Well, I did it....gaming PC

[MallardDuck]

Wish it was different, but it's not, and I decided to stop denying reality.

I finally gave up and bought a gaming PC. That's my first non-Mac since 2006. Apple's continued insistence on going their own way (especially not allowing eGPUs) finally pushed me over the edge. The 4070 runs circles around the M1 Max. Crossover/parallels/fusion are fine for circa 1990's games, but between the x86/ARM translation, and the lack of GPU support, they're barely playable for anything from this century.

When even they can't even release Baldur's Gate 3 for Mac on time, you know it gotten really bad.

It was a bit of a nightmare building one that could drive my 5K LG ultrafine, but after fits and starts finally figured it out (displayport out on GPU to displayport in on motherboard to TB4 out to monitor)....and I'm lovin' it.

 

[Mackilroy]

When even they can't even release Baldur's Gate 3 for Mac on time, you know it gotten really bad.

I don't follow. Just because it isn't released at the same time as the Windows version doesn't mean it isn't 'on time.' Larian Studios is not a massive company with a budget to match - they're going to prioritize the segment that will make them more money.

 

[joevt]

It was a bit of a nightmare building one that could drive my 5K LG ultrafine, but after fits and starts finally figured it out (displayport out on GPU to displayport in on motherboard to TB4 out to monitor)....and I'm lovin' it.

If you're motherboard only has one DisplayPort In then your 5K display is running only at 4K (unless you created a custom timing for 5K 39Hz).
If you want 5K60, then you need a different motherboard, or a Thunderbolt add-in card with two DisplayPort inputs, or a different 5K display that supports DSC (such as the Apple Studio Display) or HBR3.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/the-complete-list-of-27-5k-displays.2390249/

 

[bousozoku]

I suppose it depends on what you want to play.

My Steam Deck is fairly good, but not everything is going to be perfect. My M1 MacBook Air runs many games just fine, but obviously, if they aren't native, they're going to be problematic. I'm still waiting for Steam to be native.

I've got an ASUS "Creator's" laptop computer that is fairly good at gaming with a Ryzen 7 5800H and GeForce GTX 3050 Ti, but even with that, it's not perfect.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Wish it was different, but it's not, and I decided to stop denying reality.

I finally gave up and bought a gaming PC. That's my first non-Mac since 2006. Apple's continued insistence on going their own way (especially not allowing eGPUs) finally pushed me over the edge. The 4070 runs circles around the M1 Max. Crossover/parallels/fusion are fine for circa 1990's games, but between the x86/ARM translation, and the lack of GPU support, they're barely playable for anything from this century.

When even they can't even release Baldur's Gate 3 for Mac on time, you know it gotten really bad.

It was a bit of a nightmare building one that could drive my 5K LG ultrafine, but after fits and starts finally figured it out (displayport out on GPU to displayport in on motherboard to TB4 out to monitor)....and I'm lovin' it.

Look on the bright side: You're ready for Starfield next month.

Also buy Persona 5 Royal

 

[maflynn]

The 4070 runs circles around the M1 Max.

Congrats and enjoy your new baby. There's no denying it that the 4070 handily beats Apple's processor. I'm on an old 2060 and its decent, at some point I'll upgrade. I'm leaning towards the leaked but unannounced RX 7800 XT. I think if pricing is inline with my expectations I'll take the plunge

 

[MallardDuck]

If you're motherboard only has one DisplayPort In then your 5K display is running only at 4K (unless you created a custom timing for 5K 39Hz).
If you want 5K60, then you need a different motherboard, or a Thunderbolt add-in card with two DisplayPort inputs, or a different 5K display that supports DSC (such as the Apple Studio Display) or HBR3.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/the-complete-list-of-27-5k-displays.2390249/

True, I'm quite happy with the 4K scaled resolution for games...I just didn't want to have to get yet another monitor.

Congrats and enjoy your new baby. There's no denying it that the 4070 handily beats Apple's processor. I'm on an old 2060 and its decent, at some point I'll upgrade. I'm leaning towards the leaked but unannounced RX 7800 XT. I think if pricing is inline with my expectations I'll take the plunge

I heard about that but decided to pull the trigger. I don't do online gaming (just single player), so this'll run even the latest current games at 1440. I figure rather than spending another $600 now, I can spend that in 3-5 years and jump a couple of generations.

