OS Neutral Why don't PC games come to Mac, and why when they do it takes forever?

[appleii.c]

So has Apple's Metal done anything to create a brighter future for gaming on the mac? Or is it lack of Demand for Mac games the reason they aren't coming?

I personally stopped buying PC games to run on the mac about 6 months ago. I know I'm just one voice, but I want to support as many mac game developers as I can. Hopefully things will change in the future.

 

[Irishman]

So has Apple's Metal done anything to create a brighter future for gaming on the mac? Or is it lack of Demand for Mac games the reason they aren't coming?

I personally stopped buying PC games to run on the mac about 6 months ago. I know I'm just one voice, but I want to support as many mac game developers as I can. Hopefully things will change in the future.

They aren't coming en masse because they're not ready.

 

[Exhale]

So has Apple's Metal done anything to create a brighter future for gaming on the mac?

Not really. Metal doesn't have good Shader support - and more recent games especially use Geometry Shaders (and Tessellation Shaders) heavily which Metal has zero support for. The former is a showstopper for many.

 

[adib]

Looks like they have a plan with the 4th gen Apple TV and start swimming in those same waters again. Perhaps they finally have a shark repellent ;-)

Apple already swam in those waters and came out with several jellyfish stings and shark bites.

 

[Dirtyharry50]

Well, the Apple TV is in this generation still primarily a video content delivery device and only distantly a gaming device in comparison, all in one unit. The gaming capability in the Apple TV is more a value add thing than anything else but I could see it becoming somewhat popular for those who'd want the Apple TV anyway and getting this functionality as a bonus. This really doesn't compare to the failed console at all. It's a very different thing.

I own the previous generation Apple TV now and like it. I will upgrade to the new one early next year and I expect I will have some fun with some of the games on it but I am not looking for it to compete with an Xbox or my iMac. Instead, I figure it will be a lot cooler than my phone.

I would tend to think though that Metal is all about the Apple ecosystem and primarily iOS games and professional graphics applications on OS X. I don't think AAA gaming on OS X figures into the plan all that much myself. Any enhancements to Metal are going to be geared to those areas primarily and if that happens to benefit AAA game ports to OS X that will be nice but I cannot imagine it being any kind of focus at Apple personally.

So I would not expect a lot of games using Metal anytime soon myself but maybe I'll wind up being wrong. Presently though I doubt that for the time being at least. I'm aware like the rest of you of certain high profile games and companies that plan to utilize it to the extent it can be but I don't see a lot of games coming out of that anytime soon.

 

[Janichsan]

Looks like they have a plan with the 4th gen Apple TV and start swimming in those same waters again. Perhaps they finally have a shark repellent ;-)

Hardly. The limitations imposed by Apple on download size, installation size and controller support are too strict to make the AppleTV a competitive gaming platform.

 

[Mercury]

Hardly. The limitations imposed by Apple on download size, installation size and controller support are too strict to make the AppleTV a competitive gaming platform.

I hope this doesn't encourage developers to force dynamic downloads during games for iOS...

 

[Ursadorable]

Having recently switching back to the Mac, a quick audit of my Steam account shows 60% of the games in my Steam library have Mac versions. Literally, I have 186 games I could load up on my Mac right now.

That being said, my waning in gaming has been the primary reason for the switch back to Mac.

It's not as much a desert of games for the Mac as it once was. In fact, I'm going to install Pillars of Eternity which I never did get around to playing on the PC.

 

[rampancy]

Well, the Apple TV is in this generation still primarily a video content delivery device and only distantly a gaming device in comparison, all in one unit. The gaming capability in the Apple TV is more a value add thing than anything else but I could see it becoming somewhat popular for those who'd want the Apple TV anyway and getting this functionality as a bonus. This really doesn't compare to the failed console at all. It's a very different thing.

That's what a lot of people don't understand. Apple is actually a very conservative company when it comes to their strategic decisions and they know how tricky the gaming market can be.

 

[Noble Actual]

Having recently switching back to the Mac, a quick audit of my Steam account shows 60% of the games in my Steam library have Mac versions. Literally, I have 186 games I could load up on my Mac right now.

That being said, my waning in gaming has been the primary reason for the switch back to Mac.

It's not as much a desert of games for the Mac as it once was. In fact, I'm going to install Pillars of Eternity which I never did get around to playing on the PC.

Depends on the games you play though. Guarantee most of those 186 are not new ones that have come out in the last few years.

Talking about games like Fallout 4, Batman Arkham Knight, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Rainbow Six Siege, Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Witness, etc.

