Any update on Mac M1 OS Version?

[SKJimmy]

Hey, just wondering if there is any update on a planned Mac version of the game?
(Or if there are Mac Users here, what do you use to play the game?)

Thanks!

[yoru]

M2 mac user here, I play it with my window gaming pc tbh (I'm not being sarcastic, just answerin your question). With Portia they added a mac version like almost a year after the pc was completed. By the time Portia mac came out I'd already moved on/cleared it ages ago. So don't expect it to be soon, if ever, esp since Sandrock seems so incredibly heavy even for pc. They have to quash all the bugs, finish all the updates on windows first, survive the console ports, then they even start to consider a mac version.

[Aerogems]

Give the M-series are SoCs that have their own GPUs, and there's no option to add your own aftermarket GPU, it likely complicates things quite a bit for porting games. They may be fine for your average desktop type tasks, but they aren't likely going to hold a candle to any of nVidia or AMD's recent offerings.

Good news is, Sandrock is more CPU intensive than GPU, but bad news is it, still requires a bit of work. For starters, based on a quick bit of Googling, it doesn't appear as if Apple supports the Vulkan OpenGL API directly, so they can't take some of their work for the PS5 or Switch and apply to to a Mac port. They could try using a third party lib or porting it to Apple's Metal API, and both approaches have their drawbacks. You also have to factor in things like how much of the necessary features does Apple's GPU support? Like, do they have a T&L engine? Do they support any kinds of anti-aliasing? There's likely a long list of features common in nVidia and AMD cards that Pathea used which may or may not exist in Apple's GPU. The total tally, along with how integral those functions are to the game will determine if it's realistically feasible to even bother just from a technical standpoint. Who knows if there'd be enough of a market to justify the expense assuming it is technically possible.

The Mac platform has never really been great for gaming, but the M-series just made it even worse by turning their computer lineup into giant tablets. I would not be holding my breath to see a Mac port, and even if one eventually does come out, I'd put the odds of the M1 being on the supported list as being low. I'd give the M2 even money right now. You can always hope I'm completely off base with my analysis, and maybe I am, but if you want to play the game right now, either play it on the Xbox or PlayStation platforms, or get a PC.

[SKJimmy]

Originally posted by yoru:

M2 mac user here, I play it with my window gaming pc tbh (I'm not being sarcastic, just answerin your question). With Portia they added a mac version like almost a year after the pc was completed. By the time Portia mac came out I'd already moved on/cleared it ages ago. So don't expect it to be soon, if ever, esp since Sandrock seems so incredibly heavy even for pc. They have to quash all the bugs, finish all the updates on windows first, survive the console ports, then they even start to consider a mac version.

yeah I assumed it might be similar to Portia, even though they commented on a different mac os compatibility question that it might be attacked after the release. I played through a good half already (before my windows laptop broke down beginning of the year haha), so I haven't played for a good year now, and considering if I should give paralels or whatever the windows mac versions are called a try, or even cloud gaming (even though it can get expensive)

[SKJimmy]

Originally posted by Aerogems:

Give the M-series are SoCs that have their own GPUs, and there's no option to add your own aftermarket GPU, it likely complicates things quite a bit for porting games. They may be fine for your average desktop type tasks, but they aren't likely going to hold a candle to any of nVidia or AMD's recent offerings.

Good news is, Sandrock is more CPU intensive than GPU, but bad news is it, still requires a bit of work. For starters, based on a quick bit of Googling, it doesn't appear as if Apple supports the Vulkan OpenGL API directly, so they can't take some of their work for the PS5 or Switch and apply to to a Mac port. They could try using a third party lib or porting it to Apple's Metal API, and both approaches have their drawbacks. You also have to factor in things like how much of the necessary features does Apple's GPU support? Like, do they have a T&L engine? Do they support any kinds of anti-aliasing? There's likely a long list of features common in nVidia and AMD cards that Pathea used which may or may not exist in Apple's GPU. The total tally, along with how integral those functions are to the game will determine if it's realistically feasible to even bother just from a technical standpoint. Who knows if there'd be enough of a market to justify the expense assuming it is technically possible.

The Mac platform has never really been great for gaming, but the M-series just made it even worse by turning their computer lineup into giant tablets. I would not be holding my breath to see a Mac port, and even if one eventually does come out, I'd put the odds of the M1 being on the supported list as being low. I'd give the M2 even money right now. You can always hope I'm completely off base with my analysis, and maybe I am, but if you want to play the game right now, either play it on the Xbox or PlayStation platforms, or get a PC.

yeah i assumed it might be quite difficult, even though it might maybe even be easier since they already have the transfer experience from portia windows to mac, that maybe sandrock might get the mac compability earlier.

I'm not too deep into the tech side of gaming though as you seem to be, but they stated that a mac version will be in work after release in a old mac post here, so I still have my hopes high up.

Getting another console is not an option though, but thanks for the recommendation :)

Lot's of steam games are actually not compatible with the mac, but especially lots of similar simulator games are! Some probably use different engines, but it does not seem to be the rarest most complicated procedure from my minimal understanding :)