Apple MacBook Pro with M1 Chip Can Now Run Cyberpunk 2077 at 14 FPS on Ultra Settings

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A MacBook Pro with M1 chip is capable of hitting 14 FPS in Cyberpunk 2077, according to a video that has been shared online that shows CD PROJEKT RED's game running on Apple hardware at Ultra settings. The video follows Apple's announcement of a new Game Porting Toolkit during this week's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) event that appears to make it very simple for developers to port Windows games to macOS. Apple's M1 chip features an eight- or seven-core integrated GPU, although it's been surpassed by more powerful options that include the newly announced M2 Ultra.

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I want to talk smack but you have to start somewhere and yeah, for an older iGPU that isn't bad. After watching the video they skim through the settings and it's not totally on ultra, there are more than a few settings on high. Resolution 1440x900

In doing a quick search, I'm sure we have a story here somewhere about this too, but the Steam Deck does ~30-40 on high settings at 1200x800. Here's a vid of it with different settings.

 
I bet it could do better if it weren't for the inherent limitations of Apples Metal API significantly choking it.

Still, those 4090 claims by apple were bullshit.
 
That they're getting it running at all is kind of a big deal.

Apple has focused primarily on building out their Arm desktop ecosystem, and gaming was predictably on the back burner. They're showing that they can translate modern DX12 games, and it looks like developers have the tools to do much of that work beforehand too.
 
The Game Porting Toolkit was the best news to come out of WWDC by far
 
Brian_B said:
What were those? The M1 tested here was introduced years before the 4090.
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Maybe I am thinking 3090. I can't remember. At some point at or around the M1 launch it was compared by Apple to a top end Nvidia GPU. I'll have to google it to refresh my memory.
 
LazyGamer said:
That they're getting it running at all is kind of a big deal.

Apple has focused primarily on building out their Arm desktop ecosystem, and gaming was predictably on the back burner. They're showing that they can translate modern DX12 games, and it looks like developers have the tools to do much of that work beforehand too.
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There was a similar thread over on the H recently where someone (DukeNukemX)quoted Codeweavers attempts at API call translations into Apples Metal as follows:

"In general, Metal does tessellation differently, and is missing geometry shaders and transform feedback. Specific to DirectX 12 and Metal, there is an issue with limits on resources. Generally, games need access to at least one million shader resource views (SRVs). Access to that many SRVs requires resource binding at the Tier 2 level. Metal only supports about 500,000 resources per argument buffer, so Tier 2 resource binding isn’t possible. Metal’s limit of half a million is sufficient for Vulkan descriptor indexing, but not for D3D12. This limitation means CrossOver Mac can't support Tier 2 binding and therefore a lot of DirectX 12 games will not run."

So yeah, translating DX12 into Metal on Apple seems like a real problematic affair that will be hit or miss. Vulkan has more promise.

But then there is this:

"Another problem is that DirectX 12 uses GPU virtual addresses (VAs) to refer to resources for several things; most significantly ray tracing. According to Vulkan, their buffer device address (BDA) extension allows for the creation of complex data structures required for ray tracing, and useful for DirectX 12 porting. However, Apple has yet to add support for VAs or BDAs, insisting that existing argument buffer support is sufficient for what games want to do. While this may be technically true, it requires game designers to make a targeted effort to run on Metal. It is difficult for translation layers (i.e., MoltenVK or VKD3D) to support BDAs/GPU VAs on top of argument buffers, because argument buffers require you to encode the buffer reference into a separate argument buffer, which makes it more comparable to a Vulkan descriptor set or a DirectX 12 descriptor heap."

So who knows, other than Yes, this is a real challenge, and it is impressive that they have gotten it to work at all.

Apple have done a lot of things right lately, but their Metal API seems to be the exception, and is holding them back. It's not that it is bad per se, but it is different enough from everything out there that translation layers are very challenging to make work as is porting. You really have to write the thing from the ground up with Apple in mind if you want to run it well on Apple.

All of that said, even if the translation layer were perfect (never going to happen) eschewing differences in architectures and just looking at raw computing power for the GPU we have the following:

M2 Max chip = 13.6 teraflops

2080ti = 12.6
3060 = 13
3090 = 36
4090 = 82.6

(Summarized by Nenu in that same thread)

So we are essentially dealing with 3060 levels of performance at best, which is nothing to scoff at for a built in GPU in a machine from a brand that does not have a gaming focus (I mean compare it to Intel IGP's and AMD's APU's) but it is also not going to excite any enthusiast gamers, and it may make Apple fans a little disappointed considering how they are used to bragging about how superior the hardware their daddy's credit card bought them is.
 
