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M1 Pro/Max's GPU performance for gaming is quite poor.

from i can see CS GO can go with M1 pro at 120fps native...something that no other macbook pro could do that
and i think cs go is under rosetta...
So it depends on the game..
In every game the M1 Max should perform 2-3 times than the M1, that should be a fact
And some metal games native should perform at the 3070/3080mobile level
 
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First of all, mobile 3060 is not "quite disappointing", it's literally twice as fast as Mac laptops ever went.

Second, gaming performance of M1 Max is excellent, the problem is poor quality ports. Someone on Mac gaming reddit posted a screenshot where M1 Max gets 85 fps at max quality settings in 4K in WoW Shadowlands. That's comparable with a desktop RTX 3080. And sure, WoW is a weird case because its CPU heavy and not the most graphically demanding, but still, this shows what is possible with reasonable optimization. This is also reflected by modern synthetic gaming benchmarks such as Wild Life Extreme where Max gets around 80% of a mobile RTX 3080, which is an absolutely stunning result for first-generation GPU that runs at sub 50W.

If a car driven by a professional driver can hit an average 300km/h under ideal condition on a race track, I would obviously never expect a regular person to reach these speeds when driving on a moderately congested highway. But if you can't even maintain the average highway speed, it's very likely that the problem are your driving skills, not the car itself.
 
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mi7chy said:
in reality a GPU is just a compute processor so it doesn't care if the workload is gaming, video editing, AI, crypto mining, hashing, etc.
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It is more complicated than that, because compute and graphics actually will lead to conflicting design decisions as you can only use that much transistors. AMD's GCN was designed to be both good at graphics and computing, but in reality it does not perform better than its competitor in graphics, and now the GCN is rebranded to CDNA which will only be used in compute workloads. It is good enough to do both, but cannot do better than a design optimized for one.

And for a particular software workload, we have even more problems. Different workloads rely on different APIs to communicate with the GPU, and those APIs are both software(platform) specific and hardware specific. Windows has its proprietary API DirectX which is only available on Windows, Nvidia has its proprietary APIs like CUDA which is only available on its hardware, and we have Metal which is only available on macOS. DirectX gains its popularity from the large user-base of Microsoft Windows, CUDA gets its popularity from the domination of the industry by Nvidia. For less popular software platforms(like Linux) and GPU hardware (like AMD/Intel/Mali), we have open-source, cross-platform APIs like OpenGL, OpenCL and Vulkan, which runs on multiple OS and GPUs so that developers want their program be cross-platform can use the same codebase for all platforms. But Apple is hostile to such cross-platform APIs. On macOS, Metal is the only supported Graphics/Compute API that is both native and active. Developers have to use a translation library like MoltenVK to even use a cross-platform API. They don't have to do this on Windows despite Microsoft also has its own proprietary API.

In my opinion Apple really need to rethink its strategy on how to motivate developers, particularly game developers, to use its own API. Apple does not have the large user base like Microsoft and Nvidia has, and the fact that most gamers do not buy Macs makes the situation even worse. This looks like a dead-end: game runs either poorly or does not run at all on Macs which can not convince gamers to buy Macs, and not much gamers actually using Macs cannot convince developers to make a macOS native game either. My opinion is that Apple should break this situation, neither developers nor users should.
 
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leman said:
First of all, mobile 3060 is not "quite disappointing", it's literally twice as fast as Mac laptops ever went.

Second, gaming performance of M1 Max is excellent, the problem is poor quality ports. Someone on Mac gaming reddit posted a screenshot where M1 Max gets 85 fps at max quality settings in 4K in WoW Shadowlands. That's comparable with a desktop RTX 3080. And sure, WoW is a weird case because its CPU heavy and not the most graphically demanding, but still, this shows what is possible with reasonable optimization. This is also reflected by modern synthetic gaming benchmarks such as Wild Life Extreme where Max gets around 80% of a mobile RTX 3080, which is an absolutely stunning result for first-generation GPU that runs at sub 50W.

