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An apple event; they bring Kojima in to talk about gaming on Mac; they introduce gaming mode; they are excited by gaming on Mac; they still don't offer dedicate

An apple event; they bring Kojima in to talk about gaming on Mac; they introduce gaming mode; they are excited by gaming on Mac; they still don't offer dedicated gpus? Not even in their workstations to try to appeal to game developers? I don't know what to say. Is it because gpus are upgradeable, and they are allergic to this, retreating from it like vampires from holy water? Is it to keep the price of GPUs from muddying the water in their careful pricing ladder where the cpu and gpu are bundled? It's insulting

abhibeckert 3y ago
I'm not much into gaming on a Mac — most of the games I like to play only run on Windows, and I have a gaming PC for that... But I have tried a few games on the Mac laptop I use for work, which doesn't do anything graphics intensive so it has the slowest Apple GPU available (as in, the first one where they stopped using Intel or AMD GPUs). Fore very game I've tested (not many admittedly) I can turn the graphics settings up to 11 and it they run without dropping frames at the native resolution and refresh rate of the display (3K @ 60Hz) even on battery power in "low power mode" which substantially under-clocks the GPU and CPU to improve battery life. Obviously high end GPUs like the NVIDIA A100 are significantly faster, but I'm pretty sure everyone using those on a gaming PC is doing it for bragging rights and nothing else - and those people want to build their own gaming rig. Pretty much nobody would upgrade a modern Mac if it was possible. The built in GPUs are perfectly fine even on the lowly M1, let alone an M2 Ultra. It's just not worth the engineering effort (by Apple or by GPU manufacturers) for the small number of customers who'd be willing to spend the money. And honestly even the A100 would be a downgrade in some ways. NVIDIA's flagship has an order of magnitude less memory than the M2 Ultra for example.
- kkielhofner 3y ago
  Maybe you’re confusing an A100 for something like an RTX 4090? No one is using an A100 for gaming. They’re > $10k. They don’t even have video out. They’re also actually slower for most gaming and related tasks - the RTX 4090 is juiced to the gills power and heat be damned all to push frames as fast as possible. The A100 is heavily optimized for dense datacenter applications where power and heat are among the top concerns. They also have up to 80GB of RAM, and the RTX 4090 has 24GB which is a ways away from “an order of magnitude” less memory when the M2 Ultra supports a max of 192GB of unified memory.
  - catchnear4321 3y ago
    in a way the confusion proves the point. in terms of real usage, a sizeable population of users won’t actually benefit from upgradable graphics. for gaming or otherwise. even a lone A100. (how many users not only use an A100 but also installed it? yes, that’s silly.) knowing an upgrade is possible, knowing an upgrade is sensible, knowing how to upgrade, and actually performing the upgrade (and successfully) are all steps down the upgrade path. would suspect the conversion rate on that is quite low considering the size of the funnel at the start. especially with the last few years of logistics. as for these unified macs, if the system starts to show weakness, then yes, time to consider that it isn’t the right tool for the job, and maybe it is time to push that workload to a dedicated gaming pc (for now) or the cloud (for scale.) and, yes, there is still option 3. maybe time for an upgrade… of the entire system. even with the benefit of a curated environment, that is a hefty cost. everything gets replaced or nothing gets upgraded. which, full circle, only matters when an upgrade matters. will it?
- goosedragons 3y ago
  What games are you running and how old are they? The base M series GPUs are decent for integrated cards but they aren't powerhouses. For a modern title like Resident Evil Village they just aren't equipped to handle 2560x1600 at 60FPS locked on Ultra settings. The M2 Ultra costs $4000+. For that money a 4090 or 7900 XTX is very much in the cards and will offer considerably better GPU performance.
- rasz 3y ago
  >Fore very game I've tested (not many admittedly) I can turn the graphics settings up to 11 and it they run without dropping frames at the native resolution and refresh rate of the display (3K @ 60Hz) You tested retro and mobile games or cant tell 30 from 60 fps. Just one example using almost 10 year old game medium details 30 fps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGTCSKMz-ec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGTCSKMz-ec. Even older Tomb raider with lower quality and resolution down to 15 fps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMPri2zgfak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMPri2zgfak. M1 Max with 4K high settings 30 fps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZVOo9WTIsU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZVOo9WTIsU
