How Do Mac Users Feel About This?

BlueRaven

@catnamedwill Wow! That was an interesting read! Great post!

Raideen

Thank you catnamedwill for your post, quite insightful. It helps to illustrate with why ZOS has chosen not to support Arm based apple computers for now, their decisions makes perfect sense.

zaria

catnamedwill wrote: »

As an microprocessor engineer working in the chipset design dept of Qualcomm(one of the biggest ARM based processor makers) for more than an decade, we have produced several ARM chips already for Apple iphones and several Android phones, as well as one of the first PC based ARM processors in Microsoft Surface X. I see some general misconceptions being spread here and I could help clarify those.

Firstly ARM processors are Reduced Instruction Set Computing microprocessors where as Intel x86/AMD_64 processors are Complex Instruction Set Computing microprocessors. ARM being RISC chips are much more power efficient and hence can get higher clock speeds than CISC chips while using a fraction of the required power input, hence also producing much less heat. Another massive advantage of ARM RISC processors are the significantly lesser manufacturing cost than CISC alternatives from Intel. This is evident in the android mobile market for the past few years where even the budget phones have octa-core ARM based Qualcomm processors running at higher speeds than most mid-range laptops with lesser cores and clock speed, while also being just a fraction of the cost.

But, what Intel x86/AMD_64 CISC processors dominate is in the much more rich and complicated availability of instructions, which means for a given clock speed, it will perform significantly better than any RISC chip. Basically it means, even if an ARM processor and Intel x86 processor has the exact same core count and clock speed, the Intel processor will utterly destroy the ARM processor in terms of raw processing power due to the much more capable instruction set. The downside to this is that to get to the same clock speed and core count as the ARM processor in the first place, the Intel processor requires around 10x more electric power and produce much more heat, which in turn requires a robust cooling system to maintain.

Basically for all categories such as cost to performance ratio, the TDP to performance ratio as well as from an Eco-friendliness perspective ARM based processors are much better but till now, Intel/AMD processors are ahead on the sheer performance dept by using a *** ton more electricity and wasting a lot of it in the form of heat. Things would have been somewhat closer if the software manufacturers optimized for ARM and made ARM-specific codes for PC. Right now honestly in the PC market, ARM does not have a fair chance simply due to a lack of software support. Once the playing field is leveled in maybe a decade, ARM will match Intel/AMD processors in performance at a significantly lower cost. Also with trivial heat output, there would not be any need of dedicated coolers, allowing PCs to slim down further.

In the future, ARM will definitely overtake Intel/AMD with the inevitable advent of viable game streaming trivializing hardware requirements as well as the fact that both Microsoft and Apple are pushing ARM in their trademark laptops, which will result in more software support. The primary thing holding back ARM is the desktop market, with all modular designs where you can assemble your own parts like RAM, GPU to make a PC. ARM on the other hand, is made for closed systems, which means the processor, RAM is attached to the motherboard directly by the manufacturer and the end user can not realistically change anything in their system apart from storage options. This is another reason why ARM dominates the mobile market as they are closed systems where in the desktop scene, a closed system goes against the very ethos of PC building.


Okay, now on the gaming side of things, let me clarify some things. Most gaming engines were made for Intel/AMD processors which support both consoles and PCs. Most engines like Unreal and Unity have extended support for ARM based devices but they are not exact 1:1 instead more like unoptimized ports. As such, only games which have been made with also mobiles in mind are directly portable to ARM based devices, i.e. recent battle royales like PUBG, Fortnite. Even especially as we have seen in PUBG mobile, there is zero performance parity to the PC versions even in high-end phones. For standard PC games, which were not developed with ARM devices in mind, to work in ARM devices, a simple rule of the hand requirement is that it must also work on absolute potato machines. We already some classic games like that working on ARM devices such as GTA Vice City/San Andreas.

@BlueRaven I see you have mentioned WoW as one upcoming game for the Apple ARM based Macs. This is exactly the case here. ESO and WoW are on two extremes on hardware requirement. WoW runs on just about any PC I have seen regardless of specs. ESO can bring a fairly powerful PC to its knees in any endgame scenario. As such, WoW being ported is a no brainer, as current ARM chips are more than powerful enough to handle WoW. Seeing the performance issues of ESO, I can say with confidence that it will take a significant amount of time before ARM chips can handle a power hungry game like ESO at close to acceptable frame rates if at all.

Currently, both Microsoft Surface X and Apple M1 devices depend on emulation to run x86_64 software popularly known as Surface Emulation SDK and Rosetta 2. I used to work on the development of a PS2 emulator called PCSX2 in my college years, I will tell you from experience emulating an environment to run full 3D applications requires significantly processing and GPU power than the original system. As such, cross-architecture emulation will never able to 3D application reliably enough.

