Re:Running Games on a MacBook Pro with an EGPU
by kevingadd on Tuesday July 02, 2019 @07:31PM
(#20340324)
Just wait for when Apple removes OpenGL. Probably 90% or more of existing games will break unless their middleware can be recompiled for 64bit+metal.
Re:Running Games on a MacBook Pro with an EGPU
by pjmlp on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @12:46AM
(#20341651)
The middleware that matters has supported Metal for about two years now.
Removing OpenGL isn't far away, as one of WWDC 2019 talks was exactly how to migrate to Metal from OpenGL, while all Apple frameworks now use Metal by default, although some of them still offer the old OpenGL support as fallback.
Re:Running Games on a MacBook Pro with an EGPU
by p_l on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @07:49AM
(#20343408)
Middleware might have Metal support but not be used by the game nor tested. And not everyone is going to redo testing and QA on niche backend.
Re:Running Games on a MacBook Pro with an EGPU
by pjmlp on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @08:49AM
(#20343833)
iOS gaming is bigger than desktop Linux....
Re:Running Games on a MacBook Pro with an EGPU
by p_l on Saturday July 06, 2019 @01:17PM
(#20370654)
and smaller than other platforms for the users of such middleware - and due to physical and power differences isn't usually running the same game but a modified one. A lot of porting to Mac depended on OpenGL being an API that you could start debugging on other platforms as well.
Re:Running Games on a MacBook Pro with an EGPU
by kitsunesoba on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @02:07AM
(#20342003)
Something else worth mentioning is how most major game engines and several game vendors have had native Metal support for some time now.
Re:Running Games on a MacBook Pro with an EGPU
by kevingadd on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @07:03PM
(#20349833)
This mostly benefits new games. If you want to update to (for example) Metal-compatible Unity, that probably means updating to the latest release, and bumping forward from 2017 Unity to 2019 Unity often breaks games. It's a common problem for indie developers who have to upgrade every few years since Apple loves breaking old games.
Re:Running Games on a MacBook Pro with an EGPU
by pixelrevision on Tuesday July 02, 2019 @09:05PM
(#20340767)
Maybe something like lutris will emerge on Mac.
Re:Running Games on a MacBook Pro with an EGPU
by sabizmil on Tuesday July 02, 2019 @06:51PM
(#20340106)
While there are definitely games that will be lost when deprecating 32bit, I think it's harsh to say that we are going back to the olden days.
If you look at the top sellers on Steam that have Mac support you'll see a very large library of great games that I don't think anyone would have guessed would be supported on Mac 5-10 years ago.
https://store.steampowered.com/macos#p=0&tab=TopSellers
If anything I think Mac support for games is on the rise and will only continue to grow.
Re:Running Games on a MacBook Pro with an EGPU
by egypturnash on Tuesday July 02, 2019 @07:51PM
(#20340423)
How many of them are 64-bit ready? How many that aren't are likely to ever get recompiled for 64-bit? I'd bet that pretty much nothing but games currently getting regular updates are going to make the jump.
MacOS was surprisingly good as a gaming OS, so far as game selection, but it's about to go back to the "we have... Breakout! and, uh, Super Breakout!" olden days, it seems.