Only the HDMI port is that limited. I run 4K @ 144Hz via USB-C on my M1 MBA all the time.
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So did Apple give up on gaming?
- Thread starter KatieKat1942
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The 200-300 W power consumption of high-end gaming GPUs is not a weakness but a design target. If a half-decent tower case can handle that amount of heat without making too much noise, there is no reason to market GPUs that use less power as high-end ones. If Nvidia or AMD tries to release chips that use less power, GPU makers will try to overclock them to get some extra performance. After all, the gamers who buy high-end GPUs tend to favor fancy graphics over low power consumption.
Gaming laptops are effectively mobile gaming PCs with downclocked desktop chips. Their GPUs still use a lot of power, because high-end gamers prioritize performance over battery life.
At the moment, Apple has ~2x power advantage against Nvidia chips with a similar number of ALUs and the same base clock. For example, M1 Max with 4096 ALUs at 1.3 GHz uses almost 60 W, while RTX 3060 Mobile with 3840 ALUs uses 105 W with 1.3 GHz base clock. The difference is small enough that if Nvidia manages to catch up, they will simply choose to run bigger chips at higher clock rates.
These are some weird numbers you are presenting. First, Apple showed 50W, not 60. Second, that wasn’t for the GPU alone as it was a system to system comparison, so you’ll have to either add the host CPU+memory to the 3080 numbers, or (more appropriate but impossible) subtract the powerdraw of the rest of the M1M SoC.
It’s not a small difference. The lithographic node is a part of it, but only a part.
I think you are correct in describing the PC gaming market - the manufacturers can’t provide meaningful advances without increasing power draws, and it’s accepted by many in the target demographic as necessary.
The only way that Apple can attract game developers to their platofrm/ecosystem is for Apple to hire and invest 1B and make a hit AAA game that scale from ipads to macs
Since the mobile gaming is now the biggest profitable segment
But until now, everybody on mobile arm segment lack the hardware for a true AAA...from now on...they have it..and Apple should be the first to start this
Since the mobile gaming is now the biggest profitable segment
But until now, everybody on mobile arm segment lack the hardware for a true AAA...from now on...they have it..and Apple should be the first to start this
I wasn't comparing system vs. system benchmarks but theoretical numbers for the GPU + RAM.
It's a small difference in this context. If Nvidia manages to improve the power efficiency of their chips by 2x, they will certainly use most of the savings by making the chip bigger and running it at a higher frequency. That's what their customers want, after all.
Even if Nvidia used the same hardware as Apple, their GPUs would still use more power, because their customers want performance rather than battery life.
I've always been reminded by a friend that and I quote "you don't have to buy a cow to get milk."
I think Apple's current strategy is sound to improve the gaming situation for macOS, i.e. make good performant Macs and sells boatloads of them, as well as improve OS support for games.
Another thing not mentioned: IMO, gamers don't like a closed computer. They want to be able to open it up. Which is the opposite of Apple's business model.
Off topic - but I also think it's disgraceful that Apple haven't got a spill proof keyboard (although I think their Applecare will cover such damage) but that Apple insurance only runs for a couple of years.
But if Apple's new notebook hardware was twice as good as they claim it is now - I don't think such performance would have drawn many extra game developers businesses to leave their X86 Win environment and take such risks developing for Apple ware.
The classic strategy of Intel has already been shown - we're going to do the same type of low power shared memory integrated GPU high speed new gen chips that will take X86 software. If Intel had said they are committed to separate GPUs in performance notebooks for the next decade, then perhaps, game businesses might have had considered the future. But IMO, the future is clear for notebooks - the current architecture for a gaming notebook fails. They are hybrids IMO. You've got to love them though ...
Off topic - but I also think it's disgraceful that Apple haven't got a spill proof keyboard (although I think their Applecare will cover such damage) but that Apple insurance only runs for a couple of years.
