Anyone playing on Apple M1 chip?

Just wondering if there is anyone playing on the new Apple M1 chip and what the performance is like.

Not a heavy gamer, so thinking if Mac Mini with new M1 chip going to run it at 1440p low-medium setting at 60fps (during massive screen effects/projectiles)?

Thanks.

i don't like salty chips.

I would wait for the next version of the M1 chip, no name yet, but lets call it the M1z chip.
It will probably come out in April, and be put in Mac Mini's, Macbook Pros and IMacs.

The current M1 is designed for power efficiency, not for computing power.

The M1z (or what ever they call it) will be the one you want for gaming.

It will be MUCH stronger than the current one....
And...
AND...

It will take a few months from now to work out all the bugs in the new software, give time for more apps (GAMES) to come out with Arm native code, etc.

Right now, i think World of Warcraft is the only major game that has come out with Arm native code.
Reports are the new M1 macs run WoW great, but WoW is more of a CPU hog than a GPU hog.

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Raniyah1994 wrote:

According to Apple, Up to 8-core GPU, The most advanced graphics processor we’ve ever built. So, I think playing on it will be nice in Graphic ends

According to actual testers, the M1 chip's GPU is a little better than nvidia 1050 ti.

You can run PoE with a 1050 TI on low settings...

But, the Mac version of PoE is x86 code, not Arm code, so it will have to run in emulation, thus much lower performance.

As I mentioned above, best to wait for the spring release of more powerful version of the M1, that should be optimized for performance rather than power consumption.

The review videos are not gushing about the M1 because the chip is insanely powerful, but because the chip is INSANELY powerful for a 10 watt TDP.

"

xyeno wrote:

Not a heavy gamer, so thinking if Mac Mini with new M1 chip going to run it at 1440p low-medium setting at 60fps (during massive screen effects/projectiles)?

Computers which only have integrated graphics (read: no video card) aren't known for running games at 1440p in any circumstances, much less during hectic combat in an ARPG.

"

Sarno wrote:

Computers which only have integrated graphics (read: no video card) aren't known for running games at 1440p in any circumstances, much less during hectic combat in an ARPG.

The M1 chip is not like ANY chip ever made, and should not be compared to any previous APU.

FYI, I am NOT an Apple fan boy, I am an ARM fan boy.
I have even tried in the past to use a ARM desktop computer (fail!)

So I have been following Apple's transition to ARM in their computers.
I have been watching dozens of hours of reviews.
I have been reading many many technical articles on the M1.
I plan on buying one shortly.

The first thing to know, is that the M1 is NOT just a move to ARM, it is more importantly a revolutionary change in how computers are made.

The M1 has memory, a CPU, the GPU, a dedicated machine learning module (of 16 cores no less), and some other modules that do encoding, secruity, and more.
This integration of nearly all motherboard functions onto one chip allows it to perform far better than similar components arrayed traditionally on a old motherboard.

This first iteration of the M1 is a super low power chip, designed for laptops.

It has leaked from Apple, that they did not plan on putting it in a Mac Mini, but the M1 was massively out performing their own internal expectations, so they decided it was powerful enough to put in the Mac Mini.

According to many independent testers, the GPU in the M1 tests out similarly to a nvidia 1050 ti.
This is ASTONISHING, as the M1 is a 10 Watt TDP chip.
It is as much or more powerful performance than AMD's best APU, which I believe is a 60 watt TDP chip.

As far as gaming, yes, a nvidia 1050 ti is good enough for many games at low settings.

BUT Path of Exile does not have a ARM version, nor is it likely to happen in any time soon, and running PoE on emulation, on the equivalent of a nvidia 1050 it, is gonna be a HORRIBLE experience.

I would NOT get a current M1 mac to game on, its a 10 watt TDP chip, after all.

But...
But...
But...

Sometime in 20201, most likely in Spring 2021, Apple will come out with the next iteration of the M1.

This chip will NOT be focused on pure power efficiency.
It will likely be a compromise, some power efficiency, some compute power.
It will likely be a 20-30 watt TDP

It will be put in the high end Mac Book Pros.
It will be put in the high end Mac Minis.
It will be put in the low end IMacs.

This "M1b" chip will have integrated graphics, BUT, it will have the GPU power of a modern discrete GPU, exactly how powerful, I dont know, but likely somewhere around a nvidia 2060.

It will completely destroy the idea that you cant have good gaming on an APU.

If you want to game on the Mac, wait for these to come out.

or...
or...
or...

Sometime, in the next 18 months, Apple will come out with the 3rd iteration of the M1 chip.
This will be put in their high end IMacs, and the Mac Pro.
It will be purely focused on power.

You could wait and buy one of these to game on.

It likely will be the fastest chip comercially available, and have graphics performance equal to or better than any discrete graphics cards.

Now, of course, everything I have said about future M1 upgrades is pure speculation on my part, based on my ARM fan boy fixation, that has led to a LOT of research on anything ARM related.

P.S.
Why am I such an ARM fanboy?
Answer: Power efficiency.
A while back I read the account of the booting of the first test computer with an ARM cpu.
The power supply turned out to be broken, but the cpu still booted, just from some power leakage coming through.
The researches realized they had inadvertently invented a cpu that uses a fraction of the power that an x86 uses.
And to this day, ARM chips use a fraction of the power x86's use.
This is why all phones and most tablets use ARM.

Once enough research money is put into desktop ARM cpus, ARM gpus, the sky is the limit for how powerful they can become, as any gaming pc ethusiast knows, getting rid of all the heat generated by custom, over clocked, CPUs and GPUs is one of the biggest hurdles to getting more power.

Heat dissapation just won't be an issue any more.

P.P.S
Here is a video of a guy trying dozens of games on the new M1 Mac.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0uSekj1A2M

I automatically thought Mac version of PoE supported ARM chips instead of emulating with Rosetta 2, but I guess not.
Not a fan boy of Apple as well but I love their direction of change into producing their own ARM chips. Based on the benchmarks I saw from playing other games, I do think ARM chips is the future. Apple is on its way to dominating low-moderate gamer ecosystem with its chips. In the end, there are more low-moderate 1080-1440p gamers than 4+ hours/day 4k gamers.

Thanks boys and girls, I'll likely wait for 1 or 2 generations until more powerful Apple Silicon chips are coming out and games start supporting ARM.

FYI
My M1 Mac Mini arrived, and just for giggles I tried to run PoE on it via Steam.

It crashes as soon as the "play" button is clicked.