Swad Posted December 3, 2005 Share Posted December 3, 2005 While Apple is way ahead of Windows in many ways, Macs certainly aren't known for their gaming abilities. What does Apple need to do to make the Mac gamin experience better? What specific steps should they take before you'll be taking a Mac to a LAN party? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ranger Posted December 5, 2005 Share Posted December 5, 2005 As someone new to Macs, maybe someone can answer this for me - what's wrong with the hardware? Why do people say that Macs aren't cut out for gaming? I know that there aren't a lot of Mac games out there (relatively speaking) but is that because of the hardware or something else? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zerozerosix Posted December 5, 2005 Share Posted December 5, 2005 Apple should support DirectX It would be a great step by simplifiying a lot game porting process... but I doubt Microsoft would allow that, they want Vista to be a game platform... sad. Also in my opinion the problem is not really the Mac hardware (even if they should support more third party hardware). Mac represents only a minor fraction of gaming platforms (console : many millions of gamers, PC : millions of gamers, Mac : some gamers ). Why bothering to port a game to Mac when you sell millions of copies for consoles. Even PC have difficulties today to stay on par with consoles (except on specific segments of the gaming market). The more Macs Apple will sell, the more games will appear on this platform... but the road is very long... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niteice Posted December 5, 2005 Share Posted December 5, 2005 Ever heard of Darwine? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ranger Posted December 5, 2005 Share Posted December 5, 2005 Darwine won't do much for gaming, though, since the games aren't native Mac apps, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zerozerosix Posted December 5, 2005 Share Posted December 5, 2005 The goal of Darwine is to "simulate" a Windows environement (dlls, drivers, etc) to allow Windows application to run in Mac OS X. The initial Wine (linux) project can achieve this with good results and good speed as it is not an emulation : x86 code runs on x86 machine, it """simply""" (thousands lines of code) recreate a fake Windows environement needed by the application to run. Darwine added an emulation layer to run Wine on PPC hardware. Now with OS x86 the emulation layer is no longer needed and we can hope same results as the original Wine : native code x86 running fast. But the road is very long before Darwine x86 reach the same level of achievement as Wine.... But perhaps one day we will be able to run any windows game IN Mac OS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nordaaa Posted December 9, 2005 Share Posted December 9, 2005 we should hope that more people write opengl games... then they are easy to port and mac should provide full support... otherwise, we can emulate the directx environment like the prog cedega under linux... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SacredByte Posted December 15, 2005 Share Posted December 15, 2005 faster/better/more upgradable hardware. simply put, alot of gamers are put off by macs for many reasons. here are a few: 1.) The hardware on macs is not as upgradeable, because the hardware to upgrade with is more limited than pc's. 2.) Some gamers like to build their own machines, and with macs, this is not currently practical. 3.) The whole "homie don't right click" thing, most of the pc gamers I know, myself included, are turned off by the whole simple, single button, point & click interface of macs (yes I know you can use multi button mice with macs, but who would ever think to use non-official Apple products ?) 4.) Cost. for 2k you can get a good gaming x86 pc, but thats where the powermac starts. 5.) Number of games supporting the os there are five reasons many "gamers" choose not to go mac, I'm not sure if everythink I listed is still the case, but it has been in the past. personally, I have never "gamed" on a Mac (Except , nor do I plan to anytime soon... The limited selection of games, and limited placed to buy them them (I have only EVER seen mac games in Micro Center and online) make me not want to even bother trying. besides, thats why I've got x86 pc's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sulfo Posted December 30, 2005 Share Posted December 30, 2005 (edited) gaming on mac probably depends a whole lot on what u want to play... just as for myself: 1) ut2k4 => running fine under win, linux and osx (pb g4) 2) wow => running fine under win and osx i guess basically every shooter supporting open gl is fine, so if u play fps there should be no prob... only gaming i need win for is bf2 at the moment, but hopefully there will be a mac release for that sometime as well... and anyway i dont't play as much as i used to anymore, since college and my girlfriend take up most of the time anyway... true still: if u need ur computer mainly for gaming a mac probably isn't the way to go... however if u stick to one game mostly anyway (for example competitive ut) and don't care about being able to play a lot of other games u can still stick with a mac... plus: if an intel mac is able to dual boot osx and win u can have both, but i guess we'll have to see about that... sorry for the lot of neways, i guess the beer is getting the best of me Edited December 30, 2005 by TomSteR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjr1028 Posted December 30, 2005 Share Posted December 30, 2005 Apple should support DirectX It would be a great step by simplifiying a lot game porting process... but I doubt Microsoft would allow that, they want Vista to be a game platform... sad. DX was purposely tied closely to windows so it would not be easy to port. Believe me, the issue came up during anti-trust proceedings. I would like to see it for DirectPlay networking purposes alone though. Anyway, Apple giving a damn about games would be a start as would a game device preference pane. