ED Odyssey also runs just fine on Apple Mac Mini (M1) computers.

[jim25]

Hi just remember the most games start off on phones and who make's sells the most phones "Apple" as the M1/M2 chips are deriver from iPhones then the writing is on the wall
for x86 code. Microsoft/intel really need to get there finger out or there will be only one computer system which will not be good for anyone with out competition the costs will be shy high

 

[Old Duck]

Hi just remember the most games start off on phones and who make's sells the most phones "Apple" as the M1/M2 chips are deriver from iPhones then the writing is on the wall
for x86 code. Microsoft/intel really need to get there finger out or there will be only one computer system which will not be good for anyone with out competition the costs will be shy high

FWIW, I'd love ARM to win. I'm a big proponent of cheap, low-power (yet still powerful) processors over the old bloated CISC x86 "fry an egg while playing a game" processors. But for ARM to really win, this means compiling the code from source to ARM binaries, without a conversion / emulation layer.

I also am not a huge Apple fan (which is ironic, because I used to be, to the point where they signed my paychecks). I want ARM to win, not just the proprietary "partically locked behind closed doors" M1 / M2 variants of ARM. To be honest, I'd actually prefer RISC-V to win, but that's kinda up there with wishing for the year of the Linux desktop.

 

[xythum]

ED Odyssey also runs just fine on macOS Monterey (latest version), using Parallel's Desktop Pro 17 (for ARM & M1), with MS Windows 11 Pro (for ARM), on Apple Mac Mini (M1) computers.
When the prices came down a bit, I wanted to give the recent Apple chip processors (M1) a go, as I have been using Apple computers since the early 1980's, with the Apple IIe computer.
I don't really have that much experience in using Linux operating systems, only having used about 15 of their versions over the last 3 years.
I have however been using Apple computers as my backup computers over the last 30 years or so, and using Microsoft Windows PC's as my main everyday computer.

What I have discovered recently, is that ED Odyssey will run just fine on the latest version of Ubuntu Linux, with Steam and Litrus (with default settings). I am starting to reliase however, that
maybe ED Odyssey does not require Lutris any more, to run successfully. Just Steam using Proton, may be enough to run ED Odyssey, successfully, without any fault.

I am now in a position, I believe, to choose between my Apple Mac Mini (M1 with 16GB RAM) computer or Ubuntu Linux running on a amd64 / x86 based PC.
I think for the performance value and the reliability factor, and fewer things to go wrong, I will have to choose the Apple Mac Mini (M1)

I now have this Apple Mac Mini (M1) computer sitting in our lounge room, near the 43" LG HD T.V (using this as the monitor too), all configured with a wireless Logitech
mouse and keyboard (combo) to run my favourite Steam games (MS Flight Sim 2020; No Man's Sky; Star Citizen and ED Odyssey). I still have a few more things to do,
in order to get Star Citizen to run, as at the moment it does not like the Apple M1 processor. Well, eventually, I hope to get all my Steam games to run just fine. Oh, yeah,
I forgot to mention, for a controller, at the moment I am using the XBox Series X controller, with great success.

Kind regards,
Howard Pew.

Skipping over all of the pointless Mac-bashing, can you clarify how well it's running? Graphics settings etc?

 

[badibeat]

Except the academic interest, i fail to see why someone would go through all the hurdles for this.

To have everything in a single computer, or to buy only one computer even if you could afford a second one maybe?
To use a streamlined user interface that the company actually invests a lot in?

For me it's not academic: What works on a Mac mini also works on faster, bigger, meaner Macs ; )

I run Odyssey on a 2017 MacBook Pro, also when I am at the in-laws or on holidays etc. If possible I run games natively, but Elite sadly forces me to use BootCamp and Windows.

I don't see the point of having a dedicated Gaming PC nowadays. To crank up the heat during summertime? To take up more space in crammed megacities?

