M1 chip fast my ass...

[JMacHack]

Are you by any chance talking about games? Despite what you think gaming makes up a very small market of Mac users. Many of us don't buy a Mac to game with. We have consoles for that.

Games is the common retreat for PC users to “prove” superiority. They tend to overestimate the importance of games to a platform. It’s an ego thing.

 

[4743913]

Maybe try comparing the two with actual work.(?)

or playing pc games.(?)

 

[leman]

Games is the common retreat for PC users to “prove” superiority. They tend to overestimate the importance of games to a platform. It’s an ego thing.

Well, I like games. A lot of people like games, too. There is nothing wrong with wanting Macs be good for games.

 

[LeeW]

Well, I like games. A lot of people like games, too. There is nothing wrong with wanting Macs be good for games.

And me, although I don't really play that much these days due to lack of time and an age thing I guess. But in fairness I mostly play WoW casually, it is enough for me. On the M1? Amazing performance vs previous Mac Minis I had. No issues at all at max settings, run silent and cool.

 

[ahurst]

Hehe, alright then. Guess you weren't around for PPC to Intel. Although funnily enough that transition was a massive gain in ability to run software. Now when Rosetta 2 gets pulled this time around and removes ALL x86 execution ability, it'll be a devastating loss

The removal of Rosetta v1 in Lion sucked for those of us with the odd PowerPC app we wanted to keep running (e.g. AppleWorks for recovering/converting old documents), but I think the issue there was that Apple had licensed the technology from another company so they had to pay big royalties for continued support and licence to use it. From my understanding, Rosetta v2 is completely in-house so there's no similar pressure to drop support as soon as convenient.

Also, the OSX PowerPC era spanned at most 5 years (10.0 was released March 2001, the first Intel macs were released January 2006) whereas the Intel Mac era has lasted almost 3 times as long (January 2006 - November 2020) with a much larger developer base. As such, there's a lot more reason for Apple to maintain Rosetta 2 than Rosetta 1, so I'm optimistic it'll last longer than Rosetta 1's 5 years.

Anyway, when they finally do sunset Rosetta 2, the solution for people who still need a few x86 apps will be the same as the one for people who still needed a few PPC apps 10 years ago: either keep an old version of macOS on a separate partition for when you need it, or pick up a cheap old Mac that can natively run your old apps. No need for AppleWorks on my Intel Mac when I can run it on a real iBook!

 

[casperes1996]

Neither do I. Workstation is still a desk solution though, something like a Dell Precision 7920 or a Mac Pro. Shipping off we do to clusters with thousands of CPU cores and many GPUs, while a workstation is more like up to 48/64 CPU cores and 4 GPUs max.

No fair enough. Macs can absolutely occupy the workstation space too for specific uses, like audio/video production. I guess what I was more going for was really just "You wouldn't use a Mac if you need CUDA", haha.

Depends on what you're working on I guess. We're focussed on AI research, working together with car and car parts manufacturers (BMW, Volvo, Audi, Continental, mobileye, etc.), robotics manufacturers like Kuka, ABB, Boston Dynamics, Kawada, etc., but also other autonomous systems with NASA/ESA and a few others. Others might not have those requirements. Our security research group is really a mix of Lenovo and Macs, I'd say the Lenovo/Linux guys are more "applied" research and those doing theoretical work (post quantum cryptography, etc.) are more on macOS.

Agreed. AI, ML and robotics are way outside my wheelhouse. I work on distributed systems mostly. A fair bit of cryptology (mostly theoretical) and computational geometry. My prior work focused on kernel code

 

[m1maverick]

Ah yes, the infamous „production workflow“ of turning the laptop on and off repeatedly. Big fan ?

In SSD versus HD discussions this along with starting applications were presented as the holy grail of benchmarks. Was that an error on the part of those who argued in favor of them?

 

[toobravetosave]

correct me if I'm wrong but I think it's literally impossible to get a laptop with similar performance to the m1 air for the same price ?

 

[JMacHack]

Well, I like games. A lot of people like games, too. There is nothing wrong with wanting Macs be good for games.

I feel like I didn’t communicate well, every time Apple releases any computer, there’s always someone there to complain that X is better with PC.

Before it was “I can build a superior system!”
Now it’s reduced to “My PC starts up half a second faster from cold boot!”

But someone’s always there to say “Gotcha!” As if somehow they think they’re “owning” Mac users.

The goalposts get moved until it comes to gaming, which becomes the single most important factor in performance and support. Nothing else matters except gaming performance at that stage of the argument.

