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Gaming on Mac has yet to really take off for a variety of reasons, but 2022 is looking like we could start to see that change. Apple’s M1 chips have a lot of potential, and while they don’t quite rival current GPUs when it comes to games (opens in new tab), have given Mac gamers some hope for the future.
Now at Apple’s WWDC event, the company is set to offer some more surprisingly game specific technology. Alongside its new M2 chip, Apple announced what it’s calling MetalFX Upscaling (opens in new tab) to work with the proprietary Metal 3 graphics framework for macs.
It’s described as a temporal reconstruction system that allows upscaling of lower resolution graphics to help games run more smoothly. There’s also the ability to load intensive assets directly from the GPU thanks to another API.
This happens to sound a lot like other upscaling offerings for PCs like Nvidia’s DLSS or AMD’s FidelityFX. Hopefully the process is similar enough so that it’s an easy move for developers to integrate this into future projects.
We won’t have to wait too long to see these new gaming initiatives from Apple in action. The first games we’re going to get to see use this MetalFX Upscaling will be No Man’s Sky and Resident Evil Village. Both are set to come out on macOS sometime later this year, so at least those looking to upgrade will have something to play.
When it comes to the social side of gaming, Apple has introduced an activity feature to Game Center. This will allow supported games to share information, like what games you’re currently playing and your achievements or scores with your friends on the app. It will also work with Apple’s SharePlay which is integrated into the Apple ecosystem pretty heavily.
Game Center could be expanding to become a much more robust social hub for gaming on Mac, and that combined with actual games to play could really see a surge in popularity for gaming on the platform. If 2022 is the year of the Steam Deck, (opens in new tab) maybe 2023 will be even more surprising with the year of Mac gaming.
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