Maybe I'm just out of the loop on Apple communications in general but I'm surprised to not only see mentions of gaming on Macs from Apple, but also screenshots.
Maybe I'm just out of the loop on Apple communications in general but I'm surprised to not only see mentions of gaming on Macs from Apple, but also screenshots.
It’s more that developers don’t seem to have the right incentives to target macOS. You can run games under Windows on Intel Macs just fine. For games that support Metal, they actually work very...
It’s more that developers don’t seem to have the right incentives to target macOS. You can run games under Windows on Intel Macs just fine. For games that support Metal, they actually work very well on macOS, but outside of Apple Arcade games, Metal games on macOS are few and far between. For instance, Heroes of the Storm had several patches where you could enable the Metal renderer (instead of OpenGL) and those builds gave me more than twice the frame rate with same settings on my 2015 27” iMac at 1440p. I’ve never encountered a single software change with such a pronounced effect on performance. But, like I said, basically no game software devs are targeting the platform (even though Metal is supposedly a really nice framework to develop for compared to the alternatives). And Activision/Blizzard ultimately removed the Metal renderer support from the HotS since they backed away from putting more resources toward that game. I don’t play World of Warcraft any more, but it has seen good Metal support from Activision/Blizzard, and it is very performant on recent Macs.
The popular game engines - Unity and Unreal - both support Metal now, so in most cases, if you're building your game with those, you're supporting Metal.
The popular game engines - Unity and Unreal - both support Metal now, so in most cases, if you're building your game with those, you're supporting Metal.
This is completely out of my area, but I don't think that supporting metal is as easy as flipping a switch even if you are using excellent middleware like Unreal or Unity. If you are making a game...
This is completely out of my area, but I don't think that supporting metal is as easy as flipping a switch even if you are using excellent middleware like Unreal or Unity. If you are making a game with a sizable budget, you are probably going to want to throw in some custom shaders, and I am unaware of any way to write shaders that are portable across different graphics APIs.
I'm in the middle of a port from OpenGL to Metal (not a game), and no, it's not simple. (Though it's not nearly as bad as we thought it would be.) But if you're starting a new game using one of...
Exemplary
I'm in the middle of a port from OpenGL to Metal (not a game), and no, it's not simple. (Though it's not nearly as bad as we thought it would be.) But if you're starting a new game using one of these engines, it would be foolish not to use Metal since OpenGL has been officially deprecated on Apple platforms. Unity has its own shading language that it translates into glsl, MSL, or hlsl depending on the platform and the developer's settings. I assume Unreal is the same, but I haven't looked into it extensively.
Yet, most games that use Unity or Unreal do not release on macOS. Also, generally, Steam is not a good citizen when it comes to macOS—Valve does not take macOS seriously, despite some meager...
Yet, most games that use Unity or Unreal do not release on macOS. Also, generally, Steam is not a good citizen when it comes to macOS—Valve does not take macOS seriously, despite some meager support, just like other game developers.
Yeah, it's a bit of a vicious cycle. They don't bring their games out on macOS, so mac owners don't look for their games, so then they say there's no market there so they don't bring their games...
Yeah, it's a bit of a vicious cycle. They don't bring their games out on macOS, so mac owners don't look for their games, so then they say there's no market there so they don't bring their games out on macOS... etc.
The problem also lies in the hardware. Apple's margins have historically been terrible (for customers), because you pay for the software and not for the (internal) hardware. AAA devs don't want to...
The problem also lies in the hardware. Apple's margins have historically been terrible (for customers), because you pay for the software and not for the (internal) hardware. AAA devs don't want to support macOS because Apple's computers can't run graphically intensive games, even Blizzard, up to that point always supporting macOS, had to back away from it when releasing Overwatch, as computers from Apple simply weren't powerful enough to tackle the game.
The powerful computers Apple now releases like the iMac Pro and the Mac Pro are firmly rooted in workstation territory when it comes to internals and price. Even if macOS support was vast, I don't think anyone would spend 5k on a iMac Pro (with a fucking Vega 56 in it, that's like a 300€ GPU) to play games.
Apple probably isn't interested in supporting gaming for real because the their hardware margins are too big to offer any good competition to just building your own PC. You can find a decent amount of indie games on mac though, I know how it feels, I was gaming on Apple for years, because there simply wasn't anything else at home until I could finally buy my own PC.
