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Will the M1x MacBook pros be gaming worthy?
- Thread starter im_Jared
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Maybe the link was too subtle 😁.
I've updated the post with a really apparent link to Andrew Tsai's YouTube video.
Even if Apple's chips are good for gaming, there is little reason for any developer to dedicate time or resources to developing games on the Mac. I liked having Intel chips because I could load Windows and play the few PC games I play through Windows even though they are also available on Mac, but now it's obvious I'll either need a PC to keep playing them once my Intel MBP ages or just rely only on a console to game.
Conjecture on how an A15 cores will behave in a M1x/M2 MacBook Pro 16"/13" 4port, iMac 27" or larger & Mac mini 4-port
Having said that if I knew I'd be stuck at home for the last 18 months I may have opted to keep my late 2017 64GB base iPhone 8 Plus rather than get a late 2019 base 64GB iPhone 11 Pro Max.
Downgrade to a SIM-only $1-12/month text/call/data plan until vaccine passports/IDs are phased out by 2025. Then upgrade to a late 2025 iPhone with 256GB base storage
Having said that if I knew I'd be stuck at home for the last 18 months I may have opted to keep my late 2017 64GB base iPhone 8 Plus rather than get a late 2019 base 64GB iPhone 11 Pro Max.
Downgrade to a SIM-only $1-12/month text/call/data plan until vaccine passports/IDs are phased out by 2025. Then upgrade to a late 2025 iPhone with 256GB base storage
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Depends on what numbers are and what they grow to.
Remember: Apple Silicon Macs have been out less than a year now, so the population size isn't presently that great.
That said, shortly after Apple introduced them the Mac Mini became the best selling computer in Japan.
A lot of people - including some more OS agnostic Windows aficionados - have been buying them for their undeniable price/performance/energy efficiency.
I remain committed to the idea that developers go where the numbers and gaming capable systems are - and of population, a certain number will be willing to buy games and play them.
Apple does not offer friction-less hardware component upgrades. In that respect it's like a PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo. Those video consoles are updated nearly every decade.
PC gamers typically every time they have money to upgrade which is every few years.
I love my Macs but let us acknowledge the selling point of each platform as it caters to different use cases and price points.
Much depends on how Apple prices future Macs.
A couple of years from now, the baseline gaming device is a $500 console with a GPU equivalent to 32 M1 GPU cores, 16 GB RAM, and 1 TB SSD. If Apple sells comparable M3 Macs for $1500, there may be a future for Mac gaming. If the price is $2000, we are back in the Intel era: Macs have too weak GPUs for the price.
And that is a significant point as it’s once again a reminder the latest and greatest hardware isn’t necessary, though, of course, desired.
Here’s some proof in PC land:
Rule of thumb with video consoles.
First year of production the games on it has yet to push the full potential of the console hardware.
Year or two before its replacement debuts the video games starts pushing the envelop of what can be done.
Historically I'd only buy a video console when the 1st price cut or 1st die shrink occurs. By then the native game library would be large enough to get a few excellent exclusives.
With Macs... I'd do something to a similar effect but with Apple Silicon blowing everyone's expectation out of the water made me wish I stuck to my 2011 MBP 13" and wait for the 2021 MBP 16" with Apple Silicon rather than the 2019 Intel model.
The problem with comparing Macs to consoles is developers can expect the hardware to stay constant for that amount of time, so they can squeeze "all" the performance out of the hardware (plus they get lower level access to come up with novel workarounds). You don't get that with Apple (nor PC) hardware. Developers don't spend time in the weeds to eek out every last drop of performance on Mac or PC because of the "wide" swath of hardware that would have to be supported.
I would think the current crops of M1 Macs should be a good baseline for many games.
Actually it is but the most vocal & visible of comments are those demanding RTX 3090 performance from 30W PSU.
I mean for the price is it too much to ask for feature and performance parity with say an Xbox Series X? It doesn't have to be 3090 levels of performance.
Most Macs (like most PCs) are not purchased primarily for gaming. They are purchased for normal computing tasks, and the fact that some of them may be capable of running games is mostly incidental.
There are users who do purchase computers primarily for gaming, but most of those are on the PC side. I maintain that those users make up but a small sliver of the total market, and while they form a lucrative portion of the gaming developer's audience, I believe that they represent a distinct minority of a game developer's total revenue.
