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And here I am, selling my Macbook M4 Pro to buy a Macbook Air and a dedicated gaming machine. I've tried gaming on the Macbook with Heroic, GPTK, Whiskey, RPCS3

And here I am, selling my Macbook M4 Pro to buy a Macbook Air and a dedicated gaming machine. I've tried gaming on the Macbook with Heroic, GPTK, Whiskey, RPCS3 emu and some native. When a game runs, the performance is stunning for a Laptop - but there is always glitches, bugs and annoyances that take out the joy. Needles to mention lack of support from any sort of online multiplayer, due to the lack of anticheat support. I wish Apple would take gaming more seriously and make GPTK a first class citizen such as Proton on Linux.

SigmundA 1y ago
Yep, I use Moonlight / Sunshine / Apollo to stream from my gaming PC, so I still use my Mac setup but get nearly perfect windows gaming with PC elsewhere in house. This has been by far the best setup until Apple can take gaming seriously, which may never happen.
bamboozled 1y ago
Sometimes I just feel like buying the latest and greatest game, I have an m4 too, the choices are usually quite abysmal. I agree.
- qnpnp 1y ago
  My solution is cloud gaming in that case, such as GeforceNow (for compatible games), or Shadow (for a whole PC to do as you please).
  - bamboozled 1y ago
    Thanks, will check it out!
gjsman-1000 1y ago
Many people blame the lack of OpenGL/Vulkan... but I really don't buy it. It doesn't pass the sniff test as an objection. PlayStation doesn't support OpenGL/Vulkan (they have their own proprietary APIs, GNM, GNMX, PSSL). Nintendo supports Vulkan but performance is so bad, almost everyone uses the proprietary API (NVN / NVN2). Xbox obviously doesn't accept OpenGL/Vulkan either, requiring DirectX. Understanding of Metal is widespread in mobile gaming, so it's weird AAA couldn't pull from that industry if they wished.
- coldpie 1y ago
  The primary reason is Apple's environment is too unstable for gaming's most common business model. Most games are developed, released, and then sold for years and years with little or no maintenance. Additionally, gamers expect the games they purchased to continue to work indefinitely. Apple regularly breaks backwards compatibility in a wide variety of ways (code signing requirements; breaking OS API changes; hardware architecture changes). That means software run on Apple OSes must be constantly maintained or else it will eventually stop working. Most games aren't developed like that. No one who was forced to write a statement like [this](https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/5E0D-522A-4E62-B6EF https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/5E0D-522A-4E62-B6...) is going to be enthusiastic about continuing to work with Apple.
  - gjsman-1000 1y ago
    I've heard this argument, but it also doesn't pass the sniff test in 2025. 1. When is the next transition on bits? Is Apple going to suddenly move to 128-bit? No. 2. When is the next transition on architecture? Is Apple going to suddenly move back to x86? No. 3. When is the next API transition? Is Apple suddenly going to add Vulkan or reinvigorate OpenGL? No. They've been clear it's Metal since 2014, 11 years ago. That's plenty of time for the industry to follow if they cared, and mobile gaming has adopted it without issue. We might as well complain that the PlayStation 4 was completely incompatible with the PlayStation 3.
    - coldpie 1y ago
      I mean, I worked in this space, and I'm telling you why many of the people I worked with weren't interested in supporting Apple. I'm happy to hear your theories if you don't like mine, though.
      - gjsman-1000 1y ago
        I think the past bit people, but unlike the PS4 transition or gaming consoles in the past (which were rarely backwards compatible), there wasn't enough cultural momentum to plow through it... leaving "don't support Apple" as a bit of a institutional memory at this point, even though the odds of another transition seem almost nonexistent. What would it even be? 128 bit? Back to x86? Notarization++? Metal 4 incompatible with Metal 1?