That’s not entirely true, though. They really didn’t. It was a choice. They could have developed Overwatch for macOS, but chose not to. They ported it to the Switch. Plenty of Macs offer as good...
AAA devs don't want to support macOS because Apple's computers can't run graphically intensive games
That’s not entirely true, though.
even Blizzard, up to that point always supporting macOS, had to back away from it when releasing Overwatch
They really didn’t. It was a choice. They could have developed Overwatch for macOS, but chose not to. They ported it to the Switch. Plenty of Macs offer as good or better hardware than Switch. It is Apple’s deprecation of OpenGL and pushing of Metal that clearly pushed Blizzard’s decision (Apple is always ahead of the curve in ditching legacy baggage).
I don't think anyone would spend 5k on a iMac Pro (with a fucking Vega 56 in it, that's like a 300€ GPU) to play games
I don’t think so either—not just to play games. But if you buy a machine like that that is capable of running games, it’s still disappointing that you have to boot into a different OS just because game devs are riding the DirectX train.
Apple probably isn't interested in supporting gaming for real
Apple is courting game devs with reasonable hardware support for Metal. Game dev studios just seem to prefer to stick to DirectX/Windows or consoles. The popularity of the PlayStation and Switch this past generation of consoles haven’t really routed the Xbox, either, so I don’t see the situation getting better any time soon. If you look at other non-Windows OSes for PC, the situation is similar. You either emulate Windows (Proton etc.), or you miss out on a majority of big titles, or you wait for an OpenGL (or Vulkan) backport. There isn’t a technical reason the Mac platform can’t run AAA games, though.
Of course it was a choice. No one held a gun to Jeff Kaplan's head to force him to stop supporting macOS, my usage of had to implied that they chose to stop supporting macOS because it was not...
They really didn’t. It was a choice. They could have developed Overwatch for macOS, but chose not to. They ported it to the Switch. Plenty of Macs offer as good or better hardware than Switch. It is Apple’s deprecation of OpenGL and pushing of Metal that clearly pushed Blizzard’s decision (Apple is always ahead of the curve in ditching legacy baggage).
Of course it was a choice. No one held a gun to Jeff Kaplan's head to force him to stop supporting macOS, my usage of had to implied that they chose to stop supporting macOS because it was not financially viable.
And while true that they ported OW to the Switch, it's heavily stripped down version of the game that runs, but barely. Considering the screen resolution most of Apple's computers ship with and the fact that the screen is simply bigger, you already need more graphical power than you can get at the "lower end". You have to spend well over $2,000 to even get discrete graphics, and even then they seem to be on the lower end, and all from AMD. I don't think the switch port of Overwatch is a fair comparison in this case.
Essentially the entire thing is just a self-sustaining argument: No one plays on Mac because there are no games and because there are no games, no one plays on Mac. That being said, why Apple decided to build their own graphical API instead of supporting Vulkan seems very strange to me. Hopefully with time more devs will move towards Vulkan, and this could've been their way in. Khronos did make MoltenVK, but native support would've been even better. To me it all seems like Apple is doing "just enough" to say that they care about games, but it's clear to them that they don't want to change strategies to appeal to the gaming crowd.
Interesting that they are making the 10th generation Intel processors optional. Is there no equivalent 10th gen version of the lower end processors? Otherwise, it seems crazy for them to update...
Interesting that they are making the 10th generation Intel processors optional.
Is there no equivalent 10th gen version of the lower end processors? Otherwise, it seems crazy for them to update the laptop and include last generation processors, especially for $1,300.
Everything else looks good. They should have done this three or four years ago, instead of iterating on the scissor switch keyboard, but at least it's happened now. I have the 16-inch and I love the keyboard. I'm glad they've adopted the separate TouchID and escape keys as well.
IMO if you are in the market for the base model MBP, you should just get the new Air, evidently performance isn't a super big concern -- which is fine, that's how it is for many users -- it's just...
IMO if you are in the market for the base model MBP, you should just get the new Air, evidently performance isn't a super big concern -- which is fine, that's how it is for many users -- it's just cheaper, and better.
