Apple to release first ARM Mac without Intel processor in next 18 months

[Deleted member 243478]

That sounds kind of, well, idiotic to me. If you think that Windows, which runs the most desktops in the world, that underlies the second largest cloud is "an utter piece of unreliable shit," that implies you really don't know what you are talking about. So you can understand where the "mindless" bit might come from.

Also IT supporting Macs isn't as simple as IT people just not wanting to do so. When you want to support something in an enterprise environment you have to consider a whole lot of things. Some are things like "How will we tie this system in to our central authentication system?" or "How can we quickly deploy software?" These are doable on a Mac of course, but often require investment in additional software. Apple themselves uses JAMF, for example, which is not free. So the institution has to decide to put up the cash to buy the software, hardware, etc to make something supportable. Likewise they either need to hire the staff with the proper training, or train the staff in what they need to know. It is not incumbent on the individual to go out on their own time and become a Mac expert to satisfy the users that won't use what is officially recommended and supported. It is up to the institution to change the rules, and to then make sure staff gets the training/hiring needed to support it.

You pretty much answered you own statement about reliability when you need many staff to support a windows environment and Apple users are forced to support themselves and survive just fine.

Windows 10 is garbage, I have lost count of how many computers have had to fix for failed updates and bricked them. The UI is an utter mess and completely unintuitive, Micrsofts version of simplifying the user experience is to add redundant interfaces, add more steps and slap some lipstick on it. Windows still can’t even do display scaling correctly.

Meanwhile I have only had one Mac‘s OS fail and the end user was able to run internet recovery and reinstall the OS knowing nothing about computers and following Apples recovery guide.

 

[Thunderdolt]

1) In engineering, software doesn't run on the Mac. I mean some does, but maybe 20% or so. Most is either Windows and Linux or just Windows. So use the platform that supports the software you need.

That's wonderful, and that's exactly what most of your hated users do, in fact, do.

Of course, most the coders I know code on Macs by choice. Go figure.

2) Support. The university doesn't do Mac support. You can argue it should, but it has been brought up and in all cases the decision has been not to spend the money on it. So if you get a Dell system, we can take it, prep it with our image and have it to you with all the software you want in less than a day. It is fully integrated in to central sign on, security and so on. IF you have any issues, there are people that can support it. With a Mac, well you are on your own.

It just stands in opposition to the claim made that "they are people who just want to get work done". The people who just want to get their work done use whatever is recommended and supported for it, because they don't care. The computer is a tool, they'll use whichever tool work will support that gets the job done. The people who get Macs are doing it for other reasons.

You're stuck in a logical loop that you're never going to get out of. In the academic example above, those people ARE the ones getting work done. In doing so, they've objectively demonstrated that their IT dept is useless. The 80% of those academic users who are using Macs are doing great without any help from the circlejerk of their IT department. [Anchor1 here] The only ones running into trouble are the ones following the IT dept's rules.

Additionally, when 80% of the IT dept's customers are using Macs, but the IT dept refuses to support Macs, that means IT is refusing to do their one and only job: support their users. This is the difference between "tech support" and "customer support:" the former supports a technology for the sole and circular purpose of supporting that technology, while the latter supports the customer. Despite their notorious egos, IT is a service position. They are there to follow orders. When they stop following orders, it's time for replacement. This is why it's important for those in IT to create a need for themselves. [return to Anchor1]

 

[Deleted member 243478]

That's wonderful, and that's exactly what most of your hated users do, in fact, do.

Of course, most the coders I know code on Macs by choice. Go figure.



You're stuck in a logical loop that you're never going to get out of. In the academic example above, those people ARE the ones getting work done. In doing so, they've objectively demonstrated that their IT dept is useless. The 80% of those academic users who are using Macs are doing great without any help from the circlejerk of their IT department. [Anchor1 here] The only ones running into trouble are the ones following the IT dept's rules.

Additionally, when 80% of the IT dept's customers are using Macs, but the IT dept refuses to support Macs, that means IT is refusing to do their one and only job: support their users. This is the difference between "tech support" and "customer support:" the former supports a technology for the sole and circular purpose of supporting that technology, while the latter supports the customer. Despite their notorious egos, IT is a service position. They are there to follow orders. When they stop following orders, it's time for replacement. This is why it's important for those in IT to create a need for themselves. [return to Anchor1]

Tell me about it, but hey I make a killing providing Mac support to users because their IT are so fkn lazy that they cant be bothered learning anything other than Windows. Most OSX stuff is stupid simple and anything else you need to do shares most of it’s roots with Unix or Linux.

