The 27" iMac was an amazing canvas for Rimworld, and now we have an Mx-native version of Factorio, so for this particular gamer... yep.
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Two Unreleased Macs Spotted in Steam's Database
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I used the 2011 17" MBP and then the 2016 MBP for heavy tasks - - and both still lasted for 5+ years.
We strongly disagree. One selects a computer to suit one's needs. Some need mobility, internet access and streaming: pay for an iPad or an MBA. Others need mobility, internet access and running heavy image apps: pay twice as much for a top MBP. Still others do not need mobility but run heavy image apps, etc.: pay for some flavor of Studio or Mac Pro. Etc...
But what we do not know is if the alleged testing is intentional or coincidental.
You know you can run games on any Apple device that resembles a computer, aka iPhones, iPads, MBA and MBP, Mac minis, iMacs, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro's. So it's not like it's improper to think that you can't be entertained by gaming instead of just buying something for specific usage like surfing and streaming. Heck there are plenty of web based games also as seen online to amuse yourself.
iPad Pro is a computer as well, but is not capable of any task (it can't even format an external drive). Problem is not hardware, is software (both OS and third-party).
A computer is nothing without software. You can't play Microsoft Flight Simulator on a Mac Studio M1 Ultra.
Whatever is so difficult to grasp about Pro/Max/Ultra hierarchy? Quite clear to me, better than any of the previous nomenclature used by Intel, Apple and others.
Note also that although Ultra is clearly higher up, what Ultra is probably remains a bit undefined until we see more than just the current Studio Ultra. The M1 Studio Max real world performs so well that the Ultra might even become a one-hit-wonder, we do not know yet. The evolution of high end M2 SoC models will be interesting.
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Clearly although that may be your personal wish, Apple's world needs M2 for high end MBPs much, much more than modernizing the entry-level Minis. But it may all depend on supply anyway, so low end M2 may present before the desperately needed (desperate because Apple is losing major sales every day) high end M2 boxes.
I do, but only if it's a Max Plus Mini.
The M1 Mac mini is a late 2020 model, and certainly has reached the 2 year mark for Apple to provide some incremental update to it. The late 2021 M1 Pro/M1 Max MBP are more then capable enough, and what would you need an update slightly more then a year later for?
Wrong. The issue is heat removal. That is precisely one of the things that Studio is for. Many (perhaps most) of the folks like me driving multiple displays also drive some heavy workflows. Heavy workflows plus the graphics of multiple displays requires better heat removal than that available in the entry level Mini format. It is unwise for Apple to facilitate folks overdriving hardware and subsequently whining when it fails.
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Yet you can largely do any task that fits into system resources, difference is in comfort and performance.
Strictly saying, even fitness wristband is a computer where you can port and run Doom
But it is not Personal Computer in common definition.I fully agree. And IMO Apple is likely looking to the future as it builds Apple SoC. As iPhones, iPads and Macs provide solid hardware power and also interoperate game developers will provide the games.You know you can run games on any Apple device that resembles a computer, aka iPhones, iPads, MBA and MBP, Mac minis, iMacs, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro's. So it's not like it's improper to think that you can't be entertained by gaming instead of just buying something for specific usage like surfing and streaming. Heck there are plenty of web based games also as seen online to amuse yourself.
Many here are whining about old games (and the blast-furnace-heat dinosaur PCs that run them) but my guess is Apple is looking forward to hardware that allows new games. A billion iPhones, tablet market leading iPads and the 4th-largest PC selling Macs comprise a market devs will not ignore.
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eGPUs on Thuderbolt are entirely a software capability of the host operation system (OS) issue. [ One reason why Windows got to eGPU technical support before macOS did. ] There is no substantive real hardware issues there at all. Primarily what need is some graphics drivers that implement the optional sections of PCI-e protocol that cover hot plugging / hot removal of a card. The hardware signaling protocols are already there for a proper PCI-e implementations.
there are over 50 cards that do work with macOS on M-series in a Thunderbolt connected external PCI-e enclosure.
For example, see the PCI-e card compatiblity matrix for the Echo 3:
https://www.sonnettech.com/product/echo-3-desktop/techspecs.html#techspecs
(it is a PDF file so not directly linking here. )
They send data signals back and forth just fine. There is zero real issues of sending data back and forth to the GPU card at the hardware level.
There are three major issues at the software level.
1. Apple doesn't boot UEFI . So standard off the shelf GPU cards that want to boot in a UEFI context are not supported by Apple at boot time. [ Can note in that list of over 50 cards there... none of those are early boot supported either with custom firmware. A storage card that presents as single , standard, NVMe drive? Yes. some kind of software/hardware RAID thing that needs to load firmware driver to work? no. ]
2. Kernel extensions are deprecated. The path forward is with DriverKit. The major trend going forward is that only Apple code is going in the kernel. 3rd party DriverKit code goes into a specialized "in between" state where only get shared kernel address space that is dedicated to only their specific device. ( using IOMMU mapping extensively to narrow window what drivers can touch).