Every time Mac vs PC is brought up it devolves to this point, “Mac bad because no games!” Point out that it has some games (including very popular ones!), and then the argument becomes “Mac bad because no HARDCORE games!”

The idea that the entire Mac platform somehow hinges on getting a certain subset of games (often tailored to the tastes of the arguer) is stupid and myopic.

 

[casperes1996]

The idea that the entire Mac platform somehow hinges on getting a certain subset of games (often tailored to the tastes of the arguer) is stupid and myopic.

What on Earth makes you think it's only a subset of games? If it's not *all* the games, the goalpost will just get moved again

Kidding aside, I genuinely would love to see more games on the Mac and for the Mac to be a higher priority in video game development. I love macOS and I enjoy video games. - A lack of video games will not push me away from the Mac because other conveniences, workflows and uses will trump it out and I can always use other devices for games - but it sure would be nice to have greater game support on the Mac. The lack of games doesn't invalidate the platform, but it is a fair critique that will make some people prefer not using a Mac which is completely fair the same way that the lack of a nice command line environment and other software I like that's Mac only would make me rather not change platform for more than a dual boot poke-about

 

[darngooddesign]

In SSD versus HD discussions this along with starting applications were presented as the holy grail of benchmarks. Was that an error on the part of those who argued in favor of them?

Reading and writing data is the most important benchmark for a drive; however, that is not the most important benchmark for a computer.

 

[Argon_]

What on Earth makes you think it's only a subset of games? If it's not *all* the games, the goalpost will just get moved again

Kidding aside, I genuinely would love to see more games on the Mac and for the Mac to be a higher priority in video game development. I love macOS and I enjoy video games. - A lack of video games will not push me away from the Mac because other conveniences, workflows and uses will trump it out and I can always use other devices for games - but it sure would be nice to have greater game support on the Mac. The lack of games doesn't invalidate the platform, but it is a fair critique that will make some people prefer not using a Mac which is completely fair the same way that the lack of a nice command line environment and other software I like that's Mac only would make me rather not change platform for more than a dual boot poke-about

Apple silicon moves the goalposts for Mac gaming. No longer are the majority of Macs sold equipped with Intel iGPUs. AAA games run on M1 equivalent hardware, and software follows the market.

 

[casperes1996]

Apple silicon moves the goalposts for Mac gaming. No longer are the majority of Macs sold equipped with Intel iGPUs. AAA games run on M1 equivalent hardware, and software follows the market.

I agree, however there's still a factor of market share and development efforts. Macs are more capable for games with M1 than with Intel iGPUs but they still make up a very small portion of the gaming market, so while I am fundamentally optimistic about the future of Mac gaming, I am also not expecting any dramatic changes that put Macs near equivalency to other platforms on that front. In the very long term we may see minor gains in catalogue availability but I don't foresee massive changes

 

[Argon_]

I agree, however there's still a factor of market share and development efforts. Macs are more capable for games with M1 than with Intel iGPUs but they still make up a very small portion of the gaming market, so while I am fundamentally optimistic about the future of Mac gaming, I am also not expecting any dramatic changes that put Macs near equivalency to other platforms on that front. In the very long term we may see minor gains in catalogue availability but I don't foresee massive changes

Equivalency, no, but computer hardware follows the trickle down theory of Ronald Reagan's dreams. A hypothetical $1100 ASi Mac Mini packing an M1X might be out of a gamer's price range, then attainable two years later at 900 while still able to play AAA games. A lot of people are spending that much on GPUs alone.

 

[bobcomer]

Macs are more capable for games with M1 than with Intel iGPUs

Gamers don't use iGPU's.

Heck, my desktop has discrete video and I don't even game. So does my main laptop. Both my Mac's have iGPU's, but they really have enough video for my needs. The only reason I go discrete, is swapability in case of failure. (well, that and early intel iGPU's were real stinkers reliability-wise)

As for M? games, they need market share, pure and simple, it isn't going to happen until/if then.

 

[bobcomer]

Reading and writing data is the most important benchmark for a drive; however, that is not the most important benchmark for a computer.

If the machine has enough RAM, storage is most definitely the biggest bottleneck in normal every work. That's why I stopped buying HD's for PC's a long time ago.

If you give me the choice of a fast, big, SSD, and 16GB(+) RAM, almost anything better than the lowest end of the lowest end of processors would be enough. That's one of the reasons I'm not so impressed with the M1 in an MBA. I really don't notice much difference between it and an i5 or i7 from 3 or 4 generations back.

