4 ms·

With intel and amd getting much better in the low end power and performance-wise, Apple should look at going back to x86. The developer situation is still a mes

With intel and amd getting much better in the low end power and performance-wise, Apple should look at going back to x86. The developer situation is still a mess with Docker x86 and arm mismatches, and it was so convenient just to throw Windows on to a mac to game.

solardev 2y ago
I really hope they don't do this. Apple never cared about desktop gaming and I hope they don't sacrifice the amazing gains that Apple Silicon made in power and efficiency just to support a niche use case that's often better served by GeForce Now anyway. The Apple Silicon machines I've had were tremendously better than any x86 one I've ever used, at any price point, for laptop work. Powerful, silent, battery efficient. Definitely worth the tradeoff of losing x86 support IMHO. I guess the x86 compat depends on what you work on. For the web teams I've been a part of, it was a real headache in the first couple years (the M1 era) but hasn't been an issue at all since then. But that's just anecdotal.
stouset 2y ago
The M-series of chips is quite possibly the most universally beloved thing Apple has done in a decade.
- withinboredom 2y ago
  Def not universal. It annoys me to no end when I need to cross-compile on my windows machine so the content guys at my company can use it, and then I have to walk them through how to allow their machine to actually run it. God forbid someone wants to just run internally developed software on their own hardware.
  - solardev 2y ago
    I didn't realize there were still companies doing this. What sort of use case is it where a cross platform desktop app is chosen over a web app or a webview?
    - arkh 2y ago
      My guess would be performance.
    - withinboredom 2y ago
      We are operating on content on physical portable hardrives from the studio. A webapp would be pointless and inefficient (these videos are hundreds of gbs). Most of the internal software we write for our content team is basically glorified macros. They need to adjust 100's of videos sometimes, and doing it one by one would take months. If they can define what needs to be done, an engineer can usually get it done in a few hours or days instead of weeks.
      - solardev 2y ago
        Makes sense. Thanks for sharing!
  - egypturnash 2y ago
    Isn’t this more a problem with Apple’s application security than the CPU architecture? You’d be jumping through the same hoops to run unsigned software if it was still Intel.
dismalaf 2y ago
Realistically, Macs are meant to develop for Apple devices only. Apple creates their own ecosystem where nothing else matters. Want to develop on Docker (Linux)? You should use Linux. AMD and Intel getting better means now you can have a very, very good Linux experience too.
- solardev 2y ago
  It's also huge in web dev, graphics, marketing, etc. Every single web dev I know uses a Mac. The hardware guys prefer some Linux variant or another, though. Windows has WSL, but otherwise it's a lot easier to run a lot of the CLI tools on a Mac, while still having access to a polished GUI and mainstream apps (Adobe and Microsoft, etc.)
  - dismalaf 2y ago
    Didn't say it's not big, only that Apple themselves build it to service their own ecosystem only. The fact it runs any of these tools is simply a result of the Unix-y core. If you want 100% compatibility with Linux tools, Linux is still the best bet (obviously).
KronisLV 2y ago
As someone who has about 800 Steam games (mostly various indie titles, some free games, few AAA games grabbed on a discount: * all 800 of those work on Windows, in very few cases any of those work better on another platform * about 600 of those can be made to run on Linux distros with Proton (with varying degrees of success, relatively few actually have native versions) * when it comes to Mac, only about 120 of those have native versions that run and Proton doesn't seem to be an option * I know that Game Porting Toolkit exists, but haven't really looked that much into it, I probably should in the future * none of that, not even Proton would be really necessary, if people bothered to export versions of their games for all platforms, which is at the very least an option that is offered by all big mainstream game engines, or even smaller ones like Godot; but we don't live in that kind of a world, sadly * oddly enough, in many cases games won't run because the developers explicitly choose not to support additional platforms, especially in the case of the various anti-cheat solutions, which plain sucks It's quite unfortunate, because otherwise I could definitely enjoy more gaming even on my slightly dated M1 MacBook Air - because while I wouldn't be playing that many cutting edge AAA games, if you could have a satisfying gaming experience even on a Nintendo Switch, then I see no reason why the same couldn't be said about Apple hardware.
- solardev 2y ago
  There's just not a big gaming market for Macs (and I say that as both a gamer and a Mac user). It's a chicken and egg problem. Apple historically has not cared about desktop gaming much, and don't provide an easy way to port games to it. They don't even support Vulkan, so developers have to port to Metal or use GPT. A lot of devs in turn skip the Mac because it's a lot of additional work for a tiny market. And without the devs, there are very few Mac-only gamers. Apple had a chance to do what Valve did with Proton here, using GPT and custom first party patches or configs to certify a collection of games as working. But they never bothered, instead handing that off to Crossover (who does an OK job but leaves a lot to be desired in terms of UX). It's still a huge pain to get games running on Mac, even worse than Linux. Way worse, actually. Unless Apple suddenly has a change of heart and really tries to support and help game devs, they're not going to entice anyone no matter how good the Apple Silicon GPUs are. And they're probably not going to do that since Steam is so dominant and they wouldn't be able to make the 30% they do on iOS. Even for their new platforms like Vision, gaming was an afterthought. It's just not part of their culture. Apple Arcade on Mac is a sad little market compared to any other games ecosystem. Thankfully there's at least GeForce Now, which works way way better anyway.
yellowapple 2y ago
IMO it was a mistake switching to x86 the first time. Repeating that mistake would once again kneecap the one major thing differentiating Apple's desktops and laptops from your average Windows PC.
- Damogran6 2y ago
  I'm going to disagree. Moving to x86 moved to native windows compatibility speeds and was a massive boon to our security team. We could interact with everything in our Windows environment, use FOSS tools natively, and the support for battery and power management was streets ahead of our Dell laptops. x86 -at the time- was the right things to do, because IBM wasn't going to get them there...moving to NeXT's underpinnings also opened the door to a TON of pre-existing code.

