7 ms·

Probably because it's the wrong tool for the job. If you want to play games, a Mac is easily one of the worst ways to do that. The eGPU method of bolting func

Probably because it's the wrong tool for the job. If you want to play games, a Mac is easily one of the worst ways to do that. The eGPU method of bolting functionality onto a platform which doesn't want it is only neat on a technical level at best. It is essentially the world's biggest dongle.

nottorp 7y ago
Not if you're bored to tears of AAA games. Plenty of nice indies available cross platform. And for benchmarking etc I see Aspyr has ported a Battlefield of Honor of Duty title...
- baroffoos 7y ago
  Does proton work on mac? I have been using it on linux for loads of AAA games like skyrim and age of empires and it has worked almost perfect.
  - nottorp 7y ago
    I said they're boring, I didn't complain that I can't play them :)
  - jamesgeck0 7y ago
    MacOS support was removed back in 2018.
plufz 7y ago
Heh, isn’t that a tiny bit black and white? I manage to enjoy games on macos anyway. :)
crooked-v 7y ago
For me, it's a dongle that does exactly what I want: max graphics power at home for games, less weight and better battery life when out and about for writing and light browsing. The only reason I don't have an eGPU yet is that most of the market still seems to be making weird compromise-driven design decisions, like sharing a single Thunderbolt controller between the card and any added USB ports.
zaphoyd 7y ago
Won’t disagree with the “wrong tool” characterization, but there are many situations where using the right tool (a dedicated windows pc or game console) comes with many other problematic side effects. I do all of my gaming on a Mac with an eGPU and find it convenient and practical for my needs. It is much better (for my use case and constraints) than my previous solutions of hackintoshes, dedicated windows PCs.
- nottorp 7y ago
  A dedicated windows pc is a pain. I have separate windows installs but rebooting to win to play a game is also a huge disruption since all my other stuff is on Mac OS. Thus, I've ignored games that don't run on Mac OS for a while. In spite of buying one or three on sales. I actually feel bad about never finishing Witcher 3... ;)
  - derefr 7y ago
    Have you tried running a Windows VM under macOS with the GPU passed through?
    - _fzslm 7y ago
      I don't think there's any way to do this on macOS right now.
  - alluro2 7y ago
    Oof - I left it unfinished for more than a year. Finally got around to picking it up a little, maybe a month ago, and got completely hooked until I finished it + DLCs. It was a true gaming delight - the DLCs are amazing as well, and, as a whole, it's easily the best game of all times for me - and I believe I played almost every significant RPG ever...I found it so much more worth my time than movies or playing anything else.
    - knolan 7y ago
      It really is an exceptional game. It took me three years to finish it. It almost felt that I avoided playing it sometimes incase it ended. Now we’ve the Netflix series to look forward to and Cyberpunk 2077 from CDPR.
CharlesW 7y ago
> The eGPU method of bolting functionality onto a platform which doesn't want it is only neat on a technical level at best. It's neat on every level. To quote the article: > "…you are now able to take a top-of-the-line gaming GPU, seat it inside an external box, plug that box into your computer, and—using a single high-bandwidth cable—push the necessary instructions to render 4K games at 60 frames per second on the card before (over the very same cable!) pushing those frames back to your notebook's built-in monitor without introducing any perceptible latency." I know God intended for us to use PCI cards by opening up cases and inserting them into slots on a motherboard, but it's incredibly cool to be able to just plug one in like a USB device.
- FpUser 7y ago
  It is even cooler when one considers how much those eGPU enclosures cost, never mind lack of nVidia support on those.
- owenwil 7y ago
  But "just plugging in one USB device" wasn't even what happened in this post. The amount of steps described inside literally were 10x what it takes to just build a PC, boot it, install games and play ️
  - mercutio2 7y ago
    Huh? There were two steps to get macOS working. 1) Put GPU in enclosure 2) Plug Thunderbolt 3 cable into enclosure and MBP Perhaps you’re referring to the novel written on how to make BootCamp Windows work with the eGPU?
    - owenwil 7y ago
      ...all of which is because the drivers/config are proprietary
baroffoos 7y ago
If you wanted to play games on a macbook it probably makes more sense to stream them from a desktop.