Got Mass Effect 2 running yesterday, and it's gorgeous and butter smooth. I have a couple decades games I can go back and play now (and best of all, those are all dirt cheap)

 

[MallardDuck]

I don't follow. Just because it isn't released at the same time as the Windows version doesn't mean it isn't 'on time.' Larian Studios is not a massive company with a budget to match - they're going to prioritize the segment that will make them more money.

They're a mac-friendly gaming company, with mac dev skills, and it was originally scheduled for co-release. Then they delayed it without a target release date. Worse, they didn't take down the 'mac supported' icon on steam, so I bought it, found out it was still the preview, and had to get a refund because it wasn't playable. I'm not going to let them sit on my money for an indefinite amount of time.

Lousy mac game support is a vicious circle - non-standard software and odd hardware means high porting costs, high porting costs mean few games, sub par UX, delayed releases, etc. All that means people simply move on from Mac gaming.

Apple is deep in their reality distortion field if they think that the porting kit is going to make a substantive difference. The issue is the lack of eGPU capability (so we have real performant hardware) and DirectX support.

As you point out- studios will follow the money. Why spend a huge amount of $ porting to a small market?

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

They're a mac-friendly gaming company, with mac dev skills, and it was originally scheduled for co-release. Then they delayed it without a target release date.

Everybody got delayed. PS5, Xbox, and Mac. It's just a one month delay, it's not that big a deal. Xbox got it worse as their version is has been pushed back to early 2024 with no exact date, and it's because of extra optimization for the Xbox Series S. So be glad the Mac port is not suffering the same fate.

Worse, they didn't take down the 'mac supported' icon on steam, so I bought it, found out it was still the preview, and had to get a refund because it wasn't playable. I'm not going to let them sit on my money for an indefinite amount of time.

Because the Mac version is still in Early Access so why remove the icon when it is still supported? it's just not on 1.0 yet, but will be in three weeks.

Lousy mac game support is a vicious circle - non-standard software and odd hardware means high porting costs, high porting costs mean few games, sub par UX, delayed releases, etc. All that means people simply move on from Mac gaming.

I don't disagree that the state of Mac gaming is a joke (and hopefully Game Porting Toolkit fixes that) but aren't you being a bit melodramatic? After all the sole reason you even made this thread was because Baldur's Gate 3's Mac release of 1.0 was delayed by one month. It's just one month. PlayStation 5's release was delayed to a month as well and you don't hear PlayStation fanboys going "God dammit PlayStation gaming is toast I gotta get a PC now!" PC has had delayed releases too. Need I remind you PlayStation's exclusives don't get PC releases until at minimum a year has passed unless it's a multiplayer game? Square Enix is having to delay the PC release of Final Fantasy 16 to god knows when for optimization.

Apple is deep in their reality distortion field if they think that the porting kit is going to make a substantive difference. The issue is the lack of eGPU capability (so we have real performant hardware) and DirectX support.

We will have to see if GPT makes a meaningful difference or not. The API is still in beta so it'll take a few years before we start seeing it bear fruit, but GPT has people talking about Mac gaming and has people interested seeing the Wine layer in it run a lot of people's favorite games.

As you point out- studios will follow the money. Why spend a huge amount of $ porting to a small market?

That's the same thing PlayStation fanboys say about Xbox getting ports.

Look I get it, you had to endure Butterfly Era. I didn't since I only recently switched to Mac myself three years ago. But there's some good happening. For god sake a Resident Evil game got a Mac port. RESIDENT EVIL! No one saw that coming. And what's more is Hideo Kojima announced he's making Mac games now with Death Stranding coming to Mac this holiday, and with that promise that means Death Stranding 2 will get a Mac port too. Apple Silicon has changed a lot and many still don't know how to react now that the Mac is actually capable of doing serious gaming like this. With a little time I'm sure Mac will be seen as a viable gaming platform.

 

[MallardDuck]

What pissed me off is that nowhere on Steam does it say that Mac is still EA only when you go to purchase it - that's deceptive. There's no release date that's announced yet, afaik - if I'm wrong, would love to see a link (not snark, really would like to know). At least they processed my refund quickly. I will probably still run it on the Mac (so I can play while traveling), but wasn't going to let them sit on my money while I waited an unknown amount of time.

