Observations & Discussion on Apple Silicon Graphics Performance with MetalFX Upscaling

[Malus120]

Go and watch the Unity "Enemies" demo and tell me that Unity can't do AAA graphics

I cut that post a bit short as it was already getting pretty long so perhaps that's my fault, but I never meant to imply that Unity CAN'T do AAA graphics, merely that the engine is pretty (in)famous (particularly on console) for being the "mobile port engine" / for poorly optimized games that run worse than you'd expect for the visuals on display (that said it's been doing better lately and a lot of cool "HD-2D" remasters run on it which is great.)
I'm well aware that it CAN do AAA graphics, and that the developers of Unity seem very interested in making it a more attractive platform for doing so in a performant way (which would be great, no one should want the future where Unreal Engine 5 is the only option)

My larger point was just to say that while Genshin Impact may be a "AAA" mobile game, its far from "AAA" in the the desktop/console space and its not really an appropriate yardstick (IMO) by which to measure Apple Silicon graphics performance, nor does it support MetalFX Upscaling at this time and thus discussion of it seemed to be veering us off the thread topic.

 

[tomO2013]

Just watched their demo. My jaw hit the floor.

I just found out that WETA (lord of the rings, avatar) were utilizing unity and releasing their tooling for indie filmmakers.
Really exciting stuff!

 

[leman]

I don't think that's fair. It wouldn't surprise me if the reason it isn't on the Switch is that the Switch isn't fast enough, despite the game being very scaleable.

Yeah, I could have phrased it better I think @Malus120 summarises what I was trying to say much more eloquently in #44

My point was to highlight that the iPad can provide a close enough (read : good enough) experience to a gaming PC or gaming console that most folks simply won’t care about small graphical enhancement on one version relative to another when you tell them that they can take the iPad version with them on a plane, long bus journey, use it with their AirPods surround sound etc…

Oh, there is no doubt about that. Switch is an immensely popular console despite being significantly less capable than even the basic iPhone.

NMS will be fun to look at. Does Metal have any tricks up its sleeve to accelerate voxels?

Who does But then again, do you need any special tricks to accelerate voxels?

 

[exoticSpice]

My point was to highlight that the iPad can provide a close enough (read : good enough) experience to a gaming PC or gaming console that most folks simply won’t care about small graphical enhancement on one version relative to another when you tell them that they can take the iPad version with them on a plane, long bus journey, use it with their AirPods surround sound etc…
Traditionally big open world experiences like the type that Genshin impact provides were the confines of powerful gaming consoles or gaming PC’s that sucked a lot of power. The performance per watt of the iPad opens up huge possibilities.

Today, you can experience (with some loss of graphical details) pretty much the same open world, characters to interact with, story, interactive environment as a top end gaming PC without subjectively being aware that you are getting a second rate (or mobile downgrade) experience. Graphically what has been provided with Genshin impact (as this was the example sited by the OP above) is not (subjectively in my opinion anyway) providing for a massively different experience relative to a PS4, PS5, gaming PC.
In other words, the technical hardware boundaries between the types of games that one could only experience on a high end gaming PC and those same games being experienced on thin/light/portable devices like an iPad are being eroded with each evolution of Apple Silicon in an iPad.

Ok but where are those games on iPad. The really great AAA games like Spiderman, GTA, Skyrim, Cyberpunk etc and even great Indie games like Hades, Cult of the Lamb and other major indie hits.

Do you know why these apps are missing? Because Apple needs to make a handheld console like the switch to attract these devs.

Unless Apple is more keen on REAL gaming (not the App Store crap) iPad will always be subpar compared to the switch or Steam Deck.

Now don't even get me started on Mac Gaming or the Apple TV? PC's and Consoles are popular for a reason.

 

[exoticSpice]

Oh, there is no doubt about that. Switch is an immensely popular console despite being significantly less capable than even the basic iPhone.

Big difference is Switch has games that people want to play. Why can't Apple put the same effort like do in TV+

 

[leman]

Big difference is Switch has games that people want to play. Why can't Apple put the same effort like do in TV+

Are you suggesting that there is someone who wants to watch TV+?

 

[exoticSpice]

Are you suggesting that there is someone who wants to watch TV+?

No I mean clearly Apple puts more effort in TV+ than Apple Arcade. Why can't we have AAA games on iPad that Apple themselves make?

Like buy a game studio. c'mon Apple.

 

[diamond.g]

No.

Apple has a Model I/O library that can let you work with voxel data, but that's not going to be of much use for a cross platform game.

Also NMS isn't using voxels for rendering, but I guess it might be using them internally for level generation.

Yeah the planets are generated using voxels, and I believe the deformation system (for mining and planet alteration) uses it as well.

 

[diamond.g]

The Steam Deck has a ~720p screen. The majority of Genshin's visual work is done per pixel.


