
Valve drops VR support for macOS - BSVogler
https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/01/valve-drops-vr-support-for-macos/
======
Danieru
Mac is a horrible platform to support for video game developers. Speaking from
experience the issues are:

1\. No cross platform builds allowed. We can compile to Windows, Linux,
Android, Switch, PS4, Xbox One all from one windows build machine.

2\. Shifting sand of non-backwards compatibility. Notice how of the above list
everyone except Linux and Android have solid back compat stories. Video games
are in development for 2-3 years, and stay on the market for 5+ years with no
planned recompiles. So a 7 year period of support after inital build machine
setup is expected, anything less is going to get your platform side lined.

3\. Small market. Mac users make up a share of sales similar to Linux. "What
are you talking about! Linux is 1% while Mac is a whole 4%!", nope! Those
numbers are the same insignificance per a video game business plan. Platforms
with such low sales, like Stadia, might be support provided the platform owner
pays porting costs.

4\. Culture. Steve Jobs disliked games, it shows in Apple's support.

5\. Horrible hardware. Supposing you've decided to ignore all the downsides,
and the small upside still appeals to you. Now you have to tune your game to
run on hardware which would put cheap Wal-Mart machines to the test. Apple's
install base is almost all integrated older intel GPUs. If you do not support
Metal, then you are forced to support these old intel integrated GPUs with
bonus hacked up OpenGL drivers.

All points are ones I am speaking from experience on. We shipped TINY METAL on
MacOS, the lack of cross build delayed the release. The horrible sales numbers
meant carrying forward support was a net drag on the game. All further games I
work on do not get MacOS ports for these reasons.

~~~
ashtonkem
I will say that the newer MBPs have _decent_ video cards. They’re not great,
but they’re ok-ish.

~~~
gumby
Unfortunately due to the mobile architecture you can’t sync frames. This is
true on the windows side too but there you can get a “gamer” laptop which has
a desktop cpu and video architecture. We could only demo castar for example On
a gamer laptop or a desktop. Even a cheap desktop worked great.

I’m a Mac user and develop on the Mac so you might think I’d bend over
backwards to make an excuse, but...not possible in this area. Those gpus do
render beautiful pictures and can do some cool gpgpu crunching, but aren’t
appropriate for gaming.

~~~
willis936
>can’t sync frames

What does this mean?

~~~
teddyh
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_tearing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_tearing)

~~~
willis936
Right, but display buffering is a solution to the vertical sync issue that has
existed for as long as raster graphics. You can’t buy a GPU without it.

Now that I’ve had more time since I read the post, I think they may have been
referring to adaptive refresh rate.

~~~
wtallis
I don't think adaptive refresh rate is what that post was referring to.
Instead, I think it was referring to the difficulty in doing frame
synchronization when the game is running on the discrete GPU but the display
is connected to the integrated GPU. But I don't know how Apple's hardware is
set up on that score.

~~~
gumby
Yeah, the problem was making sure we didn't have screen tearing. T he only
path to video was through the mobile integrated graphics interface even when
using the external graphics chip. On a desktop CPU you can DMA into graphics
memory directly and get the frame sync.

I think you have to do this if you want to be able to switch between
integrated and external. Which we didn't care about but perhaps most people
do?

~~~
wtallis
> I think you have to do this if you want to be able to switch between
> integrated and external. Which we didn't care about but perhaps most people
> do?

Most people need to be able to power down the discrete GPU when they're done
gaming in order to have reasonable battery life, and the most user-friendly
way to make that possible is for every application but the video game to use
the integrated GPU.

------
mekanicalsyncop
Everyone's talking about the slower hardware. IMO the biggest hurdle to gaming
is Mac OS's baked in mouse acceleration and whatever else makes 100% of mice
feel absolutely terrible on a Mac. Even the magic mouse feels janky.

I followed a bunch of online guides to do everything I can to disable the
acceleration and everything else, but for some reason when I try to play a
game it still feels terrible. Even when the game has a high framerate the
mouse never feels smooth.

Tried multiple MBPs. Multiple gaming mice from multiple manufacturers, etc.

Has anyone ever had any luck making a mouse feel as smooth as it does on
Windows? If so, what did you do?

~~~
p1necone
That's disappointing - I've never used a Mac but the first thing I do on new
Windows PCs is turn off "enhance pointer precision" (mouse acceleration) in
control panel. It's awful for anything where you have to aim, I can't imagine
gaming on a system with mouse acceleration that can't be disabled.

~~~
ascom
FPS games typically use raw input, which bypasses any acceleration settings in
the OS. This works on both Windows and macOS, assuming the game is properly
written. This is why I insist on keeping mouse acceleration enabled since it
helps with everyday computing tasks and has no effect on at least the games I
normally play.

Regarding the comment above, it is definitely possible there are subtle
configuration differences that cause the described behavior (different
acceleration curves, polling rate/DPI settings, display refresh rates, etc).
FWIW, my “gaming” mouse works fine with my MBP, but it takes a moment to
readjust to the different sensitivity and acceleration behavior.

~~~
mekanicalsyncop
Getting rid of Mac OS's acceleration isn't simply a matter of clicking "raw
input" in a game's options.

Even if you use the command line to actually disable it for some reason the
mouse still feels off.

If you google, for example "counterstrike mac os raw input" or something
similar, you'll see lots of posts about people having the same issue. The raw
input setting doesn't work properly. Granted the posts are from a couple years
ago. The last time I tried to play a game on a Mac was probably around 2018. I
tried every workaround I could find on the internet and it was still terrible.

What I described has nothing to do with a difference of sensitivity or polling
rate/dpi. Although if a person is unfamiliar with those things they could have
an issue with them.