But no, it wasn't just for this, it was the final straw after years of fighting an uphill battle. I've tried Parallels, Fusion, and Crossover. None worked with anything newer than about 10 years ago (e.g. dragon age origins. couldn't even play mass effect 1). I then turned to Shadow, and it worked pretty good, but the new machine breaks even in ~3 years given their monthly cost (and has better specs).

The porting kit is a nice idea, but as I said, I've tried crossover and it's meh. Half the games won't run until they hand-optimize the code, and most of the others are slow beyond playable or have serious graphics artifacts. It won't even play the witcher I. Sure, you'll get Civilization, but you're not going to get Cyberpunk. Baldur's gate and others from Llarion are the rare exception, which is why it was so disappointing to see a delay without even a date provided.

The underlying problems are two-fold: Metal is fundamentally different than DirectX, so it's not just a matter of mapping instructions...it's a whole translation layer, which has both substantial overhead, and is also rather brittle. Second, it's the Mx hardware itself. Yes, it's amazing for integrated graphics, and for certain functions it's incredibly fast...per watt. But that's the key: Apple can't compete with dedicated GPU's because they're only focusing on performance-per-watt, not raw GPU performance. You've got the same issue with ML systems (which are a lot broader than GPT) - the vast majority are CUDA and Nvidia optimized. eGPU support solves most of the porting lift, and blows past the SOC level GPU limitations, and would be a nice compliment to the solid internal GPU.

But when the Mac "Pro" came out without GPU support, I knew there wasn't any hope, so I started budgeting for a real workhorse.

 

[diamond.g]

What pissed me off is that nowhere on Steam does it say that Mac is still EA only when you go to purchase it - that's deceptive. There's no release date that's announced yet, afaik - if I'm wrong, would love to see a link (not snark, really would like to know). At least they processed my refund quickly. I will probably still run it on the Mac (so I can play while traveling), but wasn't going to let them sit on my money while I waited an unknown amount of time.

But no, it wasn't just for this, it was the final straw after years of fighting an uphill battle. I've tried Parallels, Fusion, and Crossover. None worked with anything newer than about 10 years ago (e.g. dragon age origins. couldn't even play mass effect 1). I then turned to Shadow, and it worked pretty good, but the new machine breaks even in ~3 years given their monthly cost (and has better specs).

The porting kit is a nice idea, but as I said, I've tried crossover and it's meh. Half the games won't run until they hand-optimize the code, and most of the others are slow beyond playable or have serious graphics artifacts. It won't even play the witcher I. Sure, you'll get Civilization, but you're not going to get Cyberpunk. Baldur's gate and others from Llarion are the rare exception, which is why it was so disappointing to see a delay without even a date provided.

The underlying problems are two-fold: Metal is fundamentally different than DirectX, so it's not just a matter of mapping instructions...it's a whole translation layer, which has both substantial overhead, and is also rather brittle. Second, it's the Mx hardware itself. Yes, it's amazing for integrated graphics, and for certain functions it's incredibly fast...per watt. But that's the key: Apple can't compete with dedicated GPU's because they're only focusing on performance-per-watt, not raw GPU performance. You've got the same issue with ML systems (which are a lot broader than GPT) - the vast majority are CUDA and Nvidia optimized. eGPU support solves most of the porting lift, and blows past the SOC level GPU limitations, and would be a nice compliment to the solid internal GPU.

But when the Mac "Pro" came out without GPU support, I knew there wasn't any hope, so I started budgeting for a real workhorse.

Baldur's Gate 3 - It's Party Time: Baldur's Gate 3 is Out Now - Steam News

v4.1.1.3622274

store.steampowered.com

They say Sept 6th is the target for macOS along with PS5. EDIT: note that Larian is using a porting devhouse to do the macOS version (Everills; I can never spell it right).

@Spaceboi Scaphandre the game version for BG3 isn't 1.0 it is actually 4.1.1, and I agree with @MallardDuck they should have removed EA from the store so it doesn't confuse folks. Especially since the first Act in GA is different from EA and game saves don't transfer from EA to GA.

