Apple Silicon Optimisation

[MrBilbo720p]

Hi everyone,

Just sharing my 2 cents regarding ETS2 on Apple Silicon and how it performs.

Firstly, I can say that this game works flawlessly on Apple Silicon (i.e. Apple M1) and it truly is an upgrade for someone like me who is coming from Intel Integrated Graphics. I can pretty much run it at an UW resolution, get 30fps~ at medium/high settings.

In saying that, I believe there is some room for improvement when it comes to performance.

From my experience, this game runs through Rosetta 2 and while it does so brilliantly, are there any plans to further optimise this awesome simulator for Apple Silicon?

Any plans or insights from the dev team would be appreciated.

Best regards!
stickybranches.

[tankedjordi]

I'm in the same situation, hopefully better M1-specific optimizations in the future.

[Wolfgang]

The problem is that for 1) the M1 chip is based on ARM which is not used in normal PCs but in Smartphones and Tablets currently and 2) while the M1 chip is a good CPU, it is a bad GPU for gaming having the performance of an integrated GPU.

[MrBilbo720p]

Originally posted by Wolfgang:

The problem is that for 1) the M1 chip is based on ARM which is not used in normal PCs but in Smartphones and Tablets currently and 2) while the M1 chip is a good CPU, it is a bad GPU for gaming having the performance of an integrated GPU.

Good point however the GPU in the Apple M1 is far superior to any integrated graphics solution out there.

Perhaps AMD Ryzen comes close or surpasses it in certain areas but the M1 is still very competitive, especially since everything is being run through a translation layer from x86 to ARM.

For instance, the M1 can run Dirt Rally at 2560x1080 at Ultra and get 60-70fps and not break a sweat, I'd say that's pretty impressive!

We'll see, I've heard the devs *may* potentially look into this but it isn't something to hold our breath for.

In saying that, I'm quite contempt with the perform I am getting, but I do expect that we'll see better optmisation (hopefully).

[Red Panda]

Any news regarding Apple Silicon optimization?

I am using a M1Pro MBP and thinking about buying the game, but want to be sure to take advantage of the quite stunning GPU capabilities mentioned by @berkiyo in the graphic rendering of the beautiful new DLCs.

[hackintoshchap]

This is an x86 application which is not written for Apple (ARM-style) silicon. This application cannot really be optomized by the developers, instead, you need to speak with Apple to improve the Rosetta 2 software with is a translation layer.

A translation layer has a performance penalty but lets you use x86 applications on Apple silicon.

Either you need to put up with this or consider suitable x86 hardware, using either Windows or Linux to really improve the experience.

EDIT.
One thing that may help is the x86 improvements coming to ETS 2 and ATS later in 2023. these graphical improvements may translate through Rosetta to have a positive uplift and improve image quality.

[Dr. Axel Stoll]

Nah, the game dev has to optimale the game and „translate“ a native ARM port. Apple has nothing to do with optimising other developers software. I‘m not doing your job either, you know what I mean?

Let’s see what the future brings up for ETS and ATS, Performance Right now is ok, but it’s running better via parallels.
Hardware is not the problem here.

Originally posted by hackintoshchap:

This is an x86 application which is not written for Apple (ARM-style) silicon. This application cannot really be optomized by the developers, instead, you need to speak with Apple to improve the Rosetta 2 software with is a translation layer.

A translation layer has a performance penalty but lets you use x86 applications on Apple silicon.

Either you need to put up with this or consider suitable x86 hardware, using either Windows or Linux to really improve the experience.

EDIT.
One thing that may help is the x86 improvements coming to ETS 2 and ATS later in 2023. these graphical improvements may translate through Rosetta to have a positive uplift and improve image quality.

[hackintoshchap]

"Nah, the game dev has to optimal the game and „translate“ a native ARM port."

How many developers do you see who are interested in porting from x86 to Arm right now? SCS are certainly not interested in porting to console. They would like to write for console, but have ruled out any porting publicly.