~~~
ComputerGuru
I don’t think you understand what raw input means. It doesn’t mean telling the
OS you don’t want it to mess with your input, it means bypassing the userland
OS input framework entirely and grabbing the input at a lower level preventing
the default OS stack from even processing those input events.

A well-designed game would do that, anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised if the
counter strike port for macOS doesn’t qualify as such.

~~~
mekanicalsyncop
I understand what it means. There's an option in CS and it doesn't seem to
actually do anything on Mac OS. Its one of the most popular games ever created
and unlike many AAA devs Valve is still actually really good at what they do.
If they can't get it right on a Mac it doesn't inspire much confidence that
its an acceptable gaming platform.

Can you name an online FPS with a decent sized community with proper raw input
on Mac OS? I'd be willing to give it a shot and see if its different. There
are plenty of games that aren't CS that people have complained about over the
years.

Also, raw input or not I was talking about multiple issues. Every mouse I have
ever used on the 2 MBP's I've had felt terrible and nowhere near as smooth as
the same mice on a PC even for general desktop use. Even Apple's mouse feels
pretty bad.

I don't really know why, their touchpads are amazingly smooth and responsive.

~~~
ascom
GeForce NOW seemed to handle raw input correctly when I tested it on macOS.
Though that's more of a game streaming thing.

Regarding Apple's mice, the Magic Mouse has a rather unusual polling rate of
90 Hz (likely to save energy), which probably explains why it feels awful to
use.

~~~
ashtonkem
Magic mice are also dicey ergonomically, imho. Best to avoid in general.

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ashtonkem
I remain skeptical of the long term viability of VR; I’m old enough to
remember when 3D TVs and monitors were going to change the face of both TV and
video games, and yet here we are.

I priced out VR recently and I was unimpressed with the price per value
available, with most systems adding $500-$1,000 to my gaming system’s cost,
and some requiring that I modify my room to work properly. And that’s not even
accounting for the high cost of a VR capable gaming rig, if you don’t own one.
This is a pretty steep financial and logistical hill to climb given the
current set of titles available.

~~~
Taek
Yeah but have you played beat saber?

I'm dead serious though the experience you get in a good immersive VR rig is
completely unrivaled. Well worth the hassle and overhead. This will get better
as costs come down and developers continue to innovate.

~~~
ashtonkem
Obviously I have not tried beat saber. If it’s that amazing, I wouldn’t be
posting cynical takes on VR.

I think one of the problems of VR is one of cost and credibility. Even if I
knew you personally and trusted you, there is no way in hell I’m going to
float thousands of dollars getting a new gaming PC, VR headset, and
customizing my room for the full setup just because someone said it’s amazing.
The risk/reward ratio for that is just insane, and not in a good way.

Heck, even $500 for an entry level setup is a pretty dicey proposition,
assuming my PC can lift it. $500 can buy me a lot of non-VR gaming
satisfaction with effectively 0 risk.

If it was $200, I’d consider it.

~~~
Taek
My house is open, any friend who wants to give beat saber (or half life, or
space pirate trainer, etc.) a spin is welcome. No need to spend $1000 without
getting a proper demo.

I know not everyone has a friend with a high spec rig, but that is improving
over time as well.

~~~
wpietri
You can also just rent. I rented one here:
[https://www.lensrentals.com/rent/oculus-quest-all-in-one-
vr-...](https://www.lensrentals.com/rent/oculus-quest-all-in-one-vr-
headset-128gb)

For a try-before-you-by thing, I'd recommend doing 2 weeks. For the first few
days, it was, "OMG, the future!" Then for a few days it was, "Not
overwhelming, but still cool!" By the end of the 2 weeks, though, we were
happy enough to return it.

------
iphone_elegance
Apple feels like it's about as blind to where graphics and gaming are going as
Microsoft was to mobile. in the end it's probably for the best though

------
fortran77
There's a small market, little developer support, and they don't support
NVidia graphics. Not worth doing. Good for Valve.

------
baby
I don't understand why a Mac is such a bad platform for gaming, what is the
technical challenge here? Can someone enlighten me?

~~~
tonygrue
As the article alludes, lack of a build your own, flexible yet affordable
desktop option seems to be a pretty deadly aspect.

Pretty much Mac owners are on laptops. Even in the PC world few laptops can
power VR. Those that do tend to be bulky for cooling and have nVidia GPUs;
both things which MacBooks seem unwilling to have.

Having a extensible desktop at 1k that supports nVidia would probably go a
long way.

~~~
sysbin
As a gamer with a macbook pro. I just use shadow to play games over the cloud.
Otherwise I would invest in a eGPU. So it's not like apple gamers are missing
out if they want to game with good graphics.

~~~
deadbunny
> Otherwise I would invest in a eGPU. So it's not like apple gamers are
> missing out if they want to game with good graphics.

You're not going to get very far without drivers an you'll be stuck on OpenGL
4.1 and Metal. That and you'll have the problem that there are less games
built for MacOS than Windows an Linux + Proton.

Investing in a GPU for MacOS for gaming would be a huge waste of money IMO.

~~~
sysbin
People can bootcamp if they want to run windows with a good gpu on their
laptop. You're also missing the cloud gaming part.

~~~
iphone_elegance
I'm not sold on cloud gaming yet, I gave pubg on stadia a whirl today (on my
google fiber) and it was somewhat laggy and blurry compared to even my not-
highend rx580 which only cost me about what a year or so of stadia would (not
including the games)

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FloatArtifact
It's not surprising considering if Apple pursues their own arm based laptop /
desktop implementation 2021/2022?

What kind of impact will that have on the ecosystem?

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jonny383
Good riddance.

~~~
olliej
To Mac or VR? Based on the threads here either is possible :)

~~~
kbumsik
to Mac I guess. At least Valve is betting on VR.