 

[Irishman]

Wish it was different, but it's not, and I decided to stop denying reality.

I finally gave up and bought a gaming PC. That's my first non-Mac since 2006. Apple's continued insistence on going their own way (especially not allowing eGPUs) finally pushed me over the edge. The 4070 runs circles around the M1 Max. Crossover/parallels/fusion are fine for circa 1990's games, but between the x86/ARM translation, and the lack of GPU support, they're barely playable for anything from this century.

When even they can't even release Baldur's Gate 3 for Mac on time, you know it gotten really bad.

It was a bit of a nightmare building one that could drive my 5K LG ultrafine, but after fits and starts finally figured it out (displayport out on GPU to displayport in on motherboard to TB4 out to monitor)....and I'm lovin' it.

Well, welcome to the forums, I guess. I don’t know who you are but, live your best life.

 

[Irishman]

Congrats and enjoy your new baby. There's no denying it that the 4070 handily beats Apple's processor. I'm on an old 2060 and its decent, at some point I'll upgrade. I'm leaning towards the leaked but unannounced RX 7800 XT. I think if pricing is inline with my expectations I'll take the plunge

Do you mean the Super gpu?

Or, wait for the 5 series to go on sale.

The past couple of revisions of the RTX line have been best described as 40 miles of bad road, from a cost per frame point of view.

 

[maflynn]

Do you mean the Super gpu?

I have a RTX 2060 Super

Or, wait for the 5 series to go on sale.

I'm at a point where I think given the latest set of games I want to play, the 2060 that I own is just a bit too meager. Yeah it run the game but my game style is wanting more visual fidelity even at the cost of FPS. I'm not a huge fan of ray tracing, so I can see the AMD family of cards suiting my needs.

The past couple of revisions of the RTX line have been best described as 40 miles of bad road, from a cost per frame point of view.

The 4060 to be sure, the 4070 and 4070-Ti can be a good buy. The 4080 and 4090 are absolute beasts of GPUs, but the price premium is so high that I won't ever consider them.

I've been in no hurry to take the plunge, but with Starfield coming soon my laid back approach may bite me

 

[Huntn]

I have a RTX 2060 Super


I'm at a point where I think given the latest set of games I want to play, the 2060 that I own is just a bit too meager. Yeah it run the game but my game style is wanting more visual fidelity even at the cost of FPS. I'm not a huge fan of ray tracing, so I can see the AMD family of cards suiting my needs.



The 4060 to be sure, the 4070 and 4070-Ti can be a good buy. The 4080 and 4090 are absolute beasts of GPUs, but the price premium is so high that I won't ever consider them.

I've been in no hurry to take the plunge, but with Starfield coming soon my laid back approach may bite me

I’m giving Starfield a month to settle in and read the reviews. Not spending $70 on any game based on faith. Plus I’m delighted to be back in Skyrim.

 

[maflynn]

I’m giving Starfield a month to settle in

That's not bad advise to be honest. I'm on the fence of what to do.

I just spent $$ on a protectli vault that will kick up the protection of my home network, and more importantly be used to stop ads. I don't see myself spending money on a GPU after getting this but who knows

 

[Huntn]

That's not bad advise to be honest. I'm on the fence of what to do.

I just spent $$ on a protectli vault that will kick up the protection of my home network, and more importantly be used to stop ads. I don't see myself spending money on a GPU after getting this but who knows

I recently spent $500 on a 4070. The PC is my one indulgence…

 

[maflynn]

I recently spent $500 on a 4070. The PC is my one indulgence…

Nice,
My kids are teenagers, and while they work, its been an expensive month so far and only getting more expensive as we get them prepped for school

I play daily on my PS5, but my PC needs some love and I was going to upgrade the 2060 for a 4060 this past weekend due Massachusetts's tax free weekend, but I just couldn't justify spending nearly 300 bucks on a card that has so many weaknesses and corners cut. I'm waiting for the rumored RX 7800 XT - I think that might be a better use of my money

 

[Homy]

Wish it was different, but it's not, and I decided to stop denying reality.

Crossover/parallels/fusion are fine for circa 1990's games, but between the x86/ARM translation, and the lack of GPU support, they're barely playable for anything from this century.

