So did Apple give up on gaming?

[Joe Dohn]

It wasn't even that impressive though. That's the sad thing. I run Apex at 1440p at the highest settings possible and all I have is a 3060TI. This thing is supposed to be better than that. Low settings on an old game at 1200p? Yikes.

Indeed. I looked at GPD Win Max and it has better graphics (more detailed), with more particles. And it costs $1000.

Absolutely. Actually that’s a professionals thing, I wager, right? ? you use what’s right for your profession… for reasons. ?

This sort of behavior is absolutely patronizing. Why do you guys keep acting as if you were the Apple police or something? If I have the money to spend, then it should be my decision if I want to use the Macbook Pro for gaming or creative purposes. Stop trying to act as if you're more qualified / know better. It kills any chance of a healthy dialogue.

Also, above all that, let's not forget Apple themselves marketed Apple Silicon as a revolution, and now you try to come up with the "it's not meant for gaming" argument. Guess who said the Apple Silicon architecture could game? Apple. Who presented shadow of Tomb Raider as proof that Apple Silicon could game? Apple.

Of course, the argument does not extend just to gaming. The way it is now, the news and benchmarks on Apple Silicon suggest that Apple Silicon computers are not good all-around machines, and serve a very small niche (content creation). Because of the direction Apple is taking, there are many workflow possibilities that Mac users simply can't pursue on Apple Silicon anymore. For example, if you have a workflow that specifically needs CUDA cores, that used to be possible with an Intel Mac + eGPU. It's no longer possible. And no, just because you don't need it, doesn't mean it would not be useful to the needs of another power user.

I would like to use those 30+ cores on more than video / audio editing, and it's sad that I can't.

I'm writing all this because I do like the Mac user interface / workflow. I like the Mac device integration, as opposed to a Windows machine. In my workflow, the path that Apple is taking prevents me from going into an all-Apple workflow, which I would definitely want, even if I would have to sacrifice some performance.

 

[magbarn]

Indeed. I looked at GPD Win Max and it has better graphics (more detailed), with more particles. And it costs $1000.



This sort of behavior is absolutely patronizing. Why do you guys keep acting as if you were the Apple police or something? If I have the money to spend, then it should be my decision if I want to use the Macbook Pro for gaming or creative purposes. Stop trying to act as if you're more qualified / know better. It kills any chance of a healthy dialogue.

Also, above all that, let's not forget Apple themselves marketed Apple Silicon as a revolution, and now you try to come up with the "it's not meant for gaming" argument. Guess who said the Apple Silicon architecture could game? Apple. Who presented shadow of Tomb Raider as proof that Apple Silicon could game? Apple.

Of course, the argument does not extend just to gaming. The way it is now, the news and benchmarks on Apple Silicon suggest that Apple Silicon computers are not good all-around machines, and serve a very small niche (content creation). Because of the direction Apple is taking, there are many workflow possibilities that Mac users simply can't pursue on Apple Silicon anymore. For example, if you have a workflow that specifically needs CUDA cores, that used to be possible with an Intel Mac + eGPU. It's no longer possible. And no, just because you don't need it, doesn't mean it would not be useful to the needs of another power user.

I would like to use those 30+ cores on more than video / audio editing, and it's sad that I can't.

I'm writing all this because I do like the Mac user interface / workflow. I like the Mac device integration, as opposed to a Windows machine. In my workflow, the path that Apple is taking prevents me from going into an all-Apple workflow, which I would definitely want, even if I would have to sacrifice some performance.

Agreed. I would love to upgrade my hot/noisy i9 MBP 16 as the 16 M1 Max would really speed up my lightroom CC workflow and be able to edit many more photos away from a power outlet, but having to carry 2 different laptops when travelling for a shoot would defeat the purpose. Will just take a wait and see attitude for now.

 

[Melbourne Park]

Fact is that Nvidia etc. cards suck power. Apple had wanted Intel's on chip GPUs to perform, and while Intel made progress, it was never enough. With games able notebooks only able to perform when connected to a power supply, add on GPUs were never a true mobile solution. Look at a high end games notebook, they weigh double a 16" mac pro when one includes the charger.