The major differences from the Pro line to Air is the screen can get brighter, you get more USB ports, you get the Touch Bar, and if you spend a bunch more, the Pro can be specced out with more...
The major differences from the Pro line to Air is the screen can get brighter, you get more USB ports, you get the Touch Bar, and if you spend a bunch more, the Pro can be specced out with more RAM, storage, and faster processor (with better cooling so it can handle sustained compute tasks better). I agree that for most people, most of the time, those trade-offs aren’t worth it in a portable ~13” laptop. The new Airs seem like really good 13” laptops. If you’re looking at the 13” Pros on the high end of the configs, it seems like you really ought to consider the 16” Pro instead. The 13” seems quite awkwardly positioned right now, despite this refresh.
I'm somewhat looking for a new one - My trusty 2013 MBP is starting to show its age. I'll have to see how much a fresh install will help (I've never done a fresh isntall since my 2011 Air, it's...
I'm somewhat looking for a new one - My trusty 2013 MBP is starting to show its age. I'll have to see how much a fresh install will help (I've never done a fresh isntall since my 2011 Air, it's been only upgrades and backup restores since then) and then see if I'm keeping my current one or will get a refurbished one of the 2020 model once they're available.
I wish they had goen with 14", but 13.3 is good enough. However I don't like that they're reserving the DDR4 and 10th gen CPUs for the higher tiered models, I'm fine with two TB ports, but I'd still like the new stuff
Maybe I'm just out of the loop on Apple communications in general but I'm surprised to not only see mentions of gaming on Macs from Apple, but also screenshots.
They have commonly highlighted gaming on Macs in their promotional materials, even in keynotes. They just never do anything to actually support it.
It’s more that developers don’t seem to have the right incentives to target macOS. You can run games under Windows on Intel Macs just fine. For games that support Metal, they actually work very well on macOS, but outside of Apple Arcade games, Metal games on macOS are few and far between. For instance, Heroes of the Storm had several patches where you could enable the Metal renderer (instead of OpenGL) and those builds gave me more than twice the frame rate with same settings on my 2015 27” iMac at 1440p. I’ve never encountered a single software change with such a pronounced effect on performance. But, like I said, basically no game software devs are targeting the platform (even though Metal is supposedly a really nice framework to develop for compared to the alternatives). And Activision/Blizzard ultimately removed the Metal renderer support from the HotS since they backed away from putting more resources toward that game. I don’t play World of Warcraft any more, but it has seen good Metal support from Activision/Blizzard, and it is very performant on recent Macs.
The popular game engines - Unity and Unreal - both support Metal now, so in most cases, if you're building your game with those, you're supporting Metal.
This is completely out of my area, but I don't think that supporting metal is as easy as flipping a switch even if you are using excellent middleware like Unreal or Unity. If you are making a game with a sizable budget, you are probably going to want to throw in some custom shaders, and I am unaware of any way to write shaders that are portable across different graphics APIs.
I'm in the middle of a port from OpenGL to Metal (not a game), and no, it's not simple. (Though it's not nearly as bad as we thought it would be.) But if you're starting a new game using one of these engines, it would be foolish not to use Metal since OpenGL has been officially deprecated on Apple platforms. Unity has its own shading language that it translates into glsl, MSL, or hlsl depending on the platform and the developer's settings. I assume Unreal is the same, but I haven't looked into it extensively.
Yet, most games that use Unity or Unreal do not release on macOS. Also, generally, Steam is not a good citizen when it comes to macOS—Valve does not take macOS seriously, despite some meager support, just like other game developers.
Yeah, it's a bit of a vicious cycle. They don't bring their games out on macOS, so mac owners don't look for their games, so then they say there's no market there so they don't bring their games out on macOS... etc.
The problem also lies in the hardware. Apple's margins have historically been terrible (for customers), because you pay for the software and not for the (internal) hardware. AAA devs don't want to support macOS because Apple's computers can't run graphically intensive games, even Blizzard, up to that point always supporting macOS, had to back away from it when releasing Overwatch, as computers from Apple simply weren't powerful enough to tackle the game.
The powerful computers Apple now releases like the iMac Pro and the Mac Pro are firmly rooted in workstation territory when it comes to internals and price. Even if macOS support was vast, I don't think anyone would spend 5k on a iMac Pro (with a fucking Vega 56 in it, that's like a 300€ GPU) to play games.
