Mac Gaming
 

Hey guys, long time no see. I just started a blog on Mac gaming, hopeing to make the situation better for all involved. I was able to get an interview with Glenda Adam's from Aspyr. I would like some comments on what she had to say, and hopefully some better questions to ask my next interview. If you all could head on over to http://somg.blogspot.com and leave me a comment, that would be great. Thank you.

i was going to ask at some point , how many of you guys are into gaming anyway?
i now know several mac users (a lot of them i switched - cheezy eh?)
and hardly any of them play games, i was begininng to think about mac users and is there a pattern of not being all that into games?

to be honest i'm a "left - right- jump- fire type of guy"
spcae invaders is where its at, oh and have lost several hours in the past to the tron lightcycle game, its as minimalist as it gets, once had this mac game called kiki the nanobot, man that was really cool, amazing techno sound effects etc, perfect for a futuristic mac setup.

but even still its maybe once a year i look at these things.

do many of you own consoles etc?

slightly irrelevant, but i bought a big gumball grabbing machine and filled it with m&ms, it has 3 joystics on it, flashy lights and an ace tune, i play that every day, it just gets better and better.

I thought it was a great interview.... While I "dabbled" in games on my old PC, making the switch left me with the rest of Mac gamers....

I'll ramble on your blog....

Thanks man. I'll take all the rambling I can get. The more comments, the better my next interview will be.

I am not into games, lost interest, there are so many point 'n shoot one can take. We have a PS2 and an Xbox, I never touch them.
Recently my son got into a game on the PS2 'Guitar Hero' or something like that which is really cool, and I might try it.

Okay. Can I have your stuff then?

Any other comments on the blog?

Yes, one. I would not use the expression 'including, but not limited to'. It's way too formal, it is used in contracts and legal documents.

Maybe 'encompassing' or something like that?

Hmm...okay. I'm not quite sure I want to use encompassing. But you do have a point, I'll see about changing it.

I have been playing video games for just over 20 years now.....(yeah i am a geek so whaaaat?). I play all games from: Pac man, galaga, ikari warriors, contra, TMNT, doom 1 - 3, quake, right now I am playing Elder Scrolls Oblivion, I love them all from the classics to the high tech ones.

I have an xbox, gamecube, PS2, a killer PC, and right now I am building a MAME cabinet.....:cool:


One major reason macs have never appealed to gamers as a viable machine is due to the hefty price tag and the lack of third party support. On a PC you always get access to the latest hardware and software, where for a Mac it seems you are in the dark or about a year behind. With the exception of ATI trying to release dual platform video cards, and I am not sure how well it took off.

I think with the switch to intel hopefully apple will get some of that third party support for the small community of mac gamers. Unfortunately, I don't want you all to get your hopes up, because it may never happen. One bad thing about apple is that they are a lot of time unilateral thinkers. They are in a sense that Apple is the kind of company that tells or gives its users their option. They design it how they think it should be. Where in the PC world you have a lot of designers and companies and you get to somewhat pick and choose what you want. Which is why you can always cut corners building a game rig. You know you can buy the generic version of a video card and firmware hack it to make into the GT model, or whatever. Their Mobos have lots of over clocking features that allow you to push the system even more. Even though, I am ultimately against over clocking and do not do it myself really, it is an option they have. I have an older celeron 300A in one of the first computers I ever build and I have it running at 600Mhz, and it still runs to this day. That PC is nearly 10 years old (I built it in 97).

All I can say though is that if you can get windows to boot up and run on a mac then you will have all your gaming rigs. I know a lot of people on this forum hate windows, but if you keep a minimal install of windows on a computer to run games I am sure most of you mac people can handle it.

OTOH, since the intel switch it may be lots easier for a developer to port a game over to the macintel platform. So, it may well come sooner than anyone knows.

Didn't read the article did you? I don't disagree, that's the point of my blog. If you could read my blog at http://somg.blogspot.com, and leave your comment there I would appreciate it. It may help discussion. And I'll keep it in mind for my next interview.

No I read your article, at least I read the questionaire the dev filled out. Those are all obvious reasons. My subtle reason was, why would a gamer pay for a mac when they can build a better gaming rig cheaper?

:)
 

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Zalister, I really appreciate what you’re doing here! I’ll be paying attention to that blog.

Suggestions: Questions 2 and 3 are interesting but fairly technical. I would have edited this toward the end -- start the with general and then go technical. The interview is nice and concise the way it is. If you were to add something, perhaps a few questions that really encourage him to think out loud?

I’ll have to blow the dust off my Myst games. :)
Carry on!!

Best regards,
ArcticStones

Oh I see, you think my blog is stupid and quite pointless. Well, that could quite possible be true, but I think you'll have to understand when I say I'm going to keep right on going...

Okay, I'm just kidding, JUST KIDDING! I do have the same qualm though, why would you do that? Well, if your a serious gamer who is really familiar with the hardware you wouldn't, not right now. But I have this theory that games written specifically for Mac's will run better and faster than on a PC, owing to a better implementation of the OS and a simpler coding process owing to limited hardware selection. The basic premise being, if you can focus more you can do more.

No one has really tried that yet. And while it's a long term goal, I think it's worth working towards.

