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Apple Silicon is fantastic, and the integrated GPUs are fantastic. But they aren't as powerful as higher-end discrete GPUs and they probably never will be. I'

Apple Silicon is fantastic, and the integrated GPUs are fantastic. But they aren't as powerful as higher-end discrete GPUs and they probably never will be. I'm not sure that I agree with the direction the author wants Apple to take. It would be really nice if Apple supported Vulkan. For sure. But Valve should be the one making Proton compatible with Macs. And directly paying off studios to make Mac versions of big games is never going to produce anything of lasting quality. Nintendo has charted a pretty successful course with the Wii, Wii U and now Switch. Apple's got better hardware than that, it just needs to be used more creatively.

nasmorn 4y ago
Some Nvidia GPUs draw more than 3x the power of a MacMini. The recommended PSU is 10x (500W to 50W) Something gotta give
olliej 4y ago
See I just don't believe apple supporting Vulcan* would change anything - Metal has a vast install base of consumers that most studies show are happier paying for things than the android and linux consumer bases. The reality is that game developers target consoles with their proprietary APIs, on windows they use DirectX or GPU vendor specific paths. A small subset also might support whatever the current open-graphics API is, but they're a clear minority, and it's a secondary platform. Apple adding support for Vulcan just wouldn't change that - linux+Mac users combined don't come close to the windows game market, let alone the consoles, when you add in to that supporting directx giving you windows and xbox, there's no competition. Obviously Apple could start paying devs to support Mac+ios, but again they'd have to do that whether their main api was metal or Vulcan, so given all their shipping hardware is designed for Metal (whatever that means), what would be the benefit in switching to a new graphic library? (other than making new games not work on otherwise functional older hardware and being accused of artificial obsolescence) *it was at this point I gave up fighting autocorrect
- happymellon 4y ago
  Vulkan is supported via MoltenVK. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoltenVK https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoltenVK The problem is that no one is actually interested.
  - dholm 4y ago
    I used to play a lot of games on macOS using Wine but the reason many newer games don’t work and DXVK isn’t available on macOS is because Metal lacks some features that have been difficult for MoltenVK to emulate. This means that MoltenVK is only useful if your application/game doesn't rely on those features. You can find all the details in this issue: - https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK/issues/203 https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK/issues/203 Reading the latest comments there it sounds like things may improve once Metal 3 is out.
  - olliej 4y ago
    > The problem is that no one is actually interested. Exactly my thought. Even assuming there's a general "Mac people spend more than PC people" trend, you're still talking about a relatively tiny amount of the market.
gamblor956 4y ago
But Valve should be the one making Proton compatible with Macs. Why is the onus on the smaller company to make games compatible with Mac and not, say, the world's biggest tech company? Macs are largely incompatible with gaming because of Apple's decisions. And Apple customers who are into gaming usually dual-boot into Windows to game, because Windows is (and for several decades, has been) the superior OS for gaming.
- gorbypark 4y ago
  Sadly dual booting isn’t really an option anymore. Apple Silicon based Macs do still have the ability to dual boot, but there’s no Windows-on-Arm builds available for them. Also, Apple actually made (or supplied, depending how you looked at it) all the Windows drivers for the various Intel Mac devices that could dual boot Windows. If Microsoft decided to target Apple Silicon, it would have to be a team effort with Apple to make all the drivers available. It would be an extra difficult thing to do because Apple Silicon now uses custom GPUs where before they were just the standard Intel iGPU or Nvidia/AMD discreet GPUs.
happymellon 4y ago
> But Valve should be the one making Proton compatible with Macs Why on earth would they do that? That gives them absolutely no competitive advantage. Linux allows them to build Steam Machines and Decks. MacOS gives them nothing. Proton uses Wine and translates DirectX calls to Vulkan when required. Apple chose to be hostile to Vulkan so the current project has different requirements anyway.
- deergomoo 4y ago
  > MacOS gives them nothing It increases Steam sales which increases their profits. Probably not by a great deal, but gaming on Mac is a bit of a chicken and egg situation. No-one does it because it sucks, and it sucks because no-one does it.
  - happymellon 4y ago
    > It increases Steam sales I would need a citation on that. These folks already purchased a Mac, so they went in already knowing that they are never going to actually play games on it so it couldn't have been a priority.