Tiktaalik 3y ago
it's really really weird man. There are so many pieces in place here for Apple to take over gaming but they seem allergic to it or that it's beneath them or so embarrassed by it that it is beneath them or something. It's so weird.
- _8j50 3y ago
  Gaming can make them a lot or money but not at the cost of everything else. They would want to compete with nvidia like they are competing with intel. High-end graphics studios are the core consumers for this product. What the guy said also makes sense, to use a third party GPU apps would need to be designed to use non-apple memory/api which is more stuff that could go wrong (bad experince for users and support cost) and not a whole lot of gamers will jump to apple anyways.
- deafpolygon 3y ago
  no because trying to tackle gaming means they need to compete, and competing with vendors is a race to the bottom of the barrel. apple's whole business model is completely reliant on them occupying a segment of the market that no one else can.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
  Core gamers aee well known for not wanting to spend money, because they'd rather spend money on the games, so it is a little bit tricky for Apple to capture that market
danielscrubs 3y ago
It can not be news that when it comes to user experience vs flexibility Apple choses UX. They do this every single time. Remember every (GPU) configuration has to be supported to not hurt the user experience, kind of like making webpages that support 1x1 pixel screens (is there any?) to 8k. Every configuration setting increases the test area exponentially. This is what makes Linux great (for some)!
- yareally 3y ago
  You're telling me they can't restrict which GPUs are allowed to run on their hardware and OS? They can test and bless a handful. Unless I'm missing something, it's not an all or nothing decision
  - olyjohn 3y ago
    They definitely have hardware blacklists in the OS. I could not run my Dell Thunderbolt dock on my Mac, even though it used all standard components in it. It was literally a blacklisted piece of hardware and said so in the "System Report."
  - danielscrubs 3y ago
    They can, and then people will go and buy some gpu card that is not whitelisted and they will blame Apple and give them bad press. The "don't let people shoot themselves in the foot" mindset has worked great for them.
gumby 3y ago
If you're insulted you should relax. That discussion isn't aimed at you at all. Casual game revenue (mostly mobile) >> console game revenue >> revenue from AAA games on gamer rigs and those rigs themselves. Perhaps those greater thans should all be ">>>>". If you look at the entire (huge) gaming ecosystem, Apple is already a major player. If you look the segment I can tell you care about, it's tiny. IIRC gaming got Nvidia off the ground but for a long time hasn't been their revenue pump. Apple's gaming boost can really only get them one thing: if you're going to buy a PC anyway, perhaps you'll pay a little more and not buy a console. Maybe that already happens a bit in the PC world, I don't know, but for Apple anyway it makes sense since unlike almost all PCs, Apple have a differentiated product. And if they talked about AAA gaming (if they did -- I didn't bother to listen) I imagine it's like Honda fielding an F-1 team: staking out a presence in a high end, that makes the intermediate product look like a better deal. Like the Mac Pro: no faster than a product they sell for less than half the price, with a couple of extra features very few need. It drives real sales elsewhere. Finally: Apple has a "problem" that a Bungie or Alienware (new Dell) don't: Apple's revenue is so huge that they simply can't enter into certain markets unless it's for marketing reasons (like the Mac Pro). Look at the ipad: it basically is the tablet market, and if it were a standalone product it would be one of the great business success stories of all time. But because it's in Apple's product mix it's ignored by financial analysis which is just one step above "failed product": "at least it doesn't lose money." BTW I suspect NVidia had some gamers in its early team and has some in its culture. Apple carea a lot about Music because Steve Jobs cared a lot about music, but hasn't had gaming DNA for decades, really since the Apple II IMHO.
pomatius 3y ago
Also, no official Vulkan/OpenGL support. Garbage Metal instead. They really try their hardest to drive away gamedevs from their lame walled-garden platform.