Also, a lot of people have Mac's, and a lot of them are college students. And a lot of college students play games. My thought is, if you're going to want to buy a Mac anyway for your papers, why not use it for games as well. That is MUCH cheaper than buying a brand new MacBook and a gaming rig on top of that.

If all else fails, I'm doing this for myself. I want to develop games, and I'd prefer to be working on OSX. And I want there to be a market when I finally get there.

If the blog seems irrelevant...well, it is for the most part. But we'll see how things pan out.

Edit: And thank you Arctic Stone. You make me want to write MacPlay again and try to pry an interview out of them.

Apple has made it a whole new ball game!!
 

Very interesting – your point being that we’re at a crossroads. And I think you may well be right. I think Apple has a road map that Microsoft is having real problems meeting, even to the point of being unable to release their OS.

tlarkin may well be right: for a dedicated gamer that wants only a gaming machine, it would seem senseless buying a Mac. But that really is missing the point. As you say: We have the Macs – why not use them for gaming?

Let’s see where this goes. Most of the people posting here are far more technically savvy than I am, and thus qualified to hold opinions. But I believe an incredible door has been opened with the introduction of Intel-embracing Macs.

In fact, I wager that Apple is going to break through to a 10% market share within 18 months. Within 30 months, I think we’re likely to see 20%.

Best regards,
ArcticStones

I have no problem with gaming on macs, but since Direct X is pretty much the standard, and apple hardware is usually about 1 year behind when it comes to direct X, and video game devs are developing the newest games for the newest hardware. One prime example is the new Elder Scrolls: Oblivion game. It started production over three years ago and they were developing it for hardware that was not totally out yet. They were the first video game company I think to do that in pretty much the history of video games. Almost always hardware is ahead, like you buy a video card with extra pipelines and anti-aliasing, and the latest render engine, and blah blah blah and that technology is not even taken advantage of in games for over a year. Well, apparently not anymore, and if this trend takes on to the video game industry and the game devs start developing games for hardware that is not out yet, then you are in a whole new ball park. Because PCs are always ahead of the hardware game, and the market is already there.

Look at pricing also. Apple better lower their costs if they want to get into the gaming market. Almost any gamer will either build a PC themselves or buy a cheap PC and upgrade the heck out of it, and in the end still be cheaper than an apple desktop.

I think it is cool you want to get gaming on the macs, but even if apple did get games coming out at the same time as PCs and the same hardware I would still always go with a PC unless apple could compete competively with their prices.

This is by no means a dis towards you or anything about your blog, it is just my blunt opinion on the video game market. I have several friends who work in the video game industry and talk to them on occasion.

Not to mention, how much will a macintosh dev kit cost? Since the developers do have to purchase dev kits to make games.

Here is one major reason I think this way. I am building a stand up MAME arcade cabinet at the moment. I spent about 300 dollars on it so far and I have the following hardware:

MSI mobo
P4 3.0GHz
1 gig of ram
15Khz video card based off Radeon 9240 chipset (so it will run resolutions on an actual arcade monitor)
Amp cable to convert the 1V video signal to a 5V (arcade monitors take a 5V signal, this cable also converts VGA to composite video, RGB, Synch, ground)
iPac controller - interfaces joysticks and buttons to a board which then connects to the PC and maps out each action as a keystroke.

All of that cost me around 300 dollars, there is no way I could have even come close to that with apple hardware. I still have to buy the arcade CRT and build the control panel and the cabinet, so i am still a ways off from building it. I looked at possibly running it of a mac mini. I mean it makes total sense right? it is small, weightless, and easily powerful enough to run MAME. There is just no support for it, and the cost is more expensive.

If apple wants to get into the gaming market perhaps they should make a gaming mac. Or design a multimedia desktop that is optimized for multimedia and games and give it a fair price.

Just to try and explain my logic for wanting more games on Macintosh:

My Mac Computer + any other computer no matter what the cost = more than My Mac Computer.

And that's why I want more games on my Macintosh.

The great thing about computers is that they serve multiple functions. I think most people who buy Macintoshes by them not just for any one thing. I routinely use GarageBand, Word, Mail, Safari, NotePad, EclipseSDK, etc etc. I'm all about Spotlight, Unix and Expose. And that's why I don't want a Windows machine. I think a lot of people buy Mac's for the same reason.

But, I have friends who would gladly pay the premium for all of that if they could just take their games with them. They could care less that it can cost twice as much, most them figure they are getting ten times the functionality anyway. But they are college students and can't justify buying two computers. So they go with the PC because they want games.

Look, you're right in many ways. A serious, totally hardcore gamer would not use OSX for their main operating system, nor would they use a Mac because of the lack of completely current technology (or at least the theory that they could buy the most current technology if they had the money.) But what about all the people who just really like games. They like them enough that they want to stay current, but not so much that they have to spend $3200 on a really freaking awesome gaming rig. That's the market I'm talking about. And I think they'd like to see games on OSX.

Of course, with the advent of Boot Camp you can go in between now, so this all might be a mot point. But I think my greatest hope for Boot Camp is that enough people will buy Mac's now that we get more developers making games for OSX.

As for your comments on Direct3D. In the interview she mentioned that they can actually implement most of the methods they need. Granted, that's not a walk in the park, but it's doable.

