Some time ago, Sanyi Life pointed out in the relevant manuscripts of Apple WWDC23 that "games" will most likely be the most important feature of the subsequent macOS.
After all, at this event, Apple not only invited Hideo Kojima to the "platform" with a high profile, but also announced the "Game Mode" function on macOS 14, as well as the matching "Game Porting Toolkit (Game Porting Toolkit)" .
In the relevant content at that time, we pointed out that although the game performance of the new version of macOS may indeed have improved a lot technically, whether it is game porting from third-party partners or new games specially developed for Mac, it still needs to be updated. some time. Therefore, the gaming experience of macOS is probably unlikely to usher in a radical change in a short period of time.
However, what I have to say is that Apple's is still beyond our imagination, because just recently some developers discovered that Apple has directly integrated a cross-platform Wine emulator in the "Game Porting Toolbox". And more importantly, its effect is far beyond imagination. It can really make many popular PC games under Windows system and x86 platform run smoothly on Mac based on Apple's self-developed M series chips.
No need to wait for adaptation, Mac can now play DX12 games
Specifically, on the M2 Max-based model, "Diablo IV" can run at a frame rate of 80-90FPS under the highest image quality and 1512*982 resolution settings. In the model equipped with M2, "Cyberpunk 2077" uses high-quality settings and 1440*900 resolution. With the help of this emulator, it can run at an amazing 60FPS fluency. Even on a Mac with M1 Pro, "Elden's Ring" can run nearly 50FPS at a resolution of 1728*1117, which can be played smoothly.
Of course, the above-mentioned games are converted and simulated by the Wine emulator, and there must be a certain performance loss, and the conversion of the emulator is sometimes more "picking games". For example, on the same M2 Max, the two games "Spider-Man" and "Hogwarts Legacy" are only less than 40FPS in medium quality, obviously there is still a lot of room for optimization and improvement.
And it is also worth noting that Apple now actually has its own "game super-resolution" technology called MetalFX, but it was not enabled in the above tests. In other words, the running frame rate of these games will at least double in the future, even if they do not have natively adapted ported versions.
The traditional PC industry has ways to "stop" Apple, and there are many ways
Obviously, after watching the above-mentioned games (emulators) based on developer tools convert the running frame rate, I have to admit that the future gaming experience of the Mac is likely to be much higher than everyone imagines now, and may not even be very good. Game manufacturers need to actively adapt to ensure that players can directly play new 3A game masterpieces on Windows on Mac.
Then the question arises. In the face of this situation, for manufacturers such as Microsoft, Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA, is there no way for them to stop it? Actually there are.
First of all, everyone should know that we mentioned earlier that macOS can now "directly" run PC games on x86, relying on its integrated Wine emulator to "translate" the code of x86 programs and the DX12 graphics programming language . But this "translation" is not a panacea, nor can it break through the constraints of certain hardware functions.
For example, many of the mainstream M-series chips are 8-core to 10-core CPU configurations, and the integrated GPU does not support ray tracing, nor can it achieve direct access (GPU) to SSD.
Currently the strongest civilian (non-enterprise) x86 CPU with a configuration of 56 cores and 112 threads, much higher than Apple's M2 Ultra
If there is such an x86 game that requires a CPU configuration of at least 12 cores at the beginning, then this emulator is likely to be unable to simulate more CPU cores out of thin air, which will cause obvious lag on the Mac.
If there is such an ultra-high-quality game that is only born for ray tracing, and ray tracing calculations will be forced to be enabled on graphics cards that do not have hardware "ray tracing", then for existing Mac hardware, it will either It becomes completely inoperable, or it can only be stuck in PPT.
DirectStorage 1.1 can shorten the game loading time to less than 1 second and is currently used on game consoles
For another example, if Microsoft forces the use of the DirectStorage 1.1 API on a certain first-party masterpiece in the future, that is, the GPU is directly connected to the SSD to read texture data, and the GPU (not the CPU) is responsible for the real-time decompression calculation of the game data, thereby Realize a completely "no cutscenes, fully seamless map loading" experience. Then there is a high probability that the Mac will not be able to simulate the API, or the GPU on the hardware will not be able to directly read the SSD, resulting in the game not being able to run or severely lagging, or the simulation failing.
The inability to popularize the most advanced technology is the tragedy of PC, but also an opportunity for Apple
I believe that some friends have already seen what we want to express. In fact, if you only look at the level of "top hardware", then the performance of the strongest gaming PC is absolutely crushing the best Mac. Moreover, due to the objective gaps in the number of cores, ray tracing, SSD direct connection and other functions and specifications, for the current macOS and Mac models, there are definitely games that cannot be simulated, or at least cannot be simulated well. Game quality level.
It is not that the x86 camp does not have high-performance hardware that "kills" Apple, but the problem is that they cannot really be popularized
But the problem is that, for the PC gaming market, it can’t make 56-core CPUs available to everyone, afford light-chasing graphics cards for everyone, or ensure that all players’ PCs are compliant. The technical standard of directly connecting GPU to SSD (requires RTX30 series or above graphics card and PCIE4.0 or above SSD).
Under such a premise, any developer of PC games must take into account the large number of "old computers" and "low-configuration devices", and let these players at least "play" the game. For Apple, this means that they don't need to let the Mac catch up with the top x86 gaming computer in terms of hardware, but only need to be able to exceed the configuration of this part of the x86 model, which is enough to ensure that many games can run smoothly (even if not at the highest quality).
In other words, Apple dares to rely on simulators to "forcibly expand" the number of games compatible with macOS. The top flagship graphics card is not close enough to the people, so that game developers are not active in the latest technology adaptation.
[The picture in this article comes from the Internet]
This article is from the WeChat public account "Three Easy Life" (ID: IT-3eLife) , author: Three Easy Bacteria, 36 Krypton is authorized to publish.
