In 3 years, 50% of all computers capable of playing AAA games will be Macs

[Ethosik]

I guess I am repeating what @GrumpyCoder was saying. The hardware isn't really the problem, macOS is (well and market share). @leman is pretty sure Macs can play CyberPunk 2077 right now, and I agree really every Mac that Apple sells right now can play CyberPunk, and the ones that exist with only Intel integrated graphics can run the game at a low framerate.

I posted earlier but as a game developer it is purely 100% marketshare. If macs had higher marketshare, games would be ported with adjustments. Just like how games make it on the Nintendo Switch which had an outdated GPU at launch IMO. But the switch is getting games with graphical downgrades because it’s a popular system.

My iMac with a 5700XT is just as good as my PC with a 5700XT. There is no inherit “Mac” problem that makes a 5700XT feel like integrated graphics like people here claim. It’s ALL about optimizations. Even on the all mighty Windows this is a problem at times - most recent is Final Fantasy 7 Remake which has got to be the worst port I have seen since Batman Arkham Knight. Even on my friend’s RTX 3090 it’s horrible. Micro stutters all the time.

 

[Ethosik]

With previous Intel Macs, a major reason cited for why few AAA games were ported to the Mac was not just the market share of the Macs overall but that the most common models sold had weak Intel HD graphics. Thus very few Macs had the potential to give good gaming experiences for AAA games. Getting 8 FPS on the lowest settings is not a good experience and that’s why the recommended minimum specifications for that game are much higher. So developers saw it as a fraction of a fraction who would actually be able to play their games.

@senttoschool ‘s basic point is good one: that by increasing the power of the base Mac means every Mac sold will be able to deliver much better performance and be capable of driving good gaming experiences in a way that previously most Intel Macs sold couldn’t.

This doesn’t automatically translate into more games definitely coming to the Mac but it’s fair to say one of the commonly cited impediments to that happening has been obviated. You could argue that the M1 adds others and others remain, but weak graphics hardware in the most commonly sold models is no longer one of them.

That really doesn’t line up when AAA games call for medium specs GPU that not even $500 Dell systems have. I’d wager that there are more gaming capable macs than PCs out there. My parent’s brand new $1,000 Intel Windows laptop is integrated graphics.

 

[diamond.g]

I posted earlier but as a game developer it is purely 100% marketshare. If macs had higher marketshare, games would be ported with adjustments. Just like how games make it on the Nintendo Switch which had an outdated GPU at launch IMO. But the switch is getting games with graphical downgrades because it’s a popular system.

My iMac with a 5700XT is just as good as my PC with a 5700XT. There is no inherit “Mac” problem that makes a 5700XT feel like integrated graphics like people here claim. It’s ALL about optimizations. Even on the all mighty Windows this is a problem at times - most recent is Final Fantasy 7 Remake which has got to be the worst port I have seen since Batman Arkham Knight. Even on my friend’s RTX 3090 it’s horrible. Micro stutters all the time.

I would blame UE4 for the micro stutters as, from what I have seen of Digital Foundry reviews, it is a standing issue with the Engine that we all hope is fixed with UE5.

I still think the market share call is slightly disenginuous. There are more macs than PS5's yet you don't see developers saying they are going to wait to make PS5 games until the market improves (same for Xbox). And 100% of the folks that have a PS5 (or Xbox) are not guaranteed to buy your game either.

 

[Ethosik]

I would blame UE4 for the micro stutters as, from what I have seen of Digital Foundry reviews, it is a standing issue with the Engine that we all hope is fixed with UE5.

I still think the market share call is slightly disenginuous. There are more macs than PS5's yet you don't see developers saying they are going to wait to make PS5 games until the market improves (same for Xbox). And 100% of the folks that have a PS5 (or Xbox) are not guaranteed to buy your game either.

There aren’t many PS5 exclusives for that reason. Nearly everything is still available on PS4. And consoles are different. Marketshare doesn’t start at 50%. Especially with chip shortages and other stuff. Even trailers we just saw are cross generation.

 

[diamond.g]

There aren’t many PS5 exclusives for that reason. Nearly everything is still available on PS4. And consoles are different. Marketshare doesn’t start at 50%. Especially with chip shortages and other stuff. Even trailers we just saw are cross generation.

It is also the #1 reason why folks feel like games are not next Gen yet. The UE5 Matrix demo is one of the few showcases for “next gen”.

 

[Ethosik]

It is also the #1 reason why folks feel like games are not next Gen yet. The UE5 Matrix demo is one of the few showcases for “next gen”.

And I’m thankful for it. As someone who works two jobs, I have been trying to get a PS5 for a very long time work no luck so I’m glad I can keep using my PS4. Same with a 30 series RTX.

