In an interview, Apple’s product marketing VP Bob Borchers and platform architecture VP Tim Millet discussed the future of gaming on the Mac, the transition away from Intel.
According to Millet, Apple did not want to build a trend of gaining a few percentage points of performance with each new generation of chips when it was developing the successor to the M1 processor series.
Instead, the company’s goal is to test the boundaries of technology to the furthest extent that it can. According to Borchers, Apple is able to bring together silicon, software, and hardware without having to rely on third-party suppliers because the company moved the creation of the Mac processor in-house.
Borchers and Millet praised Intel for its willingness to accommodate Apple’s needs when discussing the company’s previous partnership with Intel.
Millet, however, suggested that the partnership between Intel and Apple ultimately benefited Apple’s competitor. Borchers echoed Millet’s sentiments regarding Intel’s willingness to take care of Apple’s needs.
When it comes to playing games on a Mac, Borchers claims that Apple believes gaming is becoming better with the release of each new M-series CPU.
According to Borchers, Apple is introducing new application programming interfaces and expanding Metal with Metal 3, which gives developers a great opportunity to develop video games.
Through a gaming lens, Apple plans to continue to look at components and chip configurations. On turning the Mac into a gaming platform, Apple is taking a long view, said Millet.
Millet claims that Apple is actively cultivating a large pool of powerful GPUs for future use. According to Apple, everything from the MacBook Air to the Mac Studio with M1 ultra should have quite capable GPUs. Additionally, he thinks programmers haven’t adjusted to M-series chips.