solardev 2y ago

I really hope they don't do this. Apple never cared about desktop gaming and I hope they don't sacrifice the amazing gains that Apple Silicon made in power and efficiency just to support a niche use case that's often better served by GeForce Now anyway. The Apple Silicon machines I've had were tremendously better than any x86 one I've ever used, at any price point, for laptop work. Powerful, silent, battery efficient. Definitely worth the tradeoff of losing x86 support IMHO. I guess the x86 compat depends on what you work on. For the web teams I've been a part of, it was a real headache in the first couple years (the M1 era) but hasn't been an issue at all since then. But that's just anecdotal.

stouset 2y ago

The M-series of chips is quite possibly the most universally beloved thing Apple has done in a decade.

withinboredom 2y ago
Def not universal. It annoys me to no end when I need to cross-compile on my windows machine so the content guys at my company can use it, and then I have to walk them through how to allow their machine to actually run it. God forbid someone wants to just run internally developed software on their own hardware.
- solardev 2y ago
  I didn't realize there were still companies doing this. What sort of use case is it where a cross platform desktop app is chosen over a web app or a webview?
  - arkh 2y ago
    My guess would be performance.
  - withinboredom 2y ago
    We are operating on content on physical portable hardrives from the studio. A webapp would be pointless and inefficient (these videos are hundreds of gbs). Most of the internal software we write for our content team is basically glorified macros. They need to adjust 100's of videos sometimes, and doing it one by one would take months. If they can define what needs to be done, an engineer can usually get it done in a few hours or days instead of weeks.
    - solardev 2y ago
      Makes sense. Thanks for sharing!
- egypturnash 2y ago
  Isn’t this more a problem with Apple’s application security than the CPU architecture? You’d be jumping through the same hoops to run unsigned software if it was still Intel.

dismalaf 2y ago

Realistically, Macs are meant to develop for Apple devices only. Apple creates their own ecosystem where nothing else matters. Want to develop on Docker (Linux)? You should use Linux. AMD and Intel getting better means now you can have a very, very good Linux experience too.

solardev 2y ago
It's also huge in web dev, graphics, marketing, etc. Every single web dev I know uses a Mac. The hardware guys prefer some Linux variant or another, though. Windows has WSL, but otherwise it's a lot easier to run a lot of the CLI tools on a Mac, while still having access to a polished GUI and mainstream apps (Adobe and Microsoft, etc.)
- dismalaf 2y ago
  Didn't say it's not big, only that Apple themselves build it to service their own ecosystem only. The fact it runs any of these tools is simply a result of the Unix-y core. If you want 100% compatibility with Linux tools, Linux is still the best bet (obviously).

KronisLV 2y ago

As someone who has about 800 Steam games (mostly various indie titles, some free games, few AAA games grabbed on a discount: * all 800 of those work on Windows, in very few cases any of those work better on another platform * about 600 of those can be made to run on Linux distros with Proton (with varying degrees of success, relatively few actually have native versions) * when it comes to Mac, only about 120 of those have native versions that run and Proton doesn't seem to be an option * I know that Game Porting Toolkit exists, but haven't really looked that much into it, I probably should in the future * none of that, not even Proton would be really necessary, if people bothered to export versions of their games for all platforms, which is at the very least an option that is offered by all big mainstream game engines, or even smaller ones like Godot; but we don't live in that kind of a world, sadly * oddly enough, in many cases games won't run because the developers explicitly choose not to support additional platforms, especially in the case of the various anti-cheat solutions, which plain sucks It's quite unfortunate, because otherwise I could definitely enjoy more gaming even on my slightly dated M1 MacBook Air - because while I wouldn't be playing that many cutting edge AAA games, if you could have a satisfying gaming experience even on a Nintendo Switch, then I see no reason why the same couldn't be said about Apple hardware.

solardev 2y ago
There's just not a big gaming market for Macs (and I say that as both a gamer and a Mac user). It's a chicken and egg problem. Apple historically has not cared about desktop gaming much, and don't provide an easy way to port games to it. They don't even support Vulkan, so developers have to port to Metal or use GPT. A lot of devs in turn skip the Mac because it's a lot of additional work for a tiny market. And without the devs, there are very few Mac-only gamers. Apple had a chance to do what Valve did with Proton here, using GPT and custom first party patches or configs to certify a collection of games as working. But they never bothered, instead handing that off to Crossover (who does an OK job but leaves a lot to be desired in terms of UX). It's still a huge pain to get games running on Mac, even worse than Linux. Way worse, actually. Unless Apple suddenly has a change of heart and really tries to support and help game devs, they're not going to entice anyone no matter how good the Apple Silicon GPUs are. And they're probably not going to do that since Steam is so dominant and they wouldn't be able to make the 30% they do on iOS. Even for their new platforms like Vision, gaming was an afterthought. It's just not part of their culture. Apple Arcade on Mac is a sad little market compared to any other games ecosystem. Thankfully there's at least GeForce Now, which works way way better anyway.

yellowapple 2y ago

IMO it was a mistake switching to x86 the first time. Repeating that mistake would once again kneecap the one major thing differentiating Apple's desktops and laptops from your average Windows PC.

Damogran6 2y ago
I'm going to disagree. Moving to x86 moved to native windows compatibility speeds and was a massive boon to our security team. We could interact with everything in our Windows environment, use FOSS tools natively, and the support for battery and power management was streets ahead of our Dell laptops. x86 -at the time- was the right things to do, because IBM wasn't going to get them there...moving to NeXT's underpinnings also opened the door to a TON of pre-existing code.