And, in regards to Dev Kits. I really depends on what you're talking about. Physics? T&L? AI? An all in one? And what sort of quality are you looking at. Garage Games will give you a high quality Engine + Dev kit for around $100 if your an 'indie gamer'. Others can cost several thousands, far more than the $3000 you mentioned. But, it's an excellent question. And I'll try to bring it up in another interview.

Thanks for all your comments. I wish you'd leave them on my blog, I think it would be good for discussion (sure got me going). Thanks again.

http://somg.blogspot.com

Edit: And to my good friend ArcticStone- Heck, with how Apple's stock jumped on the announcement of boot camp, I'm thinking we could see 10% in a year, maybe even less. The sky, apparently, is the limit now.

Yes, i agree, good games should get ported to the mac system.



Yes, and with a mac it is more of an elite or limited options for that function, with a PC you can do anything a mac can do but have more options and a lower price tag.

Yup, there is a premium price tag on those mac computers. A lot of people I know would buy an ibook for their college/job and build a PC desktop for gaming, and it would cost about the same as having one high end apple laptop.

I don't think it is the OS, I think it is the hardware. The OS is a good OS in my opinion and has many stregnths to it. When you buy an apple computer you are paying a pretty premium price for that hardware, more premium than you can build your own PC for. Since it is all based off x86 based hardware they are now pretty much the same systems hardware wise. You can build a great gaming rig for about 500 to 700 dollars with a very decent video card in it.

Yes, this may make it so you just need to purchase an OEM copy of win xp and then your mac is now a gaming rig.

Yes, and don't forget direct X either. DX technology is used in video cards and DX10 cards will come out on the PC always first way before a mac.

I was referring to game publishers and companies, like nintendo, sony, microsoft, EA, Monolith, so on and so forth. These next gen consoles are pretty much based of PC technology, which makes them easier to port over to the PC. That is why you see all these console exclusive games hit the PC game shelves 6 months after their release. The nintendo revolution dev kit is going to cost around 2k they said, which was one of the way cheaper dev kits out there. I read that in the newest game informer magazine.

No prob, good luck on getting gaming over on a mac computer, who knows in a year or two once the intel based macs take off maybe you will see more software ported over to their OS. In fact, it would not surprise me if in a few years OS X and windows can just be loaded on any x86 based hardware machine giving you the complete freedom to build your own PC and run any OS you want off it. Then you can have it all, gaming, mac os x, windows, linux, whatever you wanted.

http://somg.blogspot.com

I'll have to just copy/paste this conversation over to your blog hahahaha:)

Hey Z-

add this to your blog

http://www.insidemacgames.com/news/story.php?ID=13177

I think all games should be made in OpenGL.

Look at BZFlag and how it supports any OS and allows inter OS play...

Now why can't all games do that?

Apple breaks 10% of individual sales by Q4 2006
 

Now that is one interesting read!

As you said in a previous post: No one knows what is going to happen. But BootCamp certainly is a very daring move by Apple. Indeed we do live in interesting times!

I still stand by my market share prediction -- although it is possible that we might have to only consider the part of the market in which buyers make individual decisions. But come November, when Microsoft announces that VISTA is delayed until 2008, even a huge chunk of the business community may throw in the towel.

Apple would be wise to launch three new models ASAP:

Combination home entertainment centre / gaming machine. Two versions: with and w/o screen. Loaded with great features, especially graphics capability, Apple’s characteristic user friendliness. And priced to kill!
eMac heir. There is definitely a market for a good, straight-forward machine priced between MacMini and iMac.
Business Macs. Hey, perhaps it’s enough with a significant price drop on the iMac?

I think they’re on the way and that we’ll see the first two during Q2 ’06.

Best regards,
ArcticStones


PS. What? Did you say Apple already broke 10% of individual sales during Q4?! :D

Ah ha... Funny stuff Arctic Stone. I've often wondered how large the user base actually is. I'm told it's larger than the selling base because of the fact that they last longer...

Tlarkin, two points of reference (and only reference since we seem to agree). You need to remember that both the Xbox360 and PS3 are using the PowerPC architecture. I actually saw a picture of a microsoft employee using a G5 tower for testing on the Xbox 360. Also, hardware is not the hard part of porting. The OS is, whether it's the OS for the Xbox 360, Windows or OSX. Writing new libraries to work with OS's takes a loooong time.

Also, Direct3D is a part of DirectX 9.0 along with DirectDraw and DirectSound. I specifically referenced Direct3D because we were talking games and video cards, so it seemed appropriate.

But, despite the schematics and my ever present need to correct people (sorry), I do think we agree. I personally would like the simplicity of one machine (and one OS) for both my games and my work. But I can be patient, it will happen eventually :).

actually a PS3 is using cell processors developed by IBM, Toshiba, and Sony, it is loosly based of PPC based hardware, but is actually a different standard on its own. So really its not based off of a G5 processor.

IBM already stated that the base technology of cell, was completely OS nuetral and would be available for anyone to develope an OS for.

I have no use for games. Books are a better source of knowledge.

Myst and WebSudoku.com rule!! :D
 

Indeed, the PC friends that I have are invariably upgrading or replacing them, and often talking about a problem or to they hope to solve "next time".