Someone explain this to me. The only way I see this working is if Windows for ARM emulates an x86 processor, converting CISC to RISC on the fly. That works fine for a Commodore 64 emulator, but I can't imagine this being efficient for running a modern game on an ARM-based processor, unless the M1 is so much better than equivalent Intel / AMD processor to compensate for the conversion overhead. This is way different than running x86 Windows code on x86 Linux.

Even most Windows programs (CIL code in .NET assemblies) are only pre-compiled and become fully compiled on install or so (not necessarily on the fly). There are so many differences between processors that a simple binary would run poorly if at all. Virtualisation software can make use of this and compile the code for better ... virtualisation and to enhance isolation etc.
Ever wondered why Windows .NET updates take so much time? now you know.

Apple had in the past Rosetta which allowed to run PowerPC code and APIs on Intel hardware. It lacked the Floating Point Unit emulation, but was otherwise quite efficient.
Now for transition to their M1 / M2 (ARM based) platform they just did something very similar with Rosetta 2 to execute programs built for intel Macs.



Some other things I experienced:
My obsession is also with music. I once built a Windows machine with server case etc. To run my music production stuff and some games. That was a failure.
A Power-PC Mac at that time gave me much more stable experience and better i/o for less money, even though it had actually less CPU power.
Apple had to focus on efficiency due to a lack of power and more control over their hardware, whereas Microsoft kept on coding badly and messy.

Today, with Intel compiled Digital Audio Workstation applications (DAW) that run on a M1 Mac using Rosetta 2, you can achieve much lower latencies than on Intel Windows. And if the DAW are properly compiled to run natively (ARM) they are even faster.

One more thing concerning the Hardware:
With current CPU / GPU setups, you should have high bandwidth between the CPU and the RAM, the GPU and the VRAM and through the PCI bus which connects them, and of course it helps to have a lot of memory.
Apple's M1 / M2 etc. just integrate this into a single chip and if the width and/or bandwidth of the memory get improved all parts benefit. A fast and efficient interconnect is much cheaper to integrate on the chip level.

In my opinion Apple's hardware tends to be well worth the money; customers bleed for extra memory (both RAM and SSD), and power users have to suffer veeery long update cycles.

 

[badibeat]

FWIW, I'd love ARM to win

ARM already won.

 

[Old Duck]

ARM already won.

If that were true, the Steam Deck would be running an ARM variant rather than an x86 variant. You can say ARM won the phone and tablet market, but it's not yet won the desktop or console market, which is still the preferred platform for serious gamers.

 

[Old Duck]

Even most Windows programs (CIL code in .NET assemblies) are only pre-compiled and become fully compiled on install or so (not necessarily on the fly). There are so many differences between processors that a simple binary would run poorly if at all. Virtualisation software can make use of this and compile the code for better ... virtualisation and to enhance isolation etc.
Ever wondered why Windows .NET updates take so much time? now you know.

I missed this reply somehow. AFAIK most games are still written in C++ with C and even assembly snippets for those highly-optimized routines. The only game I own that I know is written in C# is Space Engineers (though others may well be). Even then, I'm having a hard time picturing Space Engineers running on an ARM processor, but I suppose it it were running on Wine with Mono compiled for ARM, perhaps?

As I replied to the other fellow (wait, that was you, LOL), if running Windows programs on an ARM processor is trivial, why did the Steam Deck go with an x88 class processor rather than a much more efficient ARM processor?

 

[CmdrKull]

Apple had to focus on efficiency due to a lack of power and more control over their hardware, whereas Microsoft kept on coding badly and messy.

I’ve always attributed this to why so many great coders came out of the Amiga ecosystem. When Rockstar made GTA, many of the veterans at the company had come up learning to code to the limits of a 68k processor with 512 kb of ram and no hard drive

 

[badibeat]

As I replied to the other fellow (wait, that was you, LOL), if running Windows programs on an ARM processor is trivial, why did the Steam Deck go with an x88 class processor rather than a much more efficient ARM processor?

