Major gaming news at WWDC: Metal and New games

[GrumpyCoder]

Saying the same about what?

About native games in Metal.

Sure. But understanding the principles as well as differences behind the APIs is crucial if you are designing cross-platform software.

Sure, that's a given. Still doesn't mean one should bother jumping through hoops when things don't work. Have you worked with Unity lately? Apples likes Unity, yet very simple things don't work on macOS in Unity, even stuff that is not platform dependent. Try the Unity Robotics Hub, nothing platform specific in there, yet it's broken graphically and requires special attention to deal with it.

We have an Apple engineer making a statement on an official channel that the "500,000 limit" does not refer to the "size of the descriptor heap" like the people commonly thought. Isn't that clear enough? What else is lacking in your opinion?

That's not really what he said. He said they put some random high enough number in there instead as a replacement for "you won't need more". So essentially it's "do it the Apple way or not at all". And when one is developing Apple exclusive that might make sense, otherwise no. I'm still thinking about fixing the issues in the Robotic Hub or just ignoring it and go Windows/Linux only. It's somewhat easy to fix though, so might be worth it. Issues down the road, not sure about it.

Just because DX12 tells you that you can use 1 million descriptors doesn't mean that you can or should use 1 million resources.

And yet, people do. Again, doesn't mean they're doing this for a single frame, but it's there. And no, it doesn't mean you have to pre-load every resource in advance and run out of memory.

 

[leman]

About native games in Metal.

Sure, between the need to retrain, driver bugs, Apples abysmal developer communication and the low Mac market share, I can imagine that native Metal is not on the radar for many studios. But what does this has to do with binding model and the bindless features of Metal 3 in particular?

Sure, that's a given. Still doesn't mean one should bother jumping through hoops when things don't work.

Fully agree.

That's not really what he said. He said they put some random high enough number in there instead as a replacement for "you won't need more". So essentially it's "do it the Apple way or not at all". And when one is developing Apple exclusive that might make sense, otherwise no.

That’s an odd argument. Why then not complain about Microsoft that they don’t give you pointers in the shaders or force you to work with an awkward descriptor heap API in the first place? No matter how you look at it half a million resources per draw call is an extremely high number that is enough for any practical purpose.

And yet, people do. Again, doesn't mean they're doing this for a single frame, but it's there. And no, it doesn't mean you have to pre-load every resource in advance and run out of memory.

I just gave you a calculation showing that a million of tiny textures would take over 60 gigs. And most textures in real games are much much larger. So no, I don’t believe that people do this. And no, streaming texture data on demand and reusing handles/allocations is not the same as using a million textures.

 

[JMacHack]

I'm still thinking about fixing the issues in the Robotic Hub or just ignoring it and go Windows/Linux only. It's somewhat easy to fix though, so might be worth it. Issues down the road, not sure about it.

Do you have an idea what’s wrong? I’m curious to know if it’s a problem with Metal or some broken OpenGL thing.

And as always there’s the idea of delivering a port down the road if you don’t want to fix it now.

 

[Irishman]

I just saw this one get uploaded a couple of hours ago, new benchmarks comparing the M1 vs the M2 13” MBP:

 

[jeanlain]

I just saw this one get uploaded a couple of hours ago, new benchmarks comparing the M1 vs the M2 13” MBP:

That's an impressive performance increase.

 

[diamond.g]

That's an impressive performance increase.

I wonder if we should expect the framerates to be the same between the M2 pro and the M2 air (heck are they the same between the M1 pro and M1 air?).

 

[leman]

I wonder if we should expect the framerates to be the same between the M2 pro and the M2 air (heck are they the same between the M1 pro and M1 air?).

The Air, being a passively cooled computer doesn't have the sustained thermals of the Pro. On the M1 models the difference is around 15% or so. But it's impossible to predict how M2 Air will perform since it's a redesign, so maybe it's better at sustained cooling. Then again, M2 GPU uses more power, so who knows.

 

[diamond.g]

The Air, being a passively cooled computer doesn't have the sustained thermals of the Pro. On the M1 models the difference is around 15% or so. But it's impossible to predict how M2 Air will perform since it's a redesign, so maybe it's better at sustained cooling. Then again, M2 GPU uses more power, so who knows.

It is why I asked. I like Andrews videos, but comparing the M1 Air to the M2 Pro feels somewhat disingenuous for the workload in question. Maybe I am reading too much into it.

 

[leman]

It is why I asked. I like Andrews videos, but comparing the M1 Air to the M2 Pro feels somewhat disingenuous for the workload in question. Maybe I am reading too much into it.

Ah, wait, he was using the M1 Air as comparison? No wonder the M2 Pro ends up so much better

 

[clementishutin]

It's so desolate that I've long since resolved not to purchase any multiplayer-compatible games from the MAS if they are available elsewhere.

 

[Irishman]

It is why I asked. I like Andrews videos, but comparing the M1 Air to the M2 Pro feels somewhat disingenuous for the workload in question. Maybe I am reading too much into it.

Yeah, I don’t know if Andrew receives review units, or if he buys these out of his own pocket. If it’s the latter, maybe he’s reviewing what he has personally bought?

 

[Homy]

Yeah, I don’t know if Andrew receives review units, or if he buys these out of his own pocket. If it’s the latter, maybe he’s reviewing what he has personally bought?

As I have seen he either buys for personal use or buys and returns after testing like he did with Mac Studio.

