Roflgoat

[www.insidemacgames.com]

PMAvers

Brackynews

Parallels uses WINE for D3D wrapper as well, but it's no where near as good as WINE for Linux still. The reason? Linux has excellent GLSL drivers. If you don't believe me read up on the Parallels web site. It's saying something when OS X is trying to catch up with Linux gaming. ^^

Mongoosekun

Miharu

When I game, I use my 360 or DS. When I work or surf, I use my Mac. And when there is something I absolutely have to play under Windows, I use BootCamp or Parallels.

I don't see ANY reason for special versions for Macs.

TheBard

And my theory is that MS intentionally engineered the 360 hardware to be a POS because they are so used to their software running on cheap, crappy hardware and they had to offset their good choices at CPU and GPU with crappy ones in other places to insure the proper balance.

Isn't it fun to pull "theories" out of one's ass in the wee hours of the morning?

Disclaimer: I like my 360 when its working.

DaiMacculate

Shinto

From my original post on this topic: " Thats separate from gaming engine development,"

I think I made it clear I was talking about the evolution of computer aided graphic design, not 3D graphics engines. I even tried to give MS credit for that, sorry if that wasn't clear but its one of the areas where they have definitely whupped Apple's ass. Thats part of why I made a separate post to Mongoosekun about that topic. Of course macintosh didn't pioneer 3d graphics acceleration in video games...of course apple was the first computer manufacturer to offer 32-bit video onboard as a standard, and had rudimentary hardware graphics acceleration back when 3dfx was still on the drawing board, but yeah I agree that past that they didn't do much.

Please tell me you actually used Mac OS when it was concurrent with Win 98? I was working in a university IT department when 98 rolled out and, while a massive improvement on 95 in many ways, it still wasn't as stable as OS 8/9, hell most of us preferred NT, it couldn't do as much as a desktop but it was rock solid compared to 98 (perhaps that was the OS you meant to hold up as being better?). Having a theoretically better memory management system does little if you're still having to support thousands of different hardware configurations and retain backwards compatibility. Again MS deserves some props for making the best of a shitty situation, but thats about it there. I'm sure we could go back and forth on this but its not worth my time-well neither is this post but I'm in a mood for some reason ;)

Finally, while I've gotten used to OSX its a complete misinterpretation and simplification to state that they "junking the whole buggy mess" simply because OS 9.x/Copland sucked, there were a ton of factors not the least of which was the gross mismanagement of the people who ran the company while Jobs was gone. There are still UI things that OS9 does better than OSX, and since OSX is apparently based on the UI Jobs wants I don't see it changing.

DaiMacculate

First, I have a Mac. I like it a lot. I will probably always have one.

Second. PC gaming owes NOTHING to the Mac platform. The evolution of 3D video cards has nothing to do with Photoshop or Pagemaker. Companies like Matrox and Trident made excellent 2D cards for those programs. Companies like PowerVR and 3dfx pioneered daughter cards for playing PC GAMES. NVidia and ATI have their roots there, not in Photoshop.

Third. The MacOS was always a piece of crap. Buggy and Broken. Did you realize that Windows 98 had a better multitasking model than MacOS (how sad is that)? My theory is that since hardly anyone owned Macs, this was a dirty little secret that the "faithful" kept to themselves.

Apple tacitly admitted this by junking the whole buggy mess and basing their OS X (not MacOS) on Free BSD. I give Apple credit for that though. It's not until Apple went Unix and started using Intel chips that a Mac was finally better than the competition.

It's OK to say you like Macs without claiming they have super powers.

FlapjacksAreTasty

Also, didn't I make the point (albeit vaguely) that I'll keep using MacOS regardless of what the future holds? If Apple announces tomorrow that they are selling their whole Mac division to MS to focus on iPods and MS is killing further OSX development you'll still find some version of Mac OS running on my machines 10 years from now. I'm not passionate about the corporation or its employees, but about having a computer that works the way I think it should more than 25% of the time. I spend alot of my personal and professional life using one, why shouldn't I care alot about how it works?

@Mongoosekun: Heh, I did a bit of reading on what you're talking about between posts (and I was never disagreeing that OpenGL for Mac sucks, which I think you knew), now I see where I was confused on your post before. I still think it just comes down to Apple not trying hard enough to do their own 3d game API back when it would have mattered, but you're right that ship has sailed and now we're down to hoping for a better implementation of what we have in OpenGL.

DaiMacculate

OpenGL is the only game in town on OS X. In fact you translate D3D to OpenGL for said games in case you didn't understand my post. This means if your OpenGL support is horrible you're really in for it. The infamous issues with DOOM3 are well known by now. Games ported to OS X have to use workarounds due to lack of shader support, or worse just drop graphics features. The crux of the problem is Apple doesn't have good drivers. Supposedly 10.5 addresses this, but I no longer have a mac to even bother with the beta. A lot of people just wrote off the platform.

