Apple's problem has never been that their computers would be graphically incapable of running games. The issue is that there are very few people who'd want to use Apple's computer to play games, and as result there are very few games that the devs bother to port into their computers.
It's not about performance. It's about Apple being the expensive computer for some work applications and not even trying to release competitors for gaming PCs and consoles.
If you want to game on Apple, get an iPad. iOS is their gaming system, and it sells more games than ... a lot of companies. Apple is a pretty big gaming company, without creating a console or dedicated handheld, without a distributor or development studio, they bring in more in gaming revenue than Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo -- combined.
iPads have the same M1 architecture as well. All you are missing is .. a mouse. And an open operating system, although OS X is becoming harder and harder to just run anything on anyway.
The performance seems impressive, but they are still quite expensive machines, and you have to worry about compatibility with any current or future game you want to play. There are potential solutions like using Crossover and Wine to run windows games, but they are not a guarantee for 100% compatibility. It just doesn't seem worth it to get one for gaming unless you have some specific need for a mac.
There are potential solutions like using Crossover and Wine to run windows games, but they are not a guarantee for 100% compatibility. It just doesn't seem worth it to get one for gaming unless you have some specific need for a mac.
Even with those, at least as of now, you are running that compatibility layer on top of other emulation. It ~mostly~ works, but you're getting double-penalized, once for the compatibility layer (Windows to OS X) and once for the emulation (x86 to ARM)
The impressive part is the M1P/M1M, first off, can even run that and the engineers at Apple and elsewhere have done a good enough job to make it work fairly seemlessly. Beyond that, even going through that double-penalty, those chips have enough power that even double penalized they can still more or less keep up with a mobile 3060. The bad part is it really kills your battery life and isn't efficient in the least and costs waaay more than a 3060-equipped laptop would, and really isn't showing what the chips are capable of doing with actual native code running a native API.
For that, you need to stay on the Apple Store and/or Arcade, and those aren't the big popular AAA-level games.
Watch youtube videos on it. They are beating many 3080 windows laptops running native games for sure. I saw some running with crossover with really good success and when compatibility was an issue just running the games on parallels instead.
If you want or need one and want to game on it too yes it will definitely do it.
I have an older desktop replacement laptop i7 7700k, 32 gigs of ram, and a gtx1060 and I bought a m1 mac mini and it runs unreal engine and unity better than the pc native or through parallels. I haven’t gamed on them much in a while, but I can only imagine it’s similar results. It’s not as good as a full fledged desktop, but it was cheap and barely uses any power. I don’t know if I’ll be getting a new macbook or a good windows laptop because I prefer Windows mouse feel and even through parallels the mouse just does not feel right which is uber important to me.
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It's not about performance. It's about Apple being the expensive computer for some work applications and not even trying to release competitors for gaming PCs and consoles.
iPads have the same M1 architecture as well. All you are missing is .. a mouse. And an open operating system, although OS X is becoming harder and harder to just run anything on anyway.
The impressive part is the M1P/M1M, first off, can even run that and the engineers at Apple and elsewhere have done a good enough job to make it work fairly seemlessly. Beyond that, even going through that double-penalty, those chips have enough power that even double penalized they can still more or less keep up with a mobile 3060. The bad part is it really kills your battery life and isn't efficient in the least and costs waaay more than a 3060-equipped laptop would, and really isn't showing what the chips are capable of doing with actual native code running a native API.
For that, you need to stay on the Apple Store and/or Arcade, and those aren't the big popular AAA-level games.
If you want or need one and want to game on it too yes it will definitely do it.
I have an older desktop replacement laptop i7 7700k, 32 gigs of ram, and a gtx1060 and I bought a m1 mac mini and it runs unreal engine and unity better than the pc native or through parallels. I haven’t gamed on them much in a while, but I can only imagine it’s similar results. It’s not as good as a full fledged desktop, but it was cheap and barely uses any power. I don’t know if I’ll be getting a new macbook or a good windows laptop because I prefer Windows mouse feel and even through parallels the mouse just does not feel right which is uber important to me.
Anyway, go check benchmarks on youtube.