Valve drops VR support for macOS • Hacker News Board

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#11

Post by pcr910303 » Sat, May 02, 2020, 2:53 AM UTC

wtallis wrote: post #3

baby wrote: post #2

I don't understand why a Mac is such a bad platform for gaming, what is the technical challenge here? Can someone enlighten me?

The main reason is that Apple's pushing their own graphics API (Metal) rather than supporting the cross-platform Vulkan API. Apple also doesn't make any machines targeted for gaming use, and they haven't used NVidia graphics chips for quite a while and don't ship drivers for recent NVidia chips, so even Hackintosh users have trouble building a great Mac gaming system.

TBF, Apple’s Metal was developed before Bulkan while tackling the same problem, and for the NVidia chips, the reason on the bad relationship of NVidia/Apple is mostly on NVidia, right?

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#12

Post by sysbin » Sat, May 02, 2020, 2:55 AM UTC

Danieru wrote: post #6

Mac is a horrible platform to support for video game developers. Speaking from experience the issues are: 1. No cross platform builds allowed. We can compile to Windows, Linux, Android, Switch, PS4, Xbox One all from one windows build machine. 2. Shifting sand of non-backwards compatibility. Notice how of the above list everyone except Linux and Android have solid back compat stories. Video games are in development f…

How is using something like unreal engine not able to compile to all operating systems. I'm not a game developer so pardon my ignorance but can you not just run macOS on a VM from Windows to compile?

Hardware isn't horrible from Apple. It's just more expensive for macOS and the complete build quality that has been slipping over the years. All Apple users know we're paying more for the hardware than machines preinstalled with windows.

Did Steve Jobs really dislike games? I assume he might have viewed them naively as a waste of time. Most people consider that assumption true and unless you consider them some type of therapy to unwind from the world but even then it can be argued there are healthier options for the majority of people that play games.

edit: ah yes, I get downvoted for writing an honest comment because that's HN crowd.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#13

Post by ashtonkem » Sat, May 02, 2020, 2:57 AM UTC

Danieru wrote: post #6

Mac is a horrible platform to support for video game developers. Speaking from experience the issues are: 1. No cross platform builds allowed. We can compile to Windows, Linux, Android, Switch, PS4, Xbox One all from one windows build machine. 2. Shifting sand of non-backwards compatibility. Notice how of the above list everyone except Linux and Android have solid back compat stories. Video games are in development f…

I will say that the newer MBPs have decent video cards. They’re not great, but they’re ok-ish.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#14

Post by 2muchcoffeeman » Sat, May 02, 2020, 2:57 AM UTC

Danieru wrote: post #6

Mac is a horrible platform to support for video game developers. Speaking from experience the issues are: 1. No cross platform builds allowed. We can compile to Windows, Linux, Android, Switch, PS4, Xbox One all from one windows build machine. 2. Shifting sand of non-backwards compatibility. Notice how of the above list everyone except Linux and Android have solid back compat stories. Video games are in development f…

* 3. Small market. Mac users make up a share of sales similar to Linux. "What are you talking about! Linux is 1% while Mac is a whole 4%!", nope! Those numbers are the same insignificance per a video game business plan*

As a Mac user, I buy other hardware to play games on! Probably the only real Apple game platform is iOS. And even then I’m a bit more careful of what games I buy.

The only Mac gaming I do is with emulators like DOS Box. The market must be really tiny.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#15

Post by kroltan » Sat, May 02, 2020, 2:57 AM UTC

cced wrote: post #10

Danieru wrote: post #6

Mac is a horrible platform to support for video game developers. Speaking from experience the issues are: 1. No cross platform builds allowed. We can compile to Windows, Linux, Android, Switch, PS4, Xbox One all from one windows build machine. 2. Shifting sand of non-backwards compatibility. Notice how of the above list everyone except Linux and Android have solid back compat stories. Video games are in development f…

> Video games are in development for 2-3 years, and stay on the market for 5+ years with no planned recompiles. Do video game makers plan for updates? Am I getting this wrong, or are patches and such deployed without a game recompile?

Maybe for the first year or two, but many many games are pretty much untouched after that, even though there is a long tail of players still buying and playing them.

And yes, many expansions and additional content are usually data-driven, so it might not require a recompile.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#16

Post by sysbin » Sat, May 02, 2020, 2:59 AM UTC

tonygrue wrote: post #4

baby wrote: post #2

I don't understand why a Mac is such a bad platform for gaming, what is the technical challenge here? Can someone enlighten me?

