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ONI and Apple Silicon (M1) ?


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M1 performance specs feedback in view of ONi...

A million things are going to my head, I better not type them here :black_eyed:

I know you are friendly looking for help.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_M1

Apple is avoiding real technical comparisons of their products with Intel and AMD, keeping things in the Apple Bubble.

ONi is a CPU demanding heavy game, it runs well on CPUs which draw +100 watt power and with systems which shift a lot of heat away with good cooling ( optimal: no case, +1kilo air cooler or water cooling ).

Yes, it would be nice if ONi also runs and sells great on everything, but its an calculation heavy game.

A lot was written in this forum about game speed and requirements, I don`t want to kill your enthusiasm my friend :p

"The high-performance cores have 192 KB of instruction cache and 128 KB of data cache and share a 12 MB L2 cache; the low-power ones: 128 KB instruction cache, 64 KB data cache, and a shared 4 MB L2 cache. The Icestorm "E cluster" has a frequency of 0.6–2.064 GHz and a maximum power consumption of 1.3 W. The Firestorm "P cluster" has a frequency of 0.6–3.204 GHz and a maximum power consumption of 13.8 W"

With these specs, if you would get ONi running in native mode, I would recommend to play with 1/16 of the games maps size, to reduce the amount of required calculations. If the game could utilize all the pocket calculator cores it would be a better story. Using extensively more cores creates more calculation overhead and makes the game crashier, as too much needs to be calculated in a fixed given amount of time without strong multiple core dependencies.

5 GHz on 1 core, drawing 200 watts of practical power runs the game good, that`s the reality I am afraid. Would instantly fry the tiny A company notebook case. You need a proper gaming notebook which emits hairdryer heat out of the back and the 2 kilo battery is flat after 20 minutes on a fully excavated and built ONi map :black_eyed:

My intention is not to upset you, but its always the same with Apple folks. M1 is a nice efficient, power saving, notebook cpu for Apple world. ONi requires a Ferrari Testerossa, brute force power on 1 core.

Handing you a nice donut and a free beer from me ;)

If it would be great, I would love to tell you. The idea for Klei could be to launch a version with 1/16 map size, if they want to support such specs, just considering cpu speed specs alone and nothing else. There is a reason why proper gaming notebooks are called "The heavy concrete bricks".

CPU thread

 

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Thanks for going through the trouble of answering and no offense taken.

Users have just been able to test new Macs as they were released today. I don't know the technical details nor do I memorize any numbers to be honest but what I took from these benchmarks is that the M1 is very capable CPU wise compared to Intel chips, in fact better in single core than multicore where AMD shines today. The game runs descent on current Macs I can only see the M1 being an improvement. Apple Silicon is not only about power effeciency it's also a performance bump as far as I can tell. I used to play on a 2010 iMac (no hugely developped colony) and it was fine. Hopefully with time we'll see. I'd be really curious to have someone report how ONI performs with Rosetta 2 on a new gen. Mac.

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@PickPay

Thanks for being friendly and open to cpu specs feedback :p

The more Klei can sell the game, on the more stuff the game actually runs...The better chance for us customers to have further dev content coming. Klei initially reduced the map size, as the initial map size was too calculation hungry.

May I know on which CPU you are playing the game ?

ONi scales to this single thread performance list, if you can runs the passmark benchmark and post your score...Then you can compare with all the other CPUs in the list ( if your system supports the passmark soft or if you can emulate it ).

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

Dropping below 2000-2400 in the list can result in rather sluggish low fps on a fully excavated map. I`m hoping for 4400-4800 score desktop cpu at the end of 2021 from AMD.

If one can, I can always recommend proper desktop cpu`s which can draw proper power wattage and have a proper cooling solution for calculation hungry games ( like ONi ).

Achieving 2000 passmark score does not have to be expensive, such used cpus can be purchased as old stock, used for usd10 or found in trash. So if one "Firestorm M1" would achieve 500-1000 single thread pass mark score, one knows what to expect performance wise with ONi.