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Zarathustra said:
Apple fans a little disappointed considering how they are used to bragging about how superior the hardware their daddy's credit card bought them is.
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It's 3060-level performance that gets 18+ hours on a battery....

That, and I don't think the intention is for developers to ship games to run on Game Porting Toolkit with no changes - that's a developer tool for developers to tweak for porting to Mac OS. Sure, Metal isn't the same thing as DX12 - just like Vulcan isn't the same thing as DX12 either. So you expect there to be some changes needed when targeting a different API.

The fact that stuff is running at all, with no changes at all to account for those differences, is the minor miracle.

For all it's faults and shortcomings, Metal is the among the largest and most used gaming APIs out there - although most of those "games" aren't full blown AAA experiences, most of them aren't that on the PC either. There's nothing that says if this starts to take off that Apple couldn't, or wouldn't revise the Metal API to be even easier to deal with.

A lot of developers still won't fool with it - it's another code base to work up and maintain, and it has a pretty small user base which aren't traditionally big AAA game spenders.
 
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If apple wants to increase its footprint give me native dx 12 support on the m series cpus under the current Mac os. Honestly between native office 365 and dx 12 I'd probably move my personal laptop refresh to targeting a high end MacBook.
 
Grimlakin said:
If apple wants to increase its footprint give me native dx 12 support on the m series cpus under the current Mac os. Honestly between native office 365 and dx 12 I'd probably move my personal laptop refresh to targeting a high end MacBook.
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That would certainly make it a more attractive device, but I don't think I'd buy it either way, when my decade old thick Latitude E6540 does everything I need it to, has a MUCH better keyboard, and only cost me $200 (plus a few bucks in parts on ebay and some elbow grease to make it look brand new)

Sure the Radeon HD 8790M is a little dated, but I don't play games on laptops anyway. Most I ever do on it is some light web browsing and ssh:ing, primarily for home IT needs (like setting up that switch, etc.) or to have something to use for light browsing/office/etc. while on the road. Everything else I do on my proper desktop. The i7-4810MQ may be a little old, but it still does all of that just as well as any modern laptop CPU.

I mean, battery life wasn't great back then. Even with a brand new battery (which is replaceable btw) I'm probably not getting much more than 2 hours, but who cares? I can just plug it in. I'm almost never more than arms reach away from an electrical outlet.

And I also have the added benefit of being able to easily replace and upgrade parts on it. Want more RAM or replace the wireless card? No problem. I can even replace the two SATA SSD's without even taking the cover off.

It's going to be a sad day when these things are no longer usable as absolutely nothing modern appeals to me. Modern "laptops" are really just Ultrabooks, and are more consumer devices than they are computers, and I absolutely hate that.
 
Zarathustra said:
That would certainly make it a more attractive device, but I don't think I'd buy it either way, when my decade old thick Latitude E6540 does everything I need it to, has a MUCH better keyboard, and only cost me $200 (plus a few bucks in parts on ebay and some elbow grease to make it look brand new)

Sure the Radeon HD 8790M is a little dated, but I don't play games on laptops anyway. Most I ever do on it is some light web browsing and ssh:ing, primarily for home IT needs (like setting up that switch, etc.) or to have something to use for light browsing/office/etc. while on the road. Everything else I do on my proper desktop. The i7-4810MQ may be a little old, but it still does all of that just as well as any modern laptop CPU.

I mean, battery life wasn't great back then. Even with a brand new battery (which is replaceable btw) I'm probably not getting much more than 2 hours, but who cares? I can just plug it in. I'm almost never more than arms reach away from an electrical outlet.

And I also have the added benefit of being able to easily replace and upgrade parts on it. Want more RAM or replace the wireless card? No problem. I can even replace the two SATA SSD's without even taking the cover off.

It's going to be a sad day when these things are no longer usable as absolutely nothing modern appeals to me. Modern "laptops" are really just Ultrabooks, and are more consumer devices than they are computers, and I absolutely hate that.
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What about that brand Linus of ltt is invested in. Seems interesting and has some of those upgradable features that are neat.
 
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