When even they can't even release Baldur's Gate 3 for Mac on time, you know it gotten really bad.

Congrats and good for you but let's not be overdramatic. BG3 has been on Mac since early access and will have full release in about 3 weeks. It's as if PS5 owners would have the same reaction because BG3 won't be released until Sep 6, the same day for Mac or as if Xbox owners would say "you know it gotten really bad when we can't play BG3 at all" and go and buy PS5 or PC.

Crossover is more than fine for many games and it's not only for 90's games. I play Bioshock Infinite, from this century, with Ultra settings at 1440p on my base Mac Studio M1 Max 24c and get 45-90 fps with tons of tranlation layers between ARM/x86 and Win 64/32. If I lower just a couple of settngs I get consistent 60 or over 100 fps at 1440p. Same thing with Mass Effect LE. I get 60-200 fps on max settings at 1440p, similar performance to RTX 2080 Ti, 3070, 3080 and even 3090, with Rosetta and Crossover translation! Yes, older games but definitly not from 1990s.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Wish it was different, but it's not, and I decided to stop denying reality.

I finally gave up and bought a gaming PC. That's my first non-Mac since 2006. Apple's continued insistence on going their own way (especially not allowing eGPUs) finally pushed me over the edge. The 4070 runs circles around the M1 Max. Crossover/parallels/fusion are fine for circa 1990's games, but between the x86/ARM translation, and the lack of GPU support, they're barely playable for anything from this century.

When even they can't even release Baldur's Gate 3 for Mac on time, you know it gotten really bad.

It was a bit of a nightmare building one that could drive my 5K LG ultrafine, but after fits and starts finally figured it out (displayport out on GPU to displayport in on motherboard to TB4 out to monitor)....and I'm lovin' it.

Congratulations! I came to the same conclusion a while back.

 

[Mackilroy]

That's not bad advise to be honest. I'm on the fence of what to do.

I just spent $$ on a protectli vault that will kick up the protection of my home network, and more importantly be used to stop ads. I don't see myself spending money on a GPU after getting this but who knows

I’m not married, have no children, and haven’t had a GPU upgrade in a while, so I went ahead and bought a 4080 when Micro Center was giving away $100 gift cards with them. With any luck, it’ll last until after I get married and have kids.

 

[MallardDuck]

Baldur's Gate 3 - It's Party Time: Baldur's Gate 3 is Out Now - Steam News

v4.1.1.3622274

store.steampowered.com

They say Sept 6th is the target for macOS along with PS5. EDIT: note that Larian is using a porting devhouse to do the macOS version (Everills; I can never spell it right).

@Spaceboi Scaphandre the game version for BG3 isn't 1.0 it is actually 4.1.1, and I agree with @MallardDuck they should have removed EA from the store so it doesn't confuse folks. Especially since the first Act in GA is different from EA and game saves don't transfer from EA to GA.

Thanks for the link. Really needs to be on their home page and the store page. Expecting folks to dig deep into a community post for updates isn't realistic. We'll see if they hit it (sounds like it's a bit fluffy still).

Congrats and good for you but let's not be overdramatic. BG3 has been on Mac since early access and will have full release in about 3 weeks. It's as if PS5 owners would have the same reaction because BG3 won't be released until Sep 6, the same day for Mac or as if Xbox owners would say "you know it gotten really bad when we can't play BG3 at all" and go and buy PS5 or PC.

Crossover is more than fine for many games and it's not only for 90's games. I play Bioshock Infinite, from this century, with Ultra settings at 1440p on my base Mac Studio M1 Max 24c and get 45-90 fps with tons of tranlation layers between ARM/x86 and Win 64/32. If I lower just a couple of settngs I get consistent 60 or over 100 fps at 1440p. Same thing with Mass Effect LE. I get 60-200 fps on max settings at 1440p, similar performance to RTX 2080 Ti, 3070, 3080 and even 3090, with Rosetta and Crossover translation! Yes, older games but definitly not from 1990s.

As I mention above, they've done a great job hiding the release date.

