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Apple's game porting toolkit is fantastic. Cyberpunk 2077 at Ultra on an M1 MBP

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Re: Apple's game porting toolkit is fantastic. Cyberpunk 2077 at Ultra on an M1 MBP

#31
post #14

This actually makes me wonder if I should sell my Apple stocks, that they even put out something like this (even if only as an "evaluation tool" and based on CrossOvers GPL code) screams as an validation that there is enough developers ignoring Apple/Metal that they're actually starting to hurt from a lack of titles. Sure, everyone doing Unity or Unreal will probably have the middleware take care of the biggest diffe…

I think this response lacks the context of the current state of the video game industry. In my mind this is no different than nVidia providing white glove engineering support and optimizations for titles to run on their GPUS. There is a reason nVidia has generally won the consumer GPU arms race over the years over AMD. They go out of their way to support studios and titles, compared to what AMD does imho. It shows th…

They also need to focus more on backwards compatibility. If Apple continually makes most of my library unplayable as they have done repeatedly (Classic, Rosetta 1, 32bit) then I wouldn't trust them with gaming. It seems moving forward PlayStation and Xbox are making it a priority, it already was on PC and I don't think Apple will ever have anything with the draw of Nintendo that could surmount that.

Re: Apple's game porting toolkit is fantastic. Cyberpunk 2077 at Ultra on an M1 MBP

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice, imagine all these games on an iPad…

On iPad they would need their controls redone; it's possible, but an extra step. I'm also getting the feeling the ipad is quickly running out of favor, I haven't seen one in ages except on my parents' dinner table.

You can pair your XBox or Playstation controller with an iPad.

Re: Apple's game porting toolkit is fantastic. Cyberpunk 2077 at Ultra on an M1 MBP

#33

Fantastic would be 25fps, this isn't there yet.

The tool is not meant to be used for that. It is fantastic in the sense that it was achieved with no changes to the game whatsoever. I'm wondering if this is also translating the binary with Rosetta.

> I'm wondering if this is also translating the binary with Rosetta.

It is.

>Game Porting Toolkit can translate controller inputs, audio and graphics APIs, CPU instructions, and other APIs automatically.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/apple-enabled-thousa...

Re: Apple's game porting toolkit is fantastic. Cyberpunk 2077 at Ultra on an M1 MBP

#34
As John Siracusa discussed on this week's ATP[0], it's incredible how much effort Apple puts into this considering the result. Apple built it's own little parallel gaming stack world that works really well on their hardware and the hardware is also amazing for the power envelopes it is wrapped in.

But then Apple doesn't ship devices with actually powerful GPUs, so it can never compete with the gaming PCs which are far less expensive and far more powerfull graphics-wise. And Apple also doesn't know how to keep relationships with the AAA developers, unlike Microsoft and other platform owners.

Like how does all this Metal, compile-your-shaders, port-your-games stuff even get budgeted, when it's eventually dead on arrival?

I think the on stage demo of the 4 year old Death Stranding running poorly on the newest Macs says it all.

[0] https://atp.fm/538 @1:42:20

Re: Apple's game porting toolkit is fantastic. Cyberpunk 2077 at Ultra on an M1 MBP

#36

Keep in mind, it's getting 15fps at 1440x900. It's not saying that Cyberpunk 2077 at Ultra on an M1 is a great experience. It's merely pointing out that it's technically possible (which is a massive achievement).

I'm not sure - Apple's marketing claimed that the M1 was beating top end PC parts. This isn't even close.

Re: Apple's game porting toolkit is fantastic. Cyberpunk 2077 at Ultra on an M1 MBP

#37

This actually makes me wonder if I should sell my Apple stocks, that they even put out something like this (even if only as an "evaluation tool" and based on CrossOvers GPL code) screams as an validation that there is enough developers ignoring Apple/Metal that they're actually starting to hurt from a lack of titles. Sure, everyone doing Unity or Unreal will probably have the middleware take care of the biggest diffe…

You're gonna sell your stocks in the most successful tech company of all time because they don't have enough video games? I think Apple has proven they can grow a company's value without games. But what we all want is a larger investment in games so the Mac becomes a competitive platform again. Not to mention the headset... we'll see, but there is no reason to expect it won't be an insane commercial success by gen 3.

Right now, the headset exclusively appeals to shareholders and apple cultists.

Re: Apple's game porting toolkit is fantastic. Cyberpunk 2077 at Ultra on an M1 MBP

#38

How are Wine and friends actually legal considering the Oracle v Google thing on Java? I've always loved it but really do wonder. That was a blasphemous verdict.

>> How are Wine and friends actually legal considering the Oracle v Google thing on Java?

>> I've always loved it but really do wonder. That was a blasphemous verdict.

So you think APIs and interfaces should be copyrightable despite decades of precedent?

If so, Oracle owes IBM a huge amount of damages for using SQL in Oracle database software without a license.

Re: Apple's game porting toolkit is fantastic. Cyberpunk 2077 at Ultra on an M1 MBP

#39
post #29
post #25

From what I gather, Game Porting Toolkit is two things - a fork of Wine, and their own adaptation/extension of open source projects for DirectX compatibility. Some observations: Windows compatibility: * Windows platform compatibility is achieved with a slightly patched version of Codeweavers' Wine fork - virtually all of the hard work of Windows compatibility has been achieved by the Wine developers and Codeweavers a…

It's sad that D3DMetal isn't open source. Worth noting that this stuff is exactly why people should strongly consider using a copyleft license. It's pretty annoying that nobody can build on top of Apple's work here or incorporate any improvements into DXVK, but that's the license the DXVK project chose.

Well, i'm pro copyleft but in this case i have to disagree. This way Apple could develop D3DMetal much faster, and attrbution is given. If DXVK where GPL3 it might have happened years later if ever.

Re: Apple's game porting toolkit is fantastic. Cyberpunk 2077 at Ultra on an M1 MBP

#40
post #25

From what I gather, Game Porting Toolkit is two things - a fork of Wine, and their own adaptation/extension of open source projects for DirectX compatibility. Some observations: Windows compatibility: * Windows platform compatibility is achieved with a slightly patched version of Codeweavers' Wine fork - virtually all of the hard work of Windows compatibility has been achieved by the Wine developers and Codeweavers a…

> Windows platform compatibility is achieved with a slightly patched version of Codeweavers' Wine fork If by "slightly patched" you mean "DirectX 12 support on Apple Silicon was added, then sure. Codeweavers recently announced their own effort to support DirectX 12, but so far only one game, Diablo II Resurrected, works with it.

No, I mean slightly patched. The list of patches is included in the Homebrew formula [1].

The D3DMetal framework and its DirectX 12 support are independent of that Wine work.

[1]: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/apple/homebrew-apple/main/...

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