 

[Homy]

A very welcome feature that wasn't mentioned is Metal 3 performance HUD! At last a powerful tool for monitoring game performance.

 

[diamond.g]

A very welcome feature in that wasn't mentioned is Metal 3 performance HUD! At last a powerful tool for monitoring game performance.

That is neat. Hopefully they will add the ability to open/enable it as a regular key bind instead of having to use Terminal.

 

[mi7chy]

That seems restrictive and burdensome for non-developers compared to Steam client when all you really need is the fps counter which also works with non-Steam games. Biggest obstacle is another forced MacOS upgrade. They need to backport it to Big Sur and Monterey.

MacOS 13 Ventura HUD

Steam client

 

[Nugat Trailers]

That seems restrictive and burdensome for non-developers compared to Steam client when all you really need is the fps counter which also works with non-Steam games. Biggest obstacle is another forced MacOS upgrade. They need to backport it to Big Sur and Monterey.

Well, you've missed a couple of points with it.

Namely that first, it is in early development, it's quite likely that it'll be tidied up and made more accessible, as well as being able to actually move it around.

The second is that it's not just a FPS counter, it's a CPU/GPU/RAM/FPS logger. It's mostly a thing for developers, but also good for benchmarking games.

Including iOS games that are running on Mac.

 

[diamond.g]

Well, you've missed a couple of points with it.

Namely that first, it is in early development, it's quite likely that it'll be tidied up and made more accessible, as well as being able to actually move it around.

The second is that it's not just a FPS counter, it's a CPU/GPU/RAM/FPS logger. It's mostly a thing for developers, but also good for benchmarking games.

Including iOS games that are running on Mac.

it logs to a file?

This feels more like the xbox game bar performance stats than the steam overlay (lets just ignore the steam overlay on the steam deck which does show way more info). ideally Apple would make it more like the afterburner/amd performance overlay.

 

[Nugat Trailers]

it logs to a file?

This feels more like the xbox game bar performance stats than the steam overlay (lets just ignore the steam overlay on the steam deck which does show way more info). ideally Apple would make it more like the afterburner/amd performance overlay.

At 0:20 of the video, you can see a closeup of the overlay. It shows Apple M2, 1920x1080, 1.0x Direct 60 Hz, then FPS, Pre, GPU and Mem.

In addition, Apple's website, 'Apple Technologies for Game Developers' mentions logging. https://developer.apple.com/games/

I'll have to see if the logging feature is currently working, since the hud is still being developed.

 

[diamond.g]

At 0:20 of the video, you can see a closeup of the overlay. It shows Apple M2, 1920x1080, 1.0x Direct 60 Hz, then FPS, Pre, GPU and Mem.

In addition, Apple's website, 'Apple Technologies for Game Developers' mentions logging. https://developer.apple.com/games/

I'll have to see if the logging feature is currently working, since the hud is still being developed.

Yeah I saw the overlay, I just didn't realize it also writes to a file.

 

[Homy]

Good post by @leman!

"In regards to Metal 3, what's often overlooked is feature availability. For example, mesh shaders are currently only supported on 4% of Vulkan devices, which are limited to some Nvidia models. But Metal 3 brings mesh shaders to all Macs sold in the last 4-5 years or so. That's a huge thing."

Another one:

"The technical hurdles have been completely cleared. Even the base Apple Silicon Macs have more than adequate performance to support modern games and Metal 3 brings a number of crucial quality of life updates and essentially closes the feature parity with DX12 (while being much more developer-friendly and exceeding it in flexibility in some areas). Finally, Apples GPU dev tools are best in class, with detailed shader debugging, per frame timelines as well as resource traces. The big question is developer and user interest. If some pioneer studios can demonstrate that they can generate revenue on the Mac, others will follow."

 

[leman]

@Homy you could have at least fixed the typos, now I look like an illiterate bumpkin (technically not far from truth but still) 😁

 

[Homy]

@Homy you could have at least fixed the typos, now I look like an illiterate bumpkin (technically not far from truth but still) 😁

Only typo I found was "Nac" but fixed it now.

 

[Homy]

I just saw this one get uploaded a couple of hours ago, new benchmarks comparing the M1 vs the M2 13” MBP:

That's an impressive performance increase.

I wonder if we should expect the framerates to be the same between the M2 pro and the M2 air (heck are they the same between the M1 pro and M1 air?).

The Air, being a passively cooled computer doesn't have the sustained thermals of the Pro. On the M1 models the difference is around 15% or so. But it's impossible to predict how M2 Air will perform since it's a redesign, so maybe it's better at sustained cooling. Then again, M2 GPU uses more power, so who knows.

Ah, wait, he was using the M1 Air as comparison? No wonder the M2 Pro ends up so much better

It's indeed impressive to get 100% better performance with only 2 more GPU-cores in Metro Exodus at 1080p medium.

It remains to see it compared to M2 Air with 8c but when MrMacRight tested MB Air 7c and MBP 8c he got 3 more frames at 1080p high in Rise of the Tomb Raider (40 vs 43). In SOTTR at 1080p low he got 4 more frames on MBP (38 vs 34). I think Air will also perform much better than MBP M1.

 

[leman]

It's indeed impressive to get 100% better performance with only 2 more GPU-cores in Metro Exodus at 1080p medium.

Memory bandwidth and cache increases will play a big role. It’s not just 2 cores.

 

[Homy]

Memory bandwidth and cache increases will play a big role. It’s not just 2 cores.

Yes, that too.