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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 th

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

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