Why Macs Really Are Gaming PCs Now
Discover how Apple is positioning itself to becoming a major player in the world of pc gaming.
PC Gamers have long shunned Apple products for not being up to par on the gaming front. In fact, a vehemently toxic divide erupted between PC users and Apple users as a result of this widely accepted perception. Alas, the tides may finally be beginning to turn. Apple is making a headlong push into the PC gaming space. The reveal of its latest lineup of Macs alongside the powerful new M2 chip means that Apple is emerging as a viable competitor in the world of PC gaming.
This became particularly evident when during WWDC 2022 Apple introduced a trailer for Resident Evil Village running natively on Mac hardware. The graphics and frame rate were impressive, to say the least. This astonishing revelation was bookended by a representative from iconic gaming company Capcom coming out on stage to detail how the company was able to bring such a graphics-intensive game to the Mac. Capcom’s presence at WWDC may very well be indicative of a monumental shift in what gaming will come to mean on the Mac.
So why is gaming on the Mac suddenly more feasible than ever? There are a couple of factors contributing to this. First, Apple’s M-series processors are powerful, capable chips. The makeup of the M-series lineup of chips is what facilitates the Mac’s ability to run massively complex games. Simply put, the M-series chips give the Macs the necessary computing power to run the most cutting-edge games on the market. (ie. Resident Evil Village).
However, the real game-changer is what Apple did with its Metal API. The Metal API is a kit that developers use to make games for Apple’s platforms. The revisions Apple made to that API are what is helping to position Apple further in the PC gaming space. YouTube personality Spawn Wave broke down the reasons why in an exceedingly digestible way. He explained that Apple added a Metal FX graphics upscaling technique to the new Metal 3 API. That upscaling technique is what will allow graphics-intensive games to run on macOS at frame rates equal to that of the industry standard. This is a big deal because graphics is an area where Apple always fell short in the gaming space. And it seems like developers, in addition to Capcom are beginning to realize that is no longer the case. For instance, Mac users will soon be able to play No Man’s Sky natively on macOS. No Man’s Sky is an enormous graphics-driven open-world RPG.
It’s certainly exciting to see Apple making a big push into PC gaming with its lineup of Macs. And it will be interesting to see the direction that its gaming initiative takes in the coming years. That being said, with all of the buzz being generated around the Mac’s new gaming potential, it’s easy to forget that Apple is in no way new to the gaming space. It has been a key player in the mobile gaming industry for over a decade because of the iPhone and iPad. In fact, its iOS library of games is so fleshed out that Apple supports its own streaming service called Apple Arcade. All in all, given that Apple has already been knee-deep in games for over 10 years likely means that users can expect exciting things to happen as Apple, at long last, brings its Mac into the mix.
