Yes. Apple has a closed ecosystem... so unless they decide to support it, its a dead end.
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A gamer's lament: Apple please let us game on the Mac!
- Thread starter groove-agent
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Not true. There is a huge difference between console gamers and desktop gamers. A desktop gamer will spend a fortune on a rig without even thinking about it. Consoles are no where near as powerful or customizable and often viewed as inferior to a desktop (PC).
A desktop gamer that spends a fortune on a rig without even thinking about it is the very definition of a niche market
True.
I just had a look at Steams hardware survey, and the total number of RTX30xx and RX6xxx cards (the new generation of graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD) in the hands of gamers/miners is on the order of four million.
The number of PS5s and XBsx consoles sold since mid November is roughly 4-5 times as high. Next fiscal year, Sony predicts 24 million PS5s to be sold, and even if Microsoft is only half that, we are still looking at a HUGE disparity in high-end console vs. Gaming PC systems.
As I prefer gaming on computers vs mains powered consoles, this is not a good thing. But the numbers are very clear. Again though, the people buying those kinds of PC rigs are probably overall more accurately described as PC tech/shopping enthusiasts as opposed to people who are mostly interested in playing games.
Another comparison point is that Apple sold 6 million M1 Macs during the first quarter 2021 alone.
Inversely those high end gamers tend to keep their cards for a generation or two as it takes a strong upgrade to make switching worth while. Folks with a 1080TI had no real reason to upgrade to a 2080TI (lets ignore dlss and ray tracing) as the rasterization performance wasn't really that much faster, for the money. Those same 1080TI folk would have jumped to the 3080TI to get double the framerate (again rasterization) and much better dlss/RT performance.
AMD hadn't been playing in the high end GPU space for a while, but they also supplied the "whole kit" for 8th gen consoles and we know where they lay in the Console vs PC power spectrum.
First off, I own a rather capable gaming PC myself, so anything I say that can be construed as insults against that group, well it applies to me as well.
But I simply agreed that the people owning higher end gaming gear is niche. While they (we) are a lucrative target for various sellers of kit, the actual number of people belonging to that group is insufficient to be targeted for AAA software projects. In a couple of years the installed base of PS5s and XBsx may warrant titles that aren’t from the platform holders themselves, but we are far from that point today.
As far as Macs are concerned, this is a good thing. It means that the baseline hardware target for AAA projects is going to make a jump over the next two-three years and then likely lie constant for another five or so. Meaning that the baseline consumer Macs can make a decent job right now of pretty much anything that still targets PS4 level performance, and when the time comes around that the bar is raised, well then so have probably the capabilities of the Macs, sufficiently that port jobs will be possible if the economic justification is there.
The capabilities of top end PC gaming rigs just isn’t a factor unless you are cross shopping, which doesn’t really make sense in the first place - it’s the stuff of forum wars, not real consumers.
No AS Mac will allow me to access my library of Windows games, and can’t replace my PC box for that purpose. It could however be a valid platform for new titles.
The average user does not want to deal with Windows, worry about security issues, constant "game ready" drivers every game release to make the game perform well, and additional hardware like controllers.
To get a decent gaming system that really beats out the M1 mac's performance is $1,000 while the consoles (ignoring the current shortage as I have been trying to get a PS5 for months now) is around $500.
High end PC gamers may very well be considered niche, but PC gaming itself is not. The most popular GPU on the Steam Hardware Survey is the GTX 1060. But while the initial costs of building or buying a gaming PC is higher than buying a console, typically desktop PC gamers are able to upgrade individual components. So a gamer with an GTX 1060 could have easily upgraded to an RTX 2060 for around $300 last year. Most PC gamers are playing games on a 1080p monitor so they really have no need for the 2080/3080 line of GPUs unless they really want incredibly high frame rates.
As far as M1 Mac, it will be really hard to compare performance as long as games are running in emulation. I was able to run Shadow of the Tomb Raider's benchmark on my M1 Mac Air (7 GPU core) and on lowest settings I was able to get over 30 fps which, frankly, I was not expecting. I doubt it will ever tear me away from my Windows PC or PS5, but for folks who want to play less demanding games it is a viable option.