abhibeckert 3y ago

I'm not much into gaming on a Mac — most of the games I like to play only run on Windows, and I have a gaming PC for that... But I have tried a few games on the Mac laptop I use for work, which doesn't do anything graphics intensive so it has the slowest Apple GPU available (as in, the first one where they stopped using Intel or AMD GPUs). Fore very game I've tested (not many admittedly) I can turn the graphics settings up to 11 and it they run without dropping frames at the native resolution and refresh rate of the display (3K @ 60Hz) even on battery power in "low power mode" which substantially under-clocks the GPU and CPU to improve battery life. Obviously high end GPUs like the NVIDIA A100 are significantly faster, but I'm pretty sure everyone using those on a gaming PC is doing it for bragging rights and nothing else - and those people want to build their own gaming rig. Pretty much nobody would upgrade a modern Mac if it was possible. The built in GPUs are perfectly fine even on the lowly M1, let alone an M2 Ultra. It's just not worth the engineering effort (by Apple or by GPU manufacturers) for the small number of customers who'd be willing to spend the money. And honestly even the A100 would be a downgrade in some ways. NVIDIA's flagship has an order of magnitude less memory than the M2 Ultra for example.

kkielhofner 3y ago
Maybe you’re confusing an A100 for something like an RTX 4090? No one is using an A100 for gaming. They’re > $10k. They don’t even have video out. They’re also actually slower for most gaming and related tasks - the RTX 4090 is juiced to the gills power and heat be damned all to push frames as fast as possible. The A100 is heavily optimized for dense datacenter applications where power and heat are among the top concerns. They also have up to 80GB of RAM, and the RTX 4090 has 24GB which is a ways away from “an order of magnitude” less memory when the M2 Ultra supports a max of 192GB of unified memory.
- catchnear4321 3y ago
  in a way the confusion proves the point. in terms of real usage, a sizeable population of users won’t actually benefit from upgradable graphics. for gaming or otherwise. even a lone A100. (how many users not only use an A100 but also installed it? yes, that’s silly.) knowing an upgrade is possible, knowing an upgrade is sensible, knowing how to upgrade, and actually performing the upgrade (and successfully) are all steps down the upgrade path. would suspect the conversion rate on that is quite low considering the size of the funnel at the start. especially with the last few years of logistics. as for these unified macs, if the system starts to show weakness, then yes, time to consider that it isn’t the right tool for the job, and maybe it is time to push that workload to a dedicated gaming pc (for now) or the cloud (for scale.) and, yes, there is still option 3. maybe time for an upgrade… of the entire system. even with the benefit of a curated environment, that is a hefty cost. everything gets replaced or nothing gets upgraded. which, full circle, only matters when an upgrade matters. will it?
goosedragons 3y ago
What games are you running and how old are they? The base M series GPUs are decent for integrated cards but they aren't powerhouses. For a modern title like Resident Evil Village they just aren't equipped to handle 2560x1600 at 60FPS locked on Ultra settings. The M2 Ultra costs $4000+. For that money a 4090 or 7900 XTX is very much in the cards and will offer considerably better GPU performance.
rasz 3y ago
>Fore very game I've tested (not many admittedly) I can turn the graphics settings up to 11 and it they run without dropping frames at the native resolution and refresh rate of the display (3K @ 60Hz) You tested retro and mobile games or cant tell 30 from 60 fps. Just one example using almost 10 year old game medium details 30 fps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGTCSKMz-ec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGTCSKMz-ec. Even older Tomb raider with lower quality and resolution down to 15 fps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMPri2zgfak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMPri2zgfak. M1 Max with 4K high settings 30 fps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZVOo9WTIsU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZVOo9WTIsU

Tiktaalik 3y ago

it's really really weird man. There are so many pieces in place here for Apple to take over gaming but they seem allergic to it or that it's beneath them or so embarrassed by it that it is beneath them or something. It's so weird.