nottorp 7y ago

Not if you're bored to tears of AAA games. Plenty of nice indies available cross platform. And for benchmarking etc I see Aspyr has ported a Battlefield of Honor of Duty title...

baroffoos 7y ago
Does proton work on mac? I have been using it on linux for loads of AAA games like skyrim and age of empires and it has worked almost perfect.
- nottorp 7y ago
  I said they're boring, I didn't complain that I can't play them :)
- jamesgeck0 7y ago
  MacOS support was removed back in 2018.

plufz 7y ago

Heh, isn’t that a tiny bit black and white? I manage to enjoy games on macos anyway. :)

crooked-v 7y ago

For me, it's a dongle that does exactly what I want: max graphics power at home for games, less weight and better battery life when out and about for writing and light browsing. The only reason I don't have an eGPU yet is that most of the market still seems to be making weird compromise-driven design decisions, like sharing a single Thunderbolt controller between the card and any added USB ports.

zaphoyd 7y ago

Won’t disagree with the “wrong tool” characterization, but there are many situations where using the right tool (a dedicated windows pc or game console) comes with many other problematic side effects. I do all of my gaming on a Mac with an eGPU and find it convenient and practical for my needs. It is much better (for my use case and constraints) than my previous solutions of hackintoshes, dedicated windows PCs.

nottorp 7y ago
A dedicated windows pc is a pain. I have separate windows installs but rebooting to win to play a game is also a huge disruption since all my other stuff is on Mac OS. Thus, I've ignored games that don't run on Mac OS for a while. In spite of buying one or three on sales. I actually feel bad about never finishing Witcher 3... ;)
- derefr 7y ago
  Have you tried running a Windows VM under macOS with the GPU passed through?
  - _fzslm 7y ago
    I don't think there's any way to do this on macOS right now.
- alluro2 7y ago
  Oof - I left it unfinished for more than a year. Finally got around to picking it up a little, maybe a month ago, and got completely hooked until I finished it + DLCs. It was a true gaming delight - the DLCs are amazing as well, and, as a whole, it's easily the best game of all times for me - and I believe I played almost every significant RPG ever...I found it so much more worth my time than movies or playing anything else.
  - knolan 7y ago
    It really is an exceptional game. It took me three years to finish it. It almost felt that I avoided playing it sometimes incase it ended. Now we’ve the Netflix series to look forward to and Cyberpunk 2077 from CDPR.

CharlesW 7y ago

> The eGPU method of bolting functionality onto a platform which doesn't want it is only neat on a technical level at best. It's neat on every level. To quote the article: > "…you are now able to take a top-of-the-line gaming GPU, seat it inside an external box, plug that box into your computer, and—using a single high-bandwidth cable—push the necessary instructions to render 4K games at 60 frames per second on the card before (over the very same cable!) pushing those frames back to your notebook's built-in monitor without introducing any perceptible latency." I know God intended for us to use PCI cards by opening up cases and inserting them into slots on a motherboard, but it's incredibly cool to be able to just plug one in like a USB device.

FpUser 7y ago
It is even cooler when one considers how much those eGPU enclosures cost, never mind lack of nVidia support on those.
owenwil 7y ago
But "just plugging in one USB device" wasn't even what happened in this post. The amount of steps described inside literally were 10x what it takes to just build a PC, boot it, install games and play ️
- mercutio2 7y ago
  Huh? There were two steps to get macOS working. 1) Put GPU in enclosure 2) Plug Thunderbolt 3 cable into enclosure and MBP Perhaps you’re referring to the novel written on how to make BootCamp Windows work with the eGPU?
  - owenwil 7y ago
    ...all of which is because the drivers/config are proprietary

baroffoos 7y ago

If you wanted to play games on a macbook it probably makes more sense to stream them from a desktop.