As the article alludes, lack of a build your own, flexible yet affordable desktop option seems to be a pretty deadly aspect. Pretty much Mac owners are on laptops. Even in the PC world few laptops can power VR. Those that do tend to be bulky for cooling and have nVidia GPUs; both things which MacBooks seem unwilling to have. Having a extensible desktop at 1k that supports nVidia would probably go a long way.

As a gamer with a macbook pro. I just use shadow to play games over the cloud. Otherwise I would invest in a eGPU. So it's not like apple gamers are missing out if they want to game with good graphics.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#17

Post by Danieru » Sat, May 02, 2020, 2:59 AM UTC

cced wrote: post #10

Danieru wrote: post #6

Mac is a horrible platform to support for video game developers. Speaking from experience the issues are: 1. No cross platform builds allowed. We can compile to Windows, Linux, Android, Switch, PS4, Xbox One all from one windows build machine. 2. Shifting sand of non-backwards compatibility. Notice how of the above list everyone except Linux and Android have solid back compat stories. Video games are in development f…

> Video games are in development for 2-3 years, and stay on the market for 5+ years with no planned recompiles. Do video game makers plan for updates? Am I getting this wrong, or are patches and such deployed without a game recompile?

Updates are planned, and more and more games get longer support periods. Still majority of games stop getting updates within a year.

Every game is different, but for every Subnautica with 5+ years of active development post initial sale you'll get a bunch of successful games and only marginal updates for 2 months.

For my next game, Railgrade, I am planning a couple years of updates, but even that will be dwarfed by the long tail years of continued sales after updates are done. I expect Railgrade to be on the market for 5+ years. For consoles it should be purchase-able for at least a decade until Nintendo shuts down the eShop. Then it should continue being playable for decades more.

At some point emulators will take over and my effort can keep bringing players joy for eons more. I am not interested in Apple's "expiring" model of art.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#18

Post by Danieru » Sat, May 02, 2020, 3:01 AM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #13

Danieru wrote: post #6

Mac is a horrible platform to support for video game developers. Speaking from experience the issues are: 1. No cross platform builds allowed. We can compile to Windows, Linux, Android, Switch, PS4, Xbox One all from one windows build machine. 2. Shifting sand of non-backwards compatibility. Notice how of the above list everyone except Linux and Android have solid back compat stories. Video games are in development f…

I will say that the newer MBPs have decent video cards. They’re not great, but they’re ok-ish.

Indeed, new machines can have decent GPUs. Except the install base is where your game will be played.

Thus the average matters.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#19

Post by ashtonkem » Sat, May 02, 2020, 3:02 AM UTC

I remain skeptical of the long term viability of VR; I’m old enough to remember when 3D TVs and monitors were going to change the face of both TV and video games, and yet here we are.

I priced out VR recently and I was unimpressed with the price per value available, with most systems adding $500-$1,000 to my gaming system’s cost, and some requiring that I modify my room to work properly. And that’s not even accounting for the high cost of a VR capable gaming rig, if you don’t own one. This is a pretty steep financial and logistical hill to climb given the current set of titles available.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#20

Post by bangonkeyboard » Sat, May 02, 2020, 3:02 AM UTC

jsgo wrote: post #5

wtallis wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason is that Apple's pushing their own graphics API (Metal) rather than supporting the cross-platform Vulkan API. Apple also doesn't make any machines targeted for gaming use, and they haven't used NVidia graphics chips for quite a while and don't ship drivers for recent NVidia chips, so even Hackintosh users have trouble building a great Mac gaming system.

Since after High Sierra (Mojave I think?), Apple eliminated the ability to use non-metal drivers on macOS wholesale. Nvidia’s drivers weren’t developed in Metal and there’s zero reason for them to do so (only way to use Nvidia is intentionally either as an addon to a Mac Pro or as an eGPU, which they don’t see a large market for it) and Apple has a long history of killing off support of something on their platforms,…

> only way to use Nvidia is intentionally either as an addon to a Mac Pro or as an eGPU, which they don’t see a large market for it

Not quite. From Nvidia: "Apple fully control drivers for Mac OS. But if Apple allows, our engineers are ready and eager to help Apple deliver great drivers for Mac OS 10.14 (Mojave)...Unfortunately, Nvidia currently cannot release a driver unless it is approved by Apple." — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia#Apple/Nvidia_web_driver...

Apple is preventing Nvidia from releasing Mac Pro and eGPU driver support.