sapiogram 1y ago
> I wish Apple would take gaming more seriously and make GPTK a first class citizen such as Proton on Linux. Note that games with anticheat don't work on Linux with Proton either. Everything else does, though.
- rpdillon 1y ago
  Many of them do, but it's a game of cat and mouse, so it's more hit and miss than I would like.
- dralley 1y ago
  Several games with anticheat work. But it's up to the developers whether they check the box that allows it to work, which is why even though both Apex Legends and Squad use Easy Anticheat, Squad works and Apex does not. Of course some anticheats aren't supported at all, like EA Javelin.
  - ascagnel_ 1y ago
    Apex Legends is an interesting case because EA/Respawn initially shipped with first-class support for the Steam Deck (going as far as to make changes to the game client so it would get a "Verified" badge from Valve) -- including "check[ing] the box that allows it to work". However, the observation was that the anti-cheat code on Linux wasn't as effective, so they eventually dropped support for it. https://forums.ea.com/blog/apex-legends-game-info-hub-en/dev-team-update-linux--anti-cheat/9468053 https://forums.ea.com/blog/apex-legends-game-info-hub-en/dev...
bob1029 1y ago
> lack of anticheat support. I just redid my windows machine to get at TPM2.0 and secure boot for Battlefield 6. I did use massgrave this time because I've definitely paid enough Microsoft taxes over the last decade. I thought I would hate this new stuff but it runs much better than the old CSM bios mode. Anything not protected by kernel level anti cheats I play on my steam deck now. Proton is incredible. I am shocked that games like Elden Ring run this well on a linux handheld.
- zhivota 1y ago
  It's funny considering what people are telling me about the rampant cheating in that game. May settle out eventually but these anti cheat systems seem to not do much.
gwbas1c 1y ago
Honestly, gaming consoles are so much cheaper and "no hassle." I never games on my Mac.
- littlecranky67 1y ago
  More expensive on the long run, as the games are more expensive and you need some kind of subscription to play online.
dlojudice 1y ago
Good point. Many people (including me) switched to Apple Silicon with the hope (or promise?) of having just one computer for work and leisure, given the potential of the new architecture. That didn't happen, or only partially, which is the same. In my case, for software development, I'd be happy with an entry-level MacBook Air (now with a minimum of 16GB) for $999.
ryao 1y ago
Off the top of my head, here is what that needs: 1. Implementing PR_SET_SYSCALL_USER_DISPATCH 2. Implementing ntsync 3. Implementing OpenGL 4.6 support (currently only OpenGL 4.1 is supported) 4. Implementing Vulkan 1.4 with various extensions used by DXVK and vkd3d-proton. That said, there are alternatives to those things. 1. Not implementing this would just break games like Jurassic World where DRM hard codes Windows syscalls. I do not believe that there are many of these, although I could be wrong. 2. There is https://github.com/marzent/wine-msync, although implementing ntsync in the XNU kernel would be better. 3. The latest OpenGL isn't that important these days now that Vulkan has been widely adopted, although having the latest version would be nice to have for parity. Not many things would suffer if it were omitted. 4. They could add the things needed for MoltenVK to support Vulkan 1.4 with those extensions on top of Metal: https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK/issues/203 https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK/issues/203 It is a shame that they do not work with Valve on these things. If they did, Proton likely would be supported for MacOS from within Steam and the GPTK would benefit.
hannesfur 1y ago
