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M1 Pro/Max's GPU performance for gaming is quite poor.
- Thread starter sunny5
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I apologize. The term I should have used was "pro workflows" which I synonymously associated with "creative workflows". Here's an interview with the Apple VP of Platform Architecture talking about how this was the driving factor for these chips (No mention of gaming, which was my initial point to Sunny).
Check this video by MaxTech where he compares to the exact Razer Blade that Apple compared to. You'll notice that for games that are optimized for Metal, the M1 Max comes very close to the Mobile 3080 using double the watts, which is why I said it's on the developers to optimize their games for metal. For video, rendering on the M1 Max blows away the Mobile 3080.
So it seems, based on this and the flood of other videos people have posted in this forum, that when everything is fully optimized and supported, this chip does match Apple's claims.
Those guys have zero clue what they're doing or intentionally misleading. No one uses really short Blender demo renders as they don't give reliable results or non-public ones that can't be verified by peers. The standard benchmark render demos are longer like Classroom or Pavillon Barcelona used in the official Blender benchmark.
https://opendata.blender.org/
As of current state, mobile 3080 is about 9x faster than M1 Max.
Mobile 3080
M1 Max
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You can cherry-pick and I can cherry-pick to show arguments in our favor. Many have posted real-world workloads in here too, I was just adding another comparison which directly compared gaming on the two machines Apple compared to which started this thread. TBF I’m not a huge fan of MaxTech either but it was a comparison relevant to this discussion started by Sunny.
It all really comes down to the theme of this whole discussion: performance on M1 Max depends on optimizations, support, and on workloads. We are all aware that right now mac is not natively supported by many developers and apps. It’s also known that the M1 Max doesn’t achieve 3080 performance in all scenarios. But in scenarios that are fully optimized and supported, many times it does.
With all due respect, you put forward a video where the pc had gpu acceleration and the Mac didn’t, as a model of a balanced review. If anyone doesn’t have a clue, it’s you. Maybe sit this one out.
Edit: it seems you also done it in this post again lol. Comparing cuda to cpu renders. Pathetic.
Apple joined the Blender Development Fund just 4 days before the Unleashed event so big changes are coming. By the way according to those benchmark results M1 Pro is 8 seconds faster than M1 Max, which shows Blender takes no advantage of M1 Max's GPU in that test.
Apple doesn't care for Mac gaming, yet is eager to sell mobile, cloud and Apple Arcade to Mac users.
People from the games industry who know what they're doing and now what gamers want should lead a dedicated AAA gaming division in Apple...because Apple can't do AAA gaming.
Demand better, otherwise Apple will not bother to do better.
People from the games industry who know what they're doing and now what gamers want should lead a dedicated AAA gaming division in Apple...because Apple can't do AAA gaming.
Demand better, otherwise Apple will not bother to do better.
This is squarely Apple to blame.
Apple wants things their way and don't meet developers half way.
Apple don't have the people that can build relationships with those in the games industry, let alone understand what Mac gamers want.
Apple needs to employ people like Xbox's Phil Spencer to run a dedicated AAA games division.
Apple seems to do quite well without that, so I question the ”need”.
Why? These machines are foremost meant for creative professionals using them to create content. software, etc. Gaming is totally irrelevant to those use cases.
To say it simply: Gaming is not part of their pro mac business model.
And why is this relevant? Supporting gaming as a use case is definitely part of their consumer Mac business model. Pro Macs have faster GPUs and are therefore even better at gaming. It does't matter who the machines are meant for, it matters what you can do with them.
These machines are absolutely capable of good gaming performance. Just don't expect apple to help developers to develop games for these pro machines.
Again, what the difference? If Apple helps developers developing for the base M1 chip, the same code will run (and run better) on the M1 Pro/Max, right?
Do you understand the principle of Business Model? Apple makes money with these machines right now by selling them to creatives. Gaming is not what makes the money for this range of computers. So there is zero incentive for Apple to care about gaming on these machines. Platforms like Steam make them no money and pretty much none of the AAA game developers want to be on the Mac App Store as they want to keep all their profits in their own pockets. So there is little to no money to be made by Apple in Mac gaming.
Now facilitating iOS games on the other hand is part of the business model as Apple makes money from each game sold on the app store. Different platform and different business model.
Do you understand the idea that users want to play games on their computers? Creative pros are not the only Apple users. They also want Macs to be bought by home users, students, business people... and gaming is part of that equation. The business incentive for Apple is not direct revenue sharing but making Macs more attractive to a wider range of customers. Why would Apple showcase games such as BG3 or Metro if they had nothing to profit from?
