OS X Gaming-related WWDC announcements

[jeanlain]

So with Metal 2 on macOS High Sierra, we'll get:
- better performance. Apple says 10 times the draw call rate of Metal 1.x. This seems impossible.
- External GPU support. I'm curious about the specifics. Will we be able to use an eGPU to power the internal display? What about non-Metal apps, will we get a black screen? EDIT: apparently eGPU will work regardless of the API.
- VR support. We have the SteamVR SKD, Unreal Engine and Unity Support. I wonder if Valve ported Source 2 to Metal. Last I heard, they were not so fond of Metal as they basically initiated Vulkan

Overall, it seems Apple is taking graphics performance very seriously.

The WWDC sessions will be quite interesting.

EDIT: corrections related to VR.

 

[Flint Ironstag]

I heard no official support for eGPU powering the internal display. Hacks will still be needed. This was over at egpu.io

 

[gkarris]

- Steam VR. This seems tied to Unity (and possibly Unreal Engine?). I wonder if Valve helped. Last I heard, they were not so fond of Metal as they basically initiated Vulkan

Overall, it seems Apple is taking graphics performance very seriously.

The WWDC sessions will be quite interesting.

Hopefully, like in the old days, Macs ran games better than PC's (games just worked on a Mac).

Maybe the same for VR. Just tried PSVR on my PC and it is a major pain and game performance is all over the place depending on the game...

Hopefully VR on a Mac will be turn-key like it is on Playstation.

Here's my post on the console side of VR:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/virtual-reality.1912669/page-5#post-24635802

 

[marksatt]

So with Metal 2 on macOS High Sierra, we'll get:
- better performance. Apple says 10 times the draw call rate of Metal 1.x. This seems impossible.
- External GPU support. I'm curious about the specifics. Will we be able to use an eGPU to power the internal display? What about non-Metal apps, will we get a black screen? EDIT: apparently eGPU will work regardless of the API.
- Steam VR. This seems tied to Unity (and possibly Unreal Engine?). I wonder if Valve helped. Last I heard, they were not so fond of Metal as they basically initiated Vulkan

Overall, it seems Apple is taking graphics performance very seriously.

The WWDC sessions will be quite interesting.

Eh? Did you not see the huge Epic Games logo when they introduced Lauren? We had two demos this year for UE4, Vader in VR and the Wingnut AR demo on iPad.

No Unity at all...
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I heard no official support for eGPU powering the internal display. Hacks will still be needed. This was over at egpu.io

Piping rendering back to the internal display will always be bad for eGPU performance because it eats precious bandwidth and increases latency. An eGPU makes sense when you connect a larger external display into the GPU.

 

[jeanlain]

Eh? Did you not see the huge Epic Games logo when they introduced Lauren? We had two demos this year for UE4, Vader in VR and the Wingnut AR demo on iPad.

No Unity at all...

I saw the UE logo, but it wasn't obvious that the demo had something to do with SteamVR.
EDIT: my first post wasn't clear. I meant that SteamVR on the Mac may not use Source 2, since Valve seems to be working a lot with Unity.
[doublepost=1496709885][/doublepost]

Piping rendering back to the internal display will always be bad for eGPU performance because it eats precious bandwidth and increases latency. An eGPU makes sense when you connect a larger external display into the GPU.

If the iMac can be used as an external display, as it once could, then you can have a display port cable going back to the iMac via the other port, so video wouldn't compete for bandwidth in the first TB port.

Joke aside, are you happy with the performance-oriented features of Metal 2? "Indirect argument buffers" sound like a big deal.

 

[Ferazel]

Eh? Did you not see the huge Epic Games logo when they introduced Lauren? We had two demos this year for UE4, Vader in VR and the Wingnut AR demo on iPad.

Congrats on the Unreal featuring today Mark, I'm sure your hard work was on display today. I would love to hear your comments on the API changes to Metal 2 and what you like/dislike and what you feel is still missing.

 

[koyoot]

I think everybody interested would love to hear any input from everybody knowledgeable of Metal 2 improvements .

 

[Irishman]

I think everybody interested would love to hear any input from everybody knowledgeable of Metal 2 improvements .

It's hard to believe that claim of 10x greater performance over Metal 1, right?

 

[koyoot]

It's hard to believe that claim of 10x greater performance over Metal 1, right?