Any infrastructure you want to bet your life on is built on Unix, Linux or BSD. OSX will happily integrate with any of them just not the bastard love child that is Windows.

The only reason Windows still holds a large desktop market share is because of lazy IT refusing to expand their horizons and keeping themselves in a job and developers who cant be bothered recoding their software / games for other platforms.

Want to saturate a 10gb link with Windows SMB out of the box? Nope.
Want to scale correctly for a 4K monitor in Windows? Nope.
Want to turn off Windows updates? Nope.
Want to disable telemetry? Nope.
Want to modify Windows system files without screwing file ownership? Nope.
Want robust filesystems like ZFS in Windows? Nope.

 

[BinarySynapse]

I don't see Apple having any problem transitioning to a new architecture. They seem to have a real knack for pulling it off. In 36 years they've taken the Mac user experience from 68K to PowerPC to x86-64 while somehow always maintaining an acceptable level of backwards compatibility.

I find it really hard to believe that reduced instruction set count, at lower Ghz speeds, is going to best a cisc running at 4Ghz.

For browsing instagram or taking selfies, sure ARM cpu's are great at that. Watching youtube.

Not buying that it will be able to do what the "creatives" buy Apple's to do... unless you lump instagram influencers into that bucket (I wouldn't do that).

That "CISC" 4GHz processor is RISC in drag. CISC vs RISC hasn't really been a thing since the 90's.

Also, RISC doesn't mean fewer instructions (i.e. a reduced set of instructions). It means the individual instructions are less complex in that they typically do one task (i.e. a set of reduced instructions). There can be RISC architectures with more instructions than traditional CISC architectures.

 

[EniGmA1987]

I just really want to see is Apple uses a bigLITTLE design like the A12X in their desktops. I kinda hope they do as it would be a very interesting step in PC hardware.

If it is successful, then we might see something like AMD using their chiplet design to have a single die of 8 cores using small, power efficient processors for desktop usage and switching to two dies of big, powerful cores for heavy tasks and gaming.

 

[Jinto]

Most likely re-introduce a new MacBook with ARM. Ever since its discontinued there has been rumors of a revival with ARM chips. Would make sense to test the waters with a low volume, ultra portable first.

 

[Sycraft]

You're stuck in a logical loop that you're never going to get out of. In the academic example above, those people ARE the ones getting work done. In doing so, they've objectively demonstrated that their IT dept is useless. The 80% of those academic users who are using Macs are doing great without any help from the circlejerk of their IT department. [Anchor1 here] The only ones running into trouble are the ones following the IT dept's rules.

Additionally, when 80% of the IT dept's customers are using Macs, but the IT dept refuses to support Macs, that means IT is refusing to do their one and only job: support their users. This is the difference between "tech support" and "customer support:" the former supports a technology for the sole and circular purpose of supporting that technology, while the latter supports the customer. Despite their notorious egos, IT is a service position. They are there to follow orders. When they stop following orders, it's time for replacement. This is why it's important for those in IT to create a need for themselves. [return to Anchor1]

See this is a very narrow "What works for me must be true for everyone," kind of view. No, it isn't that Mac users don't need support. It is that they want to do thing their own way, but get bailed out when they have an issue. They aren't the only ones who do this, we get users of other platforms who do that as well. The problem is that when people go and do their own thing, and it doesn't work, it takes a lot more time to fix. Now maybe your employer wants to provide lots of support to do that... but many don't including mine. You can't have someone spending hours and hours working with a user to solve the problem they have with their special setup because as you note, it is a customer service area meaning you have to serve all customers.

Second, supporting users doesn't just mean their end devices, it means all the things that they work with, and rely on. Central storage would be an example. Most organizations of any significant size want all their business data stored in a central, reliable, backed up, controlled location. Well someone has to manage it, and manage access to that. IT doesn't just happen by magic. While that might not be visible to users, that doesn't mean it isn't important.

Next IT's job isn't just to support their users, it is to support their business, their enterprise. The job is to help the organization get what it needs done, which is not always what the users think they need/want. A good example would be security. Many (most? all?) users would like to have no password, no security training, no firewall, no hoops to jump through. They see it as something that gets in the way. And that's great and all... right up until someone gets owned, and it costs millions of dollars to fix. So one of the jobs IT has is to make sure there are security measures to try and keep that from happening, even if the users don't like it. Same kind of deal with things like fire safety, document retention, and all these other kinds of things that seem like a hassle to the normal person. Ya maybe it would be easier for you to just stack papers up to the ceiling, but the fire inspector isn't going to allow it because they don't want you, and everyone else, to burn. Remember: At work it isn't about what you want, it is about what your organization needs.

