Graphic Performance of ARM Mac's - Steam/Cities Skylines

[grrrz]

I have been following Apples progress in chip making for a while, I have educated myself on the technology behind it and I have both read tests done by some very smart people and run some test on Apples mobile chips myself. It’s not that difficult to extrapolate the worst-case expectations for M1 from there.

Based on my experience, I believe that many people are still completely oblivious to the significance of what happened yesterday. Apple has just redefined the base level of the personal computing. You will probably see when the reviews come in and Apple’s passively cooled Air will outperform all the premium 13” laptops based on latest x86 chips.

As far as x86 “emulation” goes, I have outlined an efficient way how to do it on these forums probably over a year ago. Rosetta 2 does exactly what I had in mind. The technology behind it has been there for many years - it’s called LLVM. All Apple needed is smart logic switches in their chips that would emulate the behavior of x86 CPU to get the semantic right 100% of the time. They did it with M1.

All I'm saying is if you're gonna count on something working do your research. I know pro audio is a big no no for now on apple silicon; because you have plug-ins from multiple companies that have to work together with a daw; and there's no way you're gonna be able to mix and match native and emulated. I can assure you every architecture change with mac (powerpc to intel; 32 bits to 64 bits) has been an absolute MESS; and each time it took years to get to a point where you could switch and keep a similar workflow (and always you had to lose one or two plug-ins that were never updated).
As for the significance of the switch; it's not the first time; if the performance is there cool; and if it can run cooler and quieter; that's cool too. but I mean we'll see. Honestly I'm usually working on 5-10 y/o high specs machines; and I know maybe in a year or two the path forward will be buying an used intel 16" from last generation; so I'll see about a mac arm in maybe ten years; I expect by then all of this will be sorted out.

 

[dopeytree]

Shadow of the Tomb Raider runs 3x faster on the new MacBook Pro compared to the previous 13" model, despite running on emulation and not being optimized for Apple GPUs.

Problem at the moment all PC games are x86. Most nearly all the decent games need windows via bootcamp to run. I wonder if someone will step in and make some kind of translation tool? If the new gpu's are as powerful as they say, it would make sense.

 

[dopeytree]

I have been following Apples progress in chip making for a while, I have educated myself on the technology behind it and I have both read tests done by some very smart people and run some test on Apples mobile chips myself. It’s not that difficult to extrapolate the worst-case expectations for M1 from there.

Based on my experience, I believe that many people are still completely oblivious to the significance of what happened yesterday. Apple has just redefined the base level of the personal computing. You will probably see when the reviews come in and Apple’s passively cooled Air will outperform all the premium 13” laptops based on latest x86 chips.

As far as x86 “emulation” goes, I have outlined an efficient way how to do it on these forums probably over a year ago. Rosetta 2 does exactly what I had in mind. The technology behind it has been there for many years - it’s called LLVM. All Apple needed is smart logic switches in their chips that would emulate the behavior of x86 CPU to get the semantic right 100% of the time. They did it with M1.

Is there a rossetta / parallels update that will run windows x86 apps (thinking games) this way on apple silicon (arm chips)?

 

[OriginalClone]

That is impressive, and more impressive if that benchmark tool is running under Rosetta2

I ordered a M1 Air to test out. My main computer is a 2018 15” 32gb ram w 560x. I went for 16gb ram, so I’ll have to wait a couple weeks to see how it performs.

 

[bill-p]

Is there a rossetta / parallels update that will run windows x86 apps (thinking games) this way on apple silicon (arm chips)?

You're thinking of CrossOver/WINE.

Since WINE is not emulation, but rather kind of a mix between translation and wrappers, theoretically, it should work without fanfare with Rosetta 2.

And... well, we'll see. I have some games on GoG that use CrossOver in order to work on a Mac, so I can give them a try.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Shadow of the Tomb Raider runs 3x faster on the new MacBook Pro compared to the previous 13" model, despite running on emulation and not being optimized for Apple GPUs.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a Metal app.