As well as upcoming games like The Division, Quantum Break and Overwatch.

And those coming out later like Halo Wars 2, Gears of War 4, Mass Effect Andromeda, Ghost Recon Wildlands, etc.

Don't get me wrong. TF2, CSGO, Civ5, L4D2, Portal 2, CoD4, Borderlands 2, etc. are fun but if you want to play some pretty amazing games, your missing out.

 

[Marshall73]

Depends on the games you play though. Guarantee most of those 186 are not new ones that have come out in the last few years.

Talking about games like Fallout 4, Batman Arkham Knight, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Rainbow Six Siege, Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Witness, etc.

As well as upcoming games like The Division, Quantum Break and Overwatch.

And those coming out later like Halo Wars 2, Gears of War 4, Mass Effect Andromeda, Ghost Recon Wildlands, etc.

Don't get me wrong. TF2, CSGO, Civ5, L4D2, Portal 2, CoD4, Borderlands 2, etc. are fun but if you want to play some pretty amazing games, your missing out.

Unless you are die hard PC gamer you would as well buy a PS4 or Xbox one for the majority of the games you have listed, at least you can play Arkham Knight, which runs like a bag of spanners on the PC and was scrapped for the Mac due to the terrible PC port. You can also build a capable gaming PC for the combined cost of both consoles if you want, still won't experience Arkham Knight properly tho, LOL.

 

[Noble Actual]

Unless you are die hard PC gamer you would as well buy a PS4 or Xbox one for the majority of the games you have listed, at least you can play Arkham Knight, which runs like a bag of spanners on the PC and was scrapped for the Mac due to the terrible PC port. You can also build a capable gaming PC for the combined cost of both consoles if you want, still won't experience Arkham Knight properly tho, LOL.

I mean for many of them you can. But question is, would you want to? I know for Overwatch I rather play on PC. Same with The Division. Quantum Break will get cross save and cross buy for Xbox One and Windows 10 so its safe to assume the same will happen with other MS games. Fallout 4 runs like crap on consoles (20 fps) and still hasn't had mods. I'm actually considering trading in my copy. Also both Xbox One and PS4 are really disgustingly slow and require a mandatory HDD upgrade if you want for than 5 games.

Yea. WB honestly gave up making a PC game. This is why you develop the game for PC first and then port it over to consoles. And its not even WB that's porting it. They handed the job to some third party porting studio and they can't do ****. They didn't even bother making a part for Mortal Kombat XL. LOL

But every other game is god damn beautiful on the PC and can be run on a $500 custom build PC (besides Quantum Break which rec specs are disgusting). I've been reading posts on NeoGaf of people either planning to upgrade their $1000+ PC (graphics card) or just not even bothering.

 

[Ursadorable]

Talking about games like Fallout 4, Batman Arkham Knight, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Rainbow Six Siege, Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Witness, etc.

As well as upcoming games like The Division, Quantum Break and Overwatch.

And those coming out later like Halo Wars 2, Gears of War 4, Mass Effect Andromeda, Ghost Recon Wildlands, etc.

True.. but then again, even when I had my PC, I wasn't interested in playing those games regardless. I'm not a big fan of FPS games (mostly because I suck at them lol).

Instead I prefer games like XCOM 2, Elite Dangerous, Pillars of Eternity, Civ: Beyond Earth, ARK: Survival Evolved, Cities: Skylines, Shadow of Mordor, which are in my steam library and have been released within in last year or two.

So really, it depends which types of games you enjoy.

 

[Noble Actual]

True.. but then again, even when I had my PC, I wasn't interested in playing those games regardless. I'm not a big fan of FPS games (mostly because I suck at them lol).

Instead I prefer games like XCOM 2, Elite Dangerous, Pillars of Eternity, Civ: Beyond Earth, ARK: Survival Evolved, Cities: Skylines, Shadow of Mordor, which are in my steam library and have been released within in last year or two.

So really, it depends which types of games you enjoy.

Yea, I'm just assuming that if you like to game on PC versus consoles, that you like choices.

I mean tons of people have absolutely no problem using Windows to do whatever they need to do + to game.

Say if I had $1000 magically to spend and you liked gaming...you would probably build your own custom gaming rig. I mean the base iMac starts at $1100...and it uses Intel HD 6000 (which for gaming is ehhh).

Perfect world you might get both but lets say you factor gaming into your consideration. You ultimately should want something that can even play the games you might not want to play now. Maybe your gaming preferences change.

