KSP on Apple Silicon (ARM chips)

[XWB]

Dear all,

I was wandering when will KSP recompile / provide native support to apple silicon Macs. As far as I understand, Unity already supports Apple Silicon?

Btw, Does anyone have an apple silicon Mac yet? How does KSP run on rosetta 2 and the M1 chip?  Thank you very much.

 

Many Thanks for your kind help.

[royying]

I am curious about this too!

[coredumpster]

Similar question.  I play KSP on a Late 2012 Mac Mini, and it's reaching the limits of what I can deliver ( have already upgraded it to 16GB RAM and SSD, which extended life quite a bit ).

My main concern with the new M1 is that it's hardwired at 16GB.

[Hart]

Got my new M1 Mackbook Air today. KSP runs very well under Rosetta 2.  The clock stayed in the green launching a 141 part ship to orbit with all the graphics turned up. Very happy.

[coredumpster]

That's outstanding news!

Ars Technica had a detailed performance review comparing M1 Rosetta2 performance and it sounded quite promising, with single thread performance ( key for KSP ) under Rosetta2 outperforming Intel based Macs.

Thank you for being a guinea pig in true Kerbal fashion.  

[Hart]

More details; MacBook Air late 2020, M1 chip, 8 gigs ram, 7 core graphics. 
terrain detail high

Render quality fantastic 

Texture quality Full Res

Screen Resolution 1650x1050

KSP  1,10, Making History, and Breaking Ground, only mod is MechJeb

Load time is 1:18 to main menu 

Just flew a mission to Duna and back, with a mother ship and a lander. The game ran smoothly with no noticeable drops in framerate or glitches. The clock was always in the green. The laptop did get noticeably warm, but not hot. It is a battery hog. The two hours of play time used up 50% of the battery. 

This is frankly a fantastic little laptop. 

[Hart]

Also, don't know if this matters, but I am running from a folder copied over by migration assistant.  I did not run and install using Steam.

 

[Guest]

Any chance it gets released for the SouljaGame arch?

Edited November 28, 2020 by Guest

[gyzn]

On 11/17/2020 at 10:47 AM, coredumpster said:

Similar question.  I play KSP on a Late 2012 Mac Mini, and it's reaching the limits of what I can deliver ( have already upgraded it to 16GB RAM and SSD, which extended life quite a bit ).

My main concern with the new M1 is that it's hardwired at 16GB.

That is my situation,  and I only have 8MB on my 2012 MacMini.

 

@Hart's experience report above is very valuable, but it is on a MacBook Air.

I went elsewhere (https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/23/apple-m1-hands-on-comparison-macbook-air-vs-macbook-pro-vs-mac-mini/) and it does appear the a MacMini should perform just all well as the MacBook Air (benchmark results are comparable or better).

 

Which brings me one step closer to buying the M1. Ever since the Big Sur update I can't play anymore; the game loads, and rockets launch, but the frame rate is unbearable.

Yay Mac Mini!

And thanks for the experimental test flight, @Hart!

 

 

 

[Aidgigi]

@HartHow did you get it to run so well? I have an M1 macbook pro with 16 gigs of ram and I can’t get more than 50 fps on medium/low settings.

Edited April 17, 2021 by Aidgigi
FPS i stated was lower than reality

[Traveller2810]

On 11/26/2020 at 6:40 AM, Hart said:

Got my new M1 Mackbook Air today. KSP runs very well under Rosetta 2.  The clock stayed in the green launching a 141 part ship to orbit with all the graphics turned up. Very happy.

Hahaha sold my gpu to make some profit so now playing games on Mac. Have basic MacBook Air M1. Installing KSP now :)