Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
OS X List of Mac Metal games
- Thread starter jeanlain
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I don't know if I'd jump to that conclusion just yet. Metal is still a baby API. If Epic, developing Mac Fortnite, can grow from a buggy mess that literally would not let me join a game, and when it did I would get a frame-rate of seconds-per-frame, to the enjoyable game that it is now, then maybe we can cut the developers of ESO and the MoltenVK team a bit of slack.
Just an idea...
I think they care. They are trying to fix the problem. The issue is putting faith in a wrapper for an api that the platform doesn’t support is probably going to end up costing more in the long term in both performance and time/money.
As always, your mileage may vary.
I have been playing Fortnite since last Christmas, which is whatever version of Fortnite was out then. It has only gotten better since then.
Yeah, why did they choose Vulkan, are they planing a linux port? Vulkan is very difficult to use, from everything I hear.
The Vulkan backend will eventually end up on Windows according to the developer.
They also have no dedicated Mac team/guy anymore. And no one that knew metal. So they went with Vulkan because they already knew it.
In some Feral Metal games, performance has increased quite a bit after game and/or macOS updates. This prompted me to redo some comparisons with windows.
Rise of the Tomb Raider is now faster on macOS than on Windows 1803 on my iMac equipped with the radeon 580 and the core i5.
In fact, I'm getting an average of 71 fps on macOS on the benchmark tool vs 61 fps on Windows DX12 (57 fps with DX11). I'm using relatively recent crimson drivers on Windows, and the same "high" settings on both OSes (I disabled tessellation on Windows since it's not available on macOS) at 2048*1152.
The performance delta reflects actual gameplay (checked during the first level).
I also tested Hitman, and performance is basically the same between OSes.
Note that the OS and games are installed on an external USB 3.1 SSD for Windows, vs the fusion drive for macOS. I don't think this makes a difference in fps. If anything, loading takes longer on macOS.
Conclusions: Feral are awesome, but we knew that already. Metal isn't bad either.
EDIT:
Something isn't right on Windows. Actually, 2048*1152 isn't available (it's the resolution I use for this game on macOS). The game only proposes 2048*1536, which doesn't make sense since it's not the screen aspect ratio. So I suspect the game wasn't running at the same resolution on Windows. Curiously, 2048*1536 is more pixels than 1440p, though the games run a bit more slowly at 1440p on Windows. At 1440p, macOS is actually 10% slower than DX12.
At 1080p, macOS is only only a couple of fps slower.
So, not a victory for macOS, but we're making progress still.
Rise of the Tomb Raider is now faster on macOS than on Windows 1803 on my iMac equipped with the radeon 580 and the core i5.
In fact, I'm getting an average of 71 fps on macOS on the benchmark tool vs 61 fps on Windows DX12 (57 fps with DX11). I'm using relatively recent crimson drivers on Windows, and the same "high" settings on both OSes (I disabled tessellation on Windows since it's not available on macOS) at 2048*1152.
The performance delta reflects actual gameplay (checked during the first level).
I also tested Hitman, and performance is basically the same between OSes.
Note that the OS and games are installed on an external USB 3.1 SSD for Windows, vs the fusion drive for macOS. I don't think this makes a difference in fps. If anything, loading takes longer on macOS.
Conclusions: Feral are awesome, but we knew that already. Metal isn't bad either.
EDIT:
Something isn't right on Windows. Actually, 2048*1152 isn't available (it's the resolution I use for this game on macOS). The game only proposes 2048*1536, which doesn't make sense since it's not the screen aspect ratio. So I suspect the game wasn't running at the same resolution on Windows. Curiously, 2048*1536 is more pixels than 1440p, though the games run a bit more slowly at 1440p on Windows. At 1440p, macOS is actually 10% slower than DX12.
At 1080p, macOS is only only a couple of fps slower.
So, not a victory for macOS, but we're making progress still.
Last edited:
Yes, but is Apple bothered about computer related products any more? Far more 'easy' money to be made in services it seems.
It's becoming les and less likely I'm going to replace my present iMac with another, or any other Mac computer.
It's becoming les and less likely I'm going to replace my present iMac with another, or any other Mac computer.
We can add Batman: Arkham City GOTY to this list. Feral updated it just a few days ago on both Steam and the Mac App Store, adding Metal and 64-bit support.
In addition to improved performance, the game also sports graphical options that I’m pretty sure weren’t there before.
Thank you very much, Feral!
In addition to improved performance, the game also sports graphical options that I’m pretty sure weren’t there before.
Thank you very much, Feral!
Colour me impressed. I have a Late 2012 iMac with a 23-inch Cinema Display at 1920x1200 (got Mac with broken screen) running at 'High' with an overage of 40+ FPS with Metal. Not bad at all - great work Feral