 

[leman]

Is there a rossetta / parallels update that will run windows x86 apps (thinking games) this way on apple silicon (arm chips)?

No, but WINE/Crossover (Windows environment emulator) will be able to run some of these apps at least.

High performance Windows gaming is gone though.

 

[leman]

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a Metal app.

Why does it matter?

 

[hieromonk]

They were very clear these new Apple Silicon Macs allow for an immersive gaming experience.

Yes and all these 4x 8x 50% more performance just makes things so vague

how’s this M1 8 cord GPU performance comparing with nvidia 3080 ??!!!
I need this being answered

 

[leman]

Honestly I'm usually working on 5-10 y/o high specs machines; and I know maybe in a year or two the path forward will be buying an used intel 16" from last generation; so I'll see about a mac arm in maybe ten years; I expect by then all of this will be sorted out.

In ten years there is likely to be a different transition Frankly, if you are so focused on software stability, I am very surprised that you are a Mac user to begin with. Other systems offer much better stability while Mac never cared about it.

 

[leman]

how’s this M1 8 cord GPU performance comparing with nvidia 3080 ??!!!
I need this being answered

About 6-8 times slower. What do you think lol. It’s a 10-15W integrated chip vs. a 320 watts monster of a GPU

 

[bill-p]

High performance Windows gaming is gone though.

To be fair, I don't think the majority of Mac users will miss that.

Buying a Mac to double up as a sleek Windows gaming machine is a fool's errand. Bootcamp has been the worst experience ever since the Touch Bar was introduced.

As a computer, I think what the Mac needs most is an ultra fast CPU, and then having a nice GPU is icing on the cake. But I don't mind as long as it can fully support the resolution of my monitor.

When Apple showed Rosetta 2 running Fusion 360, I was sold immediately. That was more important than any gaming workload for me.

 

[hieromonk]

About 6-8 times slower. What do you think lol. It’s a 10-15W integrated chip vs. a 320 watts monster of a GPU

Well I don’t know

then that apple hardware dude shouldn’t have boast about teraflops to texture bandwidth to fill rate

That apple engineer on the presentation talks like it’s benefit from years of thorough analysis of Mac applications and it’s so good it’s in a class of its own

And yes you are right , it’s like 8 times slower comparing with nvidia 3080 if you look at the 2.6 teraflops

lol it’s ******** ! But it’s alright , I’m gonna buy it anyway since I just sold my iMac 2019 27 and M1 mini is just for web browsing Apple News + and Apple Arcade \ amazon Luna , it’s good enough for that at least

 

[Yebubbleman]

Why does it matter?

Because Metal based x86-64 apps have barely any speed penalty in Rosetta 2 vs. non-Metal/OpenGL based x86 apps? They've stated as much in both many WWDC videos (including the keynote) as well as this week's presentation. Metal makes Rosetta 2 a non-issue for running Intel Mac games on Apple Silicon Macs.

 

[leman]

then that apple hardware dude shouldn’t have boast about teraflops to texture bandwidth to fill rate

That apple engineer on the presentation talks like it’s benefit from years of thorough analysis of Mac applications and it’s so good it’s in a class of its own

Don't really understand you here. Yes, Apple GPUs deliver more performance pr was than Nvidia GPUs. But it's not magic. You can't expect a thin passively cooled laptop or a table to match the performance of a huge gaming GPU that alone consumes 30 times more power. If you think about it, 1/8 performance at 1/30 of power consumption is fairly impressive achievement.

The bottom line here is that every M1 Mac will have graphics comparable to at least entry-level dGPUs out there. This is great news for gamers.

Because Metal based x86-64 apps have barely any speed penalty in Rosetta 2 vs. non-Metal/OpenGL based x86 apps? They've stated as much in both many WWDC videos (including the keynote) as well as this week's presentation. Metal makes Rosetta 2 a non-issue for running Intel Mac games on Apple Silicon Macs.