 

[JouniS]

The ethos of the Mac is that hardware and software should work together. That’s why the Mac is the Mac. For the scenario you describe to be plausible, Apple would have to make many more SKUs for every permutation to satisfy your needs, or to have many different companies making Macs (which was tried, and didn’t work well).

This particular problem was already solved with interchangeable parts and modular designs in the 19th century. With modularity, you need fewer types of different parts, take better advantage of economies of scale, and make products that match user requirements better. Apple just decided that the power efficiency gains from tighter integration are worth the increased complexity and costs and the poorer suitability for niche tasks.

 

[JMacHack]

This particular problem was already solved with interchangeable parts and modular designs in the 19th century. With modularity, you need fewer types of different parts, take better advantage of economies of scale, and make products that match user requirements better. Apple just decided that the power efficiency gains from tighter integration are worth the increased complexity and costs and the poorer suitability for niche tasks.

And yet despite the interoperability and interchangeable parts that commodity PCs have, using Windows or configuring Linux can be a painful experience. I know, I’ve done it.

And this is exactly my point, this argument fundamentally boils down to changing the Mac to fit the PC mold.

A method, I believe, is antithetical to what makes the Mac great. This mentality would have never seen Apple Silicon released, for example.

And oddly enough, despite the argued inefficiency of building non-modular computers, Apple themselves are very successful, have very happy customers, and make great products.

The only people who are disgruntled are the people whining for games.

 

[JMacHack]

Actually I think the best way to illustrate my point is with a thought experiment:

Let’s build a hypothetical gaming Mac.
1. Because the most ubiquitous architecture for games consoles and PCs is x86, we have to use an Intel or AMD processor.
2. Because the two major vendors of GPUs are AMD and NVidia, we should use one of those.
3. Our own libraries won’t work so let’s just use Vulkan or DirectX.
4. Likewise, if we use DX, we need to use Windows. It also has the widest compatibility with games.

Congratulations, we’ve built a PC. What makes it any different from any other vendor?

 

[Ethosik]

Here is something else to consider. If Apple spent millions getting a AAA exclusivity deal, would that make the Mac more "gaming" focused? So the Mac would have ONE AAA. What about the thousands of other games that Windows has? Would this be enough to transition people away from Windows? I don't know about you, but the vast majority of the people I know do not just play one game (not considering eSports here). I have 300 games in my Steam library. If the Mac suddenly gets one (or heck even 10) MUST HAVE AAA games, I still would not ditch my Windows computer because I still have those 300 games I want to play.

It will likely be 10+ years before we see this shift due to wanting to play older titles. Even then, I don't think it will ever fully compete with Windows.

 

[JouniS]

And yet despite the interoperability and interchangeable parts that commodity PCs have, using Windows or configuring Linux can be a painful experience. I know, I’ve done it.

That's because there are too many distinct part types. Apple could use modularity to offer the same CPU / GPU / RAM / SSD / display options as today, but with more configuration options and lower complexity.

The only people who are disgruntled are the people whining for games.

And the people who want a bigger display, or more RAM, or more internal storage. If you need something other than a "balanced" configuration, the Mac options often don't look that good.

Outside gaming, I've been primarily a Mac user for ~15 years. There have been periods when Apple didn't sell any desktops or laptops that were worth buying (from my perspective). Sometimes those periods overlapped and I seriously considered switching back to Linux due to the low quality of hardware. For example, when MBPs came with touchbar and iMacs had fusion drives. The iMac 2020 and the MBP 2021 did a lot to convince me that Apple has not yet become purely a consumer electronics company.

 

[JMacHack]

And the people who want a bigger display, or more RAM, or more internal storage. If you need something other than a "balanced" configuration, the Mac options often don't look that good.

That’s just the way things go, if you want a niche configuration you need to be prepared to pay more. (And before anyone jumps me about RAM and storage upgrade costs on Macs, yes I agree, they’re bad, but that’s not my point.)

On “modularity” in the real world: It never works out perfectly.

For example, recently I was working on my grandpas old truck, the 700-r4 transmission failed. It was over my head so I took it to a family friend to swap in a TH350.

The transmission bolted in place fine, but we discovered that the throttle kickdown cable, the speedometer cable housing, and other parts were not interchangeable.

This, despite both transmissions being based on the same Powerglide design from the 50s, and coming from a company notorious with re using every part it can.

Did GM do it out of sheer malice? Or did they do it specifically to waste money making more parts? Maybe for ***** and giggles? Not likely, there was probably some design choices that necessitated the non-interchangeable parts.

Modularity is iron clad in concept, but it doesn’t necessarily work out in the real world. And I think Apple is providing a nice balance.

 

[Chozes]

Yeah Square Enix dropped the ball on the PC release.

Not like it matters as hardly anyone will play on PC. Good example of something unlikely to get much ports.

