Comment by viktorcode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by viktorcode | Hacker News Reader

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Two more points to that:

First, due to substantial differences in graphics hardware, that is tiled-based deferred rendering for Apple Silicon and immediate mode rendering for NVIDIA and AMD the software simulation or translation layer will never be as good as DXVK/VKD3D, which essentially do rendering on exactly same GPUs. In case of using TBDR the pipeline must be rewritten to get the benefits. Simply put, for Apple hardware every Windows game wrapped in a translation layer will be significantly worse off than a native port. That’s why it’s important for Apple to push for that.

Second, Apple is the owner of the biggest game storefront in terms of revenue. They don’t have to ask for game developers to come, they are already here. The market we are talking about is AAA games market. And this market is characterised by dedicated hardware: consoles and gaming PC. So I think this is where lies the actual problem: Apple doesn’t make dedicated hardware for games.

> First, due to substantial differences in graphics hardware, that is tiled-based deferred rendering for Apple Silicon and immediate mode rendering for NVIDIA and AMD the software simulation or translation layer will never be as good as DXVK/VKD3D, which essentially do rendering on exactly same GPUs. In case of using TBDR the pipeline must be rewritten to get the benefits. Simply put, for Apple hardware every Windows game wrapped in a translation layer will be significantly worse off than a native port. That’s why it’s important for Apple to push for that.

Doesn't matter for the back catalogue, which is the thing that is missing that makes the platform a running joke re: gaming. It's also an issue that affects Adreno on Snapdragon, but it isn't stopping Valve from planning to ship a version of Proton for that platform. Having personally talked to a DXVK developer about this specifically, the overhead, while existent, I understand isn't necessarily as severe as you make it out to be either.

> Second, Apple is the owner of the biggest game storefront in terms of revenue. They don’t have to ask for game developers to come, they are already here. The market we are talking about is AAA games market. And this market is characterised by dedicated hardware: consoles and gaming PC. So I think this is where lies the actual problem: Apple doesn’t make dedicated hardware for games.

Not just AAA, but most everything outside of the F2P/casual sphere. Speaking as someone who actually likes games as a form of art, the App Store's library is the video games equivalent of reality TV and home shopping. It's mostly exploitative trash. Maybe Apple is happy with cornering the market on exploitative trash though, good for them.

I don't think there's any issue to run any older game using Crossover or similar on a Mac. Grab that on Steam or GoG and go. Not sure why Apple should become involved in those simulation efforts.

You shouldn't need to own Crossover. The code for running these games is Open Source, Apple is the only one that can fix their runtime to support it.

> the software simulation or translation layer will never be as good as DXVK/VKD3D

> every Windows game wrapped in a translation layer will be significantly worse

That's not wholly accurate, though. Apple Silicon has reverse-engineered drivers that do perfectly well keeping up with immediate-mode multiple-pass graphics pipelines, MoltenVK is not SOTA anymore: https://youtu.be/BbJMPfXTbbE?t=447

You're correct that tile-based deferred rendering is more efficient. That's not the issue, though. Apple can (and already does) support traditional raster APIs on the desktop, because they have to for compatibility's sake. Thousands of Mac apps will never use TBDR or Metal and will never be updated to use it. And there's no good reason to stop supporting those applications, because OpenGL runs perfectly well on Apple Silicon. The same goes for DirectX, whether you're willing to acknowledge it or not.

There are hundreds of thousands of games that do not support TBDR and will never be ported to Mac in their lifetime; and Mac owners could be playing them regardless. The only one holding them back is Apple, because they'd rather Mac owners play Genshin Impact and earn Tim a few RSUs with a gachapon pull.

I think what you are describing is Apple Silicon GPUs delivering good results with sheer power. However, when the same titles are adopting TBDR you'll get faster rendering time or higher resolution. Cyberpunk is a good example of porting properly done.

Skipping unnecessary operation during frame rendering is always better for games.

I don't think I am. Even before Apple released Game Porting Toolkit, Crossover could play the game at nearly the same framerate as native: https://youtu.be/mEZJFjhLAbc?t=46

Looking at this kind of footage really does not convince me that "porting properly done" is worth enduring a library with no games. Nevermind the fact that the game runs fine through translation on the $400 Steam Deck hardware. You really are overstating the difference it makes.

It’s not needed for old games, but as I said: Cyberpunk is an example of port properly done. It’s not something achievable via simulator.

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