Finally despite the "notorious egos" you seem to ascribe to all IT workers, the ego seems to be on your side, on assuming that you should be able to do whatever you want, and your workplace should just adapt to you. Again remember: IT doesn't work for you, just like custodial or anyone else. They work for the company, the enterprise. They are there to do what the company wants, not what you want. It is also ironic that you don't see the ego in saying "I am different and special, I want my own way of doing things," or the ego in acting like the IT staff should learn to support you, on their own time of their own volition, when you aren't willing to learn to use what your enterprise provides instead.

The thing I think you Maccies in this thread are missing that I have said over and over: My employer does not support Macs. It has been brought up to leadership, they have decided they don't want to pay for it. Yet in your mind somehow this is evil IT being mean by not just doing what you want, because you are special.

PS It is nowhere near 80% of users that have Macs. More like 20% where I work. Hence why the administration doesn't want to do anything to support it.

 

[Thunderdolt]

No, it isn't that Mac users don't need support.

You said that you offer no support. The users are getting by just fine. Ergo, they don't need support. Like I said, you're never going to get out of your loop.

Now maybe your employer wants to provide lots of support to do that... but many don't including mine. You can't have someone spending hours and hours working with a user to solve the problem they have with their special setup because as you note, it is a customer service area meaning you have to serve all customers.

IBM famously posted their own case study of switching to Macs and found that support costs were dramatically reduced.

Most organizations of any significant size want all their business data stored in a central, reliable, backed up, controlled location. Well someone has to manage it, and manage access to that. IT doesn't just happen by magic. While that might not be visible to users, that doesn't mean it isn't important.

This is one of the areas where Windows is notoriously terrible and MacOS is famously excellent. You kind of picked a bad example here.

Next IT's job isn't just to support their users, it is to support their business, their enterprise.

That is, literally, supporting their users. Just like traditional janitors support the enterprise by keeping things smelling nice, so too do the computer janitors. Nobody likes the single ply stuff, but the janitorial staff insists that it is essential in order to support the needs of the enterprise (ie, leadership knows it's a cost center and treats it as such).

A good example would be security.

Ok, now I'm confused. I thought you were pro-Windows, but you just picked the best example of where MacOS is generations ahead of Windows. Did you swap sides on purpose?

Finally despite the "notorious egos" you seem to ascribe to all IT workers, the ego seems to be on your side, on assuming that you should be able to do whatever you want, and your workplace should just adapt to you. Again remember: IT doesn't work for you, just like custodial or anyone else.

This is why SNL had the whole series of skits about Nick Burns. They did it because IT's reputation is so sparkling clean and wonderfully friendly and extremely effective - right? And this is why IT is the butt of half of Dilbert strips?

 

[pendragon1]

You said that you offer no support. The users are getting by just fine. Ergo, they don't need support. Like I said, you're never going to get out of your loop.



IBM famously posted their own case study of switching to Macs and found that support costs were dramatically reduced.



This is one of the areas where Windows is notoriously terrible and MacOS is famously excellent. You kind of picked a bad example here.



That is, literally, supporting their users. Just like traditional janitors support the enterprise by keeping things smelling nice, so too do the computer janitors. Nobody likes the single ply stuff, but the janitorial staff insists that it is essential in order to support the needs of the enterprise (ie, leadership knows it's a cost center and treats it as such).



Ok, now I'm confused. I thought you were pro-Windows, but you just picked the best example of where MacOS is generations ahead of Windows. Did you swap sides on purpose?



This is why SNL had the whole series of skits about Nick Burns. They did it because IT's reputation is so sparkling clean and wonderfully friendly and extremely effective - right? And this is why IT is the butt of half of Dilbert strips?

take you pissing contest to PM this thread is about them switching to ARM rumors.

 

[Mazzspeed]

Apple's file systems suck, HFS/HFS+ is the only thing worse than NTFS and APFS performs terribly on mechanical spinners, the kind of 5400RPM spinners fitted to most desktop Mac models bought by the consumer as that's all they can afford due to the over inflated pricing.

