Doomed for AAA gaming, which is not the same as doomed for gaming.
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Feral: Apple Silicon Opens Up 'Exciting Opportunities' for the Future of Mac Gaming
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Doomed for all gamings. For example, Boot camp no longer works. How about indie games? Are there any native games? Beside, macOS is the worst platform for gaming and that's why many games like Genshin and Alien Isolation dont support macOS but iOS/iPadOS.
Ha, that is dedication. I played WoW back in the day on my Mac. Got away from it, in part because at some point my gaming pad wasn't supported by a new version of MacOS. Non-WoW players probably won't know what I mean, but I bet you do. For those that don't know, to play WoW it helps if you can hit a bunch of different keys that are bound to about a dozen different abilities (maybe it was more like two dozen abilities or options) as well as WASD to move. And you need to be able to do all of them by touch typing. A keyboard will work fine. But what really works is a dedicated pad where all the keys are within easy reach of one hand and then a gaming mouse is in your other hand that also has a ton of buttons. I got used to that way of playing, then couldn't get the equipment to work with my Mac. So the game became harder for me to play well. So then I stopped.
I suspect your RAM issue is a somewhat temporary problem and that the next Mac mini will support 32gb. Though I suppose the existence of the Mac Studio might mean that Apple will just point to that. Apple really was supply constrained when it initially released the M1 and they couldn't dedicate chip fabrication to the niche group that needed 32gb but didn't also need something stronger than the original M1.
I think Apple will continue to deprioritize gaming. But that it will come. The Apple Laptops will sell in huge quantities in the US. Once there is a large enough number of them out there, each of them is a potential customer for game developers. The game developers will port the most successful titles to reach those customers. Once the Mac as a gaming device gets "enough" games, some group of PC Gamers will not upgrade their Gaming PC. Then they will buy the ported titles. That will encourage more ports, and the snowball continues to grow as it roles down hill.
It has to be said, though, the barriers to non-Mac gaming are exceedingly low. Some of the tools I mentioned are free, Parallels is inexpensive and, though consoles are cost a bit (and some are hard to find
, it can be said that’s the cost of the simplicity of the solution. And, using these methods, developers do nothing, users get the same games around the same release date (once the right configurations for the emulation/virtualization are discovered).So… I don’t think there’s potential to expand marketshare, at least not significantly. There’s an opportunity to make folks that already own a Mac and would like to play, say, Trackmania on it happier, but not having a game isn’t likely to lead to a non-Mac purchase. And, since half the folks buying Macs in a given year are new users, even if a million folks were like, “No, I HAVE to be able to game on my laptop.” There’s a few million that have never had a Mac before to come in and replace them. On iOS, there’s just a HUGE number of those devices out there. Do poorly and you could still do pretty well if you get a few whales interested in your game (and that can be said for PC as well, most AAA games include DLC).
If a game takes advantage of some special features of macOS that makes it truly unique and NOT cross-platform? A potential user would still be $699 and some additional hardware away from being able to experience it. So, that likely wouldn’t bring in enough NEW users to make a huge difference either (even if a developer was crazy enough to try). I mean… ok, if that ‘truly unique’ was more than just a fancier way of doing graphics on the same ol’ 2D screen. If this was the core required for what Apple wants to do with any AR/VR tech they have cooking up? Ok, I could see that. It still wouldn’t be Cyberpunk, but the Wii never had Cyberpunk (or many AAA titles at all?) and did pretty darn well.
If there is a need that isn't filled, and you have the expertise, then there's your side earner idea right there.
I can only say great things about Feral Interactive. They're really doing a great job with their Mac ports and they're also super supportive when it comes to any issues. During the pandemic I played all 3 latest Tomb Raider games ported by them, running at basically maxed out settings on my Mac Pro and 30" Cinema Display at 1440p looking absolutely stunning.