Real practical specs and practical test results are welcome :afro:

If one has around 1000 passmark score, generating a custom map of 1/8 - 1/16 size ( or fill that amount of tiles with non-calculating/non-simulated Neutronium Cells ) can still be a playable long term fun experience....If one wants to fully play that map and the game in the long run at decent speed.

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Well, ONI is calculation heavy, but probably also memory I/O heavy. It depends what calculations are actually used. Single-float in one thread may not slower on the M1, and memory I/O may not be either. Hence this may or may not work well.

Also remember that Apple had Jim Keller for a while, but before he made the Zen design at AMD. As a side note: Intel and Keller seem to be incompatible, he left after two years for "personal reasons" (a.k.a. "these people are idiots and did not let me do my job"), so do not expect anything significantly better from Intel anytime soon ;-)

That said, it would be interesting so see some real benchmarks on the M1. It will very likely be much slower than a current Ryzen on a lot of workloads, but it may be able to compete on others.

 

 

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My well educated, respected and informed friend, what gets me with Apple in the last 20 years is their increasing degree of shielding all its components from technical comparison, repair, upgrades, available customer information etc.

From a hardware perspective it always was 4-8 times the money for the same hardware pc performance, in regards of cpu, ram etc.

I think the ultimate goal of Apple will be to have everything cast in one die block, basically including the whole board, ram, storage and everything. No repairs, no upgrades, hard reverse engineering - Just one glued up block and cloud connection requirement. Maybe Apple & Tesla will achieve that in 10-20 years. As long as the their users enjoy the fun Apple SoftwareBubble and are ok with regularly throwing their Apple computer block away to trash as they roll software updates and cloud stuff out...It will continue to work, being a computer brick.

I do understand that people just want to plug something in and have it running, no matter what the price for it is - As long the SoftwareBubble is fun and helpful.

They have employed so many thousands of people dozing at their desks, they need to save every penny on build quality, tech spec power and materials. Cloud software is their income anyway, hardware is just a gag for them IMHO.

Its like Microsoft as software trying hardware, everybody knew they are trashing billions and billions more down the drain and was watching for 20 years. The only hardware thing which ever worked for MS was the Xbox as prestige and long term project, that has always been great entertainment stuff for the fans of that. IMHO Xbox and Apple is the same, throwaway bricks.

What Apple did greatly achieve was the transition of terrible to use phones in to usable computer blocks, called smartphones. I never saw that coming.

How would the world have been if Billy would have not saved Apple 20 years ago from bankruptcy and Microsoft therefore would have been broken up as monopolist ? Who knows...

A Starbucks in Apple, a perfect combo - Genius :confused:

@Gurgel If trade is in the game I`ll send you hardware and you send me pizza ! Win Win :lol:

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42 minutes ago, babba said:

How would the world have been if Billy would have not saved Apple 20 years ago from bankruptcy and Microsoft therefore would have been broken up as monopolist ? Who knows...

I doubt very much it could be any worse. Monopolies are the very worst thing for consumers. It could be a lot better though.

44 minutes ago, babba said:

 

@Gurgel If trade is in the game I`ll send you hardware and you send me pizza ! Win Win :lol:

Its a deal. Now, how to I get Stinky (always my cook) to make pizza? 

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I think there was quite some pizza posts on the forum over the years, damn still no pizza in the game !

If shared colony game play is possible we can corporate with our colonies.

We can build Starbucks Dupesnack Outlets everywhere ! I will build a flagships brick store in your base, where we can produce bricks and sell coffee. We`ll take the Pwater, saves money. Dupe complaints cost extra.

image.png.287469fcf58781e12ae46460667c6303.pngimage.png.058b56a2a8bffde8879ef49799e97bd7.png

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For which Apple product cpu type/operating system version would you like to have support ? Could help to get a precise answer from the devs :p The arm cpus ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple-designed_processors

12 minutes ago, PickPay said:

I didn't mean for this to go off topic.