 

[GrumpyCoder]

Some more info on DX12 support in Crossover:

In 2022 DirectX 12 support is a top priority. That being said, our CrossOver developers are working through the challenge of developing support for DirectX 12 in two distinct gaming environments. The obstacles in Linux are not the same as the obstacles in Mac. Let's take a look at how CrossOver supports DirectX 12 and what the challenges are.

CrossOver uses VKD3D to run DirectX 12 games. VKD3D is a 3D graphics library built on top of Vulkan. Currently, lots of work is being done to improve VKD3D performance. With the help of the Vulkan descriptor indexing extension, which allows for functionality similar to DirectX 12 descriptor heaps, Vulkan descriptors are written less often and far less GPU memory is used. As a result, VKD3D can support games that use enough descriptors to require resources from Tier 2 and Tier 3 hardware. All that means support for DirectX 12 on Linux is arriving in 2022 with CrossOver 22.

As I said before, macOS and Metal is a different story:

Support for DirectX 12 on Mac is another story. Why, you ask?

On Mac, there is an additional layer of complexity when trying to use VKD3D for DirectX 12 games. That layer of complexity is Metal. Metal is Apple’s low-level, low-overhead, hardware-accelerated graphic and compute shader API. It was introduced back in 2014, and was designed specifically for Apple's GPUs. Metal does provide support for some other GPUs, but because it was geared for Apple hardware it is different from OpenGL, Vulkan, or D3D12 and its predecessors.

In general, Metal does tessellation differently, and is missing geometry shaders and transform feedback. Specific to DirectX 12 and Metal, there is an issue with limits on resources. Generally, games need access to at least one million shader resource views (SRVs). Access to that many SRVs requires resource binding at the Tier 2 level. Metal only supports about 500,000 resources per argument buffer, so Tier 2 resource binding isn’t possible. Metal’s limit of half a million is sufficient for Vulkan descriptor indexing, but not for D3D12. This limitation means CrossOver Mac can't support Tier 2 binding and therefore a lot of DirectX 12 games will not run.

Another problem is that DirectX 12 uses GPU virtual addresses (VAs) to refer to resources for several things; most significantly ray tracing. According to Vulkan, their buffer device address (BDA) extension allows for the creation of complex data structures required for ray tracing, and useful for DirectX 12 porting. However, Apple has yet to add support for VAs or BDAs, insisting that existing argument buffer support is sufficient for what games want to do. While this may be technically true, it requires game designers to make a targeted effort to run on Metal. It is difficult for translation layers (i.e., MoltenVK or VKD3D) to support BDAs/GPU VAs on top of argument buffers, because argument buffers require you to encode the buffer reference into a separate argument buffer, which makes it more comparable to a Vulkan descriptor set or a DirectX 12 descriptor heap.

Considering these obstacles, we believe support for DirectX 12 on Mac could arrive as soon as CrossOver 23. Keep an eye out for updates, as we will be posting about the progress of DirectX 12 support on Crossover for Mac when we have news to share.

It is interesting they are targeting Crossover 23 (2023?) for DX12 support. There's no indication Apple is removing obstacles by adding features to their hardware or software, so they'll have to find a way around it for DX12 support on macOS. I do wonder how. As I said before, using compute shaders comes to mind which can issue render calls, but that would mean significant overhead, the question is, are they going to settle on this to have DX12 compatibility. I'm not sure if they can get around all compatibility issues with it. But it's a start and certainly the easy way out comparing to native ports from DX12 to Metal (which they don't do anyway).

 

[Feyl]

Wake me up in afterlife when this will be true.

 

[UBS28]

The future of gaming for MAC is Microsoft. It is called xCloud.

I don’t see AAA games coming to MAC as the biggest developers for MAC have abandoned MAC.

 

[dmr727]

And 100% of the folks that have a PS5 (or Xbox) are not guaranteed to buy your game either.

But they are guaranteed to at least be gamers. What percentage of Mac users are even gamers? I'd imagine that's how a developer would see potential market share.

 

[diamond.g]

But they are guaranteed to at least be gamers. What percentage of Mac users are even gamers? I'd imagine that's how a developer would see potential market share.

They could also be "scalpers" waiting to make bank on the systems with no intention of playing/buying any games...

 

[dmr727]

AAA gaming is such a huge business - I can't imagine there's not a team of folks at each studio that do nothing but collect data and figure out whether a port makes financial sense. Money trumps all - if they thought a Mac port would generate enough revenue to justify the effort, they'd be doing it. The greedy folks at Bethesda have dipped their hands into the pockets of Skyrim fans how many times now, yet nothing for the Mac? And that's a decade old title that I bet will run at 60fps on my friggin' smart-fridge - clearly hardware isn't the problem here.

