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Gaming on Macs has always been second class.

marricks 5y ago
Exactly! So Macs now have some capable GPUs, will the games come? Will easy ports of iPhone games make gaming a thing? Future still unclear but there's some GPU horsepower in every mac now.
- konart 5y ago
  I don't think this is a major problem. Metal and ARM are.
- gigglesupstairs 5y ago
  I am not too up to date technically on this, but since iOS apps can run now on M1 Macs so shouldn’t it be some way possible to hook joysticks to Macs and play those iOS games? Is it possible right now, or has Apple said something about such a scenario?
  - ascagnel_ 5y ago
    It's possible right now -- there are a handful of Apple Arcade games that run across iOS/iPadOS/tvOS/macOS and support controllers, touchscreens, and keyboard+mouse. To name a few I've played and enjoyed: - The Pathless - The Last Campfire - Cozy Grove - Alba: A Wildlife Adventure - FANTASIAN - Mutazione The games don't _have_ to ship via Apple Arcade to take advantage of the cross-platform tools, but most of the ones that have done the work have come out on AA.
smoldesu 5y ago
Third-class, now that Proton isn't supported...
- hajile 5y ago
  Crossover is commercial wine and works decently enough. The real issue is the combination of lacking native 32-bit support, restricted metal API, translation layer overhead, and Rosetta all taking a piece of the performance pie.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    Crossover isn't free and doesn't have DXVK or professional support from Valve, though. The difference is pretty obvious when you compare compatibility lists: I'd consider Proton's 85%+ coverage of the Steam store to be 'decent enough', but the patchwork support Crossover offers is more along the lines of 'barely justifiable' from a price perspective. I agree about the other issues you bring up though. The lack of 32-bit support is going to be a real stability challenge for anyone who wants to take Mac gaming seriously, and without a decent graphics API like Vulkan it will be exceptionally hard to court developers. Interestingly, it seems like Rosetta's overhead could be the bottleneck for a lot of these games too: if you watch the performance of GPU-light games like CS:GO, people struggle to surpass 90fps even at 720p on the new machines. Since ARM will always be punching up the abstraction layer to emulate x86, I suspect this may always be the case for Apple Silicon.
slg 5y ago
Sure in OS X/macOs, but Macbook Pros have generally been decent gaming machines if you went the Boot Camp route which is no longer an option on Apple silicon.

Exactly! So Macs now have some capable GPUs, will the games come? Will easy ports of iPhone games make gaming a thing? Future still unclear but there's some GPU horsepower in every mac now.

konart 5y ago
I don't think this is a major problem. Metal and ARM are.
gigglesupstairs 5y ago
I am not too up to date technically on this, but since iOS apps can run now on M1 Macs so shouldn’t it be some way possible to hook joysticks to Macs and play those iOS games? Is it possible right now, or has Apple said something about such a scenario?
- ascagnel_ 5y ago
  It's possible right now -- there are a handful of Apple Arcade games that run across iOS/iPadOS/tvOS/macOS and support controllers, touchscreens, and keyboard+mouse. To name a few I've played and enjoyed: - The Pathless - The Last Campfire - Cozy Grove - Alba: A Wildlife Adventure - FANTASIAN - Mutazione The games don't _have_ to ship via Apple Arcade to take advantage of the cross-platform tools, but most of the ones that have done the work have come out on AA.

smoldesu 5y ago

Third-class, now that Proton isn't supported...

hajile 5y ago
Crossover is commercial wine and works decently enough. The real issue is the combination of lacking native 32-bit support, restricted metal API, translation layer overhead, and Rosetta all taking a piece of the performance pie.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Crossover isn't free and doesn't have DXVK or professional support from Valve, though. The difference is pretty obvious when you compare compatibility lists: I'd consider Proton's 85%+ coverage of the Steam store to be 'decent enough', but the patchwork support Crossover offers is more along the lines of 'barely justifiable' from a price perspective. I agree about the other issues you bring up though. The lack of 32-bit support is going to be a real stability challenge for anyone who wants to take Mac gaming seriously, and without a decent graphics API like Vulkan it will be exceptionally hard to court developers. Interestingly, it seems like Rosetta's overhead could be the bottleneck for a lot of these games too: if you watch the performance of GPU-light games like CS:GO, people struggle to surpass 90fps even at 720p on the new machines. Since ARM will always be punching up the abstraction layer to emulate x86, I suspect this may always be the case for Apple Silicon.

slg 5y ago

Sure in OS X/macOs, but Macbook Pros have generally been decent gaming machines if you went the Boot Camp route which is no longer an option on Apple silicon.