Furthermore, with all the hype surrounding iOS13 being a 'desktop replacement', it's still not there as a desktop replacement. Bacically I see them releasing an iPad Pro with an inbuilt keyboard and calling it a MacBook Air, and even then it's going to be an uphill battle getting MacOS users to adopt it considering it's still an iPad with an inbuilt keyboard suffering the same limitations as an iPad compared to an actual desktop OS like MacOS.

Apple's ARM silicon may perform well in certain limited situations compared to an i7, but how well does it perform compared to an i7 with 12 Chrome tabs open, Word open, Adobe reader open, Outlook open and some Adobe CC product open and actually running in the background?

Then you have Finder....Oh my God, could a file manager possibly be any worse?

 

[NickM]

I think it's kind of comical that people think Macs "Just work" and they need no support.
I am on my organization's Mac support team. We have, at last count, around 150 some Mac users out of an overall organization of 15000+. In comparison, to keep them maintained and compatible with the overall org requires a significantly higher expense by percentage.
Our Mac users seem to be the most entitled group by percentage and the most able to break the same thing over and over. Yes, the OS is overall better than Win 10 in some ways. Win 10, however, is not some flaming pile of dogshit, not even in comparison to OSX.
We run a mix of mostly Mojave machines with a few High Sierra's left and are transitioning to Catalina overall. This transition is not pain free by any sense of the word.
Many authentications systems no longer work and are having to be rebuild from the ground up.
Again, the Macs are decent machines, not hugely different price wise from our high end Dells and Lenovos.
They are not miracle machines and do not magically confer competence on their users or allow them to work any better than their Windows counterparts.

 

[Thunderdolt]

take you pissing contest to PM this thread is about them switching to ARM rumors.

Will do. I appreciate that the warning has been issued to all of the off-topic posters in this thread, especially the ones where you "liked" the off topic posts about which you have issued this warning.

 

[Deleted member 82943]

A non thermal limited A series chip could be huge! I’m stoked as I’m in the ecosystem. I’ll be waiting with an open wallet if it performs well.

 

[Burticus]

An architecture change to ARM could be good for desktop/web/productivity...... but if you thought gaming on Mac was spare now, kiss even that little bit goodbye. Unless everything is going to run in a Windows VM or something similar. All that will be left are silly little iPhone game ports.

Actually who am I kidding, Apple already kicked it's user base in the balls by killing off 32 bit apps. Unless someone found a driver shim or VM way to run games in 64 bit (talking about older games, yes).

Or I could be all wrong.

 

[Sycraft]

An architecture change to ARM could be good for desktop/web/productivity...... but if you thought gaming on Mac was spare now, kiss even that little bit goodbye. Unless everything is going to run in a Windows VM or something similar. All that will be left are silly little iPhone game ports.

An x86-64 VM won't work on ARM. The idea behind a VM is that the underlying architecture of the host is the same as the guest. So you don't have to emulate it, you can just virtualize things like system calls and so on and just pass program code straight through. That's why it is so fast, and low overhead. However if you are doing cross architecture, you don't have that option. So you'd need a full emulation platform that emulated an x86-64 chip and all the associated hardware. That is something that could be written, of course, but would not offer the minimal performance impact that a VM does and it isn't something that a company is currently selling like VMs. It would be more difficult to make one performant enough for gaming to be a good experience.

 

[defaultluser]

An architecture change to ARM could be good for desktop/web/productivity...... but if you thought gaming on Mac was spare now, kiss even that little bit goodbye. Unless everything is going to run in a Windows VM or something similar. All that will be left are silly little iPhone game ports.

Actually who am I kidding, Apple already kicked it's user base in the balls by killing off 32 bit apps. Unless someone found a driver shim or VM way to run games in 64 bit (talking about older games, yes).

Or I could be all wrong.

No, you're right. Apple has beefy GPU performance, but it's wasted on ios.



Performance close to GTX 1050 is no joke, but when you don't have any demanding games to use it, it's kinda pointess.

Also, them taking a pointless potshot at 32-bit games shows you where their priority isn't!

If Apple cared about attracting serious gamers, they would have ported as many AAA games as NVIDIA did for Shield Android TV

 

[Captain Newmackwa]

I think when it comes to gaming, Apple only really cares about its own Apple Arcade game subscription service and having ARM on all their devices, including Macs makes sense in this regard.

 

[IdiotInCharge]

Apple tends to make some impressive hardware. Software... well, it's not like the Unix base is full of faults.

But it is unique, so at least if you want to push the power of the hardware, more investment is required all around.

Not a problem for the typical individual desktop user, but as soon as you put them in mixed environments (which you must), things get more complicated.