This is why it's important for a game to have the ability to run on a wide variety of systems - not everyone in their target audience is going to have the latest GPU from nVidea or AMD. The equation of course changes if you're targeting game consoles where fixed performance targets apply.
Are there games where the developer has made a ton of money but it didn't come out on a console? I really feel like strategy games like civilization are the only ones where that may be true.
If we go by money the will make only mobile games in the future.
Mobile gaming brought in an estimated nearly $80 billion in 2020 revenue, compared with PC making almost $37 billion, and consoles — such as the Nintendo Switch, Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox — totaling $45 billion, according to gaming analytics company Newzoo.
I didn't say consoles were excluded ... just that a developer might want their software to run on a variety of performance envelopes to maximize revenue.
I (for instance) throughout the years have bought a bunch of MacBook Pros and iMacs with with decent graphics performance.
My job was as an IT guy and in-house developer before I retired, and at home I did a lot of transcoding and a bit of video editing so my systems were on the heavier side. I was able to run the Tomb Raider reincarnations with no problems at various crippled levels, but my 2020 iMac is a beast since Apple finally woke up and smelled the coffee.
Prior to M1, you'd never think of running games on the MacBook Air ... but now with Apple Silicon, even this lowly Mac has the oomph to game.
My 2019 16" Intel MacBook Pro could run the Tomb Raiders at about half resolution with its Radeon Pro 5500M, and I expect my new 16" (if rumors are correct) will have around twice the compute and four times the graphic oomph of the M1 - so I expect that one will run full resolution with all the options at a good frame rate, just like the 2020 iMac with a core-i9 and its Radeon Pro 5700 XT w/16 GB.
But even so, I hear that the M1 machines are running the Tomb Raider series under Rosetta 2 at a decent frame rate, which means that even Apple Silicon ultrabooks are capable of gaming which produces a bigger population percentage-wise of gaming capable devices than is the Intel ultrabook market (which is where I believe a large percentage of the Wintel/Chromebook market is).
As time goes on and the percentage of Apple Silicon Macs increase, this will form a large pool of potentially gaming capable devices since they will all be capable of gaming.
I too am excited about new hardware that can do the things you are talking about, I just am afraid it won't change developers minds in a way that would allow me to abandon the PC I built.
I'm sure that if you've built a PC for gaming it's got more than an M1's oomph 😁.
But when it comes to developers, I think that they go where they think there are devices capable of running their software and they can make money - and that some AAA developer will eventually test the waters when the population is big enough.
It's been less than a year since the first of the Apple Silicon Macs was released, after all - and though sales are good and their percentage of the market is expanding, there can't be that many of them (computer population-wise) yet.
Margins of PC gamers are substantial enough to cater to them.
Its market requirement are not compatible with Apple's business model for the Mac.
Hence my comparison of Macs to video consoles as they're both closed systems that are generally not as friction-less to swap out parts as PCs.
Consider the non-performance aspects of Macs such as
- weight
- dimensions
- mass
- keyboard & keyboard quality
- screen & screen quality
- battery
- body color
- build materials
- power draw at idle, standard & full load
- operating noise at idle, standard & full load
- utility outside of video gaming
Like when people put down the Macbook Pro 16" vs a gaming laptop I point out that no gaming laptop is powered using USB PD's near 100W limit prior to the increase to 240W. These gaming laptop are so huge, heavy, garish and other touch points that does not fit a specif use case that Apple focuses on.
It's like comparing a luxury car to a econobox. Both brings you from point A to B but they cater to different use cases.
When the M1 Mac Mini came out I did a compute performance of the $599 model to a PS5. Reason being at the time people were expecting Apple to produce an Apple TV competitor to a PS5, Switch or Xbox Series X.
Apple would need to subsidize that gaming Apple TV to match hardware price & absolute performance. With how cheap apps are on the App Store vs those sold by Sony/MS/Nintendo it may not be a niche they're willing to enter this early.
With all these things into consideration it makes little sense to trash each other preference of device we use.
I'd not recommend an iPhone for anyone whose phone budget is below $399 or $16/month.
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Could you point to a notebook that has similar specs (including weight, thickness, screen resolution, performance, etc.) that has graphics similar to a series X?
The expected high-end MBP with 32 GPU cores should meet the performance of current-generation consoles. The price is still too high – not because such laptops are expensive to produce but for product differentiation. Hardware makers always sell high-end devices at high profit margins, because that makes them more profit than basing the prices on costs. Console makers have other ways of making profit, and the prices they charge for hardware reflect the actual costs better.