But if Apple's new notebook hardware was twice as good as they claim it is now - I don't think such performance would have drawn many extra game developers businesses to leave their X86 Win environment and take such risks developing for Apple ware.
The classic strategy of Intel has already been shown - we're going to do the same type of low power shared memory integrated GPU high speed new gen chips that will take X86 software. If Intel had said they are committed to separate GPUs in performance notebooks for the next decade, then perhaps, game businesses might have had considered the future. But IMO, the future is clear for notebooks - the current architecture for a gaming notebook fails. They are hybrids IMO. You've got to love them though ...
How many gaming laptops can you think of that actually have user upgradable parts beyond perhaps memory or SDD’s?
While desktops are user upgradable in general (and so an argument around iMac gaming can be made) the vast majority of laptops are not user upgradable to a significant degree.
While desktops are user upgradable in general (and so an argument around iMac gaming can be made) the vast majority of laptops are not user upgradable to a significant degree.
Well, it would be impossible for apple to get into proper gaming since windows already rules it. The only way apple could get in is if windows (or just windows gaming) died off and then they would have to have a dog fight with linux for best gaming device.
Little different as threes is literally 1 billion iOS users Making up 26% of the market.
its estimated that the number of computers globally is 2 billion of barely 10% is macs. I’m sceptical but I hope it changes and I will get a Mac again to replace my gaming/work pc. Never would I have two computers
Well SSD are kind of the most important parts. And I’d say 99.9999% have upgradable RAM and storage
It's more serious than that though, IMO. For instance, if your 4 year old MacBook or MacBook Pro fails, such as via a water spill on the keyboard, in Australia at least, Apple will charge a fortune to fix it. If you take that Apple computer to a PC repair place in Australia, they will fix it for a lot less money. But if it was an X86 PC notebook, it would be fixed very cheaply.
That frustrates owners, especially youth, who probably got an Apple at School or University (college), and who are aware that many compatriots point out Apple's weaknesses in various areas. Apple should be repairing their hardware cheaper than anyone else can. In Australia, they rip you off, IMO. If you complain, then, if your lucky, they'll fix it cheaply. But the hassle here with Apple is a poisonous experience, and quite contrary to dealing with PCs and PC notebooks where the service shops compete and hence provide value and they try to establish a personal relationship.
Apple are designing their hardware - for example with I think the new iPhone 13 - so that if a 3rd party opens an iPhone 13, it becomes a brick. So I'm told ... please excuse me if I am wrong about that.
The "value" criteria is something that I think youth and up to mid 30 year olds, who have had a tech issue, or have a performance desire - hold dear. Apple's business model for service in Australia, makes Apple appear unfriendly IMO, unsympathetic and greedy. The Genius's don't seem that smart, except in making high profits from a misfortune that would be cheap to repair on a PC. That damages Apple's image with people here on this thread, who love their gaming notebooks, and I suspect, they have a strong emotional connection with their clunky but awesome in some ways hybrid "gaming notebook" computers.
Strategically, it does seem to me though, that the X-Box was a tool to offer economy of scale to game businesses, via Windows and MS's console. And Apple have never seemed to want to get into the console arena.
As said several have said here, and I think it makes strategic sense, the opening door for games on an Apple Pro notebook, will be games written for iPads. I do wonder if an iPad with an M Pro in it, could be a fun games machine. Its not impossible to also wonder about VR ... surely VR makes a better game experience, and with VR, who needs a powerful GPU?
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Sure it’s different. On the other hand, at least where I live, iPhones are in all hands, less affluent people just upgrade on longer cycles and/or not to the latest models.
Macs however is more socially stratified and belong pretty exclusively to (reasonably well off) middle class and up. This is probably the least pronounced in the US where their market share is the highest.
It’s really difficult to know just how big the gaming market is for Macs since it used to be that if you really cared about a wide selection, you could use Boot Camp and enjoy the Windows games selection/pricing/performance. That’s no longer possible, so - where will that category, that never showed up in Mac gaming statistics, go with Apple Silicon?
