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Part of Apple's historic MO has been to not invest in areas they don't see themselves having a competitive advantage in. Now that they can make gaming happen wi

Part of Apple's historic MO has been to not invest in areas they don't see themselves having a competitive advantage in. Now that they can make gaming happen with a very low wattage budget they may well try to enter that space in earnest.

kllrnohj 5y ago
The gaming performance of the existing M1 GPUs is, well, crap (like far behind the other laptop competition, to say nothing of desktop GPUs). The Ultra probably isn't changing that, since it's very unlikely to be a hardware problem and instead a software ecosystem & incentives problem.
- kitsunesoba 5y ago
  I don’t think the performance is that bad. On a whim I tried running WoW on a 16” M1 Pro MBP and it consistently got FPS higher than the refresh rate (120hz) with the game rendering at 1x scale and most effects maxed out. Granted, that’s not as good as what you’d get with a mobile RTX 3080 or something, but it’s nothing to sneeze at for a laptop that doesn’t get scorching hot and doesn’t sound like a leaf blower when being pushed. I could definitely see the Max and Ultra with a beefier cooling system (like the Studio’s) having pretty respectable performance.
  - kllrnohj 5y ago
    https://www.anandtech.com/show/17024/apple-m1-max-performance-review/6 https://www.anandtech.com/show/17024/apple-m1-max-performanc... M1 Max struggles to keep up with an RTX 3060 mobile. Now that's with the overhead of Rosetta 2 and all that, so it's of course "not fair" for the M1. But that's also the current reality of the market, so ya know.
  - ohgodplsno 5y ago
    WoW isn't exactly the pinnacle of demanding performance. It's like saying you can run counter strike at 200FPS: congrats, so can everyone else, without paying $2000
- Croftengea 5y ago
  Yes, it's "crap" not because GPU is slow but rather that most triple A title games are optimized for Windows. So it's difficult to expect a good performance from a game that runs with API conversion layer(s) (Windows -> Mac) and then CPU emulation (x86 -> arm). So publishers/developers need to make more native games. Even though every Mac port will probably make 1/10th revenue of a Windows title I guess Mac users would be happy to pay more for better games. I certainly would.
- gameswithgo 5y ago
  It is a video memory problem. Unified memory is nice but you need GDDR6 to feed a powerful GPU. But you don't want GDDR6 for the cpu.
altairprime 5y ago
The difference between an Apple TV and a Mac Mini is essentially how powerful of Apple silicon it has, whether it runs tvOS or macOS, and whether it has HDMI out or not. The Studio is a more compact form factor than any modern 4K gaming console. If they chose to ship something in that form factor with tvOS, HDMI, and an M1 Max/Ultra, it would be a very competitive console on the market — if game developers could be persuaded to implement for it. How would it compare to the Xbox Series X and PS5? That’s a comparison I expect to see someday at WWDC, once they’re ready. And once a game is ported to Metal on any Apple silicon OS, it’s a simple exercise to port it to all the rest; macOS, tvOS, ipadOS, and (someday, presumably) vrOS. Is today’s announcement enough to compel large developers like EA and Bungie to port their games to Metal? I don’t know. But Apple has two advantage with their hardware that Windows can’t counter: the ability to boot into a signed/sealed OS (including macOS!), load a signed/sealed app, attest this cryptographically to a server, and lock out other programs from reading with a game’s memory or display. This would end software-only online cheating in a way that PCs can’t compete with today. This would also reduce the number of GPUs necessary to support to one, Apple Metal 2, which drastically decreases the complexity of testing and deployment of game code. I look forward to Apple deciding to play ball with gaming someday.
- neetdeth 5y ago
  This all makes sense, and in that context it’s unfortunate that Apple’s relationship with the largest game tools company, Epic, is... strained, to say the least. They could always choose to remedy that with a generous buyout offer.
- t3rabytes 5y ago
  A recent keynote compared an Apple series chip to an Xbox One S, can’t remember which though.
- derac 5y ago
  Seems unlikely that the general population would spend 2-4k on a console.
  - codyb 5y ago
michaelmrose 5y ago
$4000-$6000 is a toy for a tiny number of rich people or a work machine for a well paid professional. In the PC space the average spend is $800 and a PS5 is $500.
novok 5y ago
Every god damn child has an iPad already to keep them entertained and the hardware is plenty good enough. Going one step further in the age ranges to get big game revenue like the switch will help them capture more.
torginus 5y ago
This has been always very strange for me. Apple chips used in smartphones were very consistently near the top of the pack even in terms of GPU performance, and unlike their Android counterparts, they rarely throttled, and could deliver said perf with decent battery life. Yet the iOS 'gaming' scene, despite being one of the major revenue drivers, consists mostly of low-quality F2P games.
arvinsim 5y ago
Or maybe Jobs was just salty about the Halo buyout? In any case, it's a moot point. Apple clearly doesn't care about desktop gaming and it shows in both their hardware and software.