Apple probably isn't interested in supporting gaming for real because the their hardware margins are too big to offer any good competition to just building your own PC. You can find a decent amount of indie games on mac though, I know how it feels, I was gaming on Apple for years, because there simply wasn't anything else at home until I could finally buy my own PC.
That’s not entirely true, though.
They really didn’t. It was a choice. They could have developed Overwatch for macOS, but chose not to. They ported it to the Switch. Plenty of Macs offer as good or better hardware than Switch. It is Apple’s deprecation of OpenGL and pushing of Metal that clearly pushed Blizzard’s decision (Apple is always ahead of the curve in ditching legacy baggage).
I don’t think so either—not just to play games. But if you buy a machine like that that is capable of running games, it’s still disappointing that you have to boot into a different OS just because game devs are riding the DirectX train.
Apple is courting game devs with reasonable hardware support for Metal. Game dev studios just seem to prefer to stick to DirectX/Windows or consoles. The popularity of the PlayStation and Switch this past generation of consoles haven’t really routed the Xbox, either, so I don’t see the situation getting better any time soon. If you look at other non-Windows OSes for PC, the situation is similar. You either emulate Windows (Proton etc.), or you miss out on a majority of big titles, or you wait for an OpenGL (or Vulkan) backport. There isn’t a technical reason the Mac platform can’t run AAA games, though.
Of course it was a choice. No one held a gun to Jeff Kaplan's head to force him to stop supporting macOS, my usage of had to implied that they chose to stop supporting macOS because it was not financially viable.
And while true that they ported OW to the Switch, it's heavily stripped down version of the game that runs, but barely. Considering the screen resolution most of Apple's computers ship with and the fact that the screen is simply bigger, you already need more graphical power than you can get at the "lower end". You have to spend well over $2,000 to even get discrete graphics, and even then they seem to be on the lower end, and all from AMD. I don't think the switch port of Overwatch is a fair comparison in this case.
Essentially the entire thing is just a self-sustaining argument: No one plays on Mac because there are no games and because there are no games, no one plays on Mac. That being said, why Apple decided to build their own graphical API instead of supporting Vulkan seems very strange to me. Hopefully with time more devs will move towards Vulkan, and this could've been their way in. Khronos did make MoltenVK, but native support would've been even better. To me it all seems like Apple is doing "just enough" to say that they care about games, but it's clear to them that they don't want to change strategies to appeal to the gaming crowd.
Interesting that they are making the 10th generation Intel processors optional.
Is there no equivalent 10th gen version of the lower end processors? Otherwise, it seems crazy for them to update the laptop and include last generation processors, especially for $1,300.
Everything else looks good. They should have done this three or four years ago, instead of iterating on the scissor switch keyboard, but at least it's happened now. I have the 16-inch and I love the keyboard. I'm glad they've adopted the separate TouchID and escape keys as well.
Unfortunately, that's true for almost all Apple laptops.
IMO if you are in the market for the base model MBP, you should just get the new Air, evidently performance isn't a super big concern -- which is fine, that's how it is for many users -- it's just cheaper, and better.
The major differences from the Pro line to Air is the screen can get brighter, you get more USB ports, you get the Touch Bar, and if you spend a bunch more, the Pro can be specced out with more RAM, storage, and faster processor (with better cooling so it can handle sustained compute tasks better). I agree that for most people, most of the time, those trade-offs aren’t worth it in a portable ~13” laptop. The new Airs seem like really good 13” laptops. If you’re looking at the 13” Pros on the high end of the configs, it seems like you really ought to consider the 16” Pro instead. The 13” seems quite awkwardly positioned right now, despite this refresh.
I'm somewhat looking for a new one - My trusty 2013 MBP is starting to show its age. I'll have to see how much a fresh install will help (I've never done a fresh isntall since my 2011 Air, it's been only upgrades and backup restores since then) and then see if I'm keeping my current one or will get a refurbished one of the 2020 model once they're available.
I wish they had goen with 14", but 13.3 is good enough. However I don't like that they're reserving the DDR4 and 10th gen CPUs for the higher tiered models, I'm fine with two TB ports, but I'd still like the new stuff