Easily play any game on your PC while you have to use Parallels/Bootcamp on your iMac and get subpar performances. For example: I thought Overwatch was coming out on Mac since all previous games came out on Mac and PC. Turns out its using a new engine and they are not developing it for Mac. Totally changed my perspective on what upcoming computer to get.

 

[Grade]

That is basically the lack of development of OpenGL itself.

The condition of Mac in gaming (i consider palying AAA games, because you can play other games quite well on Macs), the only to blame is Apple engineers. Even that they consider not to blame, since it wasn't a priority for them.

Go no further then Metal, which has been announce more then 6 months ago and we still have no further news aside what was announced on Apple Keynotes and even one producer cough"Adobe"cough, even backtrack on their development on Metal. There isn't even a proper comparison between OpenGL and Metal, we haven't seen the improvements Metal would bring. Blizzard seems to be the one that is actually will be releasing some stuff in development of WOW to Metal.

Even Apple has made little to no effort at all, to marketing how amazing and spectacular Metal is. Apple on the laptops and Desktops have no interest in games, for some reason. If it was, they would have make effort at least to push for Metal.

As in terms os PCs, yes it is less expensive and game oriented then the Mac, but one thing I myself notice, is that I spent more on PC in timeframe of 5 years then a newly IMac 27", for example. Sure my focus was purely gaming, but as I grow older, I have little pacience in building a PC and due to lack of time, and my focus changed to those quite essential games. The majority exists on the PS4 or XBOX ONE, which is a lot less expensive option then a PC or a Mac and lasts quite a few years. The rest exists on the Mac and can run quite well.

However there is important point. Sure a PC is a lot less expensive then a Mac, but a friend of mine bought a PC and build is PC, in August 2014, last month we decided to see what would cost him the exact same PC, it it would cost him half the price he spent in 2014. I was quite suprise how it devalued so much so fast. the mac is expensive and devalues a lot less in the same time period.

Which brings me to the last point of this post, I find a bit of disgust by Apple still charging the exact same price for the Mac Pro that was released in 2013. I for one think Apple needs to adjust the price as time goes on, or simply update their desktops and Laptops more closely. They don't need to be revulutinary in every release, but be serious how can I buy a Mac Pro from 2013 specs for that kind of money? 3000 dollars? It is mindblowing and shockingly bad, in my opinion.

In the end, Mac and PCs have some pros and cons, but Gaming for Mac, the PC is clearly a winner, due to lack of interest of Apple and its engineers and head of department to push for AAA gaming for the desktop and laptop lineups. I think Apple is apparently happy to bring those IOS games to OS X, since both using Metal, the ports I think would be quite easy and expands the market with Apple's Market. Apple is always question mark, but I kinda like that it creates these colorful and intriguing discussions, bringing the Mac community together. 🙂

 

[Irishman]

Yea, I'm just assuming that if you like to game on PC versus consoles, that you like choices.

I mean tons of people have absolutely no problem using Windows to do whatever they need to do + to game.

Say if I had $1000 magically to spend and you liked gaming...you would probably build your own custom gaming rig. I mean the base iMac starts at $1100...and it uses Intel HD 6000 (which for gaming is ehhh).

Perfect world you might get both but lets say you factor gaming into your consideration. You ultimately should want something that can even play the games you might not want to play now. Maybe your gaming preferences change.

Easily play any game on your PC while you have to use Parallels/Bootcamp on your iMac and get subpar performances. For example: I thought Overwatch was coming out on Mac since all previous games came out on Mac and PC. Turns out its using a new engine and they are not developing it for Mac. Totally changed my perspective on what upcoming computer to get.

You can make a stellar hackintosh with the same $1000

 

[Ursadorable]

You can make a stellar hackintosh with the same $1000

If you can get it to run reliably. I tried to hackintosh my PC before selling it and buying a used Mac Pro. All my components were on the hackintosh compatibility list.. yet it was still buggy as heck, and broke when there was a Mac OS update.

If I upgrade from Mac, it will be to Linux.. no way I'm venturing into Microsoft's spyware filled waters again.

 

[antonis]

Which brings me to the last point of this post, I find a bit of disgust by Apple still charging the exact same price for the Mac Pro that was released in 2013. I for one think Apple needs to adjust the price as time goes on, or simply update their desktops and Laptops more closely. They don't need to be revulutinary in every release, but be serious how can I buy a Mac Pro from 2013 specs for that kind of money? 3000 dollars? It is mindblowing and shockingly bad, in my opinion.

