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Blurry rendering of games on Mac

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Re: Blurry rendering of games on Mac

#201

Post by nottorp »

Fade_Dance wrote: post #69
nativeit wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t try to game on my laptop, and I have always thought “gaming laptops” are somewhat akin to “racing-spec BarcaLoungers”. That’s why I’ve never understood why so many people bitch about not being able to game on Macs. If you want to play video games, you should probably buy a console or a desktop PC. White-hot take: you’re allowed to own a PC and a Mac. They aren’t like matter and antimatter, you won’t collapse…

>That’s why I’ve never understood why so many people bitch about not being able to game on Macs. Well that's where you're wrong then. It's perfectly possible to game on a laptop. Over the last decade with the development of the lightning ecosystem and docks it's become a very low friction endeavor as well. There are a myriad of quality "gaming" laptops out there, but obviously that's not for everybody, and that's one…

> There are a myriad of quality "gaming" laptops out there, but obviously that's not for everybody

If you're talking x86, only if you're okay with hearing loss :)

Or really have no choice. Student who has space/funds for one device and it has to be portable, for example.

Re: Blurry rendering of games on Mac

#202

Post by nottorp »

rarepostinlurkr wrote: post #134
pdpi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WoW has always been exceptionally good at treating macOS like a first-class citizen. It's a shame Blizzard has stopped supporting macOS for their newer games.

If anything it's an example that games can be amazing on macOS, if developers take the time to learn and use the system. WoW on macOS is a far superior experience to WoW on Windows.

Heh, I play mmos in a window if i play them.

WoW on Linux with wine used to be a superior experience to WoW on Windows. Because the system didn't lock up for half a minute when I alt-tabbed.

[Haven't played WoW in a long time though, maybe in Windows 10 and up you have an easier time alt-tabbing between heavy 3d apps.]

Re: Blurry rendering of games on Mac

#203

Post by troupo »

account42 wrote: post #185
troupo wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the refusal to natively support Vulkan in favor of Metal 1. Metal precedes Vulkan 2. Hardly anyone supports Vulkan https://www.carette.xyz/posts/state_of_vulkan_2024/

This is of course horseshit. Vulkan was being developed before Metal and Apple was even part of that development - they only dropped out once they decided to do their own thing instead. Vulkan is the primary rendering API on Android and Linux these days and also well supported on Windows by GPU vendors. Applications that don't use it yet generally don't because they don't need it and still OpenGL (ES) (or for Windows…

> This is of course horseshit. Vulkan was being developed before Metal and Apple was even part of that development

It's fascinating that history is changing so fast now that even events of 10 years ago can be claimed to be something they weren't.

- 2013: AMD starts developing Mantle, and it is only available as part of AMD Catalyst, and only on Windows.

- 2013 (at least): Apple starts working on their own graphics API.

- June 2014: Metal 1.0 on iPhones is announced by Apple (it means it had already been in development much earlier, that's why I wrote "2013 at least" above)

- July 2014: Khronos starts work on Vulkan

- August 2014: The announcement of the Vulkan project and the call for participation.

- June 2015: Apple announced Metal on Macs.

- Sometime in 2015: AMD discontinues Mantle and donates it to Khronos.

- December 2015: Vulkan 1.0 specification announced by Khronos group

- February 2016: The full spec and SDK for Vulkan 1.0 released

So, reality: Metal had been released two years before Vulkan even had a specification.

> also well supported on Windows by GPU vendors.

Keyword: GPU vendors. Not by Microsoft.

> Vulkan is the primary rendering API on Android and Linux these days

But not on Macs, iPhones, Windows, XBox, and Playstation.

And yet, "omg why doesn't Apple support this late-to-the scene quite shitty API that it must support because we say it must".

Re: Blurry rendering of games on Mac

#204

Post by nottorp »

Hmm I just realized something. The article author seems to be unaware that Apple makes desktops too, and laptops can be connected to external monitors, and thus not every game will be played on something with a notch.

Re: Blurry rendering of games on Mac

#205

Post by julik »

pezezin wrote: post #39

Am I the only one who finds screens with rounded corners and notches really stupid? We had to struggle for decades with CRTs and their funky geometry, and when we finally get displays with perfect geometry, we botch them again to make them look... cooler?

