Apple CAN’T do AAA gaming [Merged Megathread]

[diamond.g]

In short: a more expensive version ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If they could keep the price at 199 that would be nice.

 

[CarAnalogy]

I've brought this up before, so sorry if I sound like a broken telegraph machine, but former AMD architect Cliff Maier has talked to his contacts within Apple. He says that "he knows for a fact" that gaming is imperative for Apple and on Sunday he said, "Apple sees gaming as very important, and they are going to keep banging away on it from every angle, including the content side, until they gain traction." So, assuming he is correct, and I see no reason to doubt him, what we have seen with RE Village, No Man's Sky, and Metal 3 are just the start of their efforts.

Nothing in that statement implies in any way that they are addressing the issue of great PC and console games never coming to the Mac, and the developers of those games not even considering it.

"Gaming" is way too broad a term. Defined by money Apple is possibly already the biggest gaming company, certainly one of the biggest. They make billions charging 30% of in app purchases on thousands and thousands of casino games.

But if you don't want to play casual junk there are not many options on the Mac especially. If Apple sees it as very important that could just mean they don't want to lose all that free money. Doesn't mean they want to actually make it easier for developers to make AAA games for the Mac.

Apple now has a similar problem to what Microsoft faced in the 2000s. The iPhone is too important to them and they're afraid to do anything to upset its dominance. iPhone casual gaming has worked for them, so they are gonna stick with it.

Edit: OK I actually read the linked article and though it talks about Mac gaming specifically, it's still just talking about maybe a potential future that could one day happen. "All MacBooks are gaming MacBooks" is a great example of the corporate nonsense that seems to be all that comes from Apple these days. Sure, all MacBooks can run Apple Arcade. That counts. All MacBooks are gaming MacBooks eh? Why can't I run Overwatch, then?

No Man's Sky is a great game but it's not exactly new. Resident Evil hasn't been any good for years but I admit I don't know much about Village. And even still, these are games that are "coming." I've been around long enough to not take that seriously until it's actually for sale and available for download.

 

[Boil]

Look, I just want GTA6 on macOS / Apple silicon...

In the meantime, can we get a "filler game" (like like Vice City Stories, or The Lost and the Damned, or The Ballad of Gay Tony); I cannot wait to play through GTA: Sandy Shores, where we continue to build up Trevor Philips Industries and Trevor's mom becomes a playable character...?!? ;^p

 

[thenewperson]

If they could keep the price at 199 that would be nice.

I'd be shocked if they gave M1 (at least) and 64GB for 199. I can (maybe) see 299 at the most optimistic.

 

[diamond.g]

I'd be shocked if they gave M1 (at least) and 64GB for 199. I can (maybe) see 299 at the most optimistic.

@299 it needs to have 512GB, otherwise why get it over a Series S if you have to constantly shuffle games off of it due to low storage. Heck they removed the USB-C port on the aTV that would have been an easy way to expand the storage...

 

[thenewperson]

@299 it needs to have 512GB, otherwise why get it over a Series S if you have to constantly shuffle games off of it due to low storage. Heck they removed the USB-C port on the aTV that would have been an easy way to expand the storage...

I mean, that's just the Apple TV's life currently isn't it? "Why get it over cheaper, more feature-full devices?" is all I ever hear about it.

Anyway, maybe by the time they feel a device like that is worth releasing they'll have made 512 the base on M-series chips, as right now I just can't see 512 for 299 given where 256GB iPads and Macs stand (granted, with displays, but still).

 

[diamond.g]

I mean, that's just the Apple TV's life currently isn't it? "Why get it over cheaper, more feature-full devices?" is all I ever hear about it.

Anyway, maybe by the time they feel a device like that is worth releasing they'll have made 512 the base on M-series chips, as right now I just can't see 512 for 299 given where 256GB iPads and Macs stand (granted, with displays, but still).

For the kind of games that is currently on the device the current storage setup is fine. But if we are looking to play Modern Warfare: Warzone (with PC/Console crossplay) or GTA6 on the aTV then we will need lots more storage. Heck I was just griping that Baldurs Gate 3 needs 150GB (per system requirements) to play now, it wouldn't even fit on an aTV even if it could play just fine.

The device could be more expensive, it just has to have something that makes it worthwile. Right now the Series S has GamePass, Sony/Nintendo has their 1st party games. Maybe the media driven ecosystem that Apple has would be tempting/enough.