So Apple jumped ship, and only time will show how many games will run native on the new M architecture. It's stormy waters for game players on Mac Notebooks because Apple has ventured off on their own.

I suspect though that if a player only used the battery, and played for a few hours, then the new Apple notebooks are comparable to PC game performance, even now. But game notebook players do so plugged in. That's not how Apple view what a notebook is. In the future, things may improve with some game ports. But that is hypothetical. Give it a few years though and Intel will introduce an architecture like the M, with a fast integrated GPU and shared memory, and then, game players will be able to play demanding games away from a power supply. There isn't a game notebook that can really perform just off it's own battery. Apple's can, but there's little native games. So there's lots of frustrated game players here.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

So you have a Mac M1 and gaming PC. So why are you arguing?

Eh, no I had a retina MacBook Pro from 2012 I sold it last year. I don't have M1 mac, and dont plant to get one until my steam library is compatible in some reasonable way.

Why should I need two computers? How is this logical?
Is this the same logic for those who wants more dongles?

I just ended up fixing a Stationary computer that I can upgrade one piece at a time over the years. The Mac pro is just too expensive for what you get

 

[magbarn]

Fact is that Nvidia etc. cards suck power. Apple had wanted Intel's on chip GPUs to perform, and while Intel made progress, it was never enough. With games able notebooks only able to perform when connected to a power supply, add on GPUs were never a true mobile solution. Look at a high end games notebook, they weigh double a 16" mac pro when one includes the charger.

So Apple jumped ship, and only time will show how many games will run native on the new M architecture. It's stormy waters for game players on Mac Notebooks because Apple has ventured off on their own.

I suspect though that if a player only used the battery, and played for a few hours, then the new Apple notebooks are comparable to PC game performance, even now. In the future, things may improve. Give it a few years though and Intel will introduce an architecture like the M, with a fast integrated GPU and shared memory, and then, game players will be able to play demanding games away from a power supply. There isn't a game notebook that can perform just off it's own battery. Apple's can, but there's little native games. So there's lots of frustrated game players here.

The last time Apple had their "own architecture" with G4/G5's paired with ATI GPU's, Mac gaming was pretty abysmal. Here's hoping that trend doesn't continue

 

[Adarna]

eh, no i had a retina macbook pro from 2012 i sold it last year. i dont have M1 mac, and odnt plant to get one untill my steam library is compatable in some reasonable way

Lesson learned... quit while i'm ahead. have a great week

 

[bradbomb]

The last time Apple had their "own architecture" with G4/G5's paired with ATI GPU's, Mac gaming was pretty abysmal. Here's hoping that trend doesn't continue

In this case, Apple has their own silicon, not necessarily their own architecture. ARM64 is used by different Unix Distros and Window 10/11 on ARM.

 

[JMacHack]

are we still blaming Apple for the games situation despite developers being at fault?

 

[sunny5]

It’s not, it’s just accurate to say it’s a PC/Console game and not accurate to say it’s not a PC/Console game. Just as it’s not accurate to say Fruit Ninja is NOT an arcade game.

“Something being green does NOT mean it’s green”. Sure!

Irrelevant, you clearly ignoring the fact after all.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

are we still blaming Apple for the games situation despite developers being at fault?

And who is responsible for the sudden shift to Metal and then changing to M1? The Developers?

 

[vir]

We must not deviate.

 

[robco74]

Sudden shift? Metal has been around for seven years. Vulkan has been around for five. The last stable release of OpenGL was four years ago. Where is this "sudden shift"? Apple can't implement DirectX, because that is a proprietary MS API.

Apple Silicon may not be as powerful as Nvidia's offerings, but unlike laptops with Nvidia silicon, Apple Silicon can operate at full power on battery. Nvidia chips have to throttle significantly to preserve any modicum of battery life. The new AMD Advantage laptops fare considerably better, but still fall behind what Apple has achieved.

And this is just the first generation. This is what is being released today. We're but one year along in a two-year transition. Apple is just getting started. Everyone else got caught unawares and will now scramble to catch up.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

are we still blaming Apple for the games situation despite developers being at fault?