Promoting Macs using gaming is a twin edged sword. There is no question that if gaming is the primary use case, Apple is very weak competitively due to lack of of software, something that ultimately isn’t directly under their control. Inviting comparisons in that area is stupid.
On the other hand games are able to showcase the capabilities of their new hardware in a way that is visceral and immediately understandable for categories of users outside the immediate target demographic.
Apple IS taking steps to facilitate game development for MacOS, both from the iOS side and from the multiplatform side. But the uptake remains to be seem, and given the time it takes to bring games to market an evaluation of the effectiveness of their efforts will take years. Ultimately, it will be determined by market forces that hinge on ROI and arguably the best way for them to effect change is to grow the installed base. Again, something that will take time.
On the other hand games are able to showcase the capabilities of their new hardware in a way that is visceral and immediately understandable for categories of users outside the immediate target demographic.
Apple IS taking steps to facilitate game development for MacOS, both from the iOS side and from the multiplatform side. But the uptake remains to be seem, and given the time it takes to bring games to market an evaluation of the effectiveness of their efforts will take years. Ultimately, it will be determined by market forces that hinge on ROI and arguably the best way for them to effect change is to grow the installed base. Again, something that will take time.
I never implied people do not want to play games on their computers. Just that there is no money to be made by Apple on gaming on these machines. There is no business model that results in profits so they won't go there.
I have this feeling that we are talking past each other. What exactly do you mean when you say „go there“? Go where exactly? I completely agree that Apple is unlikely to start their own gaming business. But they do encourage third-party developers to build games for the Mac, as is evident from their WWDC presentation and the fact that they offer dev support for these cases.
M1 MacBooks are perfect tools for students, and Apple would sell more of them if buyers knew they could also play their favourite games on these machines. I do believe that many potential buyers go PC because "Macs can't play games" (which is partly true).
The hardware is capable of AAA gaming, so is the OS. The user base is just not there, so it's up for Apple to convince developers to port their games.
Apple clearly sees gaming as a selling point against Android phones. For as far as Macs are concerned, they clearly don't.
The hardware is capable of AAA gaming, so is the OS. The user base is just not there, so it's up for Apple to convince developers to port their games.
Apple clearly sees gaming as a selling point against Android phones. For as far as Macs are concerned, they clearly don't.
What Apple does is clearly not enough. Even MS, who doesn't need to convince studios to developer games for Windows, thanks to the sheer power of their market share, does more for gamer developers. (That's not counting the numerous development studios they have acquired.)
The question is: Are Apple satisfied with the current situation of Mac gaming (i.e., a couple of native AAA games per a year)? If they are, there's nothing to do. If they aren't, then they're just dumb because they clearly don't do the right things.
M1 MacBooks already sell in great numbers to students (I just have to look around me), Tim Cook specifically mentioned how well the Air had been selling in their last conference call. The user base is growing at a brisk pace, gaming software situation notwithstanding. This in itself could be fodder for discussion.
I think that this is too absolute a statement. Short of buying games studios and/or moneyhatting projects they are doing what they can. And even if they did this, you still wouldn't see much or any results this half of the decade.
This discussion is simply premature.
We won't see the fall out of the switch to AS until the end of this decade.
But it would be very surprising if this growing market was universally ignored. To what extent the big multiplatform publishers (that produce the AAA games) will react to this is an unknown however.
They're doing the bare minimum. What Apple does for Mac gaming is just the side effect of their iPhone or pro apps efforts.
They should at least fix the gaming controller situation. Supporting a game controller that is not Xbox or Dual Shock is much more difficult on macOS than even on Linux because there's no API for that (I know that from game developers themselves).
Apple could support the equivalent of Valve's proton for MacOS or they could provide Vulkan drivers...
They could contact major games studios to offer assistance for porting some major games, games that make the difference (e.g., Red Dead Redemption 2, Witcher 3, the next Diablo, etc.). Instead, I suppose Apple just waits from developers to contact them. Good luck with that.
At this point, I'm not even sure why Apple put an 8-core GPU in the M1, rather than just an A14.
Because there are use cases apart from AAA gaming?
I’m interested in photography, and the M1 Macs have been very popular in those circles as photo software takes advantage of the CPUs, GPUs, NPUs and swift SSDs of Apples machines.
The world is a big place and people are interested in more things than AAA gaming. (Those for whom this IS a strong interest tend to have dedicated hardware platforms for the purpose.) As I pointed out above, the M1 Macs have seen very strong sales despite the almost complete lack of gaming software. The computing world doesn’t revolve around gaming alone.
If you call 5-10% marketshare that’s not really improved much over the years “quite well” then sure. Apple does “quite well” due to iOS and services.
