How gaming on the Mac is getting better with macOS Ventura
With the launch of macOS Ventura, Apple is bringing more focus to gaming on the Mac. Here are some ways that gamers will benefit with the launch of Apple's new operating system.
Game controllers with a MacBook Pro
Gamers come in all varieties from those that want simple, casual games to large AAA MMO titles. Mac users have often been second-class citizens when it comes to gaming as many of the best titles simply aren't available on the platform.
To date, Apple has seemingly been content to ignore this reality. At WWDC, it didn't signal an about-face for Apple but the iPhone-maker did make some crucial announcements that could signal a brighter future for gaming on the Mac.
If you want to nerd-out on the details, Apple is specific about what it says that MetalFX Upscaling can do.
SharePlay over FaceTime
SharePlay is better across all of Apple's platforms this year, including on the Mac. With macOS Ventura, you'll now be able to hop on a FaceTime call while playing together in your favorite game. If you don't want to use FaceTime, you can be in a Messages chain as well.
Launching as an accessibility feature, macOS Ventura enables the use of buddy controllers. This is when two controllers can be used in tandem as a single controller.
Speaking of controllers, Logitech G920 and Logitech G29 steering wheels are now supported on the Mac too.
Game Center activity feed
Apple has updated Game Center for the Mac which is its social backbone that connects players with their friends. Now there will be a visible activity feed so you can see what others are playing or accomplishments they've unlocked.
Game Center will also show you what's new in Apple Arcade, leaderboards amongst your friends, and any achievements you've unlocked.
Some of these games are a bit old, but it is still great to see them coming to the Mac at all. Resident Evil and No Man's Sky are incredible AAA hits that have been sorely missed on Apple's computer platform.
Hopefully this signals more large titles will be launching on the Mac in the future.
Read on AppleInsider
Game controllers with a MacBook Pro
Gamers come in all varieties from those that want simple, casual games to large AAA MMO titles. Mac users have often been second-class citizens when it comes to gaming as many of the best titles simply aren't available on the platform.
To date, Apple has seemingly been content to ignore this reality. At WWDC, it didn't signal an about-face for Apple but the iPhone-maker did make some crucial announcements that could signal a brighter future for gaming on the Mac.
Gaming gets better
One of the most substantial changes -- though not particularly visible -- is Apple's launch of Metal 3. Metal is Apple's graphics framework that allows it to deeply tap into a Mac's GPU. With the third-generation release, we should see big improvements to game visuals.
If you want to nerd-out on the details, Apple is specific about what it says that MetalFX Upscaling can do.
MetalFX Upscaling enables developers to quickly render complex scenes by using less compute-intensive frames, and then apply resolution scaling and temporal anti-aliasing. The result is accelerated performance that provides gamers with a more responsive feel and graphics that look stunning
SharePlay over FaceTime
SharePlay is better across all of Apple's platforms this year, including on the Mac. With macOS Ventura, you'll now be able to hop on a FaceTime call while playing together in your favorite game. If you don't want to use FaceTime, you can be in a Messages chain as well.
Launching as an accessibility feature, macOS Ventura enables the use of buddy controllers. This is when two controllers can be used in tandem as a single controller.
Speaking of controllers, Logitech G920 and Logitech G29 steering wheels are now supported on the Mac too.
Game Center activity feed
Apple has updated Game Center for the Mac which is its social backbone that connects players with their friends. Now there will be a visible activity feed so you can see what others are playing or accomplishments they've unlocked.
Game Center will also show you what's new in Apple Arcade, leaderboards amongst your friends, and any achievements you've unlocked.
New games for the Mac
Announced at WWDC, Apple revealed a few massive games that are finally making their way to macOS. The new titles are EA GRID Legends, Resident Evil Village, and No Man's Sky.Some of these games are a bit old, but it is still great to see them coming to the Mac at all. Resident Evil and No Man's Sky are incredible AAA hits that have been sorely missed on Apple's computer platform.
Hopefully this signals more large titles will be launching on the Mac in the future.
Coming soon
At the moment, macOS Ventura is currently in developer beta. A public beta is scheduled to be released in July before a full release this fall. Stay tuned to AppleInsider as we walk through more features for Apple's upcoming software updates.Read on AppleInsider
Comments
Hopefully M2 and M3 improve on the already impressive GPU gains Apple has seen and long with Metal 3 improvements, AAA gaming studios will be more on board with developing Mac releases in the future.
I certainly would love to see Apple take more action on gaming. Its a great market, one that will be very tough for them to gain traction in, but perhaps they could get some of it. I would love to get rid of my PC. It gets so hot and its like a big space heater.
Apple’s charts set the M1 Ultra up for an RTX 3090 fight it could never win - The Verge
Please don't benchmark Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3090 Ti against Apple's M1 Ultra | Macworld
The only AAA games that end up on MacOS are ones that use the Unreal or Unity engines, which do support Metal. And the only reason for support is it is literally a zero cost tickbox. But Apple's spat with Epic is unlikely to be enthusing Epic into pouring resources into UE on Mac, so I wouldn't be that surprised if anti-Mac Cook kicked Mac users in the balls again by goading Epic into dropping Mac support because Cook wants his already solid gold pockets lined further. But that is a different matter.
Apple would do better to abandon Metal - or at least officially support Vulkan. If they did so, the number of Mac games would explode overnight. When OpenGL was newer, the number of games that used it on Windows and Mac was growing, but it became stale (especially so on macOS as Apple refused to maintain a remotely current version) so then devs started dropping Mac support and now almost no AAA games are released on Mac. Unfortunately Apple's so stubborn they always have do things their own way, even if its to the detriment of developers, their platforms, customers, and ultimately themselves, so this is unlikely to improve anytime soon.
Oh and Apple is being so twattish toward Nvidia that they are shafting their own customers again, by refusing to sign the drivers Nvidia is still releasing (or was) for Nvidia GPUs in Macs. So they won't run and Macs with Nvidia cards were stuck on old drivers.
As I said above, it doesn't matter what Apple does with Metal because no big studio uses it. Apple needs to support Vulkan to get any semblance of parity with Windows gaming.
Another glaring omission is the complete lack of support for adaptive sync on external displays. Apple is years behind in this department.
The rest of us won’t contribute one hot cent to that, even if it means we have a house full of Apple products…. except for the items we gsme
on.
Not. one. penny. to the App Store for games. Not now, not ever, as long as it is made up of mobile gaming garbage. You may feel differently.
The games that do tend to get Mac versions are usually low-complexity Unity games like various indie titles and other simple board and card games and the like. Unity itself seems to be the poor-man’s (person’s) engine anyway. AAA studios usually use their own.
Cutting support for external video cards has made the situation even worse. So while the M chips have pretty good graphics compared to Intel integrated, it doesn’t seem to be enough to be altering the gaming environment on Mac.
Even Apple Arcade, which I think was a good idea and showed some promise initially, seems to be floundering with a relatively low rate of new titles and most of these are fairly budget-looking mobile-type games as it is.
Not sure how this is a negative.
roll those into an entirely new Apple Arcade structure and boom. Startup Success. Revive the old hits like mega man for a new era and run with it.
Apple should push to do this. Then they’d own the gaming market as well. It would be tough with ms having Bethesda, but it would be a huge market and probably the most trusted gaming ecosystem.
Vulkan libraries on MacOS would mean no rewrite is required, and no performance-degrading MoltenVK sat in the middle. One of the main reasons so many OpenGL games came to Mac was that the engine didn't need a rewrite. No reason Apple's can't provide libraries for both, aside from the fact Apple wants devs to be locked in to their proprietary tech.