As far as M1 Mac, it will be really hard to compare performance as long as games are running in emulation. I was able to run Shadow of the Tomb Raider's benchmark on my M1 Mac Air (7 GPU core) and on lowest settings I was able to get over 30 fps which, frankly, I was not expecting. I doubt it will ever tear me away from my Windows PC or PS5, but for folks who want to play less demanding games it is a viable option.
The PC market would like to have a word with you... they have been dealing with Windows since inception. They still have the largest market share in the world. Who do you think drives the whole GPU hardware market anyways? Certainly NOT Apple.
The nutshell is, even if Apple could make the most powerful computer on the planet and sell it for $1, unless the game companies decide to write games for it, it really doesn't matter. Macs have come a long way over the years, hell the initial transition to INTEL was the one moment in time in which writing a game for both platforms was the easiest it was ever going to be... and yet, NOTHING came of it.
You think Windows making an ARM version of it's OS is going to change anything? It's not. You will still have two companies using their own proprietary graphics subsystems to keep each other worlds apart. And all those game companies making games for Windows will continue to do just that and Apple will still be exactly where it is today in terms of games support on the desktop. Which is exactly where they want to be.
Nothing is more niche than a gamer with a Mac. Nothing.
This is how the gaming market breaks down by revenue:
Mobile is king of gaming these days with consoles getting nearly a third while PC gaming gets a respectable 20%. I doubt seriously that Mac makes up very much of that slice at all at things are. There are simply a lot more options available for gaming on Windows. That's exactly why I still have a PC dedicated to gaming along with my MacBook.
Mobile is king of gaming these days with consoles getting nearly a third while PC gaming gets a respectable 20%. I doubt seriously that Mac makes up very much of that slice at all at things are. There are simply a lot more options available for gaming on Windows. That's exactly why I still have a PC dedicated to gaming along with my MacBook.
As someone with a $2,500 custom built PC, it’s frustrating getting games running properly. A console, it’s literally start up the game and your good.
I don’t need to constantly mess with drivers, game settings to make it run well, and deal with hooking up my Xbox Elite controller for games that don’t support it 100%.
We are the nice market here. My brother would rather get a console than build his own PC (to optimize the cost).
Why do you "constantly mess with drivers"? Drives are updated regularly like any software. This isn't a hassle. It is just a matter of doing a normal install. And what games don't support standard controls? The Elite controller is not more or less compatible with games than a standard Xbox controller.
I'm not going to say PC gaming is just as easy as console, but it isn't difficult either.
since I got my 2020 iMac, I have not whined about pc gaming at all. boot camp is a wonderful thing. I now ravage Steam Summer Sales just like any PC user, accumulate games that I will never get around to playing like any PC user, and play those one or two games that are just awesome (looking at you Planet Zoo and Sea of Thieves). 😀
I haven't had such problems since the 90s. As long as you don't try anything released in the past couple of months (as you should do with all software and hardware anyway), things work just fine. Old games sometimes develop issues, because the hardware and the OS are too different from what they were designed for, but there are usually easy workarounds for them.
A $35 billion/year market is not a niche by any means. It's much bigger than recorded music, for example.
And the general user won’t install drivers every time a new game comes out when NVIDIA releases their game ready drivers. I have seen some people’s gaming systems. They complain a brand new game won’t run well, yet they have a driver from 2020.
There are many games that don’t fully support controllers on Steam.
Consoles solve all of this for people like my brother.
Yeah NVidia isn’t going to make the mistake of releasing an architecture as good and long lived as Pascal again.
Strictly speaking, if different companies make their own SoC, then they’ll have to provide drivers for their own integrated gpu. And on the desktop we have at least three gpu companies now, Intel, AMD, and NVidia.
Sure, but that is just a matter of folks being educated to the fact that they need to not ignore the notification from Nvidia or AMD that there is a new driver available. Installing that driver is just a matter of clicking a couple of buttons. Again, yes consoles are easier but that doesn't mean PC gaming is necessarily difficult.
As far as Steam, the cases where a game do not support a controller more than likely is either 1) the game simply wasn't designed with controllers in mind or 2) the game just has shoddy support in general. But no, I don't see this has not a widespread problem.
Console Cyberpunk would like to have a word with you, lol.