Gaming – even Gaming on Macs – has come a long way… I still remember spending all summer as a child playing Tomb Raider 3 and 4 in ~1999 on my shiny new Grape iMac G3 with an awesome 333Mhz PPC ?
Luckily some of the greatest games have always been ported to the Mac and I am really thankful for that. Looking forward to Feral hopefully also porting the next, upcoming Tomb Raider to Mac, then for Apple Silicon. I shall be among the first to pre-order it from their store.
Gaming – even Gaming on Macs – has come a long way… I still remember spending all summer as a child playing Tomb Raider 3 and 4 in ~1999 on my shiny new Grape iMac G3 with an awesome 333Mhz PPC ?
Luckily some of the greatest games have always been ported to the Mac and I am really thankful for that. Looking forward to Feral hopefully also porting the next, upcoming Tomb Raider to Mac, then for Apple Silicon. I shall be among the first to pre-order it from their store.
That list is a lie. People are getting ~20fps with MBA M1 at 1080 ultra (highest preset) and not 38fps.
I completely gave up on Mac gaming back in 2014 when I decided to just rock a companion gaming PC and haven’t looked back since and I honestly think I’ll keep going this way
But man if Apple Silicon doesn’t get me excited again about actually getting some kind of games.
Listen, Apple Silicon GPU’s will probably never trade blows with top end nVidia GPUs that consume 4 times as much power as an entire Mac Studio Ultra running at 100% but that’s fine - as long as they’re capable enough to run games decently I’m not gonna complain.
I’m always going to have my PC by my side to do some serious gaming but if I can kill time on my Mac with stuff like city builders and other not so demanding games? I’m all for it.
Also its stupid.. but it’s making me nostalgic of the PowerPC days when running windows was not an option and Mac gaming was this scrappy little community that waited eagerly for the likes of Aspyr and Feral to drop a hot new port, as well as a few indie Mac only games.
Now that we’re going to need ports again it all feels very familiar in a good way. Ultimately it will mean less games cause a company can’t just slap the windows executable inside a Cedega wrapper and call it a Mac port but honestly I’ll take less games that are actually ported rather than more games that barely work.
I was never a fan of Wine/Cedega/Cider/whatever they rebranded themselves into releases and I’m glad they’re no longer an option
But man if Apple Silicon doesn’t get me excited again about actually getting some kind of games.
Listen, Apple Silicon GPU’s will probably never trade blows with top end nVidia GPUs that consume 4 times as much power as an entire Mac Studio Ultra running at 100% but that’s fine - as long as they’re capable enough to run games decently I’m not gonna complain.
I’m always going to have my PC by my side to do some serious gaming but if I can kill time on my Mac with stuff like city builders and other not so demanding games? I’m all for it.
Also its stupid.. but it’s making me nostalgic of the PowerPC days when running windows was not an option and Mac gaming was this scrappy little community that waited eagerly for the likes of Aspyr and Feral to drop a hot new port, as well as a few indie Mac only games.
Now that we’re going to need ports again it all feels very familiar in a good way. Ultimately it will mean less games cause a company can’t just slap the windows executable inside a Cedega wrapper and call it a Mac port but honestly I’ll take less games that are actually ported rather than more games that barely work.
I was never a fan of Wine/Cedega/Cider/whatever they rebranded themselves into releases and I’m glad they’re no longer an option
Yes, about 700 or so on Steam, which only started supporting uploading native/universal titles in September.
Excited to see more games taking full advantage of Apple Silicon in the future.
That is incorrect. Alien Isolation was first released for Mac in 2015 and is still being sold and playable on Apple Silicon via Rosetta. It wasn't released for iOS until 6 months ago, 6 years later.
Incorrect! The list is not a lie, just that particular result which doesn't make the whole list a lie. It's also easy to see the error compared to the other results. All other numbers for the different M1 chips seem to be correct.
