Intel HD 6000 can also be quite usable and better off than current RTX 3080 situation. I'm using one right now! But I'm not sure this claim is useful to anyone.
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M1 Pro/Max's GPU performance for gaming is quite poor.
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No, I don't own this game. Looking around I see mention of ~20% performance difference between macOS and Bootcamp which is expected for most ports.
But I mean something different. Based on the Apple Silicon benchmarks I believe that this is a bad port for Apple Silicon specifically. Given at performance in other games (such as WoW, BG3 or Metro), I see no reason why Tomb Raider cannot perform better on Apple Silicon
That’s fine. No need to get upset. Ignoring the fact that you can’t legally run macOS on a windows pc, if you’re happy with your solution fantastic.
I thought the discussion was about gaming performance of the M1 macs, not ecosystem. If you wish to change the topic now you’ve been corrected, feel free to start a different thread.
Enjoy you’re 70s games.
It’s relevant because you said workstation cards are identical to consumer cards, yet they’re not.
I use my PC for stuff other than gaming too, but you know that’s not the point I am making or have ever made in this thread.
Apples marketing compared performance to gpus and laptops focussed on gaming, which is fine. They declared equal performance. Yet they don’t match that performance in the task that those chips are aimed at. This is totally expected.
The apple chip does match or exceed performance in some specific professional workflow tasks, which is impressive considering the power and heat etc.
My comments in this thread were in response to people saying “of course. Macs don’t game” which is obvious. But if apple didn’t want to be compared in gaming they shouldn’t have marketed their performance in comparison to machines focussed on gaming.
Of course we want both. But we know that compatibility sucks. Apple Silicon Macs do not magically make the compatibility woes go away, but they don't make them any worse, and they certainly offer the potential to make them better by finally offering good performance AND sane development environment. Something that Intel Mac has severely lacked.
And how is that supposed to make my life better? What if I don't care about running all that fabulous software? What if I care about having a fast laptop with decent battery life? Besides, you are quite optimistic if you think that modern Windows will seamlessly run all legacy applications. If I want to run retro games, I can use a dos emulator anyway.
Compatibility affects ease of setup/use which is the hurdle before performance and hasn't been discussed. Typical users want similar effortless experience to iPad where they can go to app store, download and play so like Steam. Majority won't jump through hoops of buying additional software components and trial and error of running through Crossover, Parallels, etc. They'd buy a console or gaming desktop/laptop before losing their sanity.
Typical users want versality, performance and bang for the buck.
First time users don't care about things they can't do while paying more.
Disagree. I have it on good authority that the only way to judge performance is by running hashcat, preferably by the geniuses at phoronix.
Actually, there is another way: GPU paravirtualization. Which is a fancy expression for something like "sending virtualization instructions straight to the GPU".
The only company that seems to do this really well is... Microsoft, with both WSL-g and their virtualized Windows sandboxes. I tested the sandbox mode, and considering it acts like a virtual machine, I was astonished by smooth it ran. And apparently, WSL-g and runs very, very smoothly.
Here is a demo of WSL-g in action. Notice how fast it runs, considering there's a whole virtualization layer out there:
Most Metal ports of AAA games are actually done by Feral (I won't consider moltenVK games). Other games usually don't have bult-in benchmark tools, or are simply minor games that non one bothered to compare between macOS and Windows, performance-wise. One exception is BL3, which is about twice slower on macOS.
SoTR performance on Metal is between the DX11 and DX12 version of the game on my iMac (closer to DX12 in fact). Linus Sebastian has shown basically identical performance between macOS and bootcamp on the 16" MBP.
Brad Olivier said on the Ars Technica forum that SoTR performs better on macOS than on Windows when using an intel iGPU. Feral spent extra resources to make this game run on entry-level Macs. Most other developers wouldn't have bothered.
Feral does a great Job, they don't do bad ports. If they didn't exist we'd have almost zero AAA games running Metal beyond a few titles using UE4 or Unity IDEs, Blizzard (that are on their way out) and Larian games.
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I consider myself a fairly active gamer. I have never played a game via Crossover. I think I played some old games via Parallels. But almost everything I am interested in is either available for the Mac natively or via GeForce Now. Your mileage might wary.
Considering the other matter you mention — culture is in the state of constant flux. Not long time ago, the idea of x86 on a supercomputer would seem laughable. Today almost all supercomputers were x86 machines. Tomorrow, half of them will be ARM-based. Things change, and in technology they change quickly. Mac is not a good platform for gaming today. It might become one tomorrow though — the big roadblocks (performance, predictability, tooling) have been cleared.
So what if gaming performance is poor. These are pro machines for professional workflows. They are insanely fast for image processing and video editing. They are great for content production.
These machines are not meant for the counter productive gaming consumption which is bringing absolutely nothing to the world! Get a life and use your time wisely!
These machines are not meant for the counter productive gaming consumption which is bringing absolutely nothing to the world! Get a life and use your time wisely!