iPhone 15 Pro hardware, software improvements behind Apple's gaming push
Apple executives have discussed the gaming capabilities of the iPhone 15 Pro, with MetalFX and many other elements doing a lot of work to make the new smartphone a powerhouse for portable gaming.
iPhone 15 Pro
During Apple's "Wonderlust" event, the iPhone 15 Pro's A17 Pro chip was cited as a powerful chip with many elements that could benefit gaming. The improvements to the iPhone were enough that major publishers were said to be bringing native versions of "Triple-A" games to the small screen.
In an interview with IGN, senior Apple representatives talked about the different changes made to the premium smartphone that led to this situation.
When asked about external display support and whether an iPhone 15 Pro could handle gaming on a 4K monitor, GPU software senior director Jeremy Sandmel brought up how games can be rendered to one resolution but output to a different one for the display. "With technologies like MetalFX's upscaling, we can sort of separate those two things," he explained.
Sandmel continued "The game can run at really high frame rates, get really great quality results, and then upscale whatever resolution the display, whether that's the iPhone display, whether that's an external display."
VP of platform architecture Tim Millet added "The building blocks are there. We can enable applications to enable those experiences, and then the developer's job is, of course, to try to take those tools, piece them together and build an experience for you, the gamer, so that it all comes together."
Thermals and sustainability
On the topic of overheating for graphics-intensive gaming, VP of Worldwide iPhone product marketing Kaiann Drance took a stab at explaining the improvements.
"At a system level, we're able to work across teams to understand how the performance that we're enabling, how it's going to manifest in the actual gameplay, and whether we are going to be able to not only hit those wonderful frame rates and peak performance and graphics that Jeremy talked about, but also whether we're going to be able to sustain them."
Millet pointed to how developers are given "this great toolbox" to work with, and though they may want to "try to burn a hole through the back of the phone" using the GPU, Apple won't let that happen, "but they could definitely do something that was probably not optimal for the experience."
By providing tools like MetalFX, Millet adds that the developers can "really burst up in maintaining an experience for a lot longer if they want to. And they can dial that in and out, depending on the experience that they want to go deliver. But it's all about giving them the tools to build that sustainable experience."
The work performed for this isn't just limited to MetalFX, as Millet insists "we're doing it all over the system: such as the display's "really amazing scaling technology built in," and the GPU's own scaling. "So with features like ray tracing and mesh shading and this really advanced compute architecture, the developer has access to all of these algorithms to figure out what's the best balance of compute and quality and performance and frame rate and resolution."
High-value console targets
As to how powerful the iPhone 15 Pro is compared to modern consoles, the group declines to give a specific answer, and instead that using the term is "just a convenient way for us to talk about the classic games and the types of games that the developers that we're targeting, the ones who have been successful in deploying there."
Drance offers that it's the experiences that matter, in having a portable camera and "memory capturing" device that is now "a powerhouse game console, but one that is in your pocket that you can take anywhere, game over different wireless networks, game on different titles, different ways that you get."
Sandmel concludes "I think they say the best game console is the one you have with you."
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Comments
Raytracing logic is confirmed, neural engine will work with gpu cores to upres and upscale for better performance. Which puts apple roughly on par with Nvidia(featurewise)
Pretty much all the rumoured features and more was revealed and that paints a bright future for M3 macs in the pipeline… I am going to be aiming for a M3 max or ultra for my main workstation in 2024, I suspect it will likely be fast enough for 3d rendering and high end 3d work that the Nvidia advantage will be negligeable. Sure, a 4090 will likely still beat Apple for pure gfx horsepower, however I think as long as AS is close enough, who cares…
I want a quiet and powerful workstation I can do competitive 3d rendering on.. And I think M3 will have that.
Whats more, likely every M3 Mac will be quite impressive. If a Mac mini is comparable to a gaming pc with a 4070… ALOT of people will be interested.