Apple want developers to write directly for Apple silicon and that comes with a learning curve and financial costs just as Nvidia , Intel and AMD all have competing tech for Windows games.

Apples biggest plus in games running on ARM has been the mobile games written for Apple mobile devices.

[🐺Blue Wolf]

Originally posted by Dr. Axel Stoll:

Nah, the game dev has to optimale the game and „translate“ a native ARM port. Apple has nothing to do with optimising other developers software. I‘m not doing your job either, you know what I mean?

I wouldn't be surprised to see Macs not supported as much tbh. Last Epoch use to support Mac but dropped it altogether when the new chips came out
Apple needs to work with Steam to get Proton running. It's changed Linux gaming considerably.

[Wolfpig]

Originally posted by Veles:

Apple needs to work with Steam to get Proton running. It's changed Linux gaming considerably.

The Library which proton is using to emulate the dx stuff to vulkan is open source......so, if apple wanted it to run, they could do it...if vulkan works on macs..or they rewrite it to work with their api

[mihai385]

macOS user that also likes to game here.
Qualcomm recently launched their new Snapdragon X Plus and X Elite SoCs.
Both synthetic and real-world benchmarks are showing promising results for these new ARM chips on Windows machines, including in graphically demanding games. Let's just hope for an efficient translation and transition going forward, as well as good performance-per-watt (something close or even better than Apple's would be great).

[SaMMy]

I understand this is a title which has been released for quite sometime, and the game runs totally fine on macOS, but I still hope developer can optimise the game for apple silicon. When I gamed on my old intel chip mac, the machine shouted on me as if I was driving a super car instead of a truck. The game should be able to run much smoother and quieter on M-series chip macs.

[hackintoshchap]

Cannot optimise directly for Apple Silicon, only Intel silicon from earlier Macs. Apple use a translation layer named Rosetta 2 between programs and games which were written for x86 technology (Intel and AMD cpus essentially). Apple Silicon is different to normal everyday used X86 technology and uses very different instruction sets.

In time more powerful Apple processors should be able to brute force this transition better - but that is years away and the only way to have better optimisation is for games to be written for Apple silicon directly. There is an argument that programs and games written for Arm directly would require much less translation.

Sorry fellow Apple users - I have one of the last Intel X86 27" iMacs and will be getting a new Apple Mac Mini early next year. The issues you suffer are not easily of cheaply fixed. A top end Mac would help make this experience better, but so would a decent Windows PC as these games are best played on Windows.

[davidlee5240]

Good morning, MrBilbo720p / or other mac users. I hope you are all doing well. Would you all mind telling me the fps after the updates of ets2 (like after 1.51)? Even my laptop worked quite well before but had low fps afterwards. I would appreciate it if you could provide some more details. If it's an inconvenience, it's fine. See your reply.

[J8SUPRME]

Apple Silicon is very impressive hardware. It far supersedes anything Intel has ever come up with - especially when it comes to power consumption. It is however a very different story when it comes to GPU power - AS cannot deliver GPU rendering power compared to modern day PC graphics cards.
AS is ARM based which means a completely different programming language compared to Intel. This also means that ETS2 runs as Intel based via Rosetta 2 on an ARM based Mac. Since ETS2 is Intel based and not programmed directly for ARM the game will not run as good as if it was optimized for ARM.
If SCS were to optimize ETS2 for ARM that would mean re-coding the entire game. And that is not going to happen any time soon - if ever.
If you are a Mac user I highly recommend the NVIDIA GeForce NOW service that supports Steam and ETS2. Let NVIDIA do the number crunching and you enjoy the game on your Mac in a far better experience than you will ever get via Rosetta.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-eu/geforce-now/

[MrBilbo720p]

Yeah, no need for native build just to make a few gamers happy. I recommend using CrossOver or GPTK 2. You can expect over 3x-5x performance. Check this out: https://youtu.be/UNjOWY21qP4?si=0-n4LFEA6DPPzshX&t=202