Not to make this an nerdy microprocessor discussion and agree with most you say.
But as I understand it ARM is much better than x86 for smaller chips, this is why it both was very interesting back in the 90s and why it rules phones.
But an modern high performance chip is 90% cache and branch prediction who would be pretty much the same or not dependent or ARM or x86?
Yes risk would still have an power advantage and modern cpu are thermal throttled. But I feel the difference should be fairly small unless the inner core logic uses much more power than the parts who are equal like branch prediction, cache handling and FPU.

Nintendo uses an risk cpu, same did Xbox 360 and PS3 also had an risk core. Its not an lack of games for these systems however I think game developers are happy PlayStation and Xbox run x86.

Pretty sure you could make an modular ARM system, however as they tend to be small devices this is not very relevant.
It would be for an ARM based server however. Apple however is not an huge fan of mudularity.

Finally the GPU part is very relevant as its also an power hug playing games, current and last generation consoles integrates gpu and cpu. this has the benefit of fewer parts and fast communication between cpu and gpu but increase the thermal load significantly, Its an reason why the current generation is to large

Why is not this used more on laptops?

etchedpixels

So as an ex OS engineer and also for some of that time Intel engineer much of the above looks like an escaped (and out of date) vendor advert

RISC died in the 1990s, for everything but low performance/low power devices, killed by memory bandwidth limits, and then by hitting the 3-4GHz wall and thus a cycle time ceiling (time you can issue one instruction).

All modern high performance processors are multi-issue, speculative machines that break instructions down into micro-ops, run them in parallel and sort the results and effects back into order the other end so they look like a classic processor. People have tried other models but for general purpose compute massively parallel hasn't made it except as support (eg your GPU), Non-coherent, non-ordered machines make programmers heads explode so are only good for special cases.

The Apple ARM CPU is IMHO a big deal if they can make it work well and extend on it. Remember Ryzen gen 1 versus today - this Apple is the gen1. However it's not about RISC/CISC and other such prehistory.

Most low end laptops do have integrated graphics. Intel have done it for decades (but not very well on performance until very recently), AMD do it, most ARM setups do it. The killer is thermals though - if it's on the same piece of silicon it shares the same power budget and the smaller you make something the less power budget you have.

jircris11

Malkiv wrote: »

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/59187

Well, all users, really.

This will not affect current Mac users, of course, that are using Intel-based solutions. However, how does this kind of announcement make you feel in terms of support, or playability, or confidence, etc.?

Personally, I'm conflicted. I understand that it would be very difficult and time consuming, with no promise of an return. Sure, Firor mentions Stadia as a possible solution, but that makes me groan so hard. It kind of feels like, "Oh, hey, there's this shiny new gaming platform we have, you should use that for a massively subpar experience." What about when the Stadia goes the way of almost every other Google-launched service (looking at you Google+)?

Sadly this is apple's fault, why bother spending resources reworking an entire game just so new mac's can.play it. It's a stupid move on apple's part, but then again I personally would never get anything apple after working as a CSR for them.

fred4

catnamedwill wrote: »

As an microprocessor engineer working in the chipset design dept of Qualcomm(one of the biggest ARM based processor makers) for more than an decade, we have produced several ARM chips already for Apple iphones and several Android phones, as well as one of the first PC based ARM processors in Microsoft Surface X. I see some general misconceptions being spread here and I could help clarify those.

Firstly ARM processors are Reduced Instruction Set Computing microprocessors where as Intel x86/AMD_64 processors are Complex Instruction Set Computing microprocessors. ARM being RISC chips are much more power efficient and hence can get higher clock speeds than CISC chips while using a fraction of the required power input, hence also producing much less heat. Another massive advantage of ARM RISC processors are the significantly lesser manufacturing cost than CISC alternatives from Intel. This is evident in the android mobile market for the past few years where even the budget phones have octa-core ARM based Qualcomm processors running at higher speeds than most mid-range laptops with lesser cores and clock speed, while also being just a fraction of the cost.

But, what Intel x86/AMD_64 CISC processors dominate is in the much more rich and complicated availability of instructions, which means for a given clock speed, it will perform significantly better than any RISC chip. Basically it means, even if an ARM processor and Intel x86 processor has the exact same core count and clock speed, the Intel processor will utterly destroy the ARM processor in terms of raw processing power due to the much more capable instruction set. The downside to this is that to get to the same clock speed and core count as the ARM processor in the first place, the Intel processor requires around 10x more electric power and produce much more heat, which in turn requires a robust cooling system to maintain.