There's a gap between making "an" efficient ARM processor (you have probably several in your Wifi, TV, Phone) and an ARM based system that can compete also price-wise with Intel or AMDs current CISC. And like in higher level computing many things boil down to i/o. Apple has a long history in being dependent on other chip manufacturers for microcomputers, has experience with several generations of predecessors and is filthy rich.

 

[badibeat]

If that were true, the Steam Deck would be running an ARM variant rather than an x86 variant. You can say ARM won the phone and tablet market, but it's not yet won the desktop or console market, which is still the preferred platform for serious gamers.

Changing platform would also mean changing them for developers of games. That's a lot of inertia to shift. Apple has power / monopole to do that (and I was not always happy with some changes. I am still on the last MacOs that can run 32-bit software).

A platform for serious gamers needs to (in my opinion):

1. be affordable to get a solid player base
2. have enough power to comfortably run performance hungry games which are optimised for that platform.
3. have or attract plenty people willing to pay for the games with up-front money, subscriptions or worst of all their data / ads.
4. have titles gamers want and attract programmers to create them.
5. allow the player to use their tools of choice (controllers, VR etc.)

I'd agree that not all of these points let the Mac ecosystem shine as it currently stands. But it helps if the platform is highly useful for other tasks as well.
Per Pareto Principle, you don't have to suit everybody to max out profits.

What such a platform doesn't really need is:
endless posts about overclocking, tweaks to get some things running that just should...

 

[CMDR Von Abrahart]

I would love to see the performance and stats in a video and see what graphics it can run. I’m still confused how its got complied for ARM Windows. Video and proof please.

 

[Zed]

Someone explain this to me. The only way I see this working is if Windows for ARM emulates an x86 processor, converting CISC to RISC on the fly. That works fine for a Commodore 64 emulator, but I can't imagine this being efficient for running a modern game on an ARM-based processor, unless the M1 is so much better than equivalent Intel / AMD processor to compensate for the conversion overhead. This is way different than running x86 Windows code on x86 Linux.

Don't get me wrong, I love ARM, but if you're going to be running mostly x86 compiled code, it seems wiser to just get an x86 processor, no?

As I understand it most of EDO will be .NET and .NET apps are 'compiled' to an intermediary code and then a just in time compiler runs when you start the app that converts to native code so the .NET part of EDO would run as native ARM using the native ARM .NET runtime and presumably very little if any code runs emulated.

 

[Old Duck]

As I understand it most of EDO will be .NET and .NET apps are 'compiled' to an intermediary code and then a just in time compiler runs when you start the app that converts to native code so the .NET part of EDO would run as native ARM using the native ARM .NET runtime and presumably very little if any code runs emulated.

I'd love to get a second opinion on this. I totally agree with you about how .NET could run on ARM, but I was under the assumption Elite was written in C++ rather than C#.

Now my beloved Space Engineers, on the other hand, is written in C#.

 

[EdzUp]

You mentioned the M word which is enough to get some rushing to defend their threatened OS with its shaky over 90% market share and effective monopoly

Heck i still think win98se was the best OS M$ released

Tbf ive been coding on my pi4 a lot lately as well

 

[Northpin]

To have everything in a single computer, or to buy only one computer even if you could afford a second one maybe?

I already have that and it's an asus laptop sporting ryzen 9 5900hx, rtx3080/16gb, 32gb ram and 2x1tb m2 ssd.
And it can run anything and everything i can throw at it, as is, without having to waste my time trying various intermediary layers

ARM already won.

Nope not yet
Arm will win when Intel and Amd will make the switch, Windows will run on Arm along with the entire library of games

endless posts about overclocking, tweaks to get some things running that just should...

Well, by overclocking people get a better value from their money.
Not so much currently compared whit the golden age of overclocking - and i'm not bothering with it anymore (my first overclock was dx2/66 running at 100mhz sometime in the first half of 1995) - but it's this enthusiasm towards overclocking that got intel into invest and release turbo-boost feature.