I agree—the difference between the different compatibility layers and native games is very steep at times. Death Stranding on my M2 Pro looks so good it’s hard to believe, but running GTA Online is so brittle and clunky… Even when games have native macOS builds, it’s rare to find them with Apple Silicon support (and even rarer with Metal support). There is a notable exception though: Arma 3 has experimental Apple Silicon support, though it comes with significant limitations. (Multiplayer, flying & mods) Although I don’t believe it’s in Apple’s interest, gaming on Linux might become an option in the future, even on Mac, but the lack of ARM builds is an even bigger problem there… Since I am playing mostly MSFS 2024 these days I currently use GeForce Now which is fine, but cloud gaming isn’t still quite there yet…
- kllrnohj 1y ago
  > Death Stranding on my M2 Pro looks so good it’s hard to believe, Death Stranding is a great looking game to be sure, but it's also kinda hard to get excited about a 5 year old game achieving rtx 2060 performance on a $2000+ system. And that was apparently worthy of a keynote feature...
imcritic 1y ago
What about wine flavor from crossdressers?
- ed_elliott_asc 1y ago
  Pretty sure you don’t mean crossdressers! Codeweavers?
  - coldpie 1y ago
    Little of column A, little of column B ;) This was a fun day in the office: https://www.codeweavers.com/blog/jwhite/2011/1/18/all-dressed-up-macworld-to-go https://www.codeweavers.com/blog/jwhite/2011/1/18/all-dresse...
unsupp0rted 1y ago
I can't sell my MacBook Pro because the speakers are so insanely good. Air can't compare. The speakers are worth the extra kilos.
- HDThoreaun 1y ago
  I have never once used my laptop speakers. Not saying youre wrong but its crazy how different priorities for products can be
  - prewett 1y ago
    I shocked when I tried out the 2019 MBP speakers, they were almost as good as my (low-end) studio headphones. I was even more shocked with the M2 speakers, which are arguably better (although not as flat frequency response, I think, there definitely is something a little artificial, but it sounds really good). I really could not imagine laptop speakers being even close to par to decent headphones. Perhaps they aren't on par with $400 headphones, I've never had any of those. But now by preference I listen on the laptop speakers. It's not a priority--I'm totally happy to go back to the headphones--more like an unexpected perk.
    - adastra22 1y ago
      But why would you ever use the speakers?
      - unsupp0rted 1y ago
        I work alone- I can use the speakers at any volume without bothering anybody or wearing anything in my ears or on my head. It's wonderful.
- mrheosuper 1y ago
  Apple Audio is one of the best in consumer market. i've never found a laptop with better speaker, even if they cost a lot more.
dimgl 1y ago
Yeah I agree. If it weren't for gaming I would have already uninstalled Windows permanently. It's really unfortunate because it sticks out as the one product in my house that I truly despise but I can't get rid of, due to gaming. I've been trying to get Unreal Engine to work on my Macbook but Unity is an order of magnitude easier to run. So I'm also stuck doing game development on my PC. The Metal APIs exist and apparently they're quite good... it's a shame that more engines don't support it.
mrcwinn 1y ago
Going back to the Air's screen from your Pro will be a steep fall.
- littlecranky67 1y ago
  Not really, 95% of the time I use it in a dock with 2 external screens.
ge96 1y ago
I'm gonna be looking for a 4080 in SFF form factor since my current gaming rig can't get upgraded to win 11. Also I wouldn't mind a smaller desktop. edit: for now I'll get that win 10 ESU
gbil 1y ago
On top of that, what is the strategy from Apple on gaming? Advertise extra performance and features that you only get if you upgrade your whole device? This is non-sustainable to put it mildly. There are egpu enclosures with TB5, developing something like that for the Mac would make more sense if they really cared about gaming anyhow.