Basically for all categories such as cost to performance ratio, the TDP to performance ratio as well as from an Eco-friendliness perspective ARM based processors are much better but till now, Intel/AMD processors are ahead on the sheer performance dept by using a *** ton more electricity and wasting a lot of it in the form of heat. Things would have been somewhat closer if the software manufacturers optimized for ARM and made ARM-specific codes for PC. Right now honestly in the PC market, ARM does not have a fair chance simply due to a lack of software support. Once the playing field is leveled in maybe a decade, ARM will match Intel/AMD processors in performance at a significantly lower cost. Also with trivial heat output, there would not be any need of dedicated coolers, allowing PCs to slim down further.

In the future, ARM will definitely overtake Intel/AMD with the inevitable advent of viable game streaming trivializing hardware requirements as well as the fact that both Microsoft and Apple are pushing ARM in their trademark laptops, which will result in more software support. The primary thing holding back ARM is the desktop market, with all modular designs where you can assemble your own parts like RAM, GPU to make a PC. ARM on the other hand, is made for closed systems, which means the processor, RAM is attached to the motherboard directly by the manufacturer and the end user can not realistically change anything in their system apart from storage options. This is another reason why ARM dominates the mobile market as they are closed systems where in the desktop scene, a closed system goes against the very ethos of PC building.


Okay, now on the gaming side of things, let me clarify some things. Most gaming engines were made for Intel/AMD processors which support both consoles and PCs. Most engines like Unreal and Unity have extended support for ARM based devices but they are not exact 1:1 instead more like unoptimized ports. As such, only games which have been made with also mobiles in mind are directly portable to ARM based devices, i.e. recent battle royales like PUBG, Fortnite. Even especially as we have seen in PUBG mobile, there is zero performance parity to the PC versions even in high-end phones. For standard PC games, which were not developed with ARM devices in mind, to work in ARM devices, a simple rule of the hand requirement is that it must also work on absolute potato machines. We already some classic games like that working on ARM devices such as GTA Vice City/San Andreas.

@BlueRaven I see you have mentioned WoW as one upcoming game for the Apple ARM based Macs. This is exactly the case here. ESO and WoW are on two extremes on hardware requirement. WoW runs on just about any PC I have seen regardless of specs. ESO can bring a fairly powerful PC to its knees in any endgame scenario. As such, WoW being ported is a no brainer, as current ARM chips are more than powerful enough to handle WoW. Seeing the performance issues of ESO, I can say with confidence that it will take a significant amount of time before ARM chips can handle a power hungry game like ESO at close to acceptable frame rates if at all.

Currently, both Microsoft Surface X and Apple M1 devices depend on emulation to run x86_64 software popularly known as Surface Emulation SDK and Rosetta 2. I used to work on the development of a PS2 emulator called PCSX2 in my college years, I will tell you from experience emulating an environment to run full 3D applications requires significantly processing and GPU power than the original system. As such, cross-architecture emulation will never able to 3D application reliably enough.

Your post seems a good historical summary, but also feels a bit off to me. Your last paragraph is contradicted by videos showing contemporary-ish games - later ones than ESO and a demanding single-player one (Shadow of the Tomb Raider) - running better on the M1 Macs than their Intel predecessors. I also think you're overstating ESO's requirements. As I said before, I run it on a Core 2 Quad, a Q9650 overclocked to 3.6GHz. This has a Cinebench R20 single-threaded score of 224 - roughly half that of a modern CPU of early 2020 (before Tiger Lake / Zen 3). It runs fine. Yes, framerates are bad in big battles in Cyro, but I've played on faster machines and, while framerates improve, the server-induced lag still dominates the playability issues with the game.

Linus Sebastian mentioned an interesting factoid about the M1 hardware. They baked some Intel-like consistency models into the M1. I don't know exactly what that means, except thinking maybe it has to do with what's atomic and what's not. Basically, without supporting the x64 instruction set in hardware, they did make architectural changes - or added options - that made it possible for Rosetta 2 emulation to reach the speeds that it does, far in excess of what emulation normally can achieve, e.g. 60% to 80% of native speed. That means it's probably better than my old machine I've been running ESO on for the past 5 years.

I'm also a little confused by your assertion that ARM allows for higher clock speeds, when the Apple CPUs top out at something like 3.2GHz, vs. Intel and AMDs 4GHz to 5GHz, even in laptop parts.

Banana

Crapple

TokenIntellect

Acknowledge the obvious: Mac OS has never been the premier gaming platform.

But blaming Apple for this is just silly. Apple has been telegraphing that this was coming for years. If Zenimax couldn't be bothered, then that was a decision that– barring complete incompetence— would have been made long before Apple unveiled the M1 earlier this month.

Now, if @catnamedwill is right that end-game performance would suffer with the M1, then it's absolutely unsurprising that ZOS would be uninterested in porting the code. They have demonstrated time and again they only value one sort of gamer— and it isn't the ones who care chiefly about TES lore, music, architecture, characters, or setting. You don't have to look much further than #TamrielTogether to see what they do care about— "challenging group activities and PVP." The whole year-long-story running straight through dungeons thing (with ever-more repetitive and derivative story and ever-more expansive group play) is part of that same philosophy. That's always seemed a little misguided to me given the rich history of the franchise. But I think it's more than that.

