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Ask HN: It's 2023. Why does Mac still have 2000s graphics games?

• KingLancelot 3y ago
  [dead]
• johng 3y ago
  It's not really a Mac problem so much as it's the game makers not making a mac version available. The mac market is small compared to the PC market. Now factor in that Apple CPU's are a different architecture and it makes sense that Linux would have more games written to be compatible with it vs. MacOS. But, just like Linux there are emulators that will let you do it... https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover There are many more out there but that is probably the most widely known.
  • Justsignedup 3y ago
    Market is small. Apple doesn't really care, and have stated it for decades. People who just have a laptop can't really make big use of it. Many don't have mice, they have touchpads, and magic mice aren't great for games. Can't plug in standard USB controllers. And it costs double for significantly worse performance than what you'd be able to get on a PC, which again invalidates the uses. And no building machines, just pre-canned, at that point might as well get a PS5 or Xbox. Its a bit of a perfect storm. If Apple officially wanted it, they'd make the hardware / software support whatever is needed. But they don't so it isn't even a chicken-egg problem. Why would you try to go after a tiny market where the hardware maker treats you as an afterthought at best.
• brucethemoose2 3y ago
  > but the lack of high-quality games in Apple's ecosystem is odd. Its not surprising, and not because of anticompetitive contracts. - Apple is a completely different CPU architecture, graphics architecture, and graphics API. Thats not an easy port for most studios. - There is no evidence that the Mac gamer consumer base is large. Maybe it is, but thats a chicken and egg problem. - Many (a large fraction?) of Macs run the base M1/M2 in shells that can't sustain high power for very long, with a small combined CPU/GPU RAM pool of 16GB. Or even worse, 8GB. This would provide an unsatisfactory experience in many modern PC games, even with really fast Proton-esque translation layers. > Why can't Apple do what Linux does and allow Windows games to run on Mac? I dunno the answer to that, but this question answers your original question. Most "big" game devs do precisely zero linux testing. The handful that do basically boot up Steam on Ubuntu or a Steam Deck and check if the game starts up and runs for a bit. Thats a remarkable level of turnkey compatibility that Apple is nowhere close to yet.
  • behnamoh 3y ago
    > - There is no evidence that the Mac gamer consumer base is large. Maybe it is, but thats a chicken and egg problem. But Mac users also tend to pay more for apps in general. I imagine if someone paid +$2000 for an MBP, they would be willing to spend $50 on a Mac game. Heck, maybe we're even ok with paying a premium just to get our games ported to Mac. ($100 for COD MW3? I'd do it even though it's expensive for me as a student).
    • brucethemoose2 3y ago
      > Heck, maybe we're even ok with paying a premium just to get our games ported to Mac. On this point specifically, price parity is a prickly subject among game devs. For instance, there are allegations of Steam harassing devs who charge less for games on storefonts with fees cheaper than Steam's 30% cut, hence you never see a game cheaper on Epic Games than it is on Steam. And IIRC thats actually policy on the iOS AppStore and Google Play... How that survives antitrust law, I don't know. There's also the issue of things simply going wrong on the less popular storefronts, with MS's Store being a particularly good example. Publishers don't like that kind of fuss.
• smoldesu 3y ago
  > Why can't Apple do what Linux does Specifically because it doesn't have native Vulkan drivers to run DXVK at high performance. That's just about it; Game Porting Toolkit is a confirmed fork of DXVK with Metal bindings. Apple hardware could be supported upstream if it was on their agenda, but... eh.