 

[diamond.g]

AAA gaming is such a huge business - I can't imagine there's not a team of folks at each studio that do nothing but collect data and figure out whether a port makes financial sense. Money trumps all - if they thought a Mac port would generate enough revenue to justify the effort, they'd be doing it. The greedy folks at Bethesda have dipped their hands into the pockets of Skyrim fans how many times now, yet nothing for the Mac? And that's a decade old title that I bet will run at 60fps on my friggin' smart-fridge - clearly hardware isn't the problem here.

The Epic Games store is giving away a game each day and so far every one of them look like they can run on existing macOS hardware just fine. Shoot todays game (Pathfinder) seems to be able to run on Intel HD 3000 GPU yet there appears to be no macOS version.

 

[leman]

AAA gaming is such a huge business - I can't imagine there's not a team of folks at each studio that do nothing but collect data and figure out whether a port makes financial sense. Money trumps all - if they thought a Mac port would generate enough revenue to justify the effort, they'd be doing it. The greedy folks at Bethesda have dipped their hands into the pockets of Skyrim fans how many times now, yet nothing for the Mac? And that's a decade old title that I bet will run at 60fps on my friggin' smart-fridge - clearly hardware isn't the problem here.

Hardware is not a problem, culture is.

The Epic Games store is giving away a game each day and so far every one of them look like they can run on existing macOS hardware just fine. Shoot todays game (Pathfinder) seems to be able to run on Intel HD 3000 GPU yet there appears to be no macOS version.

All owlcat pathfinder games have a Mac version.

 

[diamond.g]

Hardware is not a problem, culture is.



All owlcat pathfinder games have a Mac version.

Is there a way to get the Mac version from EGS, or does one have to buy it on the Mac App Store?


EDIT: I see the game is on Steam and the Steam store has the Mac version listed. I wonder why the EGS doesn't.

 

[dmr727]

Hardware is not a problem, culture is.

Culture of the gamers, or culture of the developers? I don't think there's a lot of intersection between gamer 'culture' and folks that own Macs. I feel like the developers are simply responding to the market.

 

[leman]

Culture of the gamers, or culture of the developers?

Both of course, but I primarily had culture of developers in mind.

A developer who's sole purpose is to make money probably won't be releasing games for macOS any time soon — there are more profitable and easier ways to execute cash grabs. Someone mentioned Bethesda before — those guys a prime example of a studio that stopped caring about their users or even making good games — the only thing Todd Howard is interested in is maximising profits, even if it means re-releasing the same game 100x times.

It is quite interesting that majority of Mac ports are maintained by smaller studios who are actually passionate about their customers and simply want to deliver a good game that a large user base can enjoy. For example, look at Larian — do you think that they are making their games run on Mac because they expect high profits? That's silly — most likely someone high up in the company (maybe even Sven Vinkle himself) is a Mac user and wants to play their games on their own personal computer. Of course, there are also cases like Blizzard — I would assume that Mac users are contributing a non-negligible revenue to WoW.

I think what will happen going forward is that Mac users interest in gaming will be steadily increasing, as will the capability of Mac hardware and software. In a couple of years, the stigma of Macs being "bad for gaming" will likely diminish, and who knows, maybe some "big" for-profit studios will see some money in Mac users. Personally, I don't really want Activision or EA crap (and the toxicity associated with the respective gaming community) coming to the Mac, but we'll see.

 

[JMacHack]

Both of course, but I primarily had culture of developers in mind.

A developer who's sole purpose is to make money probably won't be releasing games for macOS any time soon — there are more profitable and easier ways to execute cash grabs. Someone mentioned Bethesda before — those guys a prime example of a studio that stopped caring about their users or even making good games — the only thing Todd Howard is interested in is maximising profits, even if it means re-releasing the same game 100x times.

It is quite interesting that majority of Mac ports are maintained by smaller studios who are actually passionate about their customers and simply want to deliver a good game that a large user base can enjoy. For example, look at Larian — do you think that they are making their games run on Mac because they expect high profits? That's silly — most likely someone high up in the company (maybe even Sven Vinkle himself) is a Mac user and wants to play their games on their own personal computer. Of course, there are also cases like Blizzard — I would assume that Mac users are contributing a non-negligible revenue to WoW.

I think what will happen going forward is that Mac users interest in gaming will be steadily increasing, as will the capability of Mac hardware and software. In a couple of years, the stigma of Macs being "bad for gaming" will likely diminish, and who knows, maybe some "big" for-profit studios will see some money in Mac users. Personally, I don't really want Activision or EA crap (and the toxicity associated with the respective gaming community) coming to the Mac, but we'll see.

People keep talking about Blizz like it’s separate from Activision. It’s not and hasn’t been for a long time. Kotick runs the show.