Almost certainly going to be the Apple Silicon/ARM Macs. Personally I'm very excited, just because there hasn't really been a shakeup in the consumer CPU side for over a decade now. It's been...
Almost certainly going to be the Apple Silicon/ARM Macs. Personally I'm very excited, just because there hasn't really been a shakeup in the consumer CPU side for over a decade now. It's been Intel and AMD gradually improving x86 (and later x86-64) pretty much since Apple switched from PowerPC.
Windows has also made strides for ARM compatibility (or rather, it is compatible, but they recently put out a x64 emulator), and of course there are Linux distros that already run on ARM. Could this be the real push that puts ARM in the mainstream for consumers PCs? Like with the headphone jack, often the moves Apple makes has a ripple effect throughout an industry.
I’m anxiously wondering if I’ll be able to play any games made before the switch happens. There would be so much overhead to emulate I don’t know if it’s even viable. And even after the switch,...
I’m anxiously wondering if I’ll be able to play any games made before the switch happens. There would be so much overhead to emulate I don’t know if it’s even viable.
And even after the switch, will people still bother to port things to Mac OS?
There's hope. Remember at the announcement, they showed off an iPad chip running Tomb Raider on Big Sur. Now, Rise of the Tomb Raider isn't the most recent game, and they were on fairly low...
There's hope. Remember at the announcement, they showed off an iPad chip running Tomb Raider on Big Sur. Now, Rise of the Tomb Raider isn't the most recent game, and they were on fairly low settings - but still, that's a somewhat recent AAA game running through emulation on an iPad chip. These new A14s should be significantly stronger since Apple has a much higher power envelope.
I recently read somewhere related to golang that Apple have been requiring new submissions to the macOS App Store to use LLVM bytecode. Found it. Turns out that 1) it was related to Rust (not...
I recently read somewhere related to golang that Apple have been requiring new submissions to the macOS App Store to use LLVM bytecode. I’ll update with a reference if I can find it.Found it.
Turns out that 1) it was related to Rust (not golang), and 2) it's an anticipated change, so it's not guaranteed that Apple will go this direction.
The main benefit for using LLVM bytecode for all applications is that it's processor-agnostic; the developer only has to ship one binary, and the OS can easily compile it just in time for execution for whichever processor it's running on.
If older games are your main concern, it seems like a good strategy here would be to be a late adopter. Desktop computers get replaced at a slower rate than, say, phones, so you’ll be in good company.
If older games are your main concern, it seems like a good strategy here would be to be a late adopter. Desktop computers get replaced at a slower rate than, say, phones, so you’ll be in good company.
Generally true but my main computer and my laptop are both overdue for replacement. I usually prefer to uptake new technology after it’s a year or two old so I’m a little annoyed that circumstance...
Generally true but my main computer and my laptop are both overdue for replacement. I usually prefer to uptake new technology after it’s a year or two old so I’m a little annoyed that circumstance might compel me to buy in before the kinks are ironed out.
Hopefully it’s enough power that I can just run most things from before, say, 2017 in Parallels. We’ll see. It’s actually nice to be anxious about something other than. . . you know. . .(gestures broadly) for a change.
Unreal and Unity already work on iOS, so at least titles built on those engines should port over fairly easily. Basically anything that runs on iOS should work fine, right?
Unreal and Unity already work on iOS, so at least titles built on those engines should port over fairly easily. Basically anything that runs on iOS should work fine, right?
Let's hope this will be a slow rollout (one 12" MacBook or something?), I don't want ARM to just roll over the Mac ecosystem overnight, at least give it time to mature a bit before forcing...
Let's hope this will be a slow rollout (one 12" MacBook or something?), I don't want ARM to just roll over the Mac ecosystem overnight, at least give it time to mature a bit before forcing non-early-adopters into using it. I guess that's the "bargaining" stage of grief.
I believe they've said they have no plans to sunset Intel support for MacOS so that probably means they'll continue producing Intel Macs for the foreseeable future. Of course, it may well be that...
I believe they've said they have no plans to sunset Intel support for MacOS so that probably means they'll continue producing Intel Macs for the foreseeable future.
Of course, it may well be that it will be relegated to the Xeon chips on their workstation class machines, which are prohibitively expensive for most regular people.
Almost certainly going to be the Apple Silicon/ARM Macs. Personally I'm very excited, just because there hasn't really been a shakeup in the consumer CPU side for over a decade now. It's been Intel and AMD gradually improving x86 (and later x86-64) pretty much since Apple switched from PowerPC.
Windows has also made strides for ARM compatibility (or rather, it is compatible, but they recently put out a x64 emulator), and of course there are Linux distros that already run on ARM. Could this be the real push that puts ARM in the mainstream for consumers PCs? Like with the headphone jack, often the moves Apple makes has a ripple effect throughout an industry.
That AR Easter egg is cool. If you walk around behind it you see the date of the announcement. But you have circumambulate it.
I hope they come out swinging with some monstrous dies on 5nm with lots of cores. The A14 is downright tiny.
I’m anxiously wondering if I’ll be able to play any games made before the switch happens. There would be so much overhead to emulate I don’t know if it’s even viable.
And even after the switch, will people still bother to port things to Mac OS?
There's hope. Remember at the announcement, they showed off an iPad chip running Tomb Raider on Big Sur. Now, Rise of the Tomb Raider isn't the most recent game, and they were on fairly low settings - but still, that's a somewhat recent AAA game running through emulation on an iPad chip. These new A14s should be significantly stronger since Apple has a much higher power envelope.
I recently read somewhere related to golang that Apple have been requiring new submissions to the macOS App Store to use LLVM bytecode.
I’ll update with a reference if I can find it.Found it.Turns out that 1) it was related to Rust (not golang), and 2) it's an anticipated change, so it's not guaranteed that Apple will go this direction.
The main benefit for using LLVM bytecode for all applications is that it's processor-agnostic; the developer only has to ship one binary, and the OS can easily compile it just in time for execution for whichever processor it's running on.
If older games are your main concern, it seems like a good strategy here would be to be a late adopter. Desktop computers get replaced at a slower rate than, say, phones, so you’ll be in good company.
Generally true but my main computer and my laptop are both overdue for replacement. I usually prefer to uptake new technology after it’s a year or two old so I’m a little annoyed that circumstance might compel me to buy in before the kinks are ironed out.
Hopefully it’s enough power that I can just run most things from before, say, 2017 in Parallels. We’ll see. It’s actually nice to be anxious about something other than. . . you know. . .(gestures broadly) for a change.
I bought a certified refurbished MacBook Pro a few years ago and I’m pretty happy with it.
Unreal and Unity already work on iOS, so at least titles built on those engines should port over fairly easily. Basically anything that runs on iOS should work fine, right?
Yes, and they both run on current macOS, too, so those ports should be fine, too.
Let's hope this will be a slow rollout (one 12" MacBook or something?), I don't want ARM to just roll over the Mac ecosystem overnight, at least give it time to mature a bit before forcing non-early-adopters into using it. I guess that's the "bargaining" stage of grief.
I believe they've said they have no plans to sunset Intel support for MacOS so that probably means they'll continue producing Intel Macs for the foreseeable future.
Of course, it may well be that it will be relegated to the Xeon chips on their workstation class machines, which are prohibitively expensive for most regular people.