Will the M1x MacBook pros be gaming worthy?

[im_Jared]

Currently I am faced with a dilemma, which laptop to buy.
I need a laptop that I can run all my code and game on it for fun.

I sold my gaming console because realized, I could get a laptop like the G15 or Blade 14 5900hx, and if will probably perform better then my ps4 pro.

But Apple is in my blood lol, I am wondering if the new M1x chipped MacBook pros (14in and 16in) will be a good option for gaming.

I know currently Mac’s pretty much suck at playing games, but I still have hope, and was wondering if anyone knows anything about it.

 

[OriginalClone]

Doesn't matter how powerful they'll be if devs don't make any games for it.

 

[im_Jared]

Doesn't matter how powerful they'll be if devs don't make any games for it.

I would run windows through Parallels.
I have a feeling Apple will put some speech time in the event, to gaming, bring bootcamp to their arm chips and maybe bring out their own game steam sevice.

The questions was if the macs will be powerful enough on the Cpu and Gpu side to run these games that need those higher multicore ratings.

 

[im_Jared]

Doesn't matter how powerful they'll be if devs don't make any games for it.

But I guess, running games unnatively restricts you a lot.

 

[CheesePuff]

I would run windows through Parallels.
I have a feeling Apple will put some speech time in the event, to gaming, bring bootcamp to their arm chips and maybe bring out their own game steam sevice.

The questions was if the macs will be powerful enough on the Cpu and Gpu side to run these games that need those higher multicore ratings.

You're going to only be able to run Windows Technical Preview for Arm which then emulates x86 apps/games so its going to be a big performance hit

 

[Madhatter32]

If you want AAA capability and unlimited gaming options, you really have no choice today. A windows based gaming laptop is your only option. If you're a casual gamer who is alright with limited gaming options, you can go with the MBP if you want. Who knows what the future holds though.

 

[VArase]

I'm hoping that with those eight speedy Firestorm cores and a 32 GPU m1x, Win ARM under Parallels will route the DirectX API calls through macOS to Metal and produce decent Win x86-64 game performance.

After all, with unified memory the Mac can eliminate those memory transfers back and forth from main to/from graphics memory, and do intermediate rendering in tile memory - eliminating a lot of the overhead of Wintel graphics transfers.

 

[Serban55]

since you will face with some emulation, the only option on the mac world is to buy the 32 gpu cores model
and that probably will be the 16" only option

 

[ipsedixit]

No, it will not be game worthy.

 

[Serban55]

But I guess, running games unnatively restricts you a lot.

i think you should look at this and find what you will use
a lot has also mini videos with fps in it.. you can multiply by 2 or 3 (since the m1x will be at least twice the performance of the M1 on gpu) and if the result its ok with you then you are ok

M1 compatible games master list - Gaming on M1 Apple silicon Macs and MacBooks, bugs, fixes, compatiblity and troubleshooting guides - AppleGamingWiki

www.applegamingwiki.com

 

[JuicelessMango]

Why does this question always come up? PC is going to be your choice if you want to game. More and more game developers are dropping support for Mac entirely. Blizzard is a perfect example of this, their latest 3 games (released and upcoming). Overwatch, Diablo4, Diablo2 Resurrected don't support Mac. I'm honestly surprised they put the time in to make WoW run on m1 Macs.

 

[Kung gu]

I'm honestly surprised they put the time in to make WoW run on m1 Macs.

this was because they were also porting it to ARM windows and using the M1 macs as a test bed

 

[thekev]

I would run windows through Parallels.
I have a feeling Apple will put some speech time in the event, to gaming, bring bootcamp to their arm chips and maybe bring out their own game steam sevice.

The questions was if the macs will be powerful enough on the Cpu and Gpu side to run these games that need those higher multicore ratings.

You're still going to be running on graphics specced for a notebook, just run through some low level emulation with a hypervisor on top of it. That sounds like a disaster.

 

[Bandaman]

They would if developers actually made native games for it, which they won't anytime soon.

 

[MacPeasant123]

I would run windows through Parallels.
I have a feeling Apple will put some speech time in the event, to gaming, bring bootcamp to their arm chips and maybe bring out their own game steam sevice.

The questions was if the macs will be powerful enough on the Cpu and Gpu side to run these games that need those higher multicore ratings.