No, not really.

 

[gkarris]

It's hard to believe that claim of 10x greater performance over Metal 1, right?

No, not really.

Does it have something to do with Metal 2 running on only the most recent GPU's and they are including the newer GPU performance?

(I don't know much about Metal and what GPU's it supports hence the question.)

 

[jeanlain]

Apparently, the 10x improvements in draw call CPU time are brought by the new "indirect argument buffers" feature. I suppose this means the reusability of command buffers, which Vulkan and DX12 have had from the start.
It's funny to discuss things we don't know about. Where are all the experts? Leman, Mark?

 

[Ferazel]

It's hard to believe that claim of 10x greater performance over Metal 1, right?

The thing is that it is "Up to 10x better draw call throughput", not general performance. Also, from what I can glean (AKA I'm making a guess) Metal2 will only offer another 10x for special types of draw calls that have their resources assigned to them from other GPU draw calls (indirectly). Depending on the game and GPU rendering that is used this could be a great help or virtually nothing at all.

 

[Cougarcat]

In the state of the union they announced that 32-bit apps are going away. They'll get a warning in High Sierra and won't be supported in the next release.

So, play your backlog of old games now.

 

[jeanlain]

As I understand it, high Sierra won't show a warning. It'll be the next version. And I haven't heard them mention an upcoming macOS version not supporting 32 bit apps. I only heard about the warning.

 

[Cougarcat]

And I haven't heard them mention an upcoming macOS version not supporting 32 bit apps. I only heard about the warning.

They said that the transition to 64-bit only Mac-apps will be similar to how it was handled on iOS. HS will be the last macOS release to support 32-bit apps "without compromises," whatever that means. But yes, warnings won't happen til next year.

It's about 3:45 in the state of the union.

 

[jeanlain]

If a 32-bit game is to remain on the Mac App Store, then it will have to be updated to 64-bits at same point I guess. Some goes for a Steam game (and Steam itself, actually).
As always, Apple forces everyone forward. :-/
Apps that use old frameworks like Quicktime probably won't be updated, because moving to 64 bits won't be achieved by just ticking a checkbox in Xcode.

 

[Cougarcat]

If a 32-bit game is to remain on the Mac App Store, then it will have to be updated to 64-bits at same point I guess. Some goes for a Steam game (and Steam itself, actually).

They announced the deadlines for the App Store as well: 64-bit only for new apps by January, everything by June 2018 (for updates, anyway.)

Steam is getting a revamped UI later this year; hopefully it'll be a 64-bit rewrite.

 

[gkarris]

You start to wonder, though, how many devs would take the plunge into Mac.

They could just continue to develop for Windows and make Mac users boot into Windows instead.

Making people upgrade to the latest Mac or use an eGPU to use native Mac games may be too costly for most people...

 

[Cougarcat]

Making people upgrade to the latest Mac or use an eGPU to use native Mac games may be too costly for most people...

I'm just glad that Apple is supporting eGPUs regardless, even if I have to boot into Windows. I'd rather buy a costly eGPU than an even more costly gaming PC.

 

[jeanlain]

Making people upgrade to the latest Mac or use an eGPU to use native Mac games may be too costly for most people...

It's always been like this. Recent AAA games demand the newest Macs, and target only a very limited audience. It haven't prevented porting houses from releasing such games (e.g. Mafia III, which runs on only a handful of Mac models).

 

[gkarris]

I'm just glad that Apple is supporting eGPUs regardless, even if I have to boot into Windows. I'd rather buy a costly eGPU than an even more costly gaming PC.

Capable Gaming PC's and parts are getting cheaper, and cheaper.

Back to the subject at hand...

Costly eGPU's at least will give the Macs more of a lifespan when it comes to VR and gaming.

As long as you can put a new eGPU on ANY Mac with Thunderbolt 3 and have it properly supported to run the latest games and VR, then it will be fine.

If I had the money, I'd just get a cheap Mac Mini and put an eGPU on that...
[doublepost=1496776013][/doublepost]btw - Hopefully, the Mini will get an update to Tunderbolt 3 - plus I didn't know that the basic Mini ($499) is now configurable with extra memory and hard drive (wasn't used to be only 1 config for the basic model?).

My Macs are very old (Black MacBook and Mac Mini Core Duo 1.8) - may decide to invest the latest Mini...