 

[DrinkyBird]

As I understand it most of EDO will be .NET and .NET apps are 'compiled' to an intermediary code and then a just in time compiler runs when you start the app that converts to native code so the .NET part of EDO would run as native ARM using the native ARM .NET runtime and presumably very little if any code runs emulated.

The only .NET part of ED is the launcher; the actual game client is written in C++ and is compiled to native x86 code.

 

[badibeat]

I already have that and it's an asus laptop sporting ryzen 9 5900hx, rtx3080/16gb, 32gb ram and 2x1tb m2 ssd.
And it can run anything and everything i can throw at it, as is, without having to waste my time trying various intermediary layers

It is a workaround until this and other games ported or updated. I'm optimistic.

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

I'd love to get a second opinion on this. I totally agree with you about how .NET could run on ARM, but I was under the assumption Elite was written in C++ rather than C#.

Regardless of what language ED was written in, it (and its dependencies such as the bundled video/audio decoders) is native x86 code, not an interpreted language like .NET.

Windows-on-arm has x86 emulation built into it, to allow it to run x86 apps. It's not great performance-wise (and has more than a few bugs when trying to emulate x87 instructions, but those are mostly used by older apps). The last time I tried using it to run ED it didn't even make it to the first startup screen without crashing, so that combined with Odyssey's high system requirements make me very skeptical of OP's claim that it runs "fine".

 

[Zed]

I'd love to get a second opinion on this. I totally agree with you about how .NET could run on ARM, but I was under the assumption Elite was written in C++ rather than C#.

Now my beloved Space Engineers, on the other hand, is written in C#.

Yup you're right. I knew the install had needed .NET but it looks like it's only for the launcher as this command reveals.
tasklist /m "mscor*"


Image Name PID Modules
========================= ======== ============================================
EDLaunch.exe 4480 MSCOREE.DLL, mscoreei.dll, mscorwks.dll,
mscorlib.ni.dll, mscorsec.dll, mscorjit.dll

 

[Morbad]

CISC vs. RISC is a largely meaningless distinction at this point. Every modern x86 CPU is effectively an RISC part with a small fraction of it's transistor count dedicated to decoding chunkier instructions.

Also, ARM and x86 are ISAs; they dictate very little of the hardware implementation.

As I replied to the other fellow (wait, that was you, LOL), if running Windows programs on an ARM processor is trivial, why did the Steam Deck go with an x88 class processor rather than a much more efficient ARM processor?

It's not exactly trivial...there is still a fair performance overhead and only Apple themselves have high-end x86-64 binary translators...namely Rosetta2, which typically offers in the ballpark of 75% of native x86 performance on an M1.

Anyway, the real question is where is Valve going to get one of these "much more efficient" ARM processors, that both meets minimum serial performance requirements and is still more efficient after the overhead of converting x86 code? What GPU are they going to pair with it? Valve doesn't design processors and AMD doesn't make large, high performance, ARM processors.

Apple could probably build better Steam Deck hardware, if they wanted to, but they don't have the gaming software ecosystem, and they'd probably want to charge $2k for it because it would be essentially a custom Macbook Air. Apple probably isn't going to sell Valve a custom SoC with a gaming worthy GPU and license them Rosetta2 at any reasonable cost, and no one else has a plausible ARM SoC that is up to task. An NVIDIA or Samsung SoC isn't suitable as they currently only have Cortex-based parts, which are too slow, and Samsung probably doesn't have a competitive manufacturing process for this segment. Qualcomm can build Snapdragon cores on competitive TSMC processes, but those aren't significantly better than the top Cortex cores, and they'd still need to integrate that with someone else's (almost certainly AMD or NVIDIA's as the other options are too slow) GPU design.

In the end any path other than the one they took would probably have resulted in a less powerful, less efficient, and more expensive Steam Deck than just doing what they did and getting a cheap semi-custom x86 SoC from AMD, who already has suitable CPU and GPU architectures, plus copious wafer allotments on advanced TSMC nodes.