If a car driven by a professional driver can hit an average 300km/h under ideal condition on a race track, I would obviously never expect a regular person to reach these speeds when driving on a moderately congested highway. But if you can't even maintain the average highway speed, it's very likely that the problem are your driving skills, not the car itself.
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RTX 3060 is disappointing as it is an entry level GPU for gaming laptops.
 
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UBS28 said:
RTX 3060 is disappointing as it is an entry level GPU for gaming laptops.
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From company that has been making GPUs for decades. Why are they even selling it in the first place?
How is Apple able to match it in unoptimized games running under cpu emulation at much less power.

You are right Nvidia has a very disappointing line up. Or Gamers are gullible enough to fall for a mediocre product in their laptops and actually pay money for it.
 
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Gnattu said:
My opinion is that Apple should break this situation, neither developers nor users should.
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Yeah if Apple wants to make the Mac a viable gaming platform (and they may decide it isn't worth it, but I'd say that would be a mistake), then they're going to have entice someone(s) to make a (pun-intended) halo game (multiple such games) to then draw in more games and developers. Unfortunately gaming on Apple devices when it has succeeded like on iOS has often done so because of Apple engineering and persistent game developers in the face of terrible Apple business decisions (when it comes to gaming). And this relies on the business side of Apple understanding the business and development side of gaming. Not something they've been very good at.
 
UBS28 said:
RTX 3060 is disappointing as it is an entry level GPU for gaming laptops.
Click to expand...

"Entry level" for gaming laptops is something like 1650. You people have really weird expectations. Machines with a 3060 (laptop or desktop) or higher represent less than 5% of PCs on the steam hardware survey. How can you call something "entry level" when only one in 20 "gamers" have access to that tech?
 
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leman said:
"Entry level" for gaming laptops is something like 1650. You people have really weird expectations. Machines with a 3060 (laptop or desktop) or higher represent less than 5% of PCs on the steam hardware survey. How can you call something "entry level" when only one in 20 "gamers" have access to that tech?
Click to expand...

An even restricting the statement to the current 3000 lineup, the mobile entry level is actually the 3050.
 
leman said:
"Entry level" for gaming laptops is something like 1650. You people have really weird expectations. Machines with a 3060 (laptop or desktop) or higher represent less than 5% of PCs on the steam hardware survey. How can you call something "entry level" when only one in 20 "gamers" have access to that tech?
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RTX 30 is the latest GPU and yet you are bringing GTX 16 which is one gen before.
 
raknor said:
From company that has been making GPUs for decades. Why are they even selling it in the first place?
How is Apple able to match it in unoptimized games running under cpu emulation at much less power.

You are right Nvidia has a very disappointing line up. Or Gamers are gullible enough to fall for a mediocre product in their laptops and actually pay money for it.
Click to expand...
And yet, Apple compared 32 cores to mobile RTX 3080. CPU emulation has nothing to do with GPU because we are talking about GPU.
 
crazy dave said:
Except Nvidia is still selling that as the entry point just like Apple sells iPhone SEs and 11 … and the 3050 exists. ;)
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Doesn't change the fact that Apple is comparing with RTX 30 series. 32 cores matching with mobile RTX 3060 is a joke. The raw power isn't there for gaming.
 
sunny5 said:
Doesn't change the fact that Apple is comparing with RTX 30 series. 32 cores matching with mobile RTX 3060 is a joke. The raw power isn't there for gaming.
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In order to keep making this statement with a straight face you have to ignore everything else we wrote.
 