 

[Auer]

I think when it comes to gaming, Apple only really cares about its own Apple Arcade game subscription service and having ARM on all their devices, including Macs makes sense in this regard.

All Mac users I know that (AAA) game have a PC as well for that purpose.

 

[Mazzspeed]

OGL support stalled, a blatant refusal to natively support Vulkan and a complete lack of Nvidia web drivers = Apple sucks as a gaming platform. Linux kills MacOS as a gaming platform now.

 

[Deleted member 82943]

Gaming is not the reason anyone buys a Mac.

 

[Red Falcon]

An architecture change to ARM could be good for desktop/web/productivity...... but if you thought gaming on Mac was spare now, kiss even that little bit goodbye.

Because, as we know, there is no way any game or software could ever run on anything but x86-64, or be ported to run on another architecture.
Really, though, it was possible to game on Apple systems from the Apple II & III (1970s & 1980s), to the m68k Macs (1980s & 1990s), and later to the PPC (1990s) and PPC64 (2000s) Macs, so I'm not sure why this wouldn't be possible with ARM in the 2020s...

 

[defaultluser]

Because, as we know, there is no way any game or software could ever run on anything but x86-64, or be ported to run on another architecture.
Really, though, it was possible to game on Apple systems from the Apple II & III (1970s & 1980s), to the m68k Macs (1980s & 1990s), and later to the PPC (1990s) and PPC64 (2000s) Macs, so I'm not sure why this wouldn't be possible with ARM in the 2020s...

It's possible - but just like any previous transitions, the recompiling for ARM will take years.

Just because Apple controls distribution in their Mac store doesn't mean they have any say forcing developers to add ARM support. to existing titles.

Apple supported Rosetta from OSX 10.4. to 10.6. That SIX YEARS to transition all applications to AMD64.

If you need any idea how hard it will be to transition Steam's existing library of games over to ARM, just realize how much more complex these thing are than they were two decades ago. Each game has to be transitioned by a dedicated group, and tested/validated all-over again.

Back when OSX only had a few dozen major games, it was a lot easier to make the PPC to x86 transition

Hell, even some big-name titles never got an AMD64 port, like Halo: CE.

https://www.amazon.com/Halo-Mac/dp/B00006IQTH

 

[Red Falcon]

It's possible - but just like any previous transitions, the recompiling for ARM will take years.

Just because Apple controls distribution in their Mac store doesn't mean they have any say forcing developers to add ARM support. to existing titles.

Apple supported Rosetta from OSX 10.4. to 10.6. That SIX YEARS to transition all applications to AMD64.

If you need any idea how hard it will be to transition Steam's existing library of games over to ARM, just realize how much more complex these thing are than they were two decades ago. Each game has to be transitioned by a dedicated group, and tested/validated all-over again.

Back when OSX only had a few dozen major games, it was a lot easier to make the PPC to x86 transition

You do make some good points on that, and much of the work has been done already by Apple for the OS and their software.
Games aren't really Apple's focus, and outside of the Mac Pro ($6000+ workstation), many of their systems are simply running Intel iGPUs or low/mid-end AMD iGPUs.

So aside from 2D or lower-end 3D games, I don't think many people use these systems to game.
Their primary rolls are photo and video editing, and the transition from x86-64 to ARM makes sense in that regard, especially when Apple has already done the legwork from integrating much of the functionality of their mobile devices to their workstations.

I'm not trying to make excuses for Apple, and I do understand that it will take developers that much longer to port their old/existing games to the new architecture.
New games, however, could be developed for both, just as they are currently developed for the multitude of systems right now with various platforms and CPU ISAs.

Gaming is an afterthought for Apple workstations (not counting mobile devices), and the killer apps are more so in productivity, and to a lesser extend in education.

 

[Deleted member 243478]

It's possible - but just like any previous transitions, the recompiling for ARM will take years.

Just because Apple controls distribution in their Mac store doesn't mean they have any say forcing developers to add ARM support. to existing titles.

Apple supported Rosetta from OSX 10.4. to 10.6. That SIX YEARS to transition all applications to AMD64.

If you need any idea how hard it will be to transition Steam's existing library of games over to ARM, just realize how much more complex these thing are than they were two decades ago. Each game has to be transitioned by a dedicated group, and tested/validated all-over again.

