Feral Debuts Support for External GPUs With 'Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration'

Monday June 11, 2018 6:43 AM PDT by Mitchel Broussard
Mac and Linux video game publisher Feral Interactive today announced that it will begin supporting external GPUs, beginning with the recently-launched Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration. Apple first launched support for external graphics processors in March with macOS High Sierra 10.13.4.


The addition allows users to connect an eGPU to their Mac through Thunderbolt 3, powering additional performance for better gaming graphics, VR content creation, professional apps, and more. Feral notes that players can use an eGPU with "any Mac supported by Rise of the Tomb Raider," but there could still be limitations due to the power of the Mac's CPU, despite the boost from the eGPU.

As of now, Rise of the Tomb Raider is the only Feral game confirmed with eGPU support, but the company says that it is working to introduce eGPU support to more of its games. Announcements for these titles will take place on Feral's social network and news feeds, which anyone interested can find on today's FAQ page.

Feral first revealed Rise of the Tomb Raider would be coming to Mac back in February, and then it launched in April. The game is a port of the console game from 2016, and is the second part of the rebooted franchise that began with Tomb Raider in 2013.

Tags: Feral, Tomb Raider
27 comments


Top Rated Comments

(View all)
Avatar
speedcat_feral
10 weeks ago
Just wanted to jump in and clear a few things up :)

Rise of the Tomb Raider's eGPU support covers external monitors only. This is consistent with Apple's guidelines, which say that an eGPU can accelerate performance in 3D games when using an external monitor. We don't recommend playing Rise of the Tomb Raider on your internal display when using an eGPU, and will update our FAQ accordingly to make this clearer.

I also wanted to clear up what we mean by "support". Supported means that we've tested the game and hardware extensively, are satisfied that the setup works correctly and, most importantly, are satisfied that the performance meets our high standards. In general, as Apple's guidelines say, eGPUs can accelerate performance in games, and users may see improved performance in other Feral games when using an eGPU. However, we'll only confirm official support when we've tested the game extensively and made necessary changes to guarantee the best possible user experience.
Rating: 5 Votes
Avatar
MrUNIMOG
10 weeks ago

Would I be correct in assuming that they are talking about internal screen acceleration too?


Afaik, the answer to that question is no unfortunately. There are some janky work arounds out there, but nothing officially supported.


About all games works with eGPU, especially Feral ones which are ported to macOS as state of the art. I’m playing Deus Ex Mankind divided in 4K everything maxed on a MBP 13”

This means only that they are supporting it! And it is a very nice news


Feral's announcement has to mean internal screen acceleration. Acceleration of an external monitor plugged into the eGPU already works with any game and doesn't need to be supported by the developer.

Apples eGPU support document ('https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208544') also says so:


In general, an eGPU can accelerate performance in these types of applications:

* Pro applications designed to utilize multiple GPUs
* 3D games, when an external monitor is attached directly to the eGPU
* VR applications, when the VR headset is attached directly to the eGPU
* Pro applications and 3D games that accelerate the built-in display of an iMac or MacBook Pro. (This capability must be enabled by the application's developer.)

Rating: 5 Votes
Avatar
wlossw
10 weeks ago
If you have to buy an external monitor to use the eGPU, I kind of don't see the point. You may as well just build a gaming pc.
Rating: 4 Votes
Avatar
Eightarmedpet
10 weeks ago
eGPU's work in Windows (inc Bootcamp)... and on all games, plus W10 has system level support (you can specify which GPU you use, regardless of it being internal or external).
Rating: 3 Votes
Avatar
ikir
10 weeks ago

Would I be correct in assuming that they are talking about internal screen acceleration too?

Internal acceleration already works with Metal.
[doublepost=1528735846][/doublepost]

Feral's announcement has to mean internal screen acceleration. Acceleration of an external monitor plugged into the eGPU already works with any game and doesn't need to be supported by the developer.

Apples eGPU support document ('https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208544') also says so:

Supported means they can help you with support and certificate it works. It doen’t mean it works or not
[doublepost=1528736013][/doublepost]

If you have to buy an external monitor to use the eGPU, I kind of don't see the point. You may as well just build a gaming pc.

No thanks, I want and need only one machine, portable when out and powerful at home/Office: MacBook Pro 13” plus eGPU. Check these for incredible gaining a in Gaming and PRO Apps (scroll down):
https://www.egpu.it/recensione-mantiz-venus-thunderbolt-egpu-box/
Rating: 3 Votes
Avatar
Eightarmedpet
10 weeks ago
Would I be correct in assuming that they are talking about internal screen acceleration too?
Rating: 2 Votes
Avatar
peglegjack
10 weeks ago

eGPU's work in Windows (inc Bootcamp)... and on all games, plus W10 has system level support (you can specify which GPU you use, regardless of it being internal or external).

If this is the case, then Apple really needs to get it together.

I don't really have a horse in this race as I don't have any plans to get an eGPU, but I don't see how Apple can follow a mantra of "it just works" and have all of these unsaid restrictions that make them more pain than it's really worth.

Microsoft is destroying Apple on this, and it doesn't appear to be close.
Rating: 2 Votes
Avatar
jjjoseph
10 weeks ago

eGPUs are more advantageous for laptops. The iMac's internal GPU is pretty capable for games. If you want to push the graphics beyond that, you're probably gonna want to run Windows on it to receive full support*, in which case all the eGPU rules are different, or better yet build a gaming PC w/ Nvidia GPU.

* Feral does a great job with Mac support, others not so great, mainly due to the graphics APIs wars


Agreed, but some of us have an eGPU for work on our 5k iMac, and wouldn't mind playing a game or two with faster frame rates, so their is a small market.. I have VEGA FRONTIER because it was the beefiest supported eGPU I could find. The Card runs great as an eGPU for the two or so App's that take advantage of it's power, but for everything else, it is very disappointing.... If every graphics intensive app was able to take advantage of eGPU and METAL, MacOS would be much more competitive with NVIDIA and CUDA. The apps that are METAL/METAL2 supported are actually noticeably faster.

Anyway... NVIDIA and Windows is much cheaper solution and faster, but somehow Apple and MacOS has held its audience, and we are willing to hope for the best, and wait and wait and wait and wait.. for faster media apps and graphic apps and games..
Rating: 2 Votes
Avatar
KillerTree
10 weeks ago

If you have to buy an external monitor to use the eGPU, I kind of don't see the point. You may as well just build a gaming pc.

1. Buy an enclosure, GPU
2. Buy a case, GPU, RAM, motherboard, SSD. Windows

Enclosures will may get cheap enough for them to have popular use-cases
[doublepost=1528727919][/doublepost]Support? I didn’t think a developer needed to more work to “support” external GPUs
Rating: 2 Votes
Avatar
Val-kyrie
10 weeks ago

Support? I didn’t think a developer needed to more work to “support” external GPUs


Yeah, I would like some clarification on this, as well.

Another question I have pertains to OS support.... Does the function of an eGPU rely on OS support for a particular graphics architecture, e.g. OpenCL/GL, DX, Metal?
Rating: 2 Votes
[ Read All Comments ]