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The performance scales well when the code is using Metal. If the code is going through a couple of inefficient translation layers first, then no, it’s not going to scale well
BUT, those developers are not writing entertainment applications that, to some degree, have to be as cross platform as possible in order to maximize investment.
It seems to scale well to a point but not beyond 48 cores.
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This is actually a key point.
Some games and game types are a better fit for the Apple Mac demographic than others. Smart publishers will look at their catalog and upcoming titles and not necessarily make one size fits all decisions.
(But there is also the concerning fact that platform holders increasingly purchase game publishers in order to strengthen the platform. In these cases, the strategic AAA games will never be multi platform.)
In the thread about Total War: Warhammer III, it was demonstrated that at this point in time 40% of Mac users on Steam are already on Apple Silicon. That's an astoundingly quick transition, which reduces the support effort going forward. It also reinforces that the number of systems sold is high by Apples standards, we may be approaching an installed base of 40 million or so.
* AS Macs sell at a brisk pace, and they sell to a group of people that might buy and install their own software, as opposed to the huge volumes of Windows systems sold to administrations.
* However, while Apple Macs sell to a buying demographic, the people they sell to do not prioritize playing games on their Macs, but buy it out of preference and primarily for something else. (Chicken and egg problem.) Those that do care about a wide game library have access to some other platform(s) for the purpose.
* But - these users did prefer the Mac, or they wouldn't have bought it over a Windows system. So if the kind of games that they like for entertainment were available for the Mac, they might not only buy it for the system, but actively choose titles that support their preferred platform.
So there is some complexity to this. Ultimately these decisions are made in board rooms based on ROI, so there needs to be a healthy user base that actually buys the games. If the volume just isn't there, or they preferentially buy their games on other platforms, then the business case is obviously weak. At this point in time, as the volume is building, a publisher has to be willing to take a risk.
Well, like GFN. Stadia's... not doing so hot, to put it mildly.
And to little surprise.
For some aspects of gaming it sure is. The Switch makes compromises in heavier games when it cones to graphics details compared to the stronger consoles and PC/Windows.
But what exactly is the problem you think? I’ve also been thinking why the Nintendo Switch has so much more “console class” games compared to iPhone and iPad where the majority are more of the “mobile game” type. This all the while an iPad with a game controller hardware wise makes it even stronger than a Switch.
The Metal API has been out for many years and is capable enough. What is missing to make an iPad more of a Switch rival? ?
So after 1.5 years so half of the 3 years you predicted hardly any new AAA game made it's way to MacOS and gaming on MacOS hasn't improved at all.See my in-depth analysis of how Apple Silicon will change gaming on macOS:
In 3 years, 50% of all computers capable of playing AAA games will be Macs
Edit: December 13th, 2021: Apple will sell about 27 million Macs in 2021. Assume that 80% are M1/M1Pro/M1Max Macs, then Apple will have sold 21 million Macs capable of playing AAA games. According to IDC, the number of gaming computers (desktops and laptops) sold in 2021 is projected to be 47...forums.macrumors.com
Also my Vivobook Pro 15 with an RTX 3050 which was cheaper than a base Macbook Air with 8gb RAM and 256gb storage(the Vivibook has 16Gb RAM and 1Tb storage) can honestly play games better than any Macbook.
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Give it time. We should start seeing more and more AAA games on AS Macs starting in 2023 and beyond.
It doesn't look like that will be the case.
Just like your assumption that in 3 years 50% of computers capable of playing AAA games will be Macs.
Not just this but gaming performance in general can't be based on single game.
If you look at sites that compare GPUs they use +10 games at least(and different resolutions) and there's always difference on a per game basis. For example an Nvidia GPU will never be exactly 20% faster than it's AMD counterpart no matter the game.
That’s just it, they shouldn’t but they should do something. This dev is making intel look bad for what could be an apple issue. Intel has been laying around doing nothing for long enough. Intel is just starting to get it together and need to keep the momentum going.
Keep moving forward.
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