I'd be interested to hear from the devs, while I dont expect a direct response the future of mac gaming and their titles is uncertain.

 

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@Ipsquiggle

Hello dear Ipsquiggle. As people have brought up iPad, Apple OS version specific requests and support for various used Apple CPU types over time, could you perhaps clarify for the Apple community what support for the ONi game is currently for Apple products and what the general Apple future outlook with the game is ? Possible emulation software links or tips could also help Apple users who want to play or buy the game. Thank you :p

@PickPay Ips is a key developer on the game. Hope I could help you :angel:

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8 minutes ago, PickPay said:

Yes so far there is only the M1.

While Apple clearly wants to do their own thing as far as possible, it remains to be seen whether they are successful. The prices are rather high (it is Apple after all) and an unavailability of games would probably be a real issue for some buyers. Also remember that the engine used, not only the game running on top, have to be ported to the M1. At this time that is more than just a recompile, although eventually (decades...centuries) things should get there.

At this time, it is probably not a good idea to buy an M1 Mac for gaming...

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@babba thank you.

@Gurgel the prices are rather low considering the huge leap forward. Probably the best value Macs in the last couple decades.

Yea I don’t plan on buying a Mac for gaming, but if it’s viable then it would be a huge bonus.

I can imagine reprogramming with proper optimization could be a big job... as far as making it compatible, Rosetta2, developed by Apple, is supposed to recompile the application upon first launch to at least make it run with ARM architecture.

Is ONI running on a common API like DirectX, OpenGL or Vulkan (or Metal for Mac, which would make it much easier I believe) or nothing like that ?

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Just a little input on the graphics

"Is ONI running on a common API like DirectX, OpenGL or Vulkan (or Metal for Mac, which would make it much easier I believe) or nothing like that ?"

The cpu does 99% of the work with the game , your graphics hardware basically plays no role with the game. Any cpu which does not draw at least 50 watt power as bare minimum will struggle with game speed, enthusiast players play the game with cpu`s consuming practically 100-300 watts from the power grid. A single core turbo clock high performer cpu is best.

The Arm M1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_M1 also has small cpu cache sizes/shared core caches "...and share a 12 MB L2 cache" compared to highend desktop chips, that will also cause low game speed. Its basically an energy saving cpu for mobiles/standard notebooks which also dedicates certain chip resources for graphics stuff - Which is a waste for certain sim games. Running gpu and cpu stuff in the same die thermally throttles the cpu part, especially if its perhaps in a notebook case. I would love to tell you otherwise my dear friend :afro: That M1 cpu will run more simple multicore games well, but not single core cpu hungry complex sim games like City Skylines, ONi and such.

Its Apples marketing, everything sounds fantastic. "Bionic, Machine Learning blabla Superdupersoundso".

ONi/CitySkylines,KerbalSpace,SoftwareInc vs ArmM1: Its like running a 2 ton car with a lawn mower motor, perhaps that makes it more understandable.

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Your welcome :p

It would be superb if you could someday run the passmark test on a ( compatible ) cpu at hand and if you like, share your single thread cpu performance value with the ONi community.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

If your result in single threading is below, lets say 2000, it will not run ONi well. So looking at cpu`s in the list at +2000 you can compare the tech specs of specific cpus and browse the web for effective comparisons with your dream cpu.

So far Apple propaganda specs on the net indicate that the M1 Arm is a notebook/mobile lawn mower, for gamers any cpu which pulls less than 100 watts power from the grid is a toy.

As mentioned, you can customize a much smaller map. So if you manage to get the game running on whatever you have, there is the possibility to play on a smaller map size.

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Is there a difference between the desktop and mobile cpus which have the same rating?

i have an i5-8259 which has a single core score there with 2246 (i just tested my score extra and its 2255) but around the time i have some rockets build i get only about 13 fps on full speed.

and even those amd ryzen have only scores about 3300 and i think passmark said the maximum score ever was around 3500 so i would think that my framerate would be 2/3 that.