That remans to be seen.
I question your graph reading skills. And you ignore the spoken word.This is straight from Apple so close to 60W for M1 Max iGPU alone without CPU.
But - it’s a bit pointless to quibble about this, these devices don’t compete directly as far as gaming is concerned, and they never will. If I had been Apple, I would have confined myself to comparing to Apples own previous systems, but I can see why they would prefer to throw nVidia under the bus rather than kicking their long-time partner AMD in the nuts.
I think, like most companies, Apple has no interest in the traditional gaming market.
It used to be like this: you make a nice game, you sell it for a pretty high price.
Now it's more like: you make a nice looking game, spend more on marketing than on development, then you use that game as a storefront to sell digital content.
Apple aren't interested in some nerd who buys Diablo 2 for 30 Euros and then plays it for years, they want you to rent Angry Birds on Apple Arcade, or to rent mobile games from the App Store and profit from every piece of DLC you buy.
So they haven't given up on gaming at all, they already own and control a massive market share of the most profitable gaming market there is: renting Angry Birds to suckers and selling them skins and in game currencies for short-lived dopamine pumps.
It's genius in a way. You no longer get the dopamine hits in gaming from actually being good at the game but from spending money on it. And Apple and Google are laughing all the way to the bank.
It used to be like this: you make a nice game, you sell it for a pretty high price.
Now it's more like: you make a nice looking game, spend more on marketing than on development, then you use that game as a storefront to sell digital content.
Apple aren't interested in some nerd who buys Diablo 2 for 30 Euros and then plays it for years, they want you to rent Angry Birds on Apple Arcade, or to rent mobile games from the App Store and profit from every piece of DLC you buy.
So they haven't given up on gaming at all, they already own and control a massive market share of the most profitable gaming market there is: renting Angry Birds to suckers and selling them skins and in game currencies for short-lived dopamine pumps.
It's genius in a way. You no longer get the dopamine hits in gaming from actually being good at the game but from spending money on it. And Apple and Google are laughing all the way to the bank.
I’ve made my peace with the fact that Macs are not for gaming, and that bizarrely enough, one of the biggest most lucrative gaming markets in the world is on iOS.
After going through a phase of playing lots of iOS games, I now can’t stand them and very rarely play anything on iOS. Mostly puzzle games nowadays that stretch my brain and would have run equally well on a 20 year old computer or on pen and paper.
What you call AAA games, good as they may be, are now a minority, playable only by people with big desktops and screens. The vast, vast majority of gamers are bored people with an iPhone or Android in their fingers. They may or may not have a laptop but certainly not a desktop.
On that score, the new MBPs, even if they have awesome graphics, will never be a large gaming market. There’s just too few people who will buy them compared to the billions (literally) of mobile device users out there. And most of the people who are buying MBPs are busy working and earning money, not using their MBPs for intensive / long-term gaming. Any Mac gaming market will have to target MBAs which are the most common Mac, and most likely to be owned by people with time on their hands.
Frankly, why bother when there are billions of dollars pouring into games on iOS?
Edit: While writing this, I looked up Apple Arcade. The wiki article specifically says it’s an attempt to focus on quality and exclude free-to-play trash. That looks interesting. I have a 3 month free trial, I might give it a go. I’d argue that’s your answer, that’s Apple’s attempt to bring quality to gaming right there.
After going through a phase of playing lots of iOS games, I now can’t stand them and very rarely play anything on iOS. Mostly puzzle games nowadays that stretch my brain and would have run equally well on a 20 year old computer or on pen and paper.
What you call AAA games, good as they may be, are now a minority, playable only by people with big desktops and screens. The vast, vast majority of gamers are bored people with an iPhone or Android in their fingers. They may or may not have a laptop but certainly not a desktop.