 

[toobravetosave]

Look I love my m1 mac but let's not pretend gaming compatibility isn't abysmal. The few games that it can run are great, sure, but a significant amount of new games both aaa and indie are windows only and lack of bootcamp compatibility is a big factor here.

I'm sorry but it's pure fantasy to think this platform is gonna bring real gaming to mac

 

[toobravetosave]

Equivalency, no, but computer hardware follows the trickle down theory of Ronald Reagan's dreams. A hypothetical $1100 ASi Mac Mini packing an M1X might be out of a gamer's price range, then attainable two years later at 900 while still able to play AAA games. A lot of people are spending that much on GPUs alone.

for this price you can just build a mediocre gaming desktop

 

[casperes1996]

Gamers don't use iGPU's.

Heck, my desktop has discrete video and I don't even game. So does my main laptop. Both my Mac's have iGPU's, but they really have enough video for my needs. The only reason I go discrete, is swapability in case of failure. (well, that and early intel iGPU's were real stinkers reliability-wise)

As for M? games, they need market share, pure and simple, it isn't going to happen until/if then.

I don't know where I said people who care about games use iGPUs. The point I was making is that compared to the machines they replace, the M1 enabled Macs do significantly boost the respective Macs' competencies for gaming, assuming said games run on macOS. This means that if a game is already being ported to macOS, the barrier to entry is lower hardware wise. It does not mean I expect people who really care about games to run on those machines, or Macs at all for that matter - But if you want an MBA and "oh hey I might play a game every now and then too but it doesn't really matter", then M1 is a huge win over the prior Intel iGPU only Macs which may in the long run contribute to a higher market share in the gaming market, if only a tiny tiny tiny increase

As I said, I don't really expect any major chances up or down on the Mac gaming front

 

[leman]

I feel like I didn’t communicate well, every time Apple releases any computer, there’s always someone there to complain that X is better with PC.

[...]

The idea that the entire Mac platform somehow hinges on getting a certain subset of games (often tailored to the tastes of the arguer) is stupid and myopic.

Ah yes, I know what you mean. Yeah, there is just no point in arguing with folks like that, their critical worldview ends at "you should like Starbucks because I ever had real coffee"

I agree, however there's still a factor of market share and development efforts. Macs are more capable for games with M1 than with Intel iGPUs but they still make up a very small portion of the gaming market, so while I am fundamentally optimistic about the future of Mac gaming, I am also not expecting any dramatic changes that put Macs near equivalency to other platforms on that front. In the very long term we may see minor gains in catalogue availability but I don't foresee massive changes

I think the progress of last year has been encouraging. We even had Eve Online folks releasing a native M1 client. I think Apple's aggressive strategy of "it's our way or the highway" is working, and it's forcing the dev's hands. Look at all these creative apps suddenly embracing Metal after years of reluctance and half-baked OpenCL patches... and of course, some stuff will be lost, but so far I have to say that they net effect is looking to be positive, with very high potential payouts in the future.

In SSD versus HD discussions this along with starting applications were presented as the holy grail of benchmarks. Was that an error on the part of those who argued in favor of them?

The SSD vs. HDD debate has ended half a decade ago, and SSDs have many more advantages that speeding up the boot sequence. Modern Macs have instantaneous resume from sleep, consume practically no power while sleeping and can go without shutting down for many months. It's simply not a relevant benchmark anymore. And sure, there are people who prefer to turn their computer off every time, but frankly, why waste resources (and potentially compromising security) optimizing the experience for a small subset of users that are adamant on using the devices in a suboptimal way?

 

[Kung gu]

Guys can't wait for proper Mac SoC to beat the crap out of the M1, next week.

I/O wise, performance wise and graphics wise, the next Mac chip is the true Mac chip.

 

[KingOfPain]

Can you run PCem, which emulates an x86 Win9x era PC, on Mac? You cannot. Can you run Xenia to emulate the Xbox 360 on Mac? You cannot. Can you run PCSX2 to emulate PS2 games? You cannot (without great difficulty). Can you run RPCS3 to emulate PS3 games on Mac? You cannot. Can you run Spine, the up-and-coming PS4 emulator, on Mac? You cannot. Can you run Cemu to emulate Wii U games on Mac? You cannot. Can you run Yuzu to emulate Switch games on Mac? You cannot.

