supposedly macbook pro's M-series are quite adept for gamers these days.

Toutouxc 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They’re surprisingly powerful for all three games that are available on the platform.

Jokes aside, there are some games with competent Mac ports and if you only have an M-series Mac, you can find some titles that play nice. But most of the stuff that you’d play on a PlayStation or on Windows is simply not available.

▲

dhosek 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

But the gaming software market is very heavily biased towards delivering for Windows on Intel. That said, I’m not a gamer so what do I know?

	▲	theshrike79 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Linux gaming is getting a definite boost from Windows 11 being a shitshow. And pracically _nobody_ does native Linux games, they're all just running Windows games through Proton, and faster. So fast actually that Proton is Microsoft's performance target :D

▲

bigyabai 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'd like to meet the person that supposed this to you, and ask them what games they play.

▲

jorvi 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The M1 Ultra got 70% of the frames of an RTX 3090 on Tomb Raider[0], so I suppose they're right. Performance-per-watt monsters.

And Apple GPUs have only gotten better.

[0]https://techjourneyman.com/img/blog/m1-ultra-vs-rtx-3090-ben...

▲

bigyabai 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That wasn't really my question. The M1 Ultra is a 5nm chip up against the 8nm RTX 3090 - for >$2000 and 220W+ you'd kinda hope the M1 Ultra outperforms the 8nm stuff.

My question is, what games are people playing on Mac? Tomb Raider is one of ~6 AAA titles that was ported to Mac in the last decade. All the other big-ticket games - GTA V, Arc Raiders, Elden Ring - are all hamstrung by Apple's terrible translation software and don't run much better with Crossover either.

Apple Silicon, strictly speaking, is the least adept hardware that you can own for gaming. If you are a gamer, almost every single other GPU on the market would perform better for your needs.

▲

wincy 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I have an RTX 5090 and am an avid gamer. When I travel I use my M1 MacBook Air and play indie games like Slay the Spire, Hades 2, Balatro, and Hollow Knight Silksong. Not cutting edge but definitely cutting edge fun. Those games run with no difficulties.

Slay the Spire 2 is in early access and has some major issues running but I suspect that’s some issues in the game engine because it’s not framerate but some sort of hitching that makes button presses not register.

YapYap which is an intentionally retro ugly 3D style runs barely in a playable state on the M1, but it got me through in a pinch when my kid wanted us to both play.

If I want to play AAA I fall back to my desktop, you can stream using Moonlight or Parsec but unless both sides are wired it isn’t great.

▲

izacus an hour ago | parent [-]

All of those games are simple enough to run in cheap phones, so not really a very informative data point, is it?

	▲	wincy an hour ago \| parent [-]
		He asked what games are serious gamers playing on a Mac and I gave an answer.

▲

2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]

▲

izacus 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You really had to squeeze those numbers through those filters to get that diction out, didn't you? :P

My 16" M1 Max is kinda crap at running games - I'd put it somewhere around cheaper laptops with 3050 series GPUs.