Back when OSX only had a few dozen major games, it was a lot easier to make the PPC to x86 transition

Hell, even some big-name titles never got an AMD64 port, like Halo: CE.

https://www.amazon.com/Halo-Mac/dp/B00006IQTH

That was the whole point of moving to Metal. Developers are writing apps for OSX without even knowing it.

 

[defaultluser]

You do make some good points on that, and much of the work has been done already by Apple for the OS and their software.
Games aren't really Apple's focus, and outside of the Mac Pro ($6000+ workstation), many of their systems are simply running Intel iGPUs or low/mid-end AMD iGPUs.

So aside from 2D or lower-end 3D games, I don't think many people use these systems to game.
Their primary rolls are photo and video editing, and the transition from x86-64 to ARM makes sense in that regard, especially when Apple has already done the legwork from integrating much of the functionality of their mobile devices to their workstations.

I'm not trying to make excuses for Apple, and I do understand that it will take developers that much longer to port their old/existing games to the new architecture.
New games, however, could be developed for both, just as they are currently developed for the multitude of systems right now with various platforms and CPU ISAs.

Gaming is an afterthought for Apple workstations (not counting mobile devices), and the killer apps are more so in productivity, and to a lesser extend in education.

Just-saying - it's going to be a painful few years for anyone buying. you would need several times the speed of Intel before it's comfortable to use emulation.

And existing applications are going to take years to transition. On Tiger, it took Firefox over a year to release AMD64 versn. And on windoes on arm, it took Firefox over a year to release ARM64 version. Smaller companies will take even longer.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

Just-saying - it's going to be a painful few years for anyone buying. you would need several times the speed of Intel before it's comfortable to use emulation.

And existing applications are going to take years to transition. On Tiger, it took Firefox over a year to release AMD64 versn. And on windoes on arm, it took Firefox over a year to release ARM64 version. Smaller companies will take even longer.

Both iOS and macOS run off of Swift and XCode. With "Marzipan" it's possible to run iOS apps on macOS. The transition over to Arm would be a big hurdle if you aren't thinking it through and you haven't gotten your biggest devs on board. But considering that the iOS app store already contains apps designed for pros to work on. And further iPad Pro apps that have greater capabilities. And now are being given the transitional power to be run on macOS, you can see that a lot of the milestones are already in place.
Apple won't transition over until companies like Adobe are ready, and I am certain that Apple is working closely with them and others to ensure that products are developed at launch.
Will some devs get left behind? Absolutely, but one area that Apple has been (despite all of the anti-Apple jokes/hate on this forum) is forward thinking. Legacy is software bloat. Getting rid of Rosetta despite all of the people wanting their PPC apps was one of the best moves Apple could've made. 32-bit was also painful, but it will only lead to better faster apps and getting rid of dead weight.
If anyone can make the transition easier or better it's Apple. They're one of the few that has done major architecture changes and not only survived but thrived.

 

[Mazzspeed]

Really, though, it was possible to game on Apple systems from the Apple II & III (1970s & 1980s), to the m68k Macs (1980s & 1990s), and later to the PPC (1990s) and PPC64 (2000s) Macs, so I'm not sure why this wouldn't be possible with ARM in the 2020s...

Your comparison of older machines doesn't really compare when you consider games were usually coded in raw assembly code. Considering newer archatectures and the API's they use, Apple are delibrately removing options when it comes to gaming on the Apple platform in some retarded attempt to push their own Metal API. We have DX, OGL and Vulkan - The main players being DX and Vulkan, developers aren't going to be exactly eager to port to a platform using another API entirely. Let alone a platform using it's own propriatery API as well as a compleately different ARM RISC instruction set/architecture.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

Your comparison of older machines doesn't really compare when you consider games were usually coded in raw assembly code. Considering newer archatectures and the API's they use, Apple are delibrately removing options when it comes to gaming on the Apple platform in some retarded attempt to push their own Metal API. We have DX, OGL and Vulkan - The main players being DX and Vulkan, developers aren't going to be exactly eager to port to a platform using another API entirely. Let alone a platform using it's own propriatery API as well as a compleately different ARM RISC instruction set/architecture.

Vulkan can be directly ported to Metal.
But also my short answer is: I don't use Macs to play games.

 

[Red Falcon]

Your comparison of older machines doesn't really compare when you consider games were usually coded in raw assembly code. Considering newer archatectures and the API's they use, Apple are delibrately removing options when it comes to gaming on the Apple platform in some retarded attempt to push their own Metal API. We have DX, OGL and Vulkan - The main players being DX and Vulkan, developers aren't going to be exactly eager to port to a platform using another API entirely. Let alone a platform using it's own propriatery API as well as a compleately different ARM RISC instruction set/architecture.