Go and watch the Unity "Enemies" demo and tell me that Unity can't do AAA graphics

Have you actually tried running that demo (on something not by nvidia)? *shudder*

 

[thenewperson]

Are you suggesting that there is someone who wants to watch TV+?

Well it is a good service.

 

[jmho]

Wow. I gave in and actually purchased RE: Village, even though I'm only really interested in it for the graphics, and I'm absolutely blown away.

Playing on an M1 Max with a Pro Display XDR at full 6k resolution getting 40-50 fps using the prioritise graphics setting with MetalFX set to performance.

Gaming at 6k is glorious. Also macOS's handling of HDR colourspaces is incredible and I've never seen a game look quite this good before. It makes my LG C2 Oled look bad in comparison.

Sorry, I'm blown away. How is this possible on a laptop?

 

[mi7chy]

How? MetalFX performance looks like upscaled 480p. Post an in-game screenshot.

3024x1964 Native
https://www5.zippyshare.com/v/snf5nEzO/file.html

3024x1964 MetalFX performance
https://www73.zippyshare.com/v/t13hCLRd/file.html

 

[jmho]

Your zippyshare links just send me to a bunch of dodgy adult stuff. Also each screenshot is 30+ MB, so here is the screenshot shrunk to just 25% with a close up of the face at 100%

 

[jmho]

940x497 crop of a 6k (6016x3384) screenshot

MetalFX Off: 23.29 FPS

MetalFX: Quality: 30.38 FPS

MetalFX Performance: 48.00 FPS

Quality mode seems excessively soft IMO, and I almost prefer the sharpness of the performance mode.

MetalFX definitely seems to do a good job of maintaining text clarity though.

 

[jmho]

I would actually go as far as to say that quality mode is broken and it looks like they're not doing the negative mipmap bias that Apple recommends.

 

[mi7chy]

Your zippyshare links just send me to a bunch of dodgy adult stuff. Also each screenshot is 30+ MB, so here is the screenshot shrunk to just 25% with a close up of the face at 100%

Don't see any with uBlock Origin adblocker. Anyhow, that's cut scene and not in-game play. And, low resolution snippets are useless. Just upload the full screenshots. The site takes up to 500MB file size each and unlike imgur, etc. it doesn't scale down.

 

[jmho]

Anyhow, that's cut scene and not in-game play.

The sign post isn't from a cut scene, here's the full image for context.

Plus the "cut scene" is completely in engine and the only thing it's doing is locking the camera.

 

[mi7chy]

View attachment 2109634

That's still 1504x846 pixels. Might as well compare image quality and detail on phone screen.

 

[jmho]

That's still 1504x846 pixels. Might as well compare image quality and detail on phone screen.

That's why I've been posting zoomed in crops.

If you really want the original 6k performance mode screenshot, then knock yourself out. (Click download copy, and I'll remove this link shortly) [link removed]

 

[leifp]

So, here's an update from DF:

Oliver continues his prodigious work rate! He'll be teaming up with John this week for the definitive cross-gen analysis of God of War: Ragnarok, while also handing in the much requested analysis of Resident Evil Village on Mac... and guess what? The MetalFX upscaler looks very good based on this title...

 

[diamond.g]

MetalFX performance looks okay in motion? Do you happen to know what the internal resolution it is using to upscale from? I presume it isn’t 1080p.

 

[tomO2013]

@mi7chy : friendly suggestion: it’s probably best that you remove the links that you provided earlier in #62 to zippyfiles. Somebody else who is loosely following the thread could accidentally get bounced to adult content.

 

[jmho]

I'm experimenting at running at other resolutions, namely 3k (aka non-retina 6k), and performance mode definitely jumps off a huge cliff visually speaking when the resolution gets lower.

It maintains a lot of detail, but it starts "wiggling" a bit and looks kind of wormy and bad in motion, and quality has a blurriness that hopefully is just a mip-bias bug.

While MetalFX is promising, I think I'll probably play this game at 3k without MetalFX because it gives me mostly 60 fps and looks great.

3K MetalFX Off:

3K MetalFX Quality:

3K MetalFX Performance (eww):

 

[mi7chy]

Are you sure MetalFX performance is eww? It's supposedly the future of PC gaming.

https://www.techradar.com/features/...-proves-that-apple-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming

 

[jmho]

Are you sure MetalFX performance is eww? It's supposedly the future of PC gaming.

https://www.techradar.com/features/...-proves-that-apple-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming

Well to be fair I don’t really like DLSS either. Plus I’m playing on a slow 60hz screen so frame-rate isn’t everything for me.

That said after playing RE: Village I’m sold. The M1 Max can provide a AAA experience on par with my 2080 Ti PC.

Plus Apple Silicon has something PC doesn’t have: fixed hardware. You can precompile all your shaders and resources on Mac just like on console, but there are plenty of modern PC games that are an awful mess on PC because of shader compilation judder (looking at you Elden Ring)

Im not sure if AS is the future of PC gaming, but it’s definitely looking very promising.