DriverKit has an abstraction for general PCI-e devices that can pretty much keep to themselves. A substantive subset of the 50 card TB list is already on it. There are still some cards dragging their feet on deprecated keneral extenstion (kext) API. Apple has said several years ago that API was going away eventually.
What Apple has not done in last 2.5 years is roll out any API to write a display GPU driver . The now deprecated IOKit has a specific subclass for display GPUs. The modern API that Apple provides provides none. Apple Silicon is only more IOMMU rigorous than the Intel stuff was/is . So the old school kext GPU API isn't really going. So Apple isn't signing or even enabling a path in that area right now software/driver wise.
3. Metal is needed to get the most performance out of Apple GPUs. Apple GPUs need different Metal optimizations inserted into the application code than 3rd party discrete GPUs do. ( Intel iGPUs also).
Metal is also a relatively "thin" API so most optimizations have to inserted into applications directly. That means the work is shifted from Apple/GPU driver (with large/thick layer API) improvements to individual developers.
There is a developer 'herding' factor where Apple wants developers to spend time and money on optimizing for their GPU. If the choice of GPU on macOS on M-series is just GPU type .... then it is pretty easy to figure out where the money and time are going to go.
Somewhat tightly related is the ability for macOS on M-series to run native iPhone apps. Those apps are 100% optimized to Apple GPU and actually 'know' nothing about 3rd party GPUs at all. So what happens when one those Apps run on a display assigned to a 3rd party GPU? Apple could inject some misdirection or emulation hackery to get around the problem. However, if there are only Apple GPUs present on macOS on M-series no hackery is needed at all. Which one of those is cheaper to implement correctly. [ Hence why non display GPU PCI-e cards fall into a different treatment. ]
There is some likely exaggeration that Apple can fix all three of these with a wave of their hand. Apple does 100% of all the Metal work needed. ( likely probably most , but also not 100% ). If Metal was 100% apple they could just skip DriverKit's lack of an API and stuff the graphics driver direclty into the kernel. There might be some IOMMU semantic mismatches with 3rd party GPU hardware ... but seem to get around many other kinds of PCI-e cards.
If there is a hardware problem there pretty sure Apple would want a hardware change on the GPU side for appropriate IOMMU support ; not their side.
The early "boot" isn't likely going to get fixed. Could do a work-around where Recovery mode boot is always done from internal Apple iGPU , but it is just simpler if Apple just punts on jumpstarting GPUs late in the boot process.
[ 'raw iron' variant of native boot for other OS isn't going to get formal technical support from Apple. They have said that virtualization is their main path forward. ] Not likely going to get tweaked firmware cards just for macOS either out of mainstream GPU market. (not enough volume.)
Apple probably would add some decently large value add if they let external GPGPUs in as computation accelerators. ( GUI Apps don't drive a video display with them, but can assign them computation workload to do. ). Decent chance that run out of computational "horsepower" versus a future GPU than run out of ability to just drive a screen to a future GPU. Even more so once Apple SoCs get to point of supporting DisplayPort 2.1 and the resolution increases over the last several years slow down on the display side.
Sure there are a gamer crowd that lusts after future 120Hz, > 10-bit color , 8K screens , but that isn't Apple's core market. Not going to work all the time for eGPU on TBv3 bandwidth either.
Another addition that probably would be somewhat helpful would be an additional to Apple's virtualization framework that could direct map a 3rd party GPU to a guest Linux/Windows virtual machine instance. Won't help macOS apps directly (so side stepps the 'native Phone apps' ) , but would give those other OS that didn't kick out all 3rd party GPU drivers a chance to efficiently attach to one to drive some other monitor that the Mac isn't driving.
P.S. Macs with macOS on M-series is also relatively completely uninteresting for 3rd party GPU vendors also. Zero opportunity to be placed by default in an original Mac systems sell. zero chance on laptops. Apple dead set on kicking out Intel and AMD discrete GPus out of laptop. )and Nvidia blew up and burned bridges on their GPU relationship with Apple. That is just toast. ) That is completely 'over' at this point. That has a knock on effect on Mini , iMac , and MacStudio. Pretty good chance the next Mac Pro won't ship with any 3rd party GPU build to order option either. (similar to how someone can add an internal SATA drive to a Mac Pro 2019 , but Apple will not ship one that way at all. )
The GPUs that were embedded into Macs are what primarily enabled the GPU drivers being written and contributed to by the 3rd party GPU vendors. Apple sent them big checks for product. Those companies spent money making those Apple purchased componetns worked well. Apple writes no check ... who is going to work for free?