My Mac compatriots, however, may long for the latest specs and machines, but my impression is they get a lot more years and problem-free use out of each machine. And they don’t get trashed, just placed in a corner somewhere, perhaps with an important secondary task or two -- and every once in a while we lift our eyes nostalgically.

I’ve been a Mac user for about 13 years. Three years ago I purchased my first new computer, ever. Before that: second-hand machines that we still use. And I still have my PowerPC 6100 packed in a box. Well, it somehow seemed disrespectful to throw it away... :o


With best regards,
ArcticStones


PS.
I hear ya! But the fact is that gaming is a prime force in PC development, and has been for some years.

Don’t play much games myself, but do glance over the shoulders of our kids. However, I admit to spending many a waking night with various editions of Myst.
And once a day or so I solve a puzzle at WebSudoku with the timer on. I’m convinced it helps my writing flow better. Try working your way up to category "Evil"; I’ve solved half a handful of those, but gotta throw in the towel more than half the time.

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Zalister, there is an interesting article on BBC today.

Couldn't possibly disagree more...well, actually I could. I'm a history buff, and I don't think I'll ever play Civilization 4 and think to myself "My but this is an accurate rendition of history".

But honestly, if I want to learn how to fly a plane, manage a large city budget or simply learn some of the in's and out's of sports, there are few resources better than games.

Flight Simulator or XPlane are probably the best examples of this. In some areas it is legal to do half of your flight training for your private license on a simulation like this if you have an instructor present. I can personally tell you that logging over 200 hours in Flight Simulator 98 made it possible for me to follow a VOR route from Phoenix to San Diego when I was a lad of 15 (as opposed to the lad of 23 I am now). The pilot I was with assumed I had flown before, I had to explain that it was all from the games I played on my computer.

Heck, most airforces agree with me. I remember going to Luke Air Force Base in Phoenix to fly on the F-16 simulator. The F-16 trainee's are required to log a hundred hours (if memory serves, it's been a while) on those sims before they are ever allowed to touch the real thing.

In conclusion, yeah, books are awful useful. But if you want hands on training, you'd be surprised what a good game can do for you.

Arctic Stone--

I couldn't agree with the article more (I would have watched the program but, alas, I'm one of those stupid Americans and have no access to the BBC :-). ) I think the biggest change we'll see in the next ten years is the development of programs that make game creation simpler. A good example of this is the Torque Engine from Garage Games. It's not even close to perfect, but it does make the creation of a game much simpler than hammering out all the graphics code on your own. And it's Mac Friendly :).

I would both agree and disagree with sulo28. I think games have their place in the development of certain skills, however; there is absolutely no substitute for the knowledge one gains from reading.

Then again, I also think comparing the two is like comparing apples to oranges; you just can't do it. I don't believe that playing video games for hours on end will enhance one's vocabulary or enrich one's life so that they become a contributing member of society. Books can.

Along those same lines, books cannot provide the same entertainment/interactive environment that games can. Sometimes, games are a great way to just blow off some steam.

I think an important idea here is that people really need to find a balance of the two and not just one or the other. I've noticed when talking to people that play online enabled games that their sentence structure and verbal capacity is quite limited compared to someone that has never played such a game.

Also, people who tend to do nothing but read books/novels/etc that they can come off as being a bit arrogant with their use of words that no normal person would ever use in a casual conversation.

An equilibrium is the ideal place for parents to place their kids and for adults to restrict themselves to. Unfortunately, I think parents are becoming a bit lax in the types of games they let their kids play, and thus; it hurts their social skills later in life.


Just my 2 cents... which means nothing of course... :)

I have no time for games now I'm all growed up. But if they ever released Oddworld for OSX I'd have to get it.

This is another one of those agree/disagree points for me as well. I don't think you can ever replace reading, that's why they have text in video games! ;). Anyway, I do think games can enrich your life, and I dare say that anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't played the right games. Remember, video games are a genre, and they have their high points and their low points just like everything else. I personally love literature, and am currently working on finishing Musashi's Book of Five Rings, which has many wonderful insights. At the same time, I don't feel I learned anything from reading "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad. I know that's just one man's opinion. And I'm sure there are better examples to prove my point. But I just want to point out that not all books are exactly educational, or worth reading.

I agree with this though (and most of the rest of the post.) People do need to find a balance, and those World of Warcraft people need to learn how to type. To try and offer an explanation for the latter (I'm ever the apologist when it comes to the gaming community).

They might be using l337 speak (pronounced like elite without the e at the front). It's a form of gaming language that popped up back when First Person Shooters where first becoming popular. It stems from the fact that you have a whole 2 seconds to hammer out a message before you get plastered by a rocket. Thus most of the sentences that come out are vague and mostly incomprehensible. As time went by it become a matter of pride, and a way to differentiate oneself as a gamer. So they developed a whole new alphabet that uses numbers and weird signs (eg >< for x or @ for a), and now they use it as a way to show gaming superiority. It's kind of silly, and a lot of gamers I know look down on it. Still, some gamers specifically do not use correct syntax just because they can...

Well, that and many people on WOW are 14.