SigmundA 1y ago

Yep, I use Moonlight / Sunshine / Apollo to stream from my gaming PC, so I still use my Mac setup but get nearly perfect windows gaming with PC elsewhere in house. This has been by far the best setup until Apple can take gaming seriously, which may never happen.

bamboozled 1y ago

Sometimes I just feel like buying the latest and greatest game, I have an m4 too, the choices are usually quite abysmal. I agree.

qnpnp 1y ago
My solution is cloud gaming in that case, such as GeforceNow (for compatible games), or Shadow (for a whole PC to do as you please).
- bamboozled 1y ago
  Thanks, will check it out!

gjsman-1000 1y ago

Many people blame the lack of OpenGL/Vulkan... but I really don't buy it. It doesn't pass the sniff test as an objection. PlayStation doesn't support OpenGL/Vulkan (they have their own proprietary APIs, GNM, GNMX, PSSL). Nintendo supports Vulkan but performance is so bad, almost everyone uses the proprietary API (NVN / NVN2). Xbox obviously doesn't accept OpenGL/Vulkan either, requiring DirectX. Understanding of Metal is widespread in mobile gaming, so it's weird AAA couldn't pull from that industry if they wished.

coldpie 1y ago
The primary reason is Apple's environment is too unstable for gaming's most common business model. Most games are developed, released, and then sold for years and years with little or no maintenance. Additionally, gamers expect the games they purchased to continue to work indefinitely. Apple regularly breaks backwards compatibility in a wide variety of ways (code signing requirements; breaking OS API changes; hardware architecture changes). That means software run on Apple OSes must be constantly maintained or else it will eventually stop working. Most games aren't developed like that. No one who was forced to write a statement like [this](https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/5E0D-522A-4E62-B6EF https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/5E0D-522A-4E62-B6...) is going to be enthusiastic about continuing to work with Apple.
- gjsman-1000 1y ago
  I've heard this argument, but it also doesn't pass the sniff test in 2025. 1. When is the next transition on bits? Is Apple going to suddenly move to 128-bit? No. 2. When is the next transition on architecture? Is Apple going to suddenly move back to x86? No. 3. When is the next API transition? Is Apple suddenly going to add Vulkan or reinvigorate OpenGL? No. They've been clear it's Metal since 2014, 11 years ago. That's plenty of time for the industry to follow if they cared, and mobile gaming has adopted it without issue. We might as well complain that the PlayStation 4 was completely incompatible with the PlayStation 3.
  - coldpie 1y ago
    I mean, I worked in this space, and I'm telling you why many of the people I worked with weren't interested in supporting Apple. I'm happy to hear your theories if you don't like mine, though.
    - gjsman-1000 1y ago
      I think the past bit people, but unlike the PS4 transition or gaming consoles in the past (which were rarely backwards compatible), there wasn't enough cultural momentum to plow through it... leaving "don't support Apple" as a bit of a institutional memory at this point, even though the odds of another transition seem almost nonexistent. What would it even be? 128 bit? Back to x86? Notarization++? Metal 4 incompatible with Metal 1?

sapiogram 1y ago

> I wish Apple would take gaming more seriously and make GPTK a first class citizen such as Proton on Linux. Note that games with anticheat don't work on Linux with Proton either. Everything else does, though.

rpdillon 1y ago
Many of them do, but it's a game of cat and mouse, so it's more hit and miss than I would like.
dralley 1y ago
Several games with anticheat work. But it's up to the developers whether they check the box that allows it to work, which is why even though both Apex Legends and Squad use Easy Anticheat, Squad works and Apex does not. Of course some anticheats aren't supported at all, like EA Javelin.
- ascagnel_ 1y ago
  Apex Legends is an interesting case because EA/Respawn initially shipped with first-class support for the Steam Deck (going as far as to make changes to the game client so it would get a "Verified" badge from Valve) -- including "check[ing] the box that allows it to work". However, the observation was that the anti-cheat code on Linux wasn't as effective, so they eventually dropped support for it. https://forums.ea.com/blog/apex-legends-game-info-hub-en/dev-team-update-linux--anti-cheat/9468053 https://forums.ea.com/blog/apex-legends-game-info-hub-en/dev...

bob1029 1y ago

> lack of anticheat support. I just redid my windows machine to get at TPM2.0 and secure boot for Battlefield 6. I did use massgrave this time because I've definitely paid enough Microsoft taxes over the last decade. I thought I would hate this new stuff but it runs much better than the old CSM bios mode. Anything not protected by kernel level anti cheats I play on my steam deck now. Proton is incredible. I am shocked that games like Elden Ring run this well on a linux handheld.

zhivota 1y ago
It's funny considering what people are telling me about the rampant cheating in that game. May settle out eventually but these anti cheat systems seem to not do much.

gwbas1c 1y ago

Honestly, gaming consoles are so much cheaper and "no hassle." I never games on my Mac.

littlecranky67 1y ago
More expensive on the long run, as the games are more expensive and you need some kind of subscription to play online.

dlojudice 1y ago

Good point. Many people (including me) switched to Apple Silicon with the hope (or promise?) of having just one computer for work and leisure, given the potential of the new architecture. That didn't happen, or only partially, which is the same. In my case, for software development, I'd be happy with an entry-level MacBook Air (now with a minimum of 16GB) for $999.

ryao 1y ago

Off the top of my head, here is what that needs: 1. Implementing PR_SET_SYSCALL_USER_DISPATCH 2. Implementing ntsync 3. Implementing OpenGL 4.6 support (currently only OpenGL 4.1 is supported) 4. Implementing Vulkan 1.4 with various extensions used by DXVK and vkd3d-proton. That said, there are alternatives to those things. 1. Not implementing this would just break games like Jurassic World where DRM hard codes Windows syscalls. I do not believe that there are many of these, although I could be wrong. 2. There is https://github.com/marzent/wine-msync, although implementing ntsync in the XNU kernel would be better. 3. The latest OpenGL isn't that important these days now that Vulkan has been widely adopted, although having the latest version would be nice to have for parity. Not many things would suffer if it were omitted. 4. They could add the things needed for MoltenVK to support Vulkan 1.4 with those extensions on top of Metal: https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK/issues/203 https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK/issues/203 It is a shame that they do not work with Valve on these things. If they did, Proton likely would be supported for MacOS from within Steam and the GPTK would benefit.