I have it on the PS5. I also know the PC version is superior, and that we may eventually get a next gen patch that will bring the XSX/PS5 version in line with the PC version.
And that is the whole point. Gaming is not a niche, but WE are the niche market. The general user would rather get a PS5 and Xbox Series X than a gaming PC. To those gamers, running at 1080p 30FPS is not a big deal. But to me and maybe you? I definitely prefer 144FPS when possible at 2560x1440.
I have been trying to get into Final Fantasy 7 Remake, but I can CLEARLY tell its an upscaled image, and looks rather poor on my base PS4. To most people, it doesn't matter. They have already played or are still playing that game hundreds hours. But I am one hour in and am REALLY wishing for a PC port NOW so I can play at 1440p and 60FPS.
The most common GPU on Steam is the 1060. That really doesn't play Cyberpunk as well as my brother's Xbox. You need to run at low settings and still get 47FPS in that game.
And the M1 competes with the 1050 (again, the lowest of the low end Apple processor). Which is close to what most gamers on Steam use. So to complain that Apple is not satisfying the RTX 3080Ti crowd is definitely a niche market.
And on one of my gaming PCs, I am getting constant driver crashes. I tried updating my drivers, did DDU and all that. Does my brother really need to deal with all of this? No, just get a PS5 and that is it. Yeah there is a chance a PS5 could be bad, but PC gaming for the general user has some more troubleshooting than standard console gaming.
This is a very bad time too because I want a 3080. Heck I would be happy with a 3060. But I have been searching since launch and can never find one. If my GPU is going bad, its not going to be good.
We also need to see a breakdown of that 20% of PC gaming. How much of that is web based games? How much of that is JUST Minecraft? Is all 20% of people playing Cyberpunk? Not me, I got it and returned it so I am not playing that game. Are all gamers playing the latest AAA titles? Nope, not me, I am sitting here in Factorio which can run just fine on any Apple system. To say that Apple is not participating in the 20% gaming market is just insane. What is the breakdown of games in that 20%?
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At one point, I had a Power Mac G5 (2003ish) and a Non-descript run of the mill PC. They both had the same graphic cards in them (that I installed) and both ran Unreal Tournament. This was before Bootcamp, and there was a Mac version of UT. In comparison tests, the game on the PC ran at double the frames as compared to the Mac, 70fps vs 35 fps.
The Power Mac G5 was incredibly engineered a beautiful computer with high tech air baffles that directed ventilation through it. impressive indeed, but I had to come to terms with the fact due to hardware and software divergences, and game developer, the Mac could just not compete. Plus I got sick of all the compromises involved with playing a game you were lucky enough to be ported to the Mac, like delayed release, not cross platform compatible, not full featured. At that point I knew for gaming, a PC was the path forward, but also used Bootcamp when traveling with my MBP. Now, I‘m retired, I still use a Mac for most computer tasks and prefer it for those tasks (see sig), but not for gaming.
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Wrath of the Righteous will have no Linux support? That's kind of a bummer. I've enjoyed the heck out of Pathfinder Kingmaker, whether I was playing on Mac, Linux or Windows. Perhaps this decision was due to the ease of getting Windows games to run under Steam and Proton, or Lutris even.
Not necessarily. Apple is mainly interested in making sleek, portable notebooks. That’s roughly 70% of the Mac user base. Since the MacBooks largely are not gaming laptops, Developers don’t want to spend resources on a sub-par experience. Apple would be glad to support AAA games but to do that they would’ve had to compromise on the design of their notebooks which they would never do. So it not that they aren’t interested, they just prioritize aesthetics over gaming. Seeing how successful they are, it seems like a good decision.
However, the new generation of apple silicon chips may actually pave the way for more gaming on Mac. So we will see.
I don’t believe Apple is intentionally putting barriers in place so people can’t game unless they buy a $5,000 computer. The Mac Pro was never designed as a gaming computer anyways. It’s a workstation. Sure you can game on it, but Tim Cook Isn’t sitting in some board room going “ahhh they want gaming macs ay? Ahhh let’s force them all to buy Mac pros then! Mmwhahahaha” as if it was some conscious decisions to somehow limit gaming on MacBooks?