But, I will agree that balance is very very important. I personally think a person should use whatever tool is best for the job, whatever that tool may be. If the situation needs a book, grab a book, if it needs a movie, then get a movie. It's just important that one doesn't write off a whole entire genre because they don't understand it. That's all.

Well said.

Just on the subject of Oddworld does anyone know of other similar games that are out on OSX? Not the 3d one, I mean the first two Oddysee and Exoddus.

Well, as far as I can tell, none of those games have been released on Mac, and most likely they won't be. Unfortunately they all depend on DirectX, and no one wants to tackle that particular implementation. Very unfortunate because they are excellent games.

If you want you can try http://www.macgamefiles.com. Independent developers will sometimes come up with their own versions of their favorite games. For example, you can find a full, user created, version of FreeSpace 2 with update graphics. I really like the site personally, you never know what you are going to find...

I enjoy gaming there is no doubt about it.

I have a P4 3Ghz Intel Processor with 2GB RAM a 256MB Graphics card and this is plugged into my 20" Apple Display.....

I never use it.

I play what games I can on my PowerBook.

Why you ask? It urks me to you the windows box I have been ruined by Apple, maybe I can sue them?
Yes I know that playing the game on a top of the line Windows box vs Playing the game on the top of the line Mac (even when the PowerMac G5's are replaced) should be the same and even if it is identical in experiance there in one problem, that I can not bring myself to over look.

That damn start button and the fact that it is a windows machine...

Yes I know I need Help :)

Funny funny.

You know what makes me mad is the difference in speed between gaming on Mac's v. gaming on Windows. Ex: My friend (who works at a Mac reseller) and I recently installed World of Warcraft on both the Windows and OSX side of a MacBook Pro 15.4". They matched up pretty well until we hooked the computer up to our 30" Cinema that we have there. Then the difference was obvious.

On the one hand, it was really cool to see WOW with full effects running like a demon on a 30" under windows. But I can't tell you the amount of scaling back we had to do in order to get the game to work right on our OSX install.

The reason is pretty straight forward. WOW uses DirectX9. Apple doesn't support DirectX at all. So Blizzard probably had to shoehorn the game to make it work.

If there was any one wish I would make with apple it's that they fully implement DirectX in OSX. They don't have to use it for System stuff, but just for 3D applications that make use of it. Heck, with what I've seen of DX10, it might be a really good idea...

there are also rumors now of AMD and ATI merging....


That would change a few things as well.

Holy heck yeah, it certainly would. Where did you get your info on that?

here goes a google search for it, I read it on slashdot

http://www.google.com/search?client=...=Google+Search

Hmm, still in it's rumor stage, but not a bad rumor. My experience with Apple rumors makes me a little less trusting of 'internet noise', but we'll see if it happens.

I just wonder how that's going to affect Apple. Since apple is using Intel, I wonder if we'll see a degradation in performance compared to a similar AMD. Granted, AMD would probably want to keep it's entire market share, and would try to keep the intel side of things looking good. But the resources to work with AMD processors would be right there!

I wonder if Intel will try and buy out nVidia as a response. That would be great for the MacBooks...

AMD actually makes a better processor than intel on paper. They have better benchmarks for most things and are a bit cheaper. However, they have never quite been able to get ahead of intel in the market share.

Personally, my PC at home is run on AMD hardware and I like it. Intel doesn't make a bad product by any means, but they are wearing their technology thing, hence all the over heating problems with the latest intel processors. They are overclocking them too much. Their answer was suppose to be the duo core processor family, but those run hot as well.

It is kind of like the chevy/ford debate with american cars. Some people prefer intel, and some prefer AMD. AMDs server and enterprise level hardware has jumped up in the market share a ton due to its nice performace/price ratio. I was second guessing that nvidia may want to jump in with intel, but in the end I think nvidia won't so they can play both sides of the market. Nvidia didn't buy out all those other companies for nothing, and they now are starting to make render cards and other specialized business level hardware.

Either way it will definitely be interesting.

the only game i really want on the mac would be the gta series, that'd be awesome

You know, I've often wondered how Jobs would feel about that. He's not big into controversy on those kinds of issues. For example, you can't find vPodcasts that are pornographic (at least they aren't advertised that way last I checked).

Anyway, I can't help but wonder if GTA San Andreas would be prevented from seeing the Mac because it gained that Ao rating? But I really liked the GTA3 games, so I think I'd like to see it too. Only time will tell.

I have heard Rumors that Apple is thinking about pushing into the game market, I'd really like to see it. I guess we'll know when 10.5 comes out, if it has an excellent rendition of OpenGL, we can hope for a good crop of games. What would be really nice is if they somehow could get DX10 on Mac...but...well...okay, chances of that happening or more than kind of slim. I just wish Mac would put a bunch of work into OpenGL and make it at least as good as DX10.

i reckon since more and more people are seeing how amazing osX is and are converting to macs, game developers will have no choice but to make more games. But if i get a ps3 i wont really need any games for mac and PC, i think that will cope for all my gaming needs

Zallister:

I just want to show you something interesting. I'm living in Thailand, and when I go to your blog I see it in Thai. It's not a glitch caused by faulty text encoding because the spelling and placement of words is correct. For example, the month in the sidebar is the correct Thai word for that month.