I get what you are saying in regards with the Apple II & III, but from PPC and forward (early-1990s to present), making programs/games in assembly code hasn't been a thing.
I do agree with everything else, though, and it does seem like Apple is going to shift away from gaming on their workstations (at least as we know it) in order to use their proprietary Metal API.

Again, though, developers can port (or natively make) programs/games for it.
The Nintendo Switch has quite a few games that were meant for x86-64 and DirectX/OpenGL along with PS4/XBone ports as well on it, and it uses ARM and its own proprietary API, so I don't see why this is out of the question when it comes to an Apple workstation using their in-house ARM and Metal API.


EDIT: Fixed, thanks Mazzspeed!

 

[Red Falcon]

Just-saying - it's going to be a painful few years for anyone buying. you would need several times the speed of Intel before it's comfortable to use emulation.

What is x86-64 emulation even going to be needed for?

And existing applications are going to take years to transition. On Tiger, it took Firefox over a year to release AMD64 versn.

The difference, compared to back in the mid-2000s before Apple had a mobile platform and OS, is that the work now is already done, and has been done for years.
Firefox is already running on iOS, which is just a small fork of MacOS, with both's code-bases being closely intertwined, and both being UNIX-based; recompiling of for MacOS should be quick, and I would be shocked if it weren't.

If Apple already has the tools in place, which they do, and have for years now, then the transition should go well for 3rd party companies and developers.
I'm assuming that Apple will start entities the tools early, well before their ARM-based workstations release, in order for them to have products ready on launch; it would be idiotic of them to wait until launch, and then give out the tools, and Apple as a megacorp, is not that ignorant to this game.

Apple has the ISA, the platform, the APIs, and has just recently merged functionality between their desktop OS and mobile OS.
The groundwork is literally already prepped and ready to go.

Smaller companies will take even longer.

It will depend on how Apple values their worth, and/or if it is giving out its software development tools early for everyone, or exclusive software companies via contracts.
Again, Apple isn't ignorant to this game, and will make every move to benefit itself.

And on windoes on arm, it took Firefox over a year to release ARM64 version.

That's because, unlike Apple have laid out the groundwork (as stated above) in preparation for their new workstations, Microsoft on the other hand did just what you are saying.
Microsoft was stupid, did not have the groundwork prepared, and was starting with a new platform with virtually nothing ready outside of their abysmal x86/x86-64 emulation layer.

Also, when Microsoft released their Windows RT OS and respective workstations, they were a vastly different (and mismanaged) company than they are now.
If this were 2005 to 2010, I would say you are totally right, but it is 2020 and the game has changed vastly, and Apple is ready for the change to be made, albeit in their favour.

 

[Deleted member 82943]

The App Store has been for years only publishing the bytecode for things so it is feasible that App Store applications could run rather well on ARM macs without issue

 

[Sycraft]

Again, though, developers can port (or natively make) programs/games for it.
The Nintendo Switch has quite a few games that were meant for x86-64 and DirectX/OpenGL along with PS4/XBone ports as well on it, and it uses ARM and its own proprietary API, so I don't see why this is out of the question when it comes to an Apple workstation using their in-house ARM and Metal API.

Ports are never out of the question, the issue is just if companies will be willing to spend the resources. Remember for a game company it is always down to ROI, and also down to what kind of skills they have and want on staff. So they'll port to the Mac if the Mac has a large enough market to make it of interest. Some games might not be able to, depending on how powerful the ARM chips end up being they might not be powerful enough for some games (particularly if Apple chooses to focus on low power/battery life rather than IPC and speed) but for many that isn't an issue. But it really will depend on the size of the market. Also each hoop a dev has to jump though makes it less likely, because that is a little more work.

 

[Mazzspeed]

I get what you are saying in regards with the Apple II & III, but from m68k and forward (mid-1980s to present), making programs/games in assembly code hasn't been a thing.
I do agree with everything else, though, and it does seem like Apple is going to shift away from gaming on their workstations (at least as we know it) in order to use their proprietary Metal API.

68k assembly was the best. Game developers may have had in house tools to assist with game development, but the idea of game engines and API's hadn't even been thought of at that stage. I can assure you most games were still relying heavily on assembly.

 

[Mazzspeed]

Vulkan can be directly ported to Metal.
But also my short answer is: I don't use Macs to play games.