A 'good' OpenGL 2.1 driver would be nice before OpenGL 3.0 is upon us. Hell the Geforce 9 GPUs will be out by the end of the year if the engineering tweaks are finished soon. They are more than likely going to be the primer OpenGL 3.0 GPU for a while. Apple has a lot of catch up to do more or less. A lot of magic will be starting to happen in 2007 Q4. It'll be fun and scary with the first major OpenGL release in a while, so keep an eye out for shiny demos. ;)

Mongoosekun

Gambit_584

Available at what retail outlets? The Apple store? I can honestly say I have never seen a boxed copy of a Mac game at any retail store I've been in otherwise .. it's hard enough finding the PC version of most titles, and that's even at gaming stores.

Sardu

NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERDD RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE
Seriously mate, I don't care what I hypotheticaly owe apple when I start world of warcraft or dawn of war. The only person to blame for the sorry state of gaming on apple's platform is apple.
You're not a oppressed minority and you're a computer owner, obviously a computer owner lucky enough to spend thousands on a machine.

So quit with the dramatics, this is a company we're talking about. You don't actualy have a personal stake in this.

ShepherdDog

"Contrary to popular opinion all Mac users goose-step in time to everything Steve says and does"

I think you meant "not all Mac users" dumbass ;)

DaiMacculate

Feel free to correct me as you obviously know more about coding games than I, sorry to double post but I missed your comment which was probably the most interesting of the first 20.

DaiMacculate

See? --> [kotaku.com]

EA just wants to remind you of the good news!

Michael McWhertor

@glaeven: EA makes original games for just one platform? Why was I not informed of this development?!?

Isn't it just a little pathetic for the apparently swarming thongs of people who love PC gaming to abuse another group of gamers for being smaller in numbers and games than them? Makes me want to go find some people playing MUDs on their UNIX terminals and kick sand on them.

I would love to see what your favorite games would look like today without Macs to push the envelope of graphic design, not to mention 3D. Photoshop just to begin with, not to mention a consistent focus on true WYSIWYG color matching and print/screen consistency that Windows still has yet to demonstrate. Adobe among others have done a remarkable job of making XP an OK platform for graphics development, but none of that happens without the Mac platform creating their company in the first place. Thats separate from gaming engine development, one of the few areas where MS has demonstrated that it understands the role of games as loss-leaders for general PC sales and Apple simply hasn't. My point is just that all those textures and other pretty things come from somewhere, and many of the best come from Macs.

Not to mention if you like Halo you owe Alex Seropian, the man who (and I can't find my M1 strategy guide w/the interview to double check it so I'm paraphrasing) once said the only way Apple could improve its PPC machines would be to put Marathon in the system rom.

But go ahead, and enjoy your jokes at our expense. I'll always run some form of Mac OS, I don't care what it takes to make that happen going forward, until something better actually comes along. Being in a minority doesn't make that more or less right than if I was in a vast majority, its just how it is.

DaiMacculate

This press release surfaced about a month ago, at Apple's WWDC conference, EA promised these games, in fact Battlefield 2142 was already supposed to be on Mac.

Dated June 11th:
[www.macnn.com]

Naturally, I can't find it anywhere.

And recently, when Madden '08 was released on every platform known to man, including the NES (ha), EA said it was delayed on the Mac. Sad, really.

August 17th:
[www.appleinsider.com]

Forcepowered

LemonproX

tell me when they release new games at the same time as they release them for other platforms. even better, make some original games for the platform.

glaeven

You have to gimp any game or 3d application you make for OS X due to the horrible driver support. As a graphics developer it's like a slap in the face. I have to scale down all the nice features for OS X, and even PS3Linux does a better job with *software OpenGL on a few features. That is not acceptable.

If we got RSX access for Linux then the Open Source community would be able to run laps around OS X OpenGL and GLSL support in short order. The bar is so low it would be hard to fail. Actually, I'm trying not to break into a cursing rant it's such a farce. Apple has a lot of making up to do. Hopefully they won't drop the OpenGL 3.0 ball like they fumbled '2.1' support.

Mongoosekun

splines

tuteja1986

ludwigk

hvnlysoldr

I use WINE directly to play Windows games under Linux that don't offer native ports. Sometimes I have to alter things a typical user wouldn't understand for optimal performance still. WINE's HLSL to GLSL shader translation, lightweight API facade, etc preform well for sure. However it would still be much better as a native port. One guy could port these games in a fairly short amount of time for OSX/Linux. In fact that's how most games are ported now anyway. Shout out to Ryan! I come to expect disappointment from EA, so it's not a huge shock. ^^

I heard CCP is using winelib for Eve as well. More developers seem to be jumping on the bandwagon. I guess it's better to have hamfisted support than no support at all.

I should also note OS X is improving GLSL support for 10.5, and it might even catch up to Linux this later year. Apple should focus on third party OpenGL driver support, and quit pussyfooting around with their half-ass inhouse driver.

Mongoosekun

Here's to hoping the vague November-January Mac Pro refresh comes with a graphics card from this century, or at least a price break on the old crap.

Oh, and keep 'em coming EA.

Elly is PMSing, stay away!

PainfulPriapism

Altima NEO

mphz

Falconfire

Lebensbaum

Moonshadow101

Morgoth

Custom Reality

eilegz