The body of your blog is in its original English form, so it's just the navigation from Google which is translated.

Ha ha, now I feel all international and stuff! I really ought to put another post on that blog at some point. I'll just have to harass BioWare and see what I can't get to fall out of the tree.

Yay, just installed BootCamp (painlessly) and now have Abe's Oddysee and Exoddus on my iMac.

Cool. Oddworld is one of the best games ever created. Hard to find that unique of a sense of humor anywhere else.

I guess I should mention here that I'm rather excited to hear what id has to announce at E3. Their demo of Tech 5 a WWDC was awesome, and I can't help but wonder just what they plan on doing with it on the Mac.

This is not necessarily true unless one builds their own box. I've spent a couple dozen hours these past couple weeks doing in depth price comparisons between iMacs, Dells, HPs, Gateways and Sony systems. I am trying to convince my parents to switch, but I'm 90-95% of my argument is based on hardware.

I've checked the prices for multiple models from Dell, Gateway, and HP, as well as one or two from Sony. All have been configured as closely as possible to an iMac 20 inch with 2 GB RAM. PCs are configured with Vista Ultimate 64 bit. All computers are configured with a three year extended warranty. A three year AV subscription is also configured into PC price.

The iMac is not always the cheapest, but it is not always the most expensive either. Most times when it is the more expensive between two models, the PC lacks equivalent hardware (not available as an option in a particular line) most commonly Gigabit ethernet, 801.11n(draft) wireless and/or Bluetooth 2. Often, current specials by Apple or others more than made up the price difference. There were some outlier models, but Apple wasn't one of them.

(IMO Gigabit ethernet and 802.11n wireless are essentials for any computer expected to be used more than 2-3 years, so these are big hardware shortcomings.)

The price differences for equivalent hardware are minimal right now. If you get all the cool goodies, you pay for all the cool goodies. And Apple likes to include cool goodies. They are trendsetters in that way. Who first offered USB as standard? Who first offered FireWire as standard?

Bear in mind that besides the operating systems, the only software considered in the comparisons was AV software for the PCs. iLife and other useful Mac software was not taken into consideration. Legacy equipment like 1.44 MB floppy disk drives or dial-up modems were not considered. The iMac is able to hold its own in terms of price.

A couple other things worth noting are that the PCs that appeared to be aimed at gamers were typically higher than the iMac when configured equivalently. The iMac, while certainly capable of gaming, is not ideal. (The MacBook, on the other hand, is really not well suited for gaming.) Apple's Pro Line, with which I compared nothing, are better choices.

My configurations were not necessarily what I would recommend, just a starting point for comparison purposes. I could save money with almost any of the platforms (including the iMac) by eliminating unnecessary features.

With a Mac you have fewer configuration options, but you are not generally getting less hardware for your money when buying Apple compared to pre-built retail PCs.

J-

I was referring to sales, rebates, and mark downs. The PC market is way more competitive, since there are many PC manufacturers and you can build your own as you suggested. However, Apple has no competition with their platform, they are Apple and no one else sells Apple. Even though they are in direct competition with every other computer platform out there, they also at the same time have no competition within their platform. So, that is why you see massive rebates on Dells, I mean I priced out a dell using online rebates for a co-worker not too long ago and was able to knock $500 off the price tag from online coupons and rebates. This of course is an extreme example because you can't always get that type of price break.

As for gaming options, well I can maybe retract my previous statment because at the WWDC both EA and id announced they will be developing and releasing games now for both platforms at the same time. id already does this for Linux as well, they are an awesome company.

The fact of the matter is, now gaming on a Macintosh is looking better. When I originally posted that nothing was revealed and no company was trying to do anything about it, at least openly. I'd like to see a lot of gaming go over to the mac platform so I could totally ditch windows maybe, but only time will tell.

Also, hardware companies need to do the same, because PCs have such a huge variety of video cards to choose from, and lets face it, a video card directly effects video game performance.

As much as I'd like to get excited about EA and id. It should be noted that they constatute a very small percentage of gaming manufacturers. EA is huge, and it will be nice to have some real sports games, but we're still missing a lot of people...

But, EA is evidence of a possible trend. Apparently they are using a program that will nativize DirectX calls to "OSX speak" if you will. I'm sure the rest of hte industry will be watching that experiment closely. If it works (i.e., a low amount of technical issues or performance hits), then other companies will surely fallow suite. Apple has a mass of college students in it's clutches, and I'm pretty sure that all college students are intersted in are sex, drinking and video games...oh, and school.

What will have me excited is when Valve comes over, I want steam on my Mac. At that point I will be able to view OSX as a completely legitamate platform for gaming.

good luck with steam, they have enough problems supporting one platform....

aarrgghh steam is my gaming nightmare, its so annoying, but i do agree if Valve made halflife for mac that would be awesome!!

Well, after talking with some actual Apple employees, it seems that gaming is coming along for the Mac. There are several new factors involved that could make Mac gaming a reality.

1) Core Animation - as we all know is a set of APIs for developers to access Apples hardware for Open GL support. Comparable to MS's Direct X, in many ways. So game developers could use this to their advantage.