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SenVa Posted February 23, 2006 Share Posted February 23, 2006 I was told vista was going to cripple OpenGL drivers... This will screw over the few mac games that come out... who is going to make a opengl based game if it will run like {censored} on windows. I'm not sure if DirectX could be ported but something like Irrlicht or Orge3D built into osx would solve this. Irrlicht and Orge3D are 3D APIs that run on DirectX and OpenGL. they also have Windows Linux and OSX support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jb_gmd Posted February 23, 2006 Share Posted February 23, 2006 I was told vista was going to cripple OpenGL drivers... This will screw over the few mac games that come out... who is going to make a opengl based game if it will run like {censored} on windows. I'm not sure if DirectX could be ported but something like Irrlicht or Orge3D built into osx would solve this. Irrlicht and Orge3D are 3D APIs that run on DirectX and OpenGL. they also have Windows Linux and OSX support. LOL now thats a conspiracy theory if I ever heard one you do know that it would also make older opengl games suck ass too right? don't you think people would be like.. "Hey your new OS is slow! Nobody buy it!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SenVa Posted February 23, 2006 Share Posted February 23, 2006 It is only opengl they are slowing down... It is now a layer over direct x It can slow opengl 50% and it disables all the things OGL can do that DirectX cannot. It is to force developers to use directx (windows only) for game development. This will make porting games to linux and mac allot harder. Yes it will make many old OpenGL games slower... Up to 50% slower. Its not a matter of no one buying it... Wista will ship with millions of dell and gateway systems... developers will have to conform... articals about this... http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=99989 http://slashdot.org/articles/05/08/06/177251.shtml http://www.astahost.com/info.php/microsoft...hics_t7377.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Nonny Moose Posted February 27, 2006 Share Posted February 27, 2006 Games need ridiculous processing power and 1 GHz to a game company is 1 GHz, regardless of processor architecture (this came directly from Aspyr in an interview for Macworld). Also, to get timely ports, Altivec support is not really considered (because games have to be coded to specifically take advantage of Altivec) and neither are multiple processors (same reason). Systemwise, the Mac represents the ultimate disposable gaming machine. An iMac G5 can run just about any game in the Mac market, and will for a few years. When it gets outdated, plunk down for a new iMac (and gamers are well known for spending $5000+ for systems). The only problem lies in it not running the Windows "insecurity blanket" that people seem to want. With that being said, the best way to support Mac gaming is to actually BUY MAC GAMES and NOT PIRATE/STEAL THEM. Since the Mac is a smaller market, it is hit even worse by people stealing software. In other words, there is less of a profit margin in a Mac market than a Windows market and that's simply because of the numbers game. Take Halo for instance. For every one legit copy of Halo running around, there are at least three illegal copies. How is it profitable to make a Mac game if people aren't going to buy the bloody thing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SenVa Posted March 2, 2006 Share Posted March 2, 2006 @A Nonny Moose That is really true... I'm not sure if the ratio is really 1:3 but it is still too high. Im not sure how to really end bootleging though... No matter what you do people will find a way to steal a game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac OSX Coder Posted March 2, 2006 Share Posted March 2, 2006 more games. better graphics card. that's it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Nonny Moose Posted March 2, 2006 Share Posted March 2, 2006 better graphics card. Can't have anything better when ATI has the strangehold on the Mac market. They can release any kind of {censored} they want at Apple and they're right now forced to take it. At least when NVidia worked with Apple, there was some competition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anhaedra Posted April 27, 2006 Share Posted April 27, 2006 It is only opengl they are slowing down... It is now a layer over direct x It can slow opengl 50% and it disables all the things OGL can do that DirectX cannot. It is to force developers to use directx (windows only) for game development. This will make porting games to linux and mac allot harder. Yes it will make many old OpenGL games slower... Up to 50% slower. Its not a matter of no one buying it... Wista will ship with millions of dell and gateway systems... developers will have to conform... articals about this... http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=99989 http://slashdot.org/articles/05/08/06/177251.shtml http://www.astahost.com/info.php/microsoft...hics_t7377.html So... Why not just put a bit more effort into making it run in both OpenGL and Direct X, but primarily Direct X? I don't see much of an issue here. Just make it use both, so it can be ported. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ozzie123 Posted April 29, 2006 Share Posted April 29, 2006 That means that a game developer will need more time on developing their games. More time = more money. More money on cost means thinner margin for them. Not a viable business model, eh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sabr Posted April 29, 2006 Share Posted April 29, 2006 In my opinion, Apple can't make gaming any better... Sure, they can add in better graphics cards, etc... that makes the game itself better, but not exactly gaming. If you want a gaming computer, you need a computer that supports all games, which OS X doesn't. So, now they have made Boot Camp, OS X isn't going to be used for gaming much longer, since it now has Windows support, which means people are going to be installing their games on the XP Partition of their Apple Computer. Until OS X dominates the majority of computer operating systems, (right now, it's 5% or something...), they aren't going to get anywhere fast... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Nonny Moose Posted May 21, 2006 Share Posted May 21, 2006 There are lots and lot of people saying Apple needs to partner up with Nintendo. I think that would make a very interesting position for both companies and it would make Nintendo games available for Mac and not PC. I can imagine playing Zelda now on a Macintosh. *drool* Apple really needs a kick ass game that is only available for the Mac platform. This was the original intent of Halo until Microsoft bought them out so they could have a kick ass game for the XBox. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
INFNITE Posted June 17, 2006 Share Posted June 17, 2006 Apple really needs a kick ass game that is only available for the Mac platform. This was the original intent of Halo until Microsoft bought them out so they could have a kick ass game for the XBox. not gonna happen. No game developer is gonna develop a game exclusively for a platform that has less than 5% of the total marketshare. Considering the cost of development on the Mac is probably equal to that on the PC (perhaps even more expensive), developing on the PC would be more important because the market is much larger. Personally, I don't believe Apple will ever become a gaming powerhouse unless Apple comes out with a game console or something like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BRP Posted June 17, 2006 Share Posted June 17, 2006 I think Apple doesn't need to make a console (that poor, poor, Pippin... ), but let's view the extremes here: The PC platform tends to attract really casual gamers because they don't need to buy a console... ...and it attracts the most "hardcore" gamers, the kind of people who lined up for the VooDoo5 back in the day and worship nVidia or ATI at the shrine of their huge, glowing, water-cooled machines, playing mostly FPS's. But the consoles attract more of the people who don't really want to pimp out a computer just to play. They can be pretty hardcore, but they don't have to be. They can even be the kind of people who just have it as one way for their kids to play, and take away the controllers when the kids misbehave. Arcades used to be for the casual gamer (back in the day when they took their place alongside the old mechanical pinball machines), but now they are more havens of the hardcore fighting game and lightgun shooting addicts, and are a sadly underutilized medium (I haven't seen a crowded arcade in years, anyhow; when DDR was novel is pretty much the last time I've seen so much interest in an arcade machine). I think Apple could succeed in the gaming market by somehow finding a "middle path", but if I could say what I'd be rich =\ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Nonny Moose Posted June 17, 2006 Share Posted June 17, 2006 Both the Mac and PC markets are losing to the console markets, though. Why even try to cobble together a $5000 system to play Halo when you can do it using a $399 XBox and the graphics are superb (prices are hyperbolic of course, to blatantly outline the price disparity). It's going to get to the point (and I think it already has gotten there) where game developers will narrowcast to the hardcore gamers and then they'll really shoot themselves in the foot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwprod12 Posted June 17, 2006 Share Posted June 17, 2006 I was in the mac store the other day, scoping out places to throw molotov coctails (jk) and I noticed the limited selection of mac games, and their prices. C&C Generals was $49.99 (it's 19.99 for the PC), several games that are the same as PC equivalents were also more expensive. I dont know if that's just an apple-store thing (you know, like... since these idiots are willing to shell out so much money for nothing, maybe they'll pay $79.99 for last year's computer game) or if the developer's MSRPs are higher due to lack of popularity for the Apple platform. Still. It's a turnoff. I dont like the idea of there being a premium to own something "neat". All bashing of Apple aside, their prices really arent THAT unreasonable. But the software having a premium over Windows versions is just another nail in the coffin. Apple systems usually have pretty good video hardware, but again, the premium on that hardware is big. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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