Your Mac Game Is Probably Rendering Blurry
I’ve submitted the issue described in this post to Apple as FB13375033. This issue has been open since September of 2023.
If you game on a MacBook display – your game is probably rendering wrong unless you’ve adjusted your settings. If you’re a developer building a full screen game in AppKit (or Catalyst) – Apple’s APIs have some issues you need to be aware of.
[…]
The problem with Apple laptops is they have a notch at the top of the display. The full screen area your game runs in is not the same resolution as the screen. Most games do not account for this problem. They output frames sized for the entire screen instead of the region they can draw to. This output is height compressed and blurry.
[…]
The problem is that these resolutions [from
CGDisplayCopyAllDisplayModes()] are mixed in a single list with no built in way to filter.Worse yet – most games default to the first resolution on the list.
Previously:
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Even better, the game publishers should "own" the notch. Use the full screen without scaling, but make a point of not putting any important information in the top-center region below the notch.
Putting status information in the corners, next to the notch means more unobstructed screen real estate on the lower part of the screen.
I gave up on Mac gaming a while back. It's extremely clear that Apple's approach to games is of course through the App Store and Apple Arcade. If that doesn't have what you want, don't bother with Steam or god help you Epic Games Store or anything like that.
Between the odd resolutions and the display scaling and the notch and the APIs and the fact that all the games are ported from other platforms, Mac gaming is just always going to be a second class citizen.
More than Linux at this point ironically.
When choosing an uprated GPU option as an extra expense on a Mac now costs more than a console like an Xbox Series X, and the game experience is worse, you really have to question why anyone thinks there's anything that can make Mac Gaming viable.
Games systems need to be be:
- Cheap and long lasting, 10 year-plus new game release windows with no security-based obsolescence (Console)
- Expensive, much higher quality, but upgradable (PC Gaming)
Apple chose the expense and rapid obsolescence of PC Gaming, paired with sub-console game rendering quality. Nuts & Gum, together at last.