The developers are just looking out for their bottom line. Every dollar spent on a Mac game is a dollar that could have been spent on a PC/Console/Mobile title with a FAR more impressive return on that investment. The Mac hardware market would have to grow by a tremendous amount to really make it worth any game developer’s time.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

We must never deviate from our unwavering faith in the New Scripture of Apple Inc. It is not our immaculate savior at fault, it is all the sinful unbelievers out there. They do not subscribe to our core values, they do not follow the dogma, and therefore must be purged.

(*jerks it furiously to games behind closed doors while openly criticizing them*)

It’s ABSOLUTELY Apple’s fault for not selling > 200 million Macs a year. And, since no one can sell Macs but Apple, the blame is laid squarely on their doorstep.

 

[Joe Dohn]

Sudden shift? Metal has been around for seven years. Vulkan has been around for five. The last stable release of OpenGL was four years ago. Where is this "sudden shift"? Apple can't implement DirectX, because that is a proprietary MS API.

That's not true at all. Microsoft specifically lost a case in court on this matter, which ruled that APIs and software interfaces are not protected by copyright laws. This is specifically why something like WINE is allowed to exist (provided that developers don't look at Microsoft's leaked source code).

So yes, legally speaking, Apple can reverse engineer and implement Microsoft's DirectX APIs.

 

[echodriver]

I would like to use those 30+ cores on more than video / audio editing, and it's sad that I can't.

I'm writing all this because I do like the Mac user interface / workflow. I like the Mac device integration, as opposed to a Windows machine. In my workflow, the path that Apple is taking prevents me from going into an all-Apple workflow, which I would definitely want, even if I would have to sacrifice some performance.

I'm in the same boat - I love my M1 MBA, but wish I didn't have to grab another computer just to game or do anything compute related (like on CUDA). As it is, I was hoping the M1 Max would push towards the direction of where one computer can do it all well enough - instead, it appears that the M1 Pro and M1 Max are pushing REALLY good performance in very specific apps, while doing not so well in other areas (or outright poorly with gaming) - which means my hope of having one machine that can do everything well enough for my needs isn't going to be met.

 

[echodriver]

Apple Silicon may not be as powerful as Nvidia's offerings, but unlike laptops with Nvidia silicon, Apple Silicon can operate at full power on battery. Nvidia chips have to throttle significantly to preserve any modicum of battery life. The new AMD Advantage laptops fare considerably better, but still fall behind what Apple has achieved.

And this is just the first generation. This is what is being released today. We're but one year along in a two-year transition. Apple is just getting started. Everyone else got caught unawares and will now scramble to catch up.

Is this... serious?

Apple is on TSMC 5nm - Nvidia is on Samsung 8nm, considered two whole nodes behind. Put Nvidia with their current architecture on 5nm, and Nvidia easily smokes Apple on perf/watt. To say nothing about the RTX 4000 series is going to do

Mind you, Apple is using a MASSIVE die with more transistors than even the RTX 3090 - while not offering features like DLSS, ray tracing, CUDA, etc.

And this isn't just the first generation - Apple has been working on the foundations of this via the mobile space for years now. It's not a coincidence that the M1 was put into the iPad Pro. They've also been working on GPUs for the A series for years as well

And who is responsible for the sudden shift to Metal and then changing to M1? The Developers?

This is what people often miss - game developers are going to hesitate to develop (and spend the time and resources) on platforms that can change APIs at a moment's notice and give zero backwards compatibility.

 

[Slartibart]

And who is responsible for the sudden shift to Metal and then changing to M1? The Developers?

What was it holding game developers back before then? Apple’s support of OpenGL? OpenCL? Using Intel processors?

The same developers who use Metal in the games they develop for iOS/iPadOS. For years.

Metal for Mac OS X was introduced 2015. Since WWDC19 Apple offered sessions on how to bring OpenGL apps to Metal - having announced the switch. Excluding “surprise” as a factor impacting game development, I assume.

But I get it. You want a certain type of gaming experience available on the Mac too. Wouldn’t that be great?

Look, there is no doubt that electric cars are more energy efficient than fossil-fuel ones. But if you like to explore e.g. the Australian outback by car now, you will find that it is quite a difficult endeavour. Do you seriously would blame e.g. Tesla for that?