 

I just testet it out: 18 dupes 3/4 of the map discovered cycle 257 with not moving the camera i get 18 fps with moving the camera i get 10-14 that is with a load of mods,

without mods i get 23 fps while holding it still and 18 while moving around but it has hangings and lagging.

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Yes, and i5 do a good job on running the game. Despite what @babba is telling us, there are a lot of sub-100 watt chips that will do fine with the game and a lot of over 100 watt chips that will do a terrible job.

 

For example, the old Prescott Pentium 4 are pretty hot, but they are not going to do a good job running ONI.

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something to consider about the change from intel to Mx chips is the distinction between optimized vs non-optimized software execution.

Native Mac apps and other 3rd party apps quick to the draw will have redeveloped their software to take advantage of how Apple has changed their architecture and optimize accordingly. But that's not a simple task - Adobe has apparently stated that it will take around 6mo or so to make photoshop run natively with the new chips as opposed to it being built 'the old way' but still working on the new Mx chips because they get translated by an internal apple process (i think it's called Rosetta).

Point being that chances are ONI will run faster bc the chip set is better, the whole machine is more efficient and etc., but it won't see the same sort of gains that you'd see out of native Apple apps until Klei redesigns ONI to run natively for the Mx chips and Big Sur.

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7 hours ago, Rainbowdesign said:

Is there a difference between the desktop and mobile cpus which have the same rating?

i have an i5-8259 which has a single core score there with 2246 (i just tested my score extra and its 2255) but around the time i have some rockets build i get only about 13 fps on full speed.

and even those amd ryzen have only scores about 3300 and i think passmark said the maximum score ever was around 3500 so i would think that my framerate would be 2/3 that.

 

I just testet it out: 18 dupes 3/4 of the map discovered cycle 257 with not moving the camera i get 18 fps with moving the camera i get 10-14 that is with a load of mods,

without mods i get 23 fps while holding it still and 18 while moving around but it has hangings and lagging.

Mobile cpus often have smaller caches, consume less power at lower clock rates, have slower board connections and bus speed integration, take reduced power in battery mode, have lower or no turbo clock capability and are often built in to a thermal problematic small space compartment.

The passmark test is good to run, being able to compare with other desktop cpu performers. As you run the single threading test you can compare with other market cpus. From own experience the game scales according to the link list.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

Best achievable performance is to run a cpu without case, board laying bare and with a few kilo heavy air-cooler on top ( noctua nhd15 ) or with good water cooling and with metal heat fluid between the cpu lid and the cooling solution. With good performed cooling, appropriate heavy and capable power supply, max settings in bios and the os and a good board which can pull max power from the grid for the cpu, the max clock speed can run the whole time on 1 core. All of this done well gets the max performance on single threaded games and also max feeds your gpu for all other games.

Cities Skylines as example requires max cpu and max gpu on a fully built hardcore map, whereas ONi doesn`t care much about your gpu.

Wishing you a nice time in the game dear @Rainbowdesign

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@darknotezero exactly why I'd like an official statement on this matter. Also curious about other games (sims/management). Apps may (or may not) run fine with Rosetta2 (Apple's automatic translation to ARM instructions) but proper "recoding" could take performance to the next level. I'm hopeful ;)

I know it can mean a lot of work and they can't justify spending the resources if their Mac client base is only 10-20%. But Apple is making the transition away from Intel over the next 2 years.

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14 hours ago, babba said:

Hey @babba i got 2255 with the passmark measure util.for my mobile CPU

I just wanted to know it means my CPU is as good as a desktop CPU with the same score or if Mobile CPUs are weaker anyways for the reasons you mentioned.

And also if the frames hover like 20 mid game is normal experiences for that or if there might be more problems.

I am Wishing you a nice time in the game too dear babba.

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