It's not just this one thing in any case, it's a long list of PC only games and few of those actually work well in crossover/parallels/fusion, especially with Rosetta involved. Bard's tale was another one of those - they pulled the Mac release of the classic apps late in the campaign, and long-delayed the mac version.

Your crossover experience has been very different from mine (I just cancelled my subscription a couple of months ago when I tried Shadow). Dragon Age Origins won't launch (the EA app doesn't work), and inquisition is horribly slow and stuttering. Witcher has enough graphics artifacts that it's unplayable. Skryim was the same way - bad stuttering, and after those experiences I didn't even try ME LE on it. Even steam itself was dog slow. That's on an M1 Max btw...wonder if they throttled it in the MBP vs the studio. Either that, or it's only the handful of games they've built custom code around, and I play ones they haven't optimized for. BTW that's why I'm skeptical of the 'porting kit' - there's a lot of massaging that has to be done to get games working properly.

The new machine plays all those at 4K without skipping a beat, or a single artifact. I do plan to play BG3 on Mac whenever it's finally out, mostly so I can play while traveling. My annoyance there is much more about the lousy communication and deceptive sales practices than the delay itself.

 

[bousozoku]

What pissed me off is that nowhere on Steam does it say that Mac is still EA only when you go to purchase it - that's deceptive. There's no release date that's announced yet, afaik - if I'm wrong, would love to see a link (not snark, really would like to know). At least they processed my refund quickly. I will probably still run it on the Mac (so I can play while traveling), but wasn't going to let them sit on my money while I waited an unknown amount of time.

But no, it wasn't just for this, it was the final straw after years of fighting an uphill battle. I've tried Parallels, Fusion, and Crossover. None worked with anything newer than about 10 years ago (e.g. dragon age origins. couldn't even play mass effect 1). I then turned to Shadow, and it worked pretty good, but the new machine breaks even in ~3 years given their monthly cost (and has better specs).

The porting kit is a nice idea, but as I said, I've tried crossover and it's meh. Half the games won't run until they hand-optimize the code, and most of the others are slow beyond playable or have serious graphics artifacts. It won't even play the witcher I. Sure, you'll get Civilization, but you're not going to get Cyberpunk. Baldur's gate and others from Llarion are the rare exception, which is why it was so disappointing to see a delay without even a date provided.

The underlying problems are two-fold: Metal is fundamentally different than DirectX, so it's not just a matter of mapping instructions...it's a whole translation layer, which has both substantial overhead, and is also rather brittle. Second, it's the Mx hardware itself. Yes, it's amazing for integrated graphics, and for certain functions it's incredibly fast...per watt. But that's the key: Apple can't compete with dedicated GPU's because they're only focusing on performance-per-watt, not raw GPU performance. You've got the same issue with ML systems (which are a lot broader than GPT) - the vast majority are CUDA and Nvidia optimized. eGPU support solves most of the porting lift, and blows past the SOC level GPU limitations, and would be a nice compliment to the solid internal GPU.

But when the Mac "Pro" came out without GPU support, I knew there wasn't any hope, so I started budgeting for a real workhorse.

The Witcher Enhanced Edition and The Witcher 2 are native to macOS.

Of course, Metal is fundamentally different. However, you can see that Steam Deck works with Windows games through translation layers. Valve's Proton layer gets better by the day.

It would have been good if Apple worked with Valve on making Proton work on macOS, but that didn't happen. Then again, Steam reports my M1 MacBook Air as an Intel processor with a 1440x900 display.

 

[MallardDuck]

I’m not married, have no children, and haven’t had a GPU upgrade in a while, so I went ahead and bought a 4080 when Micro Center was giving away $100 gift cards with them. With any luck, it’ll last until after I get married and have kids.

I was so tempted to go all the way to the 4080 but I do have a wife who would have gone ballistic if I spend *that* much

 

[MallardDuck]

The Witcher Enhanced Edition and The Witcher 2 are native to macOS.

Of course, Metal is fundamentally different. However, you can see that Steam Deck works with Windows games through translation layers. Valve's Proton layer gets better by the day.

It would have been good if Apple worked with Valve on making Proton work on macOS, but that didn't happen. Then again, Steam reports my M1 MacBook Air as an Intel processor with a 1440x900 display.

I tried the first one, but it wouldn't launch on mine.