Or equally blame Toyota that a Toyota Mirai can’t be charged on a Tesla Supercharger (to avoid any old vs new-impression but giving a new vs new-example ?). That would be silly, wouldn’t it?

 

[Joe Dohn]

Or equally blame Toyota that a Toyota Mirai can’t be charged on a Tesla Supercharger (to avoid any old vs new-impression but giving a new vs new-example ?). That would be silly, wouldn’t it?

But Apple marketed themselves as making a serious effort to be a more viable gaming alternative (e.g, Apple Arcade, Metal, Parallels + Tomb Raider). The problem is, they aren't really making a serious effort in a way that makes the life of developers easier.

Look at Microsoft. They just decided they would be big with gaming. Their first XBox consoles absolutely sucked (ever heard of the "three rings of death"?). But they persisted with new consoles, made XBox games easier to play on Windows, and hired companies to get exclusives (e.g, Halo). They still have some limitations (e.g, they have trouble penetrating in the Asian market), but their efforts paid off in a much bigger way than Apple's efforts did. And Microsoft's efforts, lo and behold, are much more focused than Apple's here.

 

[diamond.g]

But Apple marketed themselves as making a serious effort to be a more viable gaming alternative (e.g, Apple Arcade, Metal, Parallels + Tomb Raider). The problem is, they aren't really making a serious effort in a way that makes the life of developers easier.

Look at Microsoft. They just decided they would be big with gaming. Their first XBox consoles absolutely sucked (ever heard of the "three rings of death"?). But they persisted with new consoles, made XBox games easier to play on Windows, and hired companies to get exclusives (e.g, Halo). They still have some limitations (e.g, they have trouble penetrating in the Asian market), but their efforts paid off in a much bigger way than Apple's efforts did. And Microsoft's efforts, lo and behold, are much more focused than Apple's here.

RROD was the second Xbox. The first was fairly robust IIRC.

 

[Joe Dohn]

RROD was the second Xbox. The first was fairly robust IIRC.

Sorry, couldn't remember the exact model that had the problem.

 

[Serban55]

So for an apple to apple comparasion
Balduru'S gate 3 is doing 120fps at 2560x1440p Ultra settings with the M1 max
Baldurus Gate 3 is doing 70fps at the same settings on an nvidia mobile 2070

 

[Unregistered 4U]

This is what people often miss - game developers are going to hesitate to develop (and spend the time and resources) on platforms that can change APIs at a moment's notice and give zero backwards compatibility.

They will hesitate… up to the point where they recognize the literally massive installed base. The same 32-bit cutoff that hit the Mac ALSO hit iOS. ANd while it likely deterred some developers, new developers, AWARE that the platforms can change API’s at a moments notice, see how much money they could make and decide “it’s worth it!”.

 

[magbarn]

But Apple marketed themselves as making a serious effort to be a more viable gaming alternative (e.g, Apple Arcade, Metal, Parallels + Tomb Raider). The problem is, they aren't really making a serious effort in a way that makes the life of developers easier.

Look at Microsoft. They just decided they would be big with gaming. Their first XBox consoles absolutely sucked (ever heard of the "three rings of death"?). But they persisted with new consoles, made XBox games easier to play on Windows, and hired companies to get exclusives (e.g, Halo). They still have some limitations (e.g, they have trouble penetrating in the Asian market), but their efforts paid off in a much bigger way than Apple's efforts did. And Microsoft's efforts, lo and behold, are much more focused than Apple's here.

Pretty much. As apple is seemingly content with iOS games, they’re not going to make a concerted effort in time/money like m$oft did back in the day.
What’s also not being mentioned here is the high hurdle in apples prices. You can get a decent 3060 laptop for around $1000 while you have to spend a minimum of $2000 to get anything better than M1. The faster gpus are going to need to trickle down into the mba and Mac mini price brackets.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

So for an apple to apple comparasion
Balduru'S gate 3 is doing 120fps at 2560x1440p Ultra settings with the M1 max
Baldurus Gate 3 is doing 70fps at the same settings on an nvidia mobile 2070

Now find another game besides that one. I'll wait. Not really an "apples to apples" comparison. Find one where they didn't invite the Dev onto the stage. Besides a 2070 is dang old at this point. What about a 3080? That is what it supposedly compares to.