It can be, but that's not an ideal solution. hence the reason in earlier posts I mentioned native Vulkan support.

 

[Deleted member 243478]

Lets be honest here, the majority of Mac users run Photoshop, Affinity Photo, Lightroom, FCPx and Logic Pro X. Most of it is ready for ARM already.

Anything left over already had to be rewritten for Metal on Catalina already so Apple are VERY close to be functionally complete.

Metal already offers some great advantages also like leveraging different GPUs for their strengths in isolation.

Apple will not adopt Vulkan as all it accomplishes is fragmenting their environment and splitting developers work. Everyone writes for Metal and all hardware except NVIDIA (idiots) supports it.

If developers are allowed to play in their own sandbox then all you end up with is a shitfight with everyone being lazy and doing their own thing. It is one of the core reasons OSX and Apples apps are so efficient with lesser hardware.

 

[IdiotInCharge]

The App Store has been for years only publishing the bytecode for things so it is feasible that App Store applications could run rather well on ARM macs without issue

.Net stuff is done in Microsoft Intermediate Language, 'MSIL'. Same idea as byte code for Java or anything else; of course, not everything Windows has been done in .Net.

Microsoft and Apple were both forward thinking here. Apple just has a much stronger stranglehold on their ecosystem, which works well enough for them fo rmobile.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

It can be, but that's not an ideal solution. hence the reason in earlier posts I mentioned native Vulkan support.

Well, all it requires is a runtime library that maps Vulkan to Metal. It's not perfect (it will absolutely require bug checking etc), but it's not like coding for DX and for PS4 type of cross platforming. It's very close.
https://moltengl.com/moltenvk/

I think the other thing that people are missing here in regards to gaming is that it will go both ways. Imagine a desktop platform that is also your mobile platform. If games that have "A" level of quality come to macOS (perhaps upwards of AAA, but CoD I don't think will be missed by most mac/iOS users), they'll also be able to be used on iOS. You could have "cross platform" iOS/macOS games that are AAA and allow you to pickup on one and play on the other. There isn't another system that is close to that other than the Switch. The benefit is that more iPhones are sold in a year than all three current gen consoles from launch to current date combined. Meaning that if done correctly, this could allow devs to leverage $60 phone games that can then be played on desktop etc. All it will require is a controller, of which Apple already has a built in SDK for. The only other area necessary is having powerful enough hardware and/or different graphics settings on different levels of hardware.

I'm not saying that this is precisely Apple's strategy, as I don't know. But I definitely think that they're trying to leverage "phone games" into something more than that. And that would be the direction I would go. They don't necessarily need devs to port to the platform, though if it's in Vulkan user could easily do so, however it would allow for more serious games that aren't just "phone games" with quick feedback loops to possibly become more popular.

 

[Red Falcon]

Ports are never out of the question, the issue is just if companies will be willing to spend the resources. Remember for a game company it is always down to ROI, and also down to what kind of skills they have and want on staff. So they'll port to the Mac if the Mac has a large enough market to make it of interest. Some games might not be able to, depending on how powerful the ARM chips end up being they might not be powerful enough for some games (particularly if Apple chooses to focus on low power/battery life rather than IPC and speed) but for many that isn't an issue. But it really will depend on the size of the market. Also each hoop a dev has to jump though makes it less likely, because that is a little more work.

I think the issue there is going to come down to the limitation of the GPU more so than the CPU, much as it is with current Apple workstations still using Intel Iris iGPUs or low-end AMD iGPUs.
The GPUs, on all but the Mac Pro, are currently the biggest limiting factor, at least for gaming, on those workstations at the moment.

68k assembly was the best. Game developers may have had in house tools to assist with game development, but the idea of game engines and API's hadn't even been thought of at that stage. I can assure you most games were still relying heavily on assembly.

Ah, you are right, there was still a lot of m68k assembly code going in the 1980s.

 

[Deleted member 243478]

I think the issue there is going to come down to the limitation of the GPU more so than the CPU, much as it is with current Apple workstations still using Intel Iris iGPUs or low-end AMD iGPUs.
The GPUs, on all but the Mac Pro, are currently the biggest limiting factor, at least for gaming, on those workstations at the moment.


Ah, you are right, there was still a lot of m68k assembly code going in the 1980s.

Not really... Metal can leverage Afterburner, Intel, AMD and Apples own silicon. NVIDIA is the only odd one out. Apples silicon is more than capable of taking on NVIDIA if it is scaled up / thermal limits removed.