Developer post highlighting real-world difficulties porting games to M1 architecture

[alien3dx]

It's easier to develop from a clean slate than to try to convert an application (or game in this case) over from another platform. It was Apple's marketing not the Apple developers saying that as I'm sure the developers deep down were rolling their eyes when this was said. They probably were biting their tongues in order for them to keep their jobs. 😂 (joking) There isn't much of a market for gaming on an Apple computer and there are tons of other gaming options on the market already.

thats most of reason most developer dont understand each other . hehe

 

[thedocbwarren]

thats most of reason most developer dont understand each other . hehe

Most games use an engine that at worst do nothing to understand M1 / Apple Silicon architecture so porting is compile and go. Game code runs on top not native. If you mean to rewrite a directX game to Metal, that's a change but still and API. Example Mankind Divided is an awesome game using Metal. Runs great, if SE had any desire at all to recompile to AS they would edge out 15% more performance on it but game is still running on the Dawn engine.

 

[alien3dx]

Most games use an engine that at worst do nothing to understand M1 / Apple Silicon architecture so porting is compile and go. Game code runs on top not native. If you mean to rewrite a directX game to Metal, that's a change but still and API. Example Mankind Divided is an awesome game using Metal. Runs great, if SE had any desire at all to recompile to AS they would edge out 15% more performance on it but game is still running on the Dawn engine.

in english word , 2 years time not enough .

 

[thedocbwarren]

in english word , 2 years time not enough .

heheh for sure. I think it will be a while, and frankly, I see streaming being a big answer to some of the concerns.

 

[Homy]

When 4A wanted to optimize Metro Exodus and Larian Studios wanted to optimize Baldur's Gate 3 they turned to Apple for help and Apple was more than happy to help them. That has made BG3 the best optimized native game for Apple Silicon doing around 100 fps at Ultra 1080p on MBP 32-core M1 Max. That's faster than an Alienware X17 with i7 11800H and 140W RTX 3070.

That's the power of optimization. So the question is have the developers of Humankind asked Apple for help?

Optimize high-end games for Apple GPUs - WWDC21 - Videos - Apple Developer

Optimize your high-end games for Apple GPUs: We'll show you how you can use our rendering and debugging tools to eliminate performance...

developer.apple.com

 

[ADGrant]

I've stumbled on a Mac forum elsewhere about a game called "Humankind": https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1124300/view/3037107931329009034

I thought it would be interesting to post it here because the developer stated that porting their game to the M1 is a very complex task. They stated to have stumbled upon lack of documentation, stability and performance issues – definitely not the "push of a button" Apple marketed would be required to port software from x86 to M1.

Now, I like Apple, but we can't just agree to everything they do. It's not healthy for the users, and it's not healthy for Apple. They need to see real life issues developers stumble on so they can make software porting easier, as they insist on a new architecture. Don't get me wrong, I do like the Apple Silicon architecture, but porting software doesn't seem to be so easy as Apple stated, and they need to hear to stories like these to make life easier for developers. The users will win, developers will win, and Apple will win extra revenue. We all win.

When Apple talks about porting software from x86 to M1 they are talking about x86 Macs not Windows PCs. Plenty of games already run on Apple Silicon using Metal Apis, iOS is a popular gaming platform supported by the major gaming engines. Apple Silicon Macs are probably a little easier to support than Intel Macs because Macs are not really popular for gaming at all.