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echodriver said:
People who spend $3000+ on a laptop where Apple is promising RTX 3080 mobile performance expecting their GPU to actually deliver that in more than a few synthetic benchmarks and a couple specific apps? Such as games, which is why a lot of people get an RTX 3080 mobile?
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sunny5 said:
Apple compared 32 cores to mobile 3080 and yet it doesn't perform well and that's the problem.
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It performs extremely well for tons of professional workflows. That’s why Apple made those comparisons. Sure A lot of PC people get 3080’s for games, but they also get them for tons of other things. Apple users, when they hear those comparisons, do not think “wow that’s going to be great for games!” They think about their creative workflows. So I’m not sure why all these PC folk keep getting caught up on “well apple compared to Nvidia so they obviously meant these were gonna be good for gaming” when that’s not what they said. Just because you associate Nvidia with games doesn’t mean that’s the point of those comparisons.

Macintosh is known for creative workflows, not gaming. This has been discussed ad nauseam on these forums. Games in general (with exceptions) are not developed for Mac, and even those that run native are likely not optimized as Mac is of course more of an afterthought.

If you are looking for a gaming rig, Mac is not your solution. Go buy a console or a PC. Of course it would be nice to game on a Mac, and there are some options out there, but right now it’s mostly a limitation on the developers part and optimizations for metal. I hope this changes and more devs take Mac seriously for games, but if they don’t, I’ll still be here happily using my Mac for my creative workflows. As that’s why I own a Mac and not a PC (tried it for 3 years and hated it). Games would just be an added bonus.
 
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sunny5 said:
RTX 30 is the latest GPU and yet you are bringing GTX 16 which is one gen before.
Click to expand...

I am bringing the tech that can be currently purchased for an envy-level price. But sure, let's take the 3050, doesn't really make much principal difference since it's not that much faster than 1650. The 3060 is still a huge jump up.
 
sunny5 said:
And yet, Apple compared 32 cores to mobile RTX 3080. CPU emulation has nothing to do with GPU because we are talking about GPU.
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Because the M1 Max matches or outperforms the 3080 in most professional workflows that have been tested so far. These are workstation laptops. They are targeted on professionals, not gamers. Why would Apple advertise gaming on a workstation laptops? Do you see Dell advertising their $5k Precision machines as gaming laptops?
 
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Jorbanead said:
It performs extremely well for tons of professional workflows. That’s why Apple made those comparisons. Sure A lot of people get 3080’s for games, but they also get them for tons of other things. Apple users, when they hear those comparisons, do not think “wow that’s going to be great for games!” They think about their creative workflows. So I’m not sure why all these PC folk keep getting caught up on “well apple compared to Nvidia so they obviously meant these were gonna be good for gaming” when that’s not what they said. Just because you associate Nvidia with games doesn’t mean that’s the point of those comparisons.

Macintosh is known for creative workflows, not gaming. This has been discussed ad nauseam on these forums. Games in general (with exceptions) are not developed for Mac, and even those that run native are likely not optimized as Mac is of course more of an afterthought.

If you are looking for a gaming rig, Mac is not your solution. Go buy a console or a PC. Of course it would be nice to game on a Mac, and there are some options out there, but right now it’s mostly a limitation on the developers part and optimizations for metal.
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Mac is not for gaming is a lame and stupid statement in 2021. x86 can do both gaming and productivity and yet people claiming that Mac is only for productivity. How shameful is that?
 
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leman said:
Because the M1 Max matches or outperforms the 3080 in most professional workflows that have been tested so far. These are workstation laptops. They are targeted on professionals, not gamers. Why would Apple advertise gaming on a workstation laptops? Do you see Dell advertising their $5k Precision machines as gaming laptops?
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And yet, a lot of Mac users on this website demand gaming contents and performance. Wish to blame me? Blame them.
 
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sunny5 said:
Mac is not for gaming is a lame and stupid statement in 2021.
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Cool. Go Tell that to the developers then. It’s on them to make it happen.
sunny5 said:
And yet, a lot of Mac users on this website demand gaming contents and performance. Wish to blame me? Blame them.
Click to expand...
I don’t see “a lot” I see a vocal minority. Blame the developers.
 
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