 

[Irishman]

In short: a more expensive version ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But still half the price of a PS5 or XBOX Series X

 

[thenewperson]

The device could be more expensive, it just has to have something that makes it worthwile

I fully agree, but that needs hard work from Apple convincing devs to bring big and interesting indie games to the Mac and iOS (and soon after release on other platforms or even immediately).

But still half the price of a PS5 or XBOX Series X

Honestly I've always thought the ATV should be a line of products and not just the one. We can maybe have:

- Apple TV SE - between 199 and 199, 64GB storage, older A-series chip. Just the media box.
- Apple TV - between 200 and 399, 256GB storage start (or 512 if we're looking for miracles), current M-series chip, bigger boy.
- Apple TV Pro - between 400 and 699, 512GB storage start (or 1TB), current Mn Pro chip, biggest boy.

And even looking at that the prices still seem optimistic based on current ATV pricing lol. I think a Pro chip is as far as they need to go, but there can always be a Max ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Irishman]

Apple and games, love <-> hate relationship. Some memories of Steve and games:

• I can recall Steve introducing the original iMac >> he said "we love gaming", and showed off a few titles that were coming to the Mac back in 1998 (including the original Unreal - which could not even run decently on the largest Power Mac G3...)
• Later iMacs had games like Nanosaur and Bugdom included for free
• Preview of Mac OS X on stage, including a live Quake 3 Arena demo.... which crashed during loading
• Introduction of the GeForce 3 on the Mac >> preview of Doom 3

They acknowledge that gaming on iOS is huge. Now there's Apple Silicon Macs, thus similar hardware as iOS devices with similar Metal API.
The M1 Max has good 3D performance. M2 decent performance.
This all look like positive signs for gaming on Mac, right?

I am not that positive TBH. We might see more games run natively on Apple Silicon, but it wouldn't surprise me that the majority will be games ported over from iOS.
We're still dependant on porting houses like Feral and Aspyr to give us the great games on macOS. And sure... the occasional AAA will arrive....

You’re the First and only person who I’ve heard say that the Quake 3 Arena demo crashed during loading live on stage. Care to refresh an old man’s memory with a link to that?

 

[Homy]

You’re the First and only person who I’ve heard say that the Quake 3 Arena demo crashed during loading live on stage. Care to refresh an old man’s memory with a link to that?

 

[Nugat Trailers]

From the Unreal Engine 5.1 roadmap https://portal.productboard.com/epi...roadmap/tabs/80-unreal-engine-5-1-in-progress

'With Unreal Engine 5.0 and earlier versions, the Unreal Editor was running as an x86_64 (Intel) executable on M1 macOS computers. This approach did leverage all the performance benefits of the platform.

The UE team is actively working on porting the Unreal Editor and its dependencies to support natively the Apple Silicon platform, thus offering increased performance and stability.'

 

[diamond.g]

From the Unreal Engine 5.1 roadmap https://portal.productboard.com/epi...roadmap/tabs/80-unreal-engine-5-1-in-progress

'With Unreal Engine 5.0 and earlier versions, the Unreal Editor was running as an x86_64 (Intel) executable on M1 macOS computers. This approach did leverage all the performance benefits of the platform.

The UE team is actively working on porting the Unreal Editor and its dependencies to support natively the Apple Silicon platform, thus offering increased performance and stability.'

@leman does Metal not need PSO gathering? I noticed they specifically mentioned DX12 and Vulkan but nothing about Metal for improvements to Automated PSO gathering (to stop hitching).

 

[leman]

@leman does Metal not need PSO gathering? I noticed they specifically mentioned DX12 and Vulkan but nothing about Metal for improvements to Automated PSO gathering (to stop hitching).

I have no idea about inner workings of the Unreal Engine or what they mean by PSO gathering. That’s probably more related to the engine logic that the API itself.

 

[diamond.g]

I have no idea about inner workings of the Unreal Engine or what they mean by PSO gathering. That’s probably more related to the engine logic that the API itself.

I think the Metal equivalent is to DX12's ID3D12PipelineState is MTLRenderPipelineState. Though I am still not sure why dynamically generating that would cause hitching in DX/Vulkan, but not Metal.

 

[leman]

I think the Metal equivalent is to DX12's ID3D12PipelineState is MTLRenderPipelineState. Though I am still not sure why dynamically generating that would cause hitching in DX/Vulkan, but not Metal.

