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Gaming on Mac vs iOS vs PC
- Thread starter Huntn
- Start date
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I use Zwift a lot and the iPad or Apple TV versions are very hobbled compared to the desktop Mac or PC versions.
They still have almost all the same functions but the graphics look awful compared to desktop versions. Resolution is so much lower.
If the desktop version crashes, you still have your in progress ride saved, it isn’t lost. You can at least upload it.
They still have almost all the same functions but the graphics look awful compared to desktop versions. Resolution is so much lower.
If the desktop version crashes, you still have your in progress ride saved, it isn’t lost. You can at least upload it.
Just saw this. How things have changed.
Apple need to work doubly hard to get gaming working properly on Mac.
No, I don't live in the EU. I'm about 100 km from Apple headquarters.
I just wish Apple would get along and move gaming along.
Apple isn't the problem - Epic is a IP troll that is trying to litigate their way into market share ... did it against Steam first, now Apple and Google. Epic should pay for the billions they get from iPhone users and allow for progress.
LMAO. Do you think Apple should pay Microsoft billions for every install of iTunes done on Windows too?
What IP does Epic have that they are litigating Apple over?
Apple is the problem in making gaming a priority. They've given us hope and forgot about it so many times, probably hoping that it would solve itself.
Oh I absolutely 100% agree with this! I often talk about my start with the Apple ][+ in the early 80s when it was a primary gaming target, the Mac Enhanced version of Dark Forces which took until 2024 to be surpassed, and playing some of the great FPS games in the early 2000s which were better than on a similar spec PC laptop.
Apple has been in a position to dominate gaming .. and fumbled the ball repeatedly!
They should have bought/hired Bungie partway through the Halo demo. I suppose they were upset that Bungie demonstrated the game on a Power Computing machine but the company had flexible bus speeds and a 275 MHz PowerPC 604e to show the game at its best.
Imagine the Xbox without Halo.
I don't see how they've been in a position to dominate gaming (on the computer side) when their marketshare is so small. Why do you think they could be the dominate player in the gaming area?
Well obviously there is some hyperbole ... 🤣
But in the 80s the Apple ][ was pretty dominant in terms of computer games. ALL of the foundational RPG games landed on the Apple platform. The Mac did pretty decent, and games like Myst in the early 90s were incredibly successful for a Mac-only market.
The PowerPC line was so far ahead of Intel (like the M1) that they could have flexed that power - yes their share was small but the G4 was so much better than the P4.
And now with the M1 and newer processors they could absolutely make a play. They have hundreds of billions of dollars just sitting around that they could buy a dozen game studios and collab with Valve to deliver a competitive experience (of course they'd need to stop cheaping out and put 16GB as default RAM).
My point is that the opportunities for growth and being a significant player in the gaming market have been there - because they WERE a significant player at times. The errors are almost entirely self-inflicted (OpenGL vs. DirectX) ... but regardless, NO ONE buys a Mac specifically FOR gaming.
Oh no question the early days of Apple with the Apple II and even the Macintosh were punctuated with some really great games and the success of the platform can be tied the existence of games
I'm not entirely sold on the M series processors for gaming performance. I think discrete GPUs generally have superior performance then what Apple has done. I think overall the issues are less technical, and more business related.
Do publishers want to spend $$$ on developing/maintaining a different platform. How committed is apple, etc.
I've been a laptop gamer exclusively (well now mostly Steam Deck) since the late 90s, so my context is entirely laptop vs. laptop. And in the context of comparing something like the MacBook Air to the Microsoft Surface ... I AM convinced.
But totally agree that it is a business issue.
Apple's commitment is definitely the concern - if they were committed they could toss a few Billion here or there and then publishers would respond.
Are new MBAs (or are they all MBPs now?) considered game playable? My wife’s older MBA running Catalina is rather sad in the game dept. 😔
Tossing a few billion would help but how long to get the invested money back and show a return on the investment ?
On my phone CoD:M is just under 3GB, while CoD:Warzone is 7.4GB. So I wonder what it would look like on your iPad. On PC Warzone is nearly 200GB by itself.
I agree with this, on mobile they absolutely are in a dominant position, on computers as you say with a market share still in single digits at least, or barely into double digits at most, not sure of the latest figures, then they are now where near being dominant. Give it time and the Steam Deck will be more dominant then the Mac.
A Mac, no, but an iPad… now that’s a different story. An awful lot of people play games on iPad, and with the M1 being placed in the Air it bought that power down to a lot of customers. As we know people don’t replace their iPads very often, and every single game in the App Store or coming out runs in the M1 and up. Now we e seen some big games, and thankfully a faire few premium priced too, come to iPad, I guess what I’m trying to say is Apple does have a big market of M chip users that will only grow and grow where games are popular, I’m interested to see what Apple does with the market as its showcased a lot of big titles very recently on iOS, Resident Evil Village perhaps being the biggest. It seems to be making more of an effort on the iPad and mobile platform.
If they make the same effort on Mac, hmm well not sure. But I guess iPad users are casual gamers, Mac users may not be?
I’ve connected my old PS4 controller a few times and played some rounds on my 11” M1 Pro, works really well too. I’m jealous of those with the new Pro lol. I’ll have to get me one one day.
No question, I think we're seeing this now. It seems that publishers are spending the time, effort and money to ensure games run on the steam deck but not the mac.
Here's one site's calendar of AAA games being released this year
A quick and unofficial count looks to have about 175 games scheduled for release - as reported by that web page. Of that 175, 149 will include the PC (others are PS4/Xbox exclusives). If you search on that web page, for the word Mac you get 4 or 2% of all AAA games being released.
Now that page and other metrics do not show whether the game will run on a steam deck, Looking at protondb and reading the dashboard correctly, it seems that 81% of the top 100 games have the platinum or gold designation regarding compatibility.
Seems like more popular and current games can and do run on the steam deck, where as only a handful of those games run on the Mac