Hardcore PC gaming is its own mess. However, it’s my impression that both NVIDIA and AMD intend to milk their legacy market (gamers) while growing into new primary markets. NVIDIA seems more interested in the server market and A.I. (The ARM bid just seems like a way to collect rent, not innovate.) Meanwhile AMD seems increasingly focused on co-processors and transcoders for the server market. Or just about anything but directly compete with each other. Again, something that the writers here could probably better address than I can in a comment.
Beyond that, I feel people who are critical of Apple hardware and software for gaming just don’t seem to understand that it’s a completely different model, and will never work exactly the same way as other platforms. Too many folks have it stuck in their heads that console, mobile, and desktop computing should grandly converge — for gaming as well as other tasks, despite the modality differences. (I frankly think that’s what the Vision attempts to address, but that’s a whole other subject. I see Apple’s focus as convergence and integration — and only having separate devices to lay the groundwork required for those goals.)
If we focus on gauging success in the gaming market and the astronomical amounts of resources that have been dedicated to it by Sony, Microsoft, and other companies — why do folks expect Apple to zoom in with a new paradigm and steal the crown?
Upcoming AAA console titles include the following:
https://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/233560/iphone-15-pro-hardware-based-ray-tracing-promises-more-realistic-gaming
Resident Evil Village, Resident Evil 4, Death Stranding, Assassin's Creed Mirage.
Given that Baldur's Gate 3 has a native Metal port for Mac, it should be possible to run that on iPhone too. But it's 150GB and has adult content in it that might not get past the App Store censors. It also doesn't run very well on the Steam Deck, which is roughly the same performance as the newer iPhones.
Also, I don’t think anybody is expecting Apple to swoop in and steal any crown. But if they take it seriously, and I believe they are, then they will absolutely make their presence known. As you said in paragraph 1, that technical freeze all console makers suffer from is a weakness that Apple could exploit. This topic is covered a little more on the gaming blogs than it is on the Apple blogs. But make no mistake, the industry definitely took notice. Apple doesn’t have to to convert a majority of gamers from each different console, they only need to convert a few from each in order to disrupt the market.
The perception however, and also the truth, is that iOS gaming is «not hardcore» gaming. iOS gave birth to ads in games, microtransactions etc. All horrific and shunned by most game enthusiasts.
Apple is trying to build the Apple Arcade thing as a game subscription thing. BUT there is nothing there worthy of subscribing… Microsoft is going a similar direction with the game pass. Netflix wants to offer the same. I think, IF Apple wants significant traction, they will need to buy some game studios and make unique games that are only on Apple Arcade. The dream acquisition/merger would be Nintendo…
Zelda on AR? Pokemon? They would murder the charts.. Imagine.. IF you want to play games, you press Nintendo Arcade and your iPad/iPhone/Mac/Apple TV is a nintendo console with better silicon then the best consoles out there…
It’s an utopian dream though, veryvery slim chance for it to ever happen. But it would be a perfect match in every way.
Apple while not even trying on iOS… Already have one of the biggest gaming platforms… I am sure they can continue kind of as before, and the iOS games will mature, niantiq with pokemon go and etc will be even bigger w Apple Vision coming… Nintendo is looking to join forces with google/alphabet for an AR/VR console… Nintendo is the epitome of «skating where the puck will be» as it were… They saw that Switch would be a great play in the hardware game… And they beat microsoft/sony with that strategy. They knew an ARM phone with AMD gfx would be powerful enough, and they made bank. Now they see that AR/VR will be the huge next thing. Pokemon Go is enough to see that AR will have immense uptake when done good.
Apple doing a bit of marketing for gaming is mainly to address the big flaw in the Apple Silicon transition.. Feature parity with PC gaming/3d rendering as a whole. Macs not having nvidia was okish as long as dual booting was a thing. IF you needed Nvidia, you could still boot into Windows and use a Nvidia card there… Not ideal, but doable. However, when they only offer Apple Silicon gpus that are the rough equivalent of AMD gfx, it left them vulnerable to criticism that AS has weak raytracing… Which M1 and M2 do… Still not horrific, but definitely weak for rendering and games. M3 solves that. Hopefully it will be useable.
tldr: Apple/iOS is already a gaming behemoth, they will fail upwards regardless…