Creating pipeline objects is expensive in all the APIs. If they have to create a lot of those during rendering in Metal it certainly could introduce performance issues.

 

[diamond.g]

This looks like a fun game that probably would run fine on a Mac. Wonder if they will do a Mac port.

 

[diamond.g]

I am sad Apple has reportedly back out of a purchase of EA. Was just looking at all the IP they would own (Need for Speed, Starwars games, Madden, NHL, PGA, Battlefield, Sims, SimCity, Dead Space, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Ultima, F1 racing, Real Racing).

 

[thenewperson]

I am sad Apple has reportedly back out of a purchase of EA. Was just looking at all the IP they would own (Need for Speed, Starwars games, Madden, NHL, PGA, Battlefield, Sims, SimCity, Dead Space, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Ultima, F1 racing, Real Racing).

Yeah. I wonder if they'll go for another. Maybe a smaller company or something.

 

[diamond.g]

Yeah. I wonder if they'll go for another. Maybe a smaller company or something.

They could buy developers, or approach developers for new games and maybe say they own the IP once published.

 

[thenewperson]

or approach developers for new games and maybe say they own the IP once published

Approaching devs does seem to be the way they're going for now, though we haven't seen the latter yet. I was just hoping they'd keep a studio (like EA) on hand the way they do Beats, not necessarily dictating every aspect of how they operate but maybe giving a directive that Metal-native is a must.

Wonder how much work that'd be for said studio if that actually happened though.

 

[diamond.g]

Approaching devs does seem to be the way they're going for now, though we haven't seen the latter yet. I was just hoping they'd keep a studio (like EA) on hand the way they do Beats, not necessarily dictating every aspect of how they operate but maybe giving a directive that Metal-native is a must.

Wonder how much work that'd be for said studio if that actually happened though.

It would be interesting to see Frostbite use Metal API, though based on all the issues the engine reportedly had with some games I wouldn't expect much (sadly).

 

[Odessa]

I'm hopeful that Ventura with Metal3 will makes porting games with Vulkan/DX12 api easier. Theses Resident Evil VII and No Man Sky releases are kind of a test, if it sells well we should see more mainstream games coming to Apple Silicon.

 

[diamond.g]

I'm hopeful that Ventura with Metal3 will makes porting games with Vulkan/DX12 api easier. Theses Resident Evil VII and No Man Sky releases are kind of a test, if it sells well we should see more mainstream games coming to Apple Silicon.

That is the hope. I guess if Capcom was going to bring other properties to macOS (like Monster Hunter), a good showing of folks buying RE8 would help.

 

[TBoneMac]

No excuses and defending Apple.

it’s simple. 30 years and 2 $trillion dollar laters Apple still couldn’t make the Mac platform an actual viable gaming platform

repeat after me and make it a mantra.

……because Apple can‘t do AAA gaming.


until the culture within the company changes with people who care and understand AAA games in that regard it will continue to be


….because Apple can‘t do AAA gaming.

I use my macbook pro for gaming all the time. What are you talking about?

I play AAA games constantly but not always. They're just not brand new.

My macbook = (2017 15.4 inch macbook pro)

Did you know most apple pcs are more powerful than most pcs in general even many "gaming" pcs provided they're not high end gaming pcs.

Did you know that it's not apple but the game developers who are lazy and greedy?

Did you know Blizzard is a company that could easily improve it's games on macOS but instead they choose to do the bare minimum for macOS i.e. getting the game to "work" is good enough for them instead of properly porting it to macOS? Don't worry it's not only Blizzard Entertainment but most gaming companies choose not to properly make games on macOS because they see a net loss in profit. So instead of making proper ports to macOS they choose one of the two following options.

1. Make a port to macOS is playable but not optimized (i.e. don't spend time developing it properly just do the bare minimum so that they don't lose money making a proper port)
2. Don't make a version for macOS at all

It's these two problems that I just mentioned which are causing macOS gaming to lull and stay in the dark. Nothing else is causing macOS gaming to stay in the dark.




PS. Apple doesn't and never has had $2 trillion. If Apple had over $2 trillion they would buy MicroSoft and Google out. Networth doesn't mean they have 2 trillion dollars to spend. The Vanguard Group owns over 7 trillion dollars in assets but they don't have 7 trillion dollars to spend.