kllrnohj 5y ago

The gaming performance of the existing M1 GPUs is, well, crap (like far behind the other laptop competition, to say nothing of desktop GPUs). The Ultra probably isn't changing that, since it's very unlikely to be a hardware problem and instead a software ecosystem & incentives problem.

kitsunesoba 5y ago
I don’t think the performance is that bad. On a whim I tried running WoW on a 16” M1 Pro MBP and it consistently got FPS higher than the refresh rate (120hz) with the game rendering at 1x scale and most effects maxed out. Granted, that’s not as good as what you’d get with a mobile RTX 3080 or something, but it’s nothing to sneeze at for a laptop that doesn’t get scorching hot and doesn’t sound like a leaf blower when being pushed. I could definitely see the Max and Ultra with a beefier cooling system (like the Studio’s) having pretty respectable performance.
- kllrnohj 5y ago
  https://www.anandtech.com/show/17024/apple-m1-max-performance-review/6 https://www.anandtech.com/show/17024/apple-m1-max-performanc... M1 Max struggles to keep up with an RTX 3060 mobile. Now that's with the overhead of Rosetta 2 and all that, so it's of course "not fair" for the M1. But that's also the current reality of the market, so ya know.
- ohgodplsno 5y ago
  WoW isn't exactly the pinnacle of demanding performance. It's like saying you can run counter strike at 200FPS: congrats, so can everyone else, without paying $2000
Croftengea 5y ago
Yes, it's "crap" not because GPU is slow but rather that most triple A title games are optimized for Windows. So it's difficult to expect a good performance from a game that runs with API conversion layer(s) (Windows -> Mac) and then CPU emulation (x86 -> arm). So publishers/developers need to make more native games. Even though every Mac port will probably make 1/10th revenue of a Windows title I guess Mac users would be happy to pay more for better games. I certainly would.
gameswithgo 5y ago
It is a video memory problem. Unified memory is nice but you need GDDR6 to feed a powerful GPU. But you don't want GDDR6 for the cpu.

altairprime 5y ago

The difference between an Apple TV and a Mac Mini is essentially how powerful of Apple silicon it has, whether it runs tvOS or macOS, and whether it has HDMI out or not. The Studio is a more compact form factor than any modern 4K gaming console. If they chose to ship something in that form factor with tvOS, HDMI, and an M1 Max/Ultra, it would be a very competitive console on the market — if game developers could be persuaded to implement for it. How would it compare to the Xbox Series X and PS5? That’s a comparison I expect to see someday at WWDC, once they’re ready. And once a game is ported to Metal on any Apple silicon OS, it’s a simple exercise to port it to all the rest; macOS, tvOS, ipadOS, and (someday, presumably) vrOS. Is today’s announcement enough to compel large developers like EA and Bungie to port their games to Metal? I don’t know. But Apple has two advantage with their hardware that Windows can’t counter: the ability to boot into a signed/sealed OS (including macOS!), load a signed/sealed app, attest this cryptographically to a server, and lock out other programs from reading with a game’s memory or display. This would end software-only online cheating in a way that PCs can’t compete with today. This would also reduce the number of GPUs necessary to support to one, Apple Metal 2, which drastically decreases the complexity of testing and deployment of game code. I look forward to Apple deciding to play ball with gaming someday.

neetdeth 5y ago
This all makes sense, and in that context it’s unfortunate that Apple’s relationship with the largest game tools company, Epic, is... strained, to say the least. They could always choose to remedy that with a generous buyout offer.
t3rabytes 5y ago
A recent keynote compared an Apple series chip to an Xbox One S, can’t remember which though.
derac 5y ago
Seems unlikely that the general population would spend 2-4k on a console.
- codyb 5y ago

michaelmrose 5y ago

$4000-$6000 is a toy for a tiny number of rich people or a work machine for a well paid professional. In the PC space the average spend is $800 and a PS5 is $500.

novok 5y ago

Every god damn child has an iPad already to keep them entertained and the hardware is plenty good enough. Going one step further in the age ranges to get big game revenue like the switch will help them capture more.

torginus 5y ago

This has been always very strange for me. Apple chips used in smartphones were very consistently near the top of the pack even in terms of GPU performance, and unlike their Android counterparts, they rarely throttled, and could deliver said perf with decent battery life. Yet the iOS 'gaming' scene, despite being one of the major revenue drivers, consists mostly of low-quality F2P games.

arvinsim 5y ago

Or maybe Jobs was just salty about the Halo buyout? In any case, it's a moot point. Apple clearly doesn't care about desktop gaming and it shows in both their hardware and software.