Ok, so I get Mac gaming isn’t the best, but I was looking at benchmark scores and they do really well. So like a 5070 ti (mobile) gets about 1800 in steel nomad, a M4 Max 32 core gets about 3000. But in actual games it’s nowhere near a 5070 ti, even in Mac arm native games.
So is it just a really crappy software design or bad supporting development or something? It seems like the hardware is more than capable.
TL;DR: Apple’s restrictions on what software you can install and “our way or fuck off” philosophy have doomed serious gaming on their hardware, and ARM is not great for gaming atm.
Think about it this way - Mac’s software frameworks are not the primary focus for the vast majority of game developers (Metal was considered “do not touch” for the longest time for people not making mobile games), and Apple doesn’t have an incentive or true motivation to try to move their frameworks more towards the standards on Windows, Linux, etc.
Also, ARM in general (while it can produce great results when software is tuned for it) is just not a good way to play games designed for x86. Valve is trying with FEX, but to do so on a Mac is sort of compounding the misery (translating the x86 game then translating the DirectX/Vulkan framework to something the Mac can use will eat your performance alive).
Additionally, the 100% self inflicted “Think different™” problem on Mac for developers is the mandatory fees and the requirement to use Apple hardware to build and ship software for people to use in the “official channels”. That might be something a company like Adobe is willing to stomach, but not most game developers.
Addendum: Also Apple’s history with shitty cooling solutions and voltage limits means the CPU/GPU probably wouldn’t be able to perform to their greatest potential anyway compared to a traditional desktop pc.
Okay, as someone who owns both Linux PCs and a MacBook, while I fully don’t think anyone should ever get a Mac for gaming specifically, what on earth are you talking about with “restrictions on what software you can install”?
You can 100% install anything you like on your Mac. Yes, if it’s not signed, the OS will decline to run it by default, but you can very much bypass this if you choose to (one time authorization - I.e. clicking ‘open anyways’ and entering your password - in privacy & security settings is all that is needed).
The ‘Mandatory Fee’ for App Store access and the code signing (to prevent users needing to ‘open anyways’ as I described above) is $100/yr, which may indeed shut out some indie game devs, but isn’t any sort of contributing factor to actual game studios not supporting macOS (in fact, many game studios that support iOS still don’t support macOS even though they’ve already paid the fee and macOS can straight up run iOS apps by default). No, the general lack of macOS game support is all down to other policies and priorities at Apple.
So let’s criticize Apple for stuff they actually do (like iOS App Store lock-in, in most markets, and not caring about giving more than the bare minimum of support for any gaming that isn’t mobile generally) and not invent specious claims that aren’t accurate.
Let’s be honest with ourselves - if user is required to open privacy and security settings to run games, that is a massive deterrent to the overall userbase to use games and software not rubber-stamped by Apple (even though I am aware that power users don’t have to abide by that).
As someone who has worked as an IT contractor with a required MacBook, I am aware that there are ways to install software not completely endorsed by the walled garden, but that is a single digit or less percentile of the userbase who will even try.
Thanks for highlighting the iOS/MacOS distinction though. It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed the documentation (never published a game but was working with a client who was at the time).