nasmorn 4y ago

Some Nvidia GPUs draw more than 3x the power of a MacMini. The recommended PSU is 10x (500W to 50W) Something gotta give

olliej 4y ago

See I just don't believe apple supporting Vulcan* would change anything - Metal has a vast install base of consumers that most studies show are happier paying for things than the android and linux consumer bases. The reality is that game developers target consoles with their proprietary APIs, on windows they use DirectX or GPU vendor specific paths. A small subset also might support whatever the current open-graphics API is, but they're a clear minority, and it's a secondary platform. Apple adding support for Vulcan just wouldn't change that - linux+Mac users combined don't come close to the windows game market, let alone the consoles, when you add in to that supporting directx giving you windows and xbox, there's no competition. Obviously Apple could start paying devs to support Mac+ios, but again they'd have to do that whether their main api was metal or Vulcan, so given all their shipping hardware is designed for Metal (whatever that means), what would be the benefit in switching to a new graphic library? (other than making new games not work on otherwise functional older hardware and being accused of artificial obsolescence) *it was at this point I gave up fighting autocorrect

happymellon 4y ago
Vulkan is supported via MoltenVK. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoltenVK https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoltenVK The problem is that no one is actually interested.
- dholm 4y ago
  I used to play a lot of games on macOS using Wine but the reason many newer games don’t work and DXVK isn’t available on macOS is because Metal lacks some features that have been difficult for MoltenVK to emulate. This means that MoltenVK is only useful if your application/game doesn't rely on those features. You can find all the details in this issue: - https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK/issues/203 https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK/issues/203 Reading the latest comments there it sounds like things may improve once Metal 3 is out.
- olliej 4y ago
  > The problem is that no one is actually interested. Exactly my thought. Even assuming there's a general "Mac people spend more than PC people" trend, you're still talking about a relatively tiny amount of the market.

gamblor956 4y ago

But Valve should be the one making Proton compatible with Macs. Why is the onus on the smaller company to make games compatible with Mac and not, say, the world's biggest tech company? Macs are largely incompatible with gaming because of Apple's decisions. And Apple customers who are into gaming usually dual-boot into Windows to game, because Windows is (and for several decades, has been) the superior OS for gaming.

gorbypark 4y ago
Sadly dual booting isn’t really an option anymore. Apple Silicon based Macs do still have the ability to dual boot, but there’s no Windows-on-Arm builds available for them. Also, Apple actually made (or supplied, depending how you looked at it) all the Windows drivers for the various Intel Mac devices that could dual boot Windows. If Microsoft decided to target Apple Silicon, it would have to be a team effort with Apple to make all the drivers available. It would be an extra difficult thing to do because Apple Silicon now uses custom GPUs where before they were just the standard Intel iGPU or Nvidia/AMD discreet GPUs.

happymellon 4y ago

> But Valve should be the one making Proton compatible with Macs Why on earth would they do that? That gives them absolutely no competitive advantage. Linux allows them to build Steam Machines and Decks. MacOS gives them nothing. Proton uses Wine and translates DirectX calls to Vulkan when required. Apple chose to be hostile to Vulkan so the current project has different requirements anyway.

deergomoo 4y ago
> MacOS gives them nothing It increases Steam sales which increases their profits. Probably not by a great deal, but gaming on Mac is a bit of a chicken and egg situation. No-one does it because it sucks, and it sucks because no-one does it.
- happymellon 4y ago
  > It increases Steam sales I would need a citation on that. These folks already purchased a Mac, so they went in already knowing that they are never going to actually play games on it so it couldn't have been a priority.