2) Cider - an application translator specific to video games which will translate windows video games into Mac compatible games. From what I am told Cider modifies very little of the coding so porting games over should not be that hard.

So the tools are in place for developers to make mac games, however, there is one major factor in play that still won't let Apple compete with the PC gaming market. Almost every gamer I have ever met who is serious about gaming builds their own PC. This is not possible with a Mac, and well the people who are really into gaming desire that ability. So, if Apple were to make a barebones desktop, say a C2D processor, motherboard, and a smaller version of the Mac Pro case. Then allow customers toss in whatever amount of RAM they wanted, their choice of HD and their choice of video card, then I could see them gaining in the Market. Too bad Steve Jobs thinks that consoles will ultimately win the video game market. I guess jobs has never tried to kill something on a control pad versus a keyboard + mouse.

Anyways, here is some more info on Cider.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransGaming_Technologies

http://www.transgaming.com/products/cider/

I'd thought of this, and it's good to hear Apple is thinking the same way :). I don't see why it shouldn't work.

If you've seen the complaints about Battlefield 2142, you might rethink this idea. It looks good on paper, but in practice it seems to be lacking. In the end having developers use Core Animation (or a similar tech) as their central API will be the thing that brings gaming to OSX. Translation is just too sloppy.

I disagree. I've met plenty of people who are into games who use Xbox 360's, Wii's and PS3's, none of which can be significantly modified. I think the inherent stability of locked hardware makes the Macintosh a better platform for games. Sure, you won't be absolutely cutting edge. But you will be more cutting edge than a console, and not so cutting edge that it's a big hassle (the money and time required to be cutting edge is ludicrous).

Contrary to popular belief, not all PC gamers are cutting edge. I love PC games, but I'm just fine with my MBP 15". Does it play all the latests games at 100fps? No. But there are so many good games from the last three years that I could really care less. I'm yet to play Oblivion for goodness sake!

Anyway, Mac gaming would have to be just like most Mac users. Not overly complex, simple to do and it just works. And I think Apple can easily do that with it's current line up of computers.

Well, cutting edge gaming is a huge market and people spend money in it. Console gaming is a different animal all together. You don't really want to play a FPS on a console, it is not as smooth as it is on a PC. Do you know how many gamers out there buy new video cards every 6 months? A lot. The video card business is a booming one. Now add in the fact that DX 10 cards are out now and that everyone wants one to run the newest games on maximum settings. Trust me, if you could build your own Mac it would attract more gamers, and it is a barrier that will keep gamers from buying a Mac. I know I have a PC built specifically for gaming and my mac gets used for other things.

Cider is in its infancy, it will get better as it goes I can only assume.

something else which ive realised, is that if people are going to play games on macs (including on bootcamp) the entire mac range will need a major graphics card bump, the imac should have a min of 256mb and have an option for 512+mb cards. Only the mac pro can really play games like bioshock and future games like crysis.

Tlarkin- I don't really disagree, I'm just saying that custom built boxes is not part of Apple's strategy, so why bother asking for it? I personally like the inherent stability of a limited choice in hardware.

Also, don't make the mistake of believing that Mac gaming has to be like Windows gaming. My point with the consoles was to say that many many people play games on closed systems, why not the Mac?

The real point I'm trying to make is this: the system is secondary. The reason people by PS3's or Xbox360's is because of the titles on them. Ask Nintendo how it's GameCube went, there were almost no tripleA title on that system. And if they don't hurry it up, the Wii, for all of it's innovation, will die as well.

No, in reality, Apple needs to bring more games to the system. And that means an accessible API and a stable platform. Hopefully Mac and Core Animation can do that.

I think most developers will be overjoyed to see Apple's closed system. They don't have to rewrite your good 50 billion times as a result. It's one reason why many of the PC's greatest titles were stolen by consoles (see Halo, for example). It's easier to make a game for a closed system.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on it. I don't like the idea of building Mac's, I feel like it's counterintuitive to the simplicity Apple, and most of their users, are after.

EDIT: Sorry, but it's still bugging me, I was going to leave it out. FPS's on Consoles suck because of the controller. I'm yet to see an FPS on a console that doesn't run at 30fps at least 90% of the time. Try saying that about a comparably priced PC.

FPS on a console have so many problems with them, I mean for one the aiming is skewed to match that of a dual analog control stick. My PC runs moderate FPS at 80fps and high end ones at 40 to 45 fps. I don't max out the settings on all the games but they still look very good.

I am just saying that the video card market is what gamers look at. Some of them are into things like over clocking and I think that is just dumb, but that is me.

And I think you have an excellent point with the comment on Video cards. While I could never see Apple picking up every single Gaming card out there. It would be nice if every six months they would grab a top shelf card and put it in. They did that recently, actually, with the 8600 in the MBP 15"...

But even that now isnt top range is middle range, I wait for the day that all macs can have exchangeable graphics cards, or something as powerfull as the 8800 in imacs and mac pro(and a proper graphics card in the mac mini) .

Out of interest is the nvidea quardro, which is like £1000 is that 4x512mb? or just 512mb? and if it isnt is 4x 256 cards better ?