GPU support in eGPU was almost entirely driven by embedded GPU placement by Apple into some other Mac. There has not been eGPU support for random GPU that Apple never used inside of a Mac.
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Absolutely 100%! I know running a lot of games on Mac is not possible, but it's still a nice to have
Developers will not ignore the large market share the iPhone has. But Mac is different. Being 4th largest PC maker is not that large when you consider Windows has more than 80% of market share, and it's even higher in the gaming market.
I think Apple could improve their Mac / Apple TV gaming experience, but as today, Windows has a huge advantage in many aspects.
While it is better than what Intel and AMD have been naming their stuff the nomenclature is clear to you because you anre interested in it and have been looking at it for some time. If there’s something you’re not familiar with something like say Lexus’ vehicle lineup then UX, LX, ES and so on is just a bunch of noise.
At least with Intel‘s numbering you can just say “bigger number is better performance” and leave it at that and it’ll be the same. For Pro/Max/Ultra you list them in that order and we assume it’ll stay the same for future iterations. If not then back to square one.
So then we should throw away old games? What about old movies, TV shows, books? How would you feel if someone said we should completely ignore your favorite movie from growing up simply because it was released on a now outdated format?
Games occupy a strange space in computing. We don’t run Safari 3.0 or Firefox 1.0 except for pure curiosity and certainly not for any practical use however many old games are just as entertaining/useful/important today as they were at release.
It would be great if Apple had a team that worked on bringing the Proton compatibility layer being used for Linux and Steamdeck to their platforms and to build something similar for their own legacy of games. Most likely not going to happen but one can dream.
macOS for M-series runs those iPhone apps. How big of a leap is it if you have already done the Apple GPU optimizations for your base line game engine platform for Apple GPU ?
There is bigger reasons not to do a macOS on Intel (and Intel GPU or AMD GPU). But that ratio is changing each year. At this point still way more Intel based macs than those on M-series in deployed base. However, in terms of "new system sales" ( which is where lots of software sales go into) that ratio dramatically role reversed. 6 months from now pretty good chance Apple has killed off new Intel Mac sales. ( or simply left a relatively super low volume Mac Pro on Rip-van-Winkle status.)
At about 15 million per year for two years ( so around 30M ) the M-series installed base isn't that small. But has a ways to go to pass 100M mark It is rapidly growing though (should be 20+M additions going forward) . if Apple continues to leave out 3rd party GPUs , then it will be a more homogenous GPU target market similar to the gaming consoles.
A phone app that is largely sitting on SwiftUI , Metal , and other libraries Apple has rolled out to aid in cross-Apple-platform ports reduce the friction to deploy across multiple Apple platforms. That lower friction creates higher coupling to that large iPhone market share.
Games still on gaming engines and/or libraries hooked to legacy macOS on Intel past won't have that. But folks planning going forward there should be some huge gulf between iPhone and Mac for a wide set of games. [ surely there will folks who build "too big for iPhone" games than will ignore iPhone anyway. ]
Apple doesn't need a Windows gaming 'killer' set up. All they need is lower porting costs either way between Mac <----> iOS/iPadOs . macOS doesn't necessarily need every bigger hype-train, 'AAA' game. Just a steady stream of good stuff.
Pragmatically Pro/Max/Ultra are attached to numbers. If you look at the systems those SoCs go in and compare price tags ... it is relatively easy to order those adjectives into ascending order.
AMD and Intel sell loosey-goosey CPU/SoCs at retail in a box. Apple doesn't. To buy a Ultra , Pro , or Max SoC you have to buy a Mac. If you look at the Mac's price tag it is obvious as a turd in punch bowl which SoC Apple attaches more "value add " potential too. This naming system is not that hard once grounded into reality.
Yes, macOS in Apple Silicon run iOS games, and that's exactly the problem. We are playing mobile quality games in mid to high end Macs and Apple TV's. Gamers have no issues with mobile game limitations. But you'll not succeed giving the same mobile experience to PC / Mac / consoles / Apple TV's. And maybe Apple is the one to blame on this. Just look at Apple Arcade. In theory it's nice to play the same game in an iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or Mac. But in realty you don't want a mobile gaming experience in the Mac or Apple TV. You expect something better, and as today, I haven't seen that.
Developers already can move from iOS to macOS without issues, but like I said before, you will not have a good gaming experience if you play a mobile game in a Mac or Apple TV. Gamers expect more from more capable devices. Just look consoles and PC's. And this has nothing to do with AAA gaming. As today, Apple still have no idea how to make Apple TV and Macs a good place to play games.