Check out these videos for gaming through Parallels:

 

[l0stl0rd]

You don’t buy a Mac for gaming

An honestly paralells is not really a solution.

Till we get native Windows 11 ARM or M1 games it will not be for gaming.

At the moment I think there is more of a chance for the first one to happen than the 2nd one.

 

[thekev]

Check out these videos for gaming through Parallels:

That youtube guy spends the first half of his video advertising for Parallels, then goes into geekbench. That is not informative.

 

[VArase]

You're still going to be running on graphics specced for a notebook, just run through some low level emulation with a hypervisor on top of it. That sounds like a disaster.

The hypervisor is an ARM hypervisor, running ARM Win natively which does x86 emulation on a SoC faster than any other SoC ARM Win runs on.

Parallels intercepts the DirectX calls and converts them to Metal calls - and you don't have to package up graphics requests, compress them, transmit them over PCIe, read them into graphics memory, and decompress them the way you do on a Wintel architecture to a discrete graphics card sitting on the other side of the PCI divide.

The graphics workflow on Apple Silicon is really much more straight-forward than the Wintel workflow since both the CPU and graphics coprocessors access the same memory.

We'll have to wait and see how it all pans out.

Meanwhile, hopefully ports from Aspyr and Feral Interactive and the like start appearing with universal binaries.

 

[NewUsername]

In theory, it’s possible that:
a) developers will start developing for macOS because Macs are now capable of running games (it wasn’t worth it on Intel Macs because the vast majority didn’t have decent GPUs)
or b) Microsoft will allow Windows ARM to run via Boot Camp, and Windows ARM will either get really good at emulating 64-bit Intel, or developers will start developing for Windows ARM

The question is: do you want to bet on that horse? The honest answer is that it is far more likely that gaming will remain a Windows thing for the next few years, and you’ll need a Windows PC for that.

 

[IBMlover]

This is what I would do:
1) don't buy an overpriced and noisy Windows gaming notebook, instead:
bulid yourself a gaming PC with the same performance with less money
2) from the money that you saved buy a light Macbook Air for on-the-go
3) be happy

Another option would be:
If you still want to buy a Macbook Pro and game on it, a gaming streaming service like "Geforce now" is the way to go - it works surprisingly good. Only thing you need is a stable internet connection with a low latency.

I wouldn't mess around with any virtualization or emulation on Macs - it's just not made for gaming...

 

[pappkristof]

Buy an Intel Mac.

 

[l0stl0rd]

In theory, it’s possible that:
a) developers will start developing for macOS because Macs are now capable of running games (it wasn’t worth it on Intel Macs because the vast majority didn’t have decent GPUs)
or b) Microsoft will allow Windows ARM to run via Boot Camp, and Windows ARM will either get really good at emulating 64-bit Intel, or developers will start developing for Windows ARM

The question is: do you want to bet on that horse? The honest answer is that it is far more likely that gaming will remain a Windows thing for the next few years, and you’ll need a Windows PC for that

Yes unless / until Intel and Amd makes arm chips for Windows 11.

 

[l0stl0rd]

This is what I would do:
1) don't buy an overpriced and noisy Windows gaming notebook, instead:
bulid yourself a gaming PC with the same performance with less money
2) from the money that you saved buy a light Macbook Air for on-the-go
3) be happy

Another option would be:
If you still want to buy a Macbook Pro and game on it, a gaming streaming service like "Geforce now" is the way to go - it works surprisingly good. Only thing you need is a stable internet connection with a low latency.

I wouldn't mess around with any virtualization or emulation on Macs - it's just not made for gaming...

Honestly the easiest option with the least hassle, which I did is get a Mac and use a Console for gaming.

 

[4743913]

I am starting to believe the winning move is a windows gaming laptop and macOS in a VM.

 

[SicTransitGloriaMundi]

This is what I would do:
1) don't buy an overpriced and noisy Windows gaming notebook, instead:
bulid yourself a gaming PC with the same performance with less money
2) from the money that you saved buy a light Macbook Air for on-the-go
3) be happy

This. the prices for laptop gpus are crazy and they perform so much less than their Desktop-counterparts with the same modelnumber. Make a diy build and save some money for a mba.