HOW IT WORKS
Mesh shaders & ray tracing
The key technologies for the future of games on Apple devices
Ray tracing can create highly realistic lighting effects, including reflections and shadows in games.
YOU WILL LEARN
About mesh shaders and ray tracing, and their use in games and computer graphics
Key fact
Most PCs designed for playing games have a main computer chip, known as the CPU (central processing unit), and a separate graphics card or GPU (graphics processing unit) that handles demanding graphics work. In contrast, Apple’s M-series of processors use a design known as SoC – System on a Chip – that combines multiple CPU and GPU cores in a single piece of silicon.
You can see how well your Apple devices handle ray tracing using the 3DMark app for Mac and iOS.
Apple’s recent investment in gaming
has surprised many people, including old timers like yours truly who have been disappointed by Apple’s historic lack of interest in games.
Cynics might suggest that this sudden enthusiasm for gaming has arrived just as Apple is looking for ways to boost sales of its expensive Vision Pro headset, but whatever the reason we should probably just make the most of it and hope that we can look forward to seeing more triple-A games arriving on the Mac at last.