The whole point of EFI is that it just works. No drivers needed, and any PCI-E card would work in a Mac. Therefore you could just go grab the latest ATI or Nvidia card and be done with it

Quadros are work station cards designed for rendering and number crunching not for gaming. Video gaming cards are over clocked and designed to pump out the most FPS at the highest frame rate.

so which is the best mac pro card/s for gaming

Well the GeForce series or the Radeon series would be the best for gaming. The Quadros are built for work stations and work horse type machines, and ATIs its like called fireGL or something for their work station card.

The Geforce 8800 GTS I think is the best current card on the market for gaming. I haven't looked at the mac pro install options yet.

I agree, i heard someone on a podcast who had some nvidea 7800 who upgraded to the 8800 for bioshock who said "it was night and day difference"

The 8800 would go in the mac pro, but would it fit? and does it have enough power connectors. Actually since the Mac pro has 4 slots, maybe 2 8800's could fit in with sli?

SLI is a technology that requires a motherboard that supports it, I do not think apple supports SLI. Plus SLI is not really that great of a technology it is marketed as a huge boosts but real world would be minimal, I mean who can tell the difference between 90fps and 115fps ? No one could tell the difference between the two. I see multi-core GPU video cards being the next wave of the future, SLI is a marketing ploy to get you to buy two video cards. Parallel processing has its own caveats and that is what SLI is in a nutshell. It is two video cards set in parallel processing mode.

Really a single 8800 GTS will perform along the same lines of two of them in SLI mode. ATI has their own version of SLI caleld xfire (cross fire).

It looks like the best video card for the Mac Pro at the moment would be the ATI x1900, which is a DX9 card.

Yeah, the Mac Pro is, for some reason, lacking on the graphics end (as far as games go). The MBP has the better card, though as was pointed out, It still needs some work.

I'm still not a fan of being able to exchange in and out a bunch of cards, it just sounds like a developers nightmare. But...I'm going to have to agree that Apple needs to find a better solution for hardware when it comes to games. Maybe they should just be going with whatever is top of the line every 3 to 6 months or so? Again, not completely cutting edge, but it should still be manageable.

But honestly, I don't know what I'm talking about. I really want to ask an Apple engineer how hard it would be to just add a new graphics card to the list of supported hardware every 3 months or so.

what about external graphics cards, do they support macs, do they actually work well? and are they really expenisve

I don't think they make external video cards, and I am pretty sure you would have tons of bottle neck issues if they did.

Here's an article to get all of you thinking again. It's Gabe from Valve talking about the frustrations of working with Apple. For those who don't know, Valve makes Half-Life 2, and is pretty much the biggest name in the PC industry. So, what Gabe has to say matters...

Start at the second paragraph.

Yup that sounds actually just like Apple, remember they are making products that they think you should use and you should use them how they design them. One downfall of Apple. Where as Microsoft actually takes user feed back and adds in features. That is where fast user switching came from, users requested it so MS gave it to them.


I think it is obvious that the Mac users want games, and it is something that is holding them back in the consumer market. Video games make lots of money, and HL2 and valve are very big contendors.

lets see what core animation does, for games like gears and UT 3, and if ea fix their crappy emulator, im sure valve will follow because HL is the halo for pc if you see what i mean.

Speaking of Halo, did anyone else here hear that Bungie left Microsoft today? They originally started as a Mac only game company, do you think they'll come back?

Also @ kel101-- It's interesting, but the recently announced Tek 5 from iD (the other big player in the gaming industry it seems) apparently should actually have an effect. Apparently the IDE is designed so all you have to do is hit a button and it will compile to Mac (or PC, PS3, Wii and Xbox). I wonder if Tek 5 relies on Core Animation...there's a question I'd like an answer to.

yeah i think them leaving microsoft is great news, but in the statment on cnet, they say there going to make more halo games, i thought they just made a huge point saying that the story was done? And hopefully, Halo 3 will be released at the same time for macs and pc.... but this also begs the question, with all these games coming to 10.5, when are apple going to upgrade all the grapics cards in macs

Halo.
Needs.
To die.

Halo 1 was an awesome game for the time. Now it's just an overhyped piece of trash, IMO.

*Giggle*

Yeah, Halo needs to die pretty much. I'm told though that the new Halo game is an RTS. Honestly, I think that's why they broke off with Microsoft, because now they can release the game for PC (or maybe even Mac) first. And thats traditionally where RTS's sell really well.

As for the Halo storyline being over...if any of you have seen the ending of Halo 3...well, I won't spoil it. But let's just say I have a hard time believing that it's actually over.

@kel101 - As for the Graphics card question, I think we just had this discussion. I will have to agree though that they need to put real gaming cards in their computers. They seem to be headed in that general correction with the 8600 in the 15"MBP, but we'll see.

I YouTube'd it and I'll agree fully. Microsoft will find a way to beat Halo 4 out of Bungie or another dev.

Halo Wars I predict will not wow anyone except for the diehard Halo fan. Starcraft 2 will kick Halo Wars back and forth, methinks.

Also, for another take on the Halo junk, try this: http://jorm.livejournal.com/31252.html Warning, it has some bad language in it, but it sums up what I feel about Halo 3.

This just keeps getting more and more interesting...

Royalties for HL 2.

Apparently big titles don't like the idea of having to be patient for the revenue, eh?