On that score, the new MBPs, even if they have awesome graphics, will never be a large gaming market. There’s just too few people who will buy them compared to the billions (literally) of mobile device users out there. And most of the people who are buying MBPs are busy working and earning money, not using their MBPs for intensive / long-term gaming. Any Mac gaming market will have to target MBAs which are the most common Mac, and most likely to be owned by people with time on their hands.
Frankly, why bother when there are billions of dollars pouring into games on iOS?
Edit: While writing this, I looked up Apple Arcade. The wiki article specifically says it’s an attempt to focus on quality and exclude free-to-play trash. That looks interesting. I have a 3 month free trial, I might give it a go. I’d argue that’s your answer, that’s Apple’s attempt to bring quality to gaming right there.
Making it even less interesting to construct games considering that is the whole Gaming market is lower middle class and upp.
It’s extremely easy to know exactly how big Mac gaming is not even 3% of the user base. Even when is X have 10% market share. And I would bet my money all these max gamers already own a Pc to game in. Or just sold their mac. I sold my Mac to use windows instead just so I can actually play the games I’m interested in
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That’s a shame considering that strategy will fail extremely hard as developers have zero investment to use the Mac App Store.
Steam is a billion times more profitable as they lower the fee from 30% to 20% when you earn more and allow you to communicate with customers or just allow them to buy a steam key or other ways for them to just register. Effectively keeping 100% of the revenue
If every single Mac user on steam purchased a AAA MacOS game. They’d sell less than their week 1 release sales on PC.
The numbers are that poor, if they sell to every mac steam user they still don’t make much.
To be fair to @mi7chy the graph is poor.
I just did a quick crop to read it properly and it is much closer to 60W than 50W
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Or just release game on Nvidia streaming completely ignoring apples lame Apple Arcade experiment
Er, I’m fully aware of Steam statistics. That was my entire point with Boot Camp - those game players are Windows gamers in Steam statistics. Nobody knows how many they were/are. We just know that it’s an option that’s going away.
And of course there are people like me who have had a dedicated desktop gaming PC stashed under my desk at home. It’s not going anywhere, but if I had a reasonably capable MacOS machine that I liked, odds are I’d simply prefer to buy games on that platform rather than fire up the Windows box.
I’ve said it before, nobody can know what the Mac games market will be like in 3-5 years, but it is likely to be better than now in terms of selection. That would probably still constitute a development from "very limited" to "quite limited", but that may well suffice for those of us with limited time to spend on games anyway. It simply remains to be seen.
I hope Larian studios share sales data of Baldurs Gate 3 on different platforms a year after retail release. I’m willing to bet good money the Windows version won’t outsell the MacOS version 30:1.
That’s another aspect of the gaming landscape on the Mac - for those developers that do make a good effort on MacOS, there’s one hell of o lot less competition for attention and $$.
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But it may cost Blizzard millions to port games over to the Mac. And if so, the 5% market share Mac users represent is not worth it. The only Blizzard games I still play are HOTS and SC2 occasionally, and I have no faith at all those will ever be ported to M1. Yes, they may run OK on Rosetta 2, but if history is our guide, Apple will remove Rosetta 2 from future versions of macOS.
I'm not sure what strategy you're talking about or what you mean by failure. Apple Arcade seems mostly aimed at iOS as thats where the biggest market is (but it also works on some Macs, though there have been bugs). I would guess Apple makes more from just gaming on iOS than Steam does annually.
Let's look at the numbers: Steam gets about $4 billion in revenue (2017). Apple pulled in $15 billion from the iOS app store (2019), with 70% of that coming from games, or $10 billion. So gaming on iOS is over twice the size of Steam by revenue, and probably by profit too. I'd love to fail like that.
It's hard to tell how much Apple Arcade pulls in, but wikipedia says it's available in 150 countries, and is predicted to grow to around 10% of iOS users and bring in $5 billion revenue by 2024. That's just a prediction, but even if Apple Arcade fails that target by 50% (which I think is pretty likely) that's around half the size of Steam, and a major global player in gaming. Again, I'd love to fail like that.