OpenGL is implemented on top of Metal on AMD ARM Big Sur, so I won't expect any noteworthy performance penalty. Of course, OpenGL is a less efficient API, but that is also true for Intel-based Macs. The WWDC presentations — if I remember correctly — mentioned that they are adding a compatibility layer to both Metal and OpenGL applications to guard agains common API misuse.

But regardless of what API your graphical application uses — it is likely to get a speed boost under Apple Silicon simply because the GPU is faster. Even if there is some penalty here and there.

 

[Janichsan]

OpenGL is implemented on top of Metal on AMD Big Sur, ...

Wait, what? Do you have a link with more information on that?

 

[leman]

Wait, what? Do you have a link with more information on that?

I don't. But nothing else would make sense. Do you really think Apple would maintain three separate sets of drivers: Metal, OpenGL and OpenCL for their hardware? They are most certainly using a wrapper similar to MoltenGL that they have copied from iOS and updated a bit to be compatible with desktop OpenGL. I don't have proof of this of course, but it shouldn't be difficult to get by looking inside the OpenGL framework on an M1 Mac.

 

[fiatlux]

it’s like 8 times slower comparing with nvidia 3080 if you look at the 2.6 teraflops

Yes and no - the nvidia 3080 does not work on macos to start with, so it will not be faster

I think it is almost a given that M1's iGPU will outperform Intel's ones. We'll see if they challenge MBP 16's dGPU as well.

I also wonder what is the reason behind the current lack of eGPU support in Apple Silicon Macs. Is it a matter of lack of drivers, TB limitations, or a combination of both? And could we hope this to be addressed by something like the purge-wrangler script?

 

[Janichsan]

I don't. But nothing else would make sense. Do you really think Apple would maintain three separate sets of drivers: Metal, OpenGL and OpenCL for their hardware? They are most certainly using a wrapper similar to MoltenGL that they have copied from iOS and updated a bit to be compatible with desktop OpenGL. I don't have proof of this of course, but it shouldn't be difficult to get by looking inside the OpenGL framework on an M1 Mac.

So it's nothing but speculation and reading tea leaves. Got it.

 

[Ritsuka]

It's not. Just do a sample of an OpenGL app. There is the usual gl_whatever, and then "oh hello Metal nice to meet you".

 

[leman]

So it's nothing but speculation and reading tea leaves. Got it.

Call it whatever you want, but my years of experience with software design (and some exposure to GPU programming) tell me that anything else wouldn't make any sense. Appel ditched OpenGL because drivers were notoriously difficult to write and maintain. They are not going to wade in that swamp again when they can trivially implement it on top of a stable and predictable API they already have — and then literally forget about it.

 

[Tafkaeken]

If you guys were to guess, what kind of performance will we see? Will it be enough for say medium setting 1080p 30fps?
Personally, I just want to be able to run CIV, paradox grand strategy and the Total war titles. I hope this can be enough for that.

 

[jeanlain]

I don't have proof of this of course, but it shouldn't be difficult to get by looking inside the OpenGL framework on an M1 Mac.

For the M1 GPU, sure, but you first referred to AMD openGL.

 

[jeanlain]

Because Metal based x86-64 apps have barely any speed penalty in Rosetta 2 vs. non-Metal/OpenGL based x86 apps? They've stated as much in both many WWDC videos (including the keynote) as well as this week's presentation. Metal makes Rosetta 2 a non-issue for running Intel Mac games on Apple Silicon Macs.

The fact remains that any X86 compiled code will run at least 25-30% slower than native, and that the Metal code of Shadow of the Tomb Raider is not optimised for the Apple GPU. I expect the game to run even better once Feral port it to the M1 Macs.

 

[leman]

For the M1 GPU, sure, but you first referred to AMD openGL.

My bad! I meant to write "ARM" ? AMD, ARM, enough to get my old brain confused.