I'm sorry to say, but ESO is a big bloated mess of conflicting code that has been through so many devs hands that I don't think there's anyone currently employed who knows how to sort it out. ZOS has been able to get by essentially offloading the ever-devolving kluge onto CPUs and GPUs, relying on their consumers' buying new hardware setups to still barely run code that was already out-of-date years ago on a nearly decade-old engine. And if you think I'm blowing smoke, remember that Matt actually stated it out in the open, "It is a huge undertaking to port a product as old, large, and complex as ESO to a new CPU, with no certain outcome of success."

Thing is, they can't get their current updates to run reliably on any platform, and their record on the Mac is worse than other platforms. So while it's disappointing that ZOS is willing to entirely write off a subset (or a subset of a subset) of their player base, it's totally in keeping with how they've been treating Mac users for the past few years.

tonne.backlinderb16_ESO

This is a long thread so I might have missed it but has anybody tried ESO on a MAC with the M1 processor?

winterscrolls229prerb18_ESO

Understandable. I have macs but play eso on windows. Arm macs would essentially be 2 mac versions, not worth it. Not like apple are even being civil about making it easy for developers.. the programming ecosystem evolves every year along with the os version numbers to keep everyone on the hardware treadmill. Unless you step off it that is.

At least it can keep going until the next significant engine change for the people still running it. Hopefully the next gen enhancements are covered. Or are the next gen enhancements just bringing the console up to the pc version?

fred4

tonne.backlinderb16_ESO wrote: »

This is a long thread so I might have missed it but has anybody tried ESO on a MAC with the M1 processor?

Nope. That would help this thread a lot, but probably not on the cards yet.

biminirwb17_ESO

I used to manage an Apple Centre, I have always used a PC for games.

BlueRaven

tonne.backlinderb16_ESO wrote: »

This is a long thread so I might have missed it but has anybody tried ESO on a MAC with the M1 processor?

I found a short Reddit thread in which someone claims to have ran it from their new MacBook.

“Actually, the situation is even better than I thought. I was running it connected to my TV from MBP. The lid was open so it was running two monitors. When I closed the lid my TV was suddenly getting full power. Everything is much smoother. Even higher frame rate. This thing is truly amazing. I will try to do another quick video.”

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/jw0e5r/has_anyone_tested_eso_on_the_new_m1_macbooks/

But other then that nothing.

MrMacRight’s YouTube channel (An apple focused gaming channel) has so far tested 49 games with mostly positive results. Here is one of those videos;

https://youtu.be/Cu8gEq-Os_E

But has yet to test ESO which is telling. Although about a year ago the channel did rate ESO 7th in their top ten mmo’s for Mac, so testing ESO may not be a priority for them.

Apple M1 chips are continuing to get very positive reviews, even Linus Tech Tips say they are looking good.

https://youtu.be/6v0kb9qUeAo

Which is great since these current M1 models are the entry level “low end” products for the Mac line. The actual iMacs and the like should have much faster processors. So if these slower M1 processors are handling games better then the higher end intel models, it’s only a positive sign for what’s to come.

BlueRaven

Update: I found this Google docs spreadsheet about Mac games on the Apple M1 chips.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1er-NivvuIheDmIKBVRu3S_BzA_lZT5z3Z-CxQZ-uPVs/edit#gid=0

Running on a MacBook Air M1 (The one without a cooling fan), with 16GB through steam;

1440x990 - 60FPS on medium settings
1440x990 - 30FPS on high settings

Both of which are better than my iMac.

TineaCruris

People who buy niche products should not expect to be catered to. They should accept the support and business model they have opted to buy into.

zaria

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=947op8yKJRY
LInus point on this and I agree with him.
Apple don't care about gamers and power users.
I seriously think they push the macs into the into the iphone ecosystem and marketplace as its there they make the money, loosing 20% of the base is not an issue as they was also problematic users demanding performance and backward comparability who is bad for the bottom line.

BlueRaven

zaria wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=947op8yKJRY
LInus point on this and I agree with him.
Apple don't care about gamers and power users.
I seriously think they push the macs into the into the iphone ecosystem and marketplace as its there they make the money, loosing 20% of the base is not an issue as they was also problematic users demanding performance and backward comparability who is bad for the bottom line.

That video is over a year old and is actually pretty good evidence about why Apple changed. You want to know why Apple switched? CNET explains it here;

https://youtu.be/7ssi9UIm94g

Spoiler:

Intel did not want to make iphone chips, and then Intel messed up their own Skylake chips.