3 ms·

> PCs still lack the hardware texture decompression of the PS5 which once again impacts performance. They might not implement it the same, but hardware-acceler

> PCs still lack the hardware texture decompression of the PS5 which once again impacts performance. They might not implement it the same, but hardware-accelerated texture decompression has been around on PC for as long as SIMD has existed. With tech like ATSC floating around I'm not sure if it's appropriate to say PCs really "lack" the technology. > they might actually be the most straightforward to emulate a PS5 on despite needing x86-to-ARM translation. The problem with Apple Silicon is that nobody wants to use Metal. The big Switch emulator Yuzu should have also been a perfect fit for Apple Silicon too, but it took years to get "ported" and the end result used MoltenVK for the GPU API. Now that it's here, systems like the Steam Deck are hitting 60fps where M2 struggles to hold 50: https://youtu.be/pubEj1yLknI?t=414 https://youtu.be/pubEj1yLknI?t=414 https://youtu.be/5BeYYuLnS3I https://youtu.be/5BeYYuLnS3I It would be cool to see, but nothing I've witnessed surrounding these sorts of emulators suggests that will be the case.

jwells89 3y ago
At the end of the day it all depends on the will of the individuals involved with the projects. Dolphin got a native Metal port for instance.
pjmlp 3y ago
> The problem with Apple Silicon is that nobody wants to use Metal. iOS games market begs to differ.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  The iOS games market speaks for itself. It's littered with freemium games and low-effort asset flips, the number of shitty 2D lottery/lootbox games outnumber Monument Valleys 100:1. The vast majority of substantial game experiences are not getting ported to iOS. The reason for this is mostly Metal-related. Apple has acknowledged this themselves on many occasions, like the last WWDC with their Game Porting Toolkit.
  - dagmx 3y ago
    Why weren’t they getting ported before Metal when OpenGL 3.1 was still at parity with the rest of the industry? The graphics API is not the significant portion of the porting issue. It’s market share and the fact that until recently, very few Macs by market share had great GPUs. The game porting toolkit works alongside wine and Rosetta to make time to first pixel easier for developers to consider the platform. Regardless of metal or not, time to first pixel and consistency of hardware has always been the biggest hurdle. Most big engines support metal just fine already, so it’s not the primary hurdle people claim otherwise we’d see more unreal and Unity games running natively on Mac’s. Now every Mac has a decent GPU (for some definition of decent) with very similar hardware.
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      > Why weren’t they getting ported before Metal when OpenGL 3.1 was still at parity with the rest of the industry? They were. The number of OpenGL games was minuscule though, and Apple's underlying APIs have broken now, rendering most of these games unplayable. Apple doesn't really provide a stable gaming runtime, outside of the DirectX-like promise that if you use their proprietary APIs they won't depreciate them. > The game porting toolkit works alongside wine and Rosetta to make time to first pixel easier for developers to consider the platform. See, that's the thing. "time to first pixel" was an issue because of Apple's APIs. If you translate non-native program calls into native ones, then obviously you circumvent the problem. Furthermore, the reason why Game Porting Toolkit didn't exist before now was because Apple had to write a Metal translator for DirectX. The community never wrote one like they did for Vulkan, likely because nobody wants to translate DirectX to a second proprietary API. Kinda defeats the purpose, at least for non-commercial contributors. > Most big engines support metal just fine already, so it’s not the primary hurdle people claim otherwise we’d see more unreal and Unity games running natively on Mac’s. Most big engines also support PS5 and Nintendo Switch as development targets. The reason why they are relatively unpopular for porting is the exact same as Apple's - the APIs are nonstandard and closed, with limited distribution and long-term support options. Why would anyone put in the majority of their effort to support a minority of the market?
dagmx 3y ago
You’re conflating texture compression like ATSC with generic resource compression. https://gamingbolt.com/former-frostbite-software-engineer-explains-ps5s-kraken-compression-unit https://gamingbolt.com/former-frostbite-software-engineer-ex... Kraken is a generic resource compressor while Oodle is closer to ASTC

jwells89 3y ago

At the end of the day it all depends on the will of the individuals involved with the projects. Dolphin got a native Metal port for instance.

pjmlp 3y ago

> The problem with Apple Silicon is that nobody wants to use Metal. iOS games market begs to differ.

smoldesu 3y ago
The iOS games market speaks for itself. It's littered with freemium games and low-effort asset flips, the number of shitty 2D lottery/lootbox games outnumber Monument Valleys 100:1. The vast majority of substantial game experiences are not getting ported to iOS. The reason for this is mostly Metal-related. Apple has acknowledged this themselves on many occasions, like the last WWDC with their Game Porting Toolkit.
- dagmx 3y ago
  Why weren’t they getting ported before Metal when OpenGL 3.1 was still at parity with the rest of the industry? The graphics API is not the significant portion of the porting issue. It’s market share and the fact that until recently, very few Macs by market share had great GPUs. The game porting toolkit works alongside wine and Rosetta to make time to first pixel easier for developers to consider the platform. Regardless of metal or not, time to first pixel and consistency of hardware has always been the biggest hurdle. Most big engines support metal just fine already, so it’s not the primary hurdle people claim otherwise we’d see more unreal and Unity games running natively on Mac’s. Now every Mac has a decent GPU (for some definition of decent) with very similar hardware.
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    > Why weren’t they getting ported before Metal when OpenGL 3.1 was still at parity with the rest of the industry? They were. The number of OpenGL games was minuscule though, and Apple's underlying APIs have broken now, rendering most of these games unplayable. Apple doesn't really provide a stable gaming runtime, outside of the DirectX-like promise that if you use their proprietary APIs they won't depreciate them. > The game porting toolkit works alongside wine and Rosetta to make time to first pixel easier for developers to consider the platform. See, that's the thing. "time to first pixel" was an issue because of Apple's APIs. If you translate non-native program calls into native ones, then obviously you circumvent the problem. Furthermore, the reason why Game Porting Toolkit didn't exist before now was because Apple had to write a Metal translator for DirectX. The community never wrote one like they did for Vulkan, likely because nobody wants to translate DirectX to a second proprietary API. Kinda defeats the purpose, at least for non-commercial contributors. > Most big engines support metal just fine already, so it’s not the primary hurdle people claim otherwise we’d see more unreal and Unity games running natively on Mac’s. Most big engines also support PS5 and Nintendo Switch as development targets. The reason why they are relatively unpopular for porting is the exact same as Apple's - the APIs are nonstandard and closed, with limited distribution and long-term support options. Why would anyone put in the majority of their effort to support a minority of the market?

dagmx 3y ago

You’re conflating texture compression like ATSC with generic resource compression. https://gamingbolt.com/former-frostbite-software-engineer-explains-ps5s-kraken-compression-unit https://gamingbolt.com/former-frostbite-software-engineer-ex... Kraken is a generic resource compressor while Oodle is closer to ASTC