows apps or games anymore.

 

[Boyd01]

I have a somewhat similar situation with a 2018 (intel) Mini that I use heavily with Windows in Parallels. I have no interest in games but need Windows to run some professional GIS software (for making maps), which is something that just doesn't exist on MacOS. I used separate Windows machines for this up until 2020 when I took a gamble that Parallels would be "good enough" for my needs and it has worked out really well.

Bootcamp isn't a good solution for me, if I have to re-boot my Mac into Windows then I might as well have a separate machine. MacOS and Windows running at the same time is a big plus for me, letting me use Mac software for everything but GIS at the same time. Seems like Apple will continue to support my 2018 Mini for a couple more years and I plan to just continue with it until then, hoping that the landscape for Windows on MacOS might look better by then (money definitely is an issue for me )

 

[maflynn]

My best bet for post MP era is to get a dedicated windows machine to use all sorts of windows software you may want to use natively. Sure it is cumbersome but Mac Studio doesn’t occupy tons of desk spaces so I think it is manageable.

Depending on your computing/GPU needs a small/tiny form factor PC could easily scratch that itch. I'm thinking of the NUC pc for some low powered type of computing needs. for something a bit more powerful, there's the new (and kind of expensive) Framework desktop.

I was initially ambilivent to this, since its actually less repairable, upgradeable then most desktops but its a small formfactor that has good performance

 

[Shirasaki]

Depending on your computing/GPU needs a small/tiny form factor PC could easily scratch that itch. I'm thinking of the NUC pc for some low powered type of computing needs. for something a bit more powerful, there's the new (and kind of expensive) Framework desktop.

I was initially ambilivent to this, since its actually less repairable, upgradeable then most desktops but its a small formfactor that has good performance

View attachment 2582280

There are some apparently very good mini PC equipped with ryzon processor these days that can do just about anything other than gaming. Small, nimble, yet still powerful. Maybe can’t compare with apple silicon for raw power but for something that’s not gaming they are surprisingly good. One can then hook one monitor for Mac and another for PC.

 

[maflynn]

Maybe can’t compare with apple silicon for raw power but for something that’s not gaming they are surprisingly good.

If you have some legacy (or not so legacy) windows apps that just won't run via crossover, parallels (or don't want to pay for a subscription), then a NUC based PC for under 500 dollars could be the solution

 

[Donkey Man]

It’s just annoying that, years after being launched, M Macs still don’t have a good performance alternative to BootCamp - what about that gaming porting kit thing? Does it work ok for newish games?

 

[diamond.g]

It’s just annoying that, years after being launched, M Macs still don’t have a good performance alternative to BootCamp - what about that gaming porting kit thing? Does it work ok for newish games?

As long as games don't require anti-cheat yeah Crossover works great with GPTK2 (or whatever the latest version is called).

 

[macfacts]

freemium iOS games trained apple users to not pay for premium games, so devs aren't interested in making native Mac games. and apple isn't interested in Mac gaming.