_8j50 3y ago
Gaming can make them a lot or money but not at the cost of everything else. They would want to compete with nvidia like they are competing with intel. High-end graphics studios are the core consumers for this product. What the guy said also makes sense, to use a third party GPU apps would need to be designed to use non-apple memory/api which is more stuff that could go wrong (bad experince for users and support cost) and not a whole lot of gamers will jump to apple anyways.
deafpolygon 3y ago
no because trying to tackle gaming means they need to compete, and competing with vendors is a race to the bottom of the barrel. apple's whole business model is completely reliant on them occupying a segment of the market that no one else can.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
Core gamers aee well known for not wanting to spend money, because they'd rather spend money on the games, so it is a little bit tricky for Apple to capture that market

danielscrubs 3y ago

It can not be news that when it comes to user experience vs flexibility Apple choses UX. They do this every single time. Remember every (GPU) configuration has to be supported to not hurt the user experience, kind of like making webpages that support 1x1 pixel screens (is there any?) to 8k. Every configuration setting increases the test area exponentially. This is what makes Linux great (for some)!

yareally 3y ago
You're telling me they can't restrict which GPUs are allowed to run on their hardware and OS? They can test and bless a handful. Unless I'm missing something, it's not an all or nothing decision
- olyjohn 3y ago
  They definitely have hardware blacklists in the OS. I could not run my Dell Thunderbolt dock on my Mac, even though it used all standard components in it. It was literally a blacklisted piece of hardware and said so in the "System Report."
- danielscrubs 3y ago
  They can, and then people will go and buy some gpu card that is not whitelisted and they will blame Apple and give them bad press. The "don't let people shoot themselves in the foot" mindset has worked great for them.

gumby 3y ago

If you're insulted you should relax. That discussion isn't aimed at you at all. Casual game revenue (mostly mobile) >> console game revenue >> revenue from AAA games on gamer rigs and those rigs themselves. Perhaps those greater thans should all be ">>>>". If you look at the entire (huge) gaming ecosystem, Apple is already a major player. If you look the segment I can tell you care about, it's tiny. IIRC gaming got Nvidia off the ground but for a long time hasn't been their revenue pump. Apple's gaming boost can really only get them one thing: if you're going to buy a PC anyway, perhaps you'll pay a little more and not buy a console. Maybe that already happens a bit in the PC world, I don't know, but for Apple anyway it makes sense since unlike almost all PCs, Apple have a differentiated product. And if they talked about AAA gaming (if they did -- I didn't bother to listen) I imagine it's like Honda fielding an F-1 team: staking out a presence in a high end, that makes the intermediate product look like a better deal. Like the Mac Pro: no faster than a product they sell for less than half the price, with a couple of extra features very few need. It drives real sales elsewhere. Finally: Apple has a "problem" that a Bungie or Alienware (new Dell) don't: Apple's revenue is so huge that they simply can't enter into certain markets unless it's for marketing reasons (like the Mac Pro). Look at the ipad: it basically is the tablet market, and if it were a standalone product it would be one of the great business success stories of all time. But because it's in Apple's product mix it's ignored by financial analysis which is just one step above "failed product": "at least it doesn't lose money." BTW I suspect NVidia had some gamers in its early team and has some in its culture. Apple carea a lot about Music because Steve Jobs cared a lot about music, but hasn't had gaming DNA for decades, really since the Apple II IMHO.

pomatius 3y ago

Also, no official Vulkan/OpenGL support. Garbage Metal instead. They really try their hardest to drive away gamedevs from their lame walled-garden platform.