No, you are not the only one

Re: Blurry rendering of games on Mac

#206

Post by vvillena »

troupo wrote: post #138
crazygringo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't think of notches as something stupid that takes away from screen area. Think of them as something that allows the overall screen area to increase, as bevels shrink. And then when the corners of the screen are so close to the corner of the laptop, and the corner of the laptop is rounded, it looks weird if the corner of the screen isn't rounded. Like a square peg in a round hole. Fortunately, it's all context-dep…

The notch reduces the space available in the top menu bar. And since Apple is still incapable of creating a built-in Bartender-like functionality you end up with less space on screen. It's an actual objective fact of life. You don't get a larger 15"/16"/17" inch screen. You get a screen that size minus the notch because of a psychotic obsession with thinness. And then they struggle to compensate for that with barely…

The screen size advertised by Apple measures the "full screen" area, the undisturbed 16:10 rectangle of pixels. I just took measures on both a 14 and a 16 inch Macbook Pro. The screen we get is indeed slighly larger.

If you want to avoid the extra space, it's as easy as using a 16:10 resolution size. The menubar will drop down to the 16:10 space.

Re: Blurry rendering of games on Mac

#207

Post by Yokolos »

troupo wrote: post #164
monsieurbanana wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your logic unless you're implicitly saying the camera needs to go away, but then you should say so (so that I can properly disagree with you). The notch makes for a smaller menu bar but without the notch there would be no menu bar there, it would take the space underneath instead.

> I don't understand your logic unless you're implicitly saying the camera needs to go away Yup. We never had camera before the notch. > The notch makes for a smaller menu bar but without the notch there would be no menu bar there Yup. Before the notch we neither had a menu bar that could comfortably fit most menu items even in professional apps, nor did we have a camera. BTW, you literally are saying "The notch make…

What MacBook doesn't have a camera?

Re: Blurry rendering of games on Mac

#208

Post by extraisland »

esperent wrote: post #199
Rob_Polding wrote: post #181

It’s a good thing that most people don’t buy Macs for gaming, as they suck compared to any other platform. Anyone who expects a good experience is fooling themselves as they won’t get it! If you want to experience games as the developer intends, don’t play ports that use compatibility layers, just buy a console and play natively!

> If you want to experience games as the developer intends, don’t play ports that use compatibility layers A few months ago I would have assumed you're correct. But recently I've played some games on my laptop with Lutris on Ubuntu which uses Wine or Proton under the hood. The performance and stability is excellent. Although I haven't done any testing, subjectively it feels superior or at least equal to Windows. I've…

It depends on the game, the distro, the version of the game, the kernel and the windowing system as to how well it performs. I am using Debian and while a lot of games work well, some games are an absolute PITA to setup properly.

It is easier for me to reboot into Windows.

Re: Blurry rendering of games on Mac

#209

Post by extraisland »

Toutouxc wrote: post #193
Rob_Polding wrote: post #181

It’s a good thing that most people don’t buy Macs for gaming, as they suck compared to any other platform. Anyone who expects a good experience is fooling themselves as they won’t get it! If you want to experience games as the developer intends, don’t play ports that use compatibility layers, just buy a console and play natively!

I’m pretty sure that if a developer releases their game on macOS, it plays, by definition, as the developer intended. I have both a powerful gaming PC with Windows and all that, and a PS5, but some games I just like on my MacBook.

A lot of games are ported to Mac / Linux by a third party. The quality of that port is dependant on the company and the budget for porting it. If I was a game developers I would never do a Mac port.

Re: Blurry rendering of games on Mac

#210

Post by jeffhuys »

trinix912 wrote: post #167
jeffhuys wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Menu bar is on top on mac. I see it as the top bevel becoming a screen, not taking away from any screen real estate, actually FREEING up space for apps. I never see the notch anyway because my wallpaper is black.

Until you want to do something full screen, then it might be a glaring black rectangle on top of the screen. The way to do it properly is to hide the camera in the thin bezels or somewhere else (inside the LCD, are we there yet?). This is just a lazy solution that designers probably even thought seems iconic.

I get what you mean, but to me it just looks like before there was a notch, like there's no screen there. I can't really tell where the bezel ends and the screen starts if it's all black. Just looks like a large bezel.

Guess it's just a matter of taste. I'm never bothered by it.

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