You‘ll have to compile PCem, but it definitely works:

GitHub - PCemOnMac/PCemV17macOS: Port of the PCem PC emulator for macOS. Comes with OpenGL 3.0 support built-in

Port of the PCem PC emulator for macOS. Comes with OpenGL 3.0 support built-in - PCemOnMac/PCemV17macOS

github.com

PCSX2 only works with Rosetta, so controllers unfortunately don‘t work, but it runs as well:

GitHub - TellowKrinkle/pcsx2: PCSX2 - The Playstation 2 Emulator

PCSX2 - The Playstation 2 Emulator. Contribute to TellowKrinkle/pcsx2 development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

For some of the other emulators I somehow doubt they run that well on a Windows PC either. Some are even closed source, so it‘s impossible to port them.

Two you forgot to mention have been native for months: Dolphin and Flycast.
The developers of Dolphin apparently were so impressed by the efficiency on the M1 that they wrote an article about it:

Temptation of the Apple: Dolphin on macOS M1

From the announcement made on November 10th, 2020, users have had high hopes for the new Apple M1 devices. With its powerful Apple Silicon processor smashing benchmarks all over the place, users and developers were both asking if a native Dolphin build would be possible. Now we have the answer...

dolphin-emu.org

Not really available and probably doesn‘t run that well, but one developer started virtualizing a Nintendo Switch on an M1:

Developer successfully emulates Nintendo Switch games on Apple M1 Macs

A developer has successfully pulled off emulating Nintendo Switch games on their Apple Silicon Mac. A developer that goes by the name Sera Tonin Brocious (@daeken) on Twitter has shared a clip of Super Mario Odyssey’s Nintendo Switch version running on an M1 Mac. They were able to achieve this...

the8-bit.com

Long story short, do at least a little bit of research before you make a whole bunch of false claims!
I have a lot of emulators running natively on an M1 Mac. Those without dynamic recompilation often just need to be compiled to be native. For those with dynarecs it depends on if there is an Android version; if there is then most have an ARM64 code generator, which also works for Apple Silicon.

Yes there are some very specific emulators that don‘t run yet or will never be ported, but those emulators are often so specific that they often run on anything but Windows. That‘s a design decision and has nothing to do with the Apple Silicon platform.
I‘m pretty sure a dynarec from PPC to ARM64 is much easier to develop than from PPC to x86-64, just to pick an example.

 

[bobcomer]

I don't know where I said people who care about games use iGPUs.

You didn't, but you implied that because the Mac's have better iGPU's, it somehow would make a difference to gamers.

"I agree, however there's still a factor of market share and development efforts. Macs are more capable for games with M1 than with Intel iGPUs..."

The point I was making is that compared to the machines they replace, the M1 enabled Macs do significantly boost the respective Macs' competencies for gaming, assuming said games run on macOS. This means that if a game is already being ported to macOS, the barrier to entry is lower hardware wise.

Sorry, no. Since Mac's don't have discrete graphics, it changes nothing. If you're only talking very light gaming, yes that would be right, but not serious gaming and given the discussion, it seems everyone is talking about getting serious gaming for the Mac.

We'll see what the M1X, or M2 or whatever changes things, but I serious doubt they'll be in the discrete graphics category, as it doesn't really make sense to put that in every Mac. (in dollars sense) I know I don't want my next Mac to cost $1000 more for discrete level graphics since I don't need that, but I do want more high performance cores as I do use those, so I would spend more on that.

This means that if a game is already being ported to macOS, the barrier to entry is lower hardware wise. It does not mean I expect people who really care about games to run on those machines, or Macs at all for that matter - But if you want an MBA and "oh hey I might play a game every now and then too but it doesn't really matter", then M1 is a huge win over the prior Intel iGPU only Macs which may in the long run contribute to a higher market share in the gaming market, if only a tiny tiny tiny increase

I think we agree more than disagree.

Though I really have a bad taste taste in my mouth with regards to M1's graphics capabilities. It's soo limited and I've hit too many bugs to think any better of it. Me buying a MBA was really a mistake, I should have waited for V2.

As I said, I don't really expect any major chances up or down on the Mac gaming front

That we agree on, at least for now. I really wouldn't mind Apple making a serious gaming level Mac to increase market penetration. Competition is good!

 

[leman]

You didn't, but you implied that because the Mac's have better iGPU's, it somehow would make a difference to gamers.

Why wouldn’t it? If Apple iGPUs are as fast as mainstream dGPUs, why does it even matter? At some point the nomenclature distinction kind of becomes irrelevant, don’t you think?

 

[Steve8383]

don't fall for the hype