That's a very good point. As it was said in another thread by someone, imagine buying a brand new Mac Pro in 2016, booting it up, go to "About this Mac" and get a "late 2013" model... And not a single gpu upgrade since then by Apple. But, still, the price remains unchanged.

 

[marksatt]

The condition of Mac in gaming (i consider palying AAA games, because you can play other games quite well on Macs), the only to blame is Apple engineers. Even that they consider not to blame, since it wasn't a priority for them.

I've worked with Apple's engineers for a long while now - they aren't really responsible for the Mac not being a primary AAA gaming platform.

Go no further then Metal, which has been announce more then 6 months ago and we still have no further news aside what was announced on Apple Keynotes and even one producer cough"Adobe"cough, even backtrack on their development on Metal. There isn't even a proper comparison between OpenGL and Metal, we haven't seen the improvements Metal would bring. Blizzard seems to be the one that is actually will be releasing some stuff in development of WOW to Metal.

My friends at Blizzard aren't the only ones working on Metal support - @ Epic we added Mac Metal support to UE4 (in the 4.11 preview release) and the latest Fortnite update (as an option). Granted its been low key, but then we've not shipped the final 4.11 public release & I'm still actively working on our Mac Metal support with Apple & the GPU vendors.

Even Apple has made little to no effort at all, to marketing how amazing and spectacular Metal is.

I think you must have missed WWDC... adopting a new graphics API isn't a simple process so the results aren't going to be available overnight.

 

[Grade]

I understand that the results aren't overnight.

But what i'm saying is that, if I search right this moment, about Metal the news i get is from either June, September or October. Aside of that the only news we get is basically from El Capitan general review.

Probably there hasn't been much to report, as you said Metal is new graphics API.

I'm glad you say there are several companies working with Metal, I really really do. However the reality is that there has been little news about it and the news from Adobe (accurate or not) has been pretty much disappointing.

Here is hoping that at least the June Conference, Apple bring more news about Metal.

 

[jeanlain]

Now that Apple has moved out of the Vulkan group, it's pretty clear that we won't get Vulkan. It's also pretty clear that OpenGL won't get any new update on Apple's platforms. So it's Metal all the way. But given that Metal lacks basic features present in openGL 3+, I'm not too optimistic about the future of gaming on the platform. 🙁

Does Apple expect that everyone will adopt Metal because of the popularity of iOS? It's not as if we had hundreds of Metal games on the iPhone/iPad. When gaming relies more and more on the latest GPU features and Apple doesn't update Metal to support them, the future of Mac gaming doesn't look bright. How long will Unreal Engine be viable without tessellation shaders?

Clearly, Metal was released to give Apple an edge over Android in respect to mobile gaming. Now we have Vulkan and DX12 (on the PC and XBox side). How do Apple expect Metal to compete against these two, which target a larger audience (at least for Vulkan) and can do more in terms of graphics?
I won't be surprised if Metal proves to be a failure after everyone jumps to the other APIs. Remember QuickDraw 3D? 🙄

 

[antonis]

Now that Apple has moved out of the Vulkan group, it's pretty clear that we won't get Vulkan. It's also pretty clear that OpenGL won't get any new update on Apple's platforms. So it's Metal all the way. But given that Metal lacks basic features present in openGL 3+, I'm not too optimistic about the future of gaming on the platform. 🙁

Does Apple expect that everyone will adopt Metal because of the popularity of iOS? It's not as if we had hundreds of Metal games on the iPhone/iPad. When gaming relies more and more on the latest GPU features and Apple doesn't update Metal to support them, the future of Mac gaming doesn't look bright. How long will Unreal Engine be viable without tessellation shaders?

Clearly, Metal was released to give Apple an edge over Android in respect to mobile gaming. Now we have Vulkan and DX12 (on the PC and XBox side). How do Apple expect Metal to compete against these two, which target a larger audience (at least for Vulkan) and can do more in terms of graphics?
I won't be surprised if Metal proves to be a failure after everyone jumps to the other APIs. Remember QuickDraw 3D? 🙄

These are very good points. However, I'm afraid Apple is not even targeting to evolve Mac desktop gaming. They just want to achieve a unified API among all of their devices, that will support the evolution of mobile gaming.

 

[marksatt]

Now that Apple has moved out of the Vulkan group, it's pretty clear that we won't get Vulkan. It's also pretty clear that OpenGL won't get any new update on Apple's platforms. So it's Metal all the way.

The writing has been on the wall for quite some time.