hannesfur 1y ago

I agree—the difference between the different compatibility layers and native games is very steep at times. Death Stranding on my M2 Pro looks so good it’s hard to believe, but running GTA Online is so brittle and clunky… Even when games have native macOS builds, it’s rare to find them with Apple Silicon support (and even rarer with Metal support). There is a notable exception though: Arma 3 has experimental Apple Silicon support, though it comes with significant limitations. (Multiplayer, flying & mods) Although I don’t believe it’s in Apple’s interest, gaming on Linux might become an option in the future, even on Mac, but the lack of ARM builds is an even bigger problem there… Since I am playing mostly MSFS 2024 these days I currently use GeForce Now which is fine, but cloud gaming isn’t still quite there yet…

kllrnohj 1y ago
> Death Stranding on my M2 Pro looks so good it’s hard to believe, Death Stranding is a great looking game to be sure, but it's also kinda hard to get excited about a 5 year old game achieving rtx 2060 performance on a $2000+ system. And that was apparently worthy of a keynote feature...

imcritic 1y ago

What about wine flavor from crossdressers?

ed_elliott_asc 1y ago
Pretty sure you don’t mean crossdressers! Codeweavers?
- coldpie 1y ago
  Little of column A, little of column B ;) This was a fun day in the office: https://www.codeweavers.com/blog/jwhite/2011/1/18/all-dressed-up-macworld-to-go https://www.codeweavers.com/blog/jwhite/2011/1/18/all-dresse...

unsupp0rted 1y ago

I can't sell my MacBook Pro because the speakers are so insanely good. Air can't compare. The speakers are worth the extra kilos.

HDThoreaun 1y ago
I have never once used my laptop speakers. Not saying youre wrong but its crazy how different priorities for products can be
- prewett 1y ago
  I shocked when I tried out the 2019 MBP speakers, they were almost as good as my (low-end) studio headphones. I was even more shocked with the M2 speakers, which are arguably better (although not as flat frequency response, I think, there definitely is something a little artificial, but it sounds really good). I really could not imagine laptop speakers being even close to par to decent headphones. Perhaps they aren't on par with $400 headphones, I've never had any of those. But now by preference I listen on the laptop speakers. It's not a priority--I'm totally happy to go back to the headphones--more like an unexpected perk.
  - adastra22 1y ago
    But why would you ever use the speakers?
    - unsupp0rted 1y ago
      I work alone- I can use the speakers at any volume without bothering anybody or wearing anything in my ears or on my head. It's wonderful.
mrheosuper 1y ago
Apple Audio is one of the best in consumer market. i've never found a laptop with better speaker, even if they cost a lot more.

dimgl 1y ago

Yeah I agree. If it weren't for gaming I would have already uninstalled Windows permanently. It's really unfortunate because it sticks out as the one product in my house that I truly despise but I can't get rid of, due to gaming. I've been trying to get Unreal Engine to work on my Macbook but Unity is an order of magnitude easier to run. So I'm also stuck doing game development on my PC. The Metal APIs exist and apparently they're quite good... it's a shame that more engines don't support it.

mrcwinn 1y ago

Going back to the Air's screen from your Pro will be a steep fall.

littlecranky67 1y ago
Not really, 95% of the time I use it in a dock with 2 external screens.

ge96 1y ago

I'm gonna be looking for a 4080 in SFF form factor since my current gaming rig can't get upgraded to win 11. Also I wouldn't mind a smaller desktop. edit: for now I'll get that win 10 ESU

gbil 1y ago

On top of that, what is the strategy from Apple on gaming? Advertise extra performance and features that you only get if you upgrade your whole device? This is non-sustainable to put it mildly. There are egpu enclosures with TB5, developing something like that for the Mac would make more sense if they really cared about gaming anyhow.