But given that Metal lacks basic features present in openGL 3+, I'm not too optimistic about the future of gaming on the platform. 🙁

Life would have been much simpler if Mac Metal had added Geometry shaders but they're the only *big* missing feature and for UE4 it was possible to eliminate them. There were other smaller omissions but they were all possible to work around so ultimately don't make much difference to the result - only maintenance. I'd have been a lot less happy if I was working at Feral though - they aren't in a position to gut all the geometry shaders from an engine/game.

Does Apple expect that everyone will adopt Metal because of the popularity of iOS? It's not as if we had hundreds of Metal games on the iPhone/iPad.

You weren't going to see bundles of Metal-only iOS games due to the vagaries of adoption - developers can't abandon older OpenGLES-only iPhones and iPads because every user really matters on mobile and there's little sense in duplicating work by implementing a Metal version as well. For a Mac developer it should be a much cleaner break (when the times comes) because the non-Metal Macs are so much older and a much smaller proportion of the user base.

When gaming relies more and more on the latest GPU features and Apple doesn't update Metal to support them, the future of Mac gaming doesn't look bright. How long will Unreal Engine be viable without tessellation shaders?

UE4 tessellation support is optional, so the absence of Hull & Domain shader stages from Metal isn't likely to be a problem for the foreseeable future.

Clearly, Metal was released to give Apple an edge over Android in respect to mobile gaming. Now we have Vulkan and DX12 (on the PC and XBox side). How do Apple expect Metal to compete against these two, which target a larger audience (at least for Vulkan) and can do more in terms of graphics?
I won't be surprised if Metal proves to be a failure after everyone jumps to the other APIs. Remember QuickDraw 3D? 🙄

Apple do have previous for inventing, shipping & then abandoning their own proprietary 3D API - but that was a long time ago in a very different Apple.

I've said before that Metal 1.0 was just the start of the journey, not the end. Very few APIs have all their features ready & working for the first release and it wasn't unreasonable for Apple to prioritise what to implement on the first go. If they track the actual application (not just specification) of newer features in future updates then I don't see why Metal can't do just fine. I wouldn't get too worried by Vulkan - its brand new. These things will play out over years - not months.

 

[jeanlain]

Apple should just let GPU vendors support Vulkan on the Mac, just like MS does on windows. Since Nvidia and AMD provide Vulkan on Linux, I guess they could do the same on OS X, which still has a higher market share. I'm not sure about intel though. Do they provide the OS X drivers? I think it's Apple. I really don't see Apple developing Vulkan drivers, nor do I see Intel starting to develop OS X drivers just to support Vulkan.
[doublepost=1455745103][/doublepost]

I've said before that Metal 1.0 was just the start of the journey, not the end. Very few APIs have all their features ready & working for the first release and it wasn't unreasonable for Apple to prioritise what to implement on the first go. If they track the actual application (not just specification) of newer features in future updates then I don't see why Metal can't do just fine. I wouldn't get too worried by Vulkan - its brand new. These things will play out over years - not months.

My guess is that Metal will end just like openCL, which has never really taken off on the Mac and is left in a sad state.

 

[marksatt]

My guess is that Metal will end just like openCL, which has never really taken off on the Mac and is left in a sad state.

There'll be a lot more developers angrily waving pitchforks at Apple if they don't develop Metal than there have been with OpenCL because frankly a lot more developers need to render things on a GPU than run GPGPU tasks. The more developers providing feedback the more likely the API is to improve. OpenCL was Apple's specification but even under Khronos and implemented on other OSes it hasn't (AFAIK) dislodged Nvidia's CUDA from being the dominant API for GPGPU programming.

Apple should just let GPU vendors support Vulkan on the Mac, just like MS does on windows. Since Nvidia and AMD provide Vulkan on Linux, I guess they could do the same on OS X, which still has a higher market share. I'm not sure about intel though. Do they provide the OS X drivers? I think it's Apple. I really don't see Apple developing Vulkan drivers, nor do I see Intel starting to develop OS X drivers just to support Vulkan.

Vulkan wouldn't necessarily be any better - having a theoretical specification for lots of features is not the same thing as actually having drivers from each vendor where all those features work. That was always OpenGL's problem and it'll be interesting to see if Vulkan is any better in practice.

Developers like me have been giving Apple feedback for a long while now and if Metal is to succeed they'll listen to those of us using (or wanting to use) Metal and new versions will add new features - which is pretty much a truism for any API to flourish. Apple's staff aren't daft - they know that. If they don't & Mac Metal goes all pear shaped then perhaps something like that might have to happen - but there'd be repercussions and we haven't got to such a sorry state as you seem to believe.