Mac Game Drought!!!

[ericsthename]

Alright fellow gamers!

I'm getting antsy as F*** over here. I bought myself a spanky Macbook Pro last January, and waited MONTHS to get it. All this after having waited a YEAR for apple to update their anciently long-in-the-tooth-desperatly-needing-replaced G4 powerbooks.

The reason I agonized over this $2500 machine which has been Rev A garbage 3X over, was so that I could play games.

THEN to add insult to injury, there have been a measly 2 games that I've played on it. Quake 4 and Unreal 2004. I monkeyed with Halo - but I have an xbox and have already beat it AND Halo 2, plus the UB is AWFUL. I played a bit of Doom 3 and it was a terrible shooter.

If I don't get something decent to play on my MBP soon, the hardware will be outdated before I could even have used it... I'd be seriously pissed then.

OH and yes I have Bootcamped twice and played a few windows games... but overall its just a big pain. A bit like having a racecar - you have to haul it around in a big truck anywhere you want to use it, and then unpack it, set it up and blah blah blah before you can even play with it.


Does anyone know of anything exciting on the western front? Is there any hope for REAL mac games?

[Spartacus]

I mainly console game, but I keep Civilization IV: Warlords, Command & Conquer: Generals, and The Sims 2 on my MBP for the very odd, unnatural time I think to myself, "Hey, it's about time I use my laptop made by a company notoriously bad for gamers to do a little gaming!" And when that happens, I usually just BootCamp it. You might want to check out Crossovers, though. I hear Half-Life 2 runs well on it in OSX.

But seriously, Civ IV is amazing.

[blOOdNiNja]

use CrossOver Mac, run any windows games in the mac OS flawlessly

installing can be a pain sometimes but once you getting running its fine

[risc]

The reason I agonized over this $2500 machine which has been Rev A garbage 3X over, was so that I could play games.

You bought a Mac to play games? How new to the platform are you? :rolleyes:

If you want to know what games are coming out on OS X check out http://insidemacgames.com/ but really you shouldn't complain if there aren't any, this is OS X not Windows after all.

OH and yes I have Bootcamped twice and played a few windows games... but overall its just a big pain. A bit like having a racecar - you have to haul it around in a big truck anywhere you want to use it, and then unpack it, set it up and blah blah blah before you can even play with it.

Who would of thunk it Windows games would require Windows to run. If this isn't the option you wanted what did you actually expect? Did you think Apple moving to Intel would some how magically make games appear?

I don't mean to be rude but seriously wtf?

[risc]

use CrossOver Mac, run any windows games in the mac OS flawlessly...

That's a very very very bold statement.

[blOOdNiNja]

...worked for me

even remembered my 4+ year old steam login info =)

[ericsthename]

Ahhhh here we go... haha some mac gaming discussion:

I'm not new to the platform, I've been on mac since system 7.xx

My point about Bootcamp was not a complaint against apple/diss on windows, but I just didnt want a bunch of responses from people saying to bootcamp my computer and get on with it...

More or less, I just can't believe that there have been so FEW games to come out for mac lately! I mean, back on my iMac DV in 1999 I can remember the whole OSX transition being pretty killer on the gaming, but I can't remember a drought this long...

The mac platform has gotten SO much better as far as software support - there used to be a time when having a mac was like a verdict of separation between my friends and I, but now the software is much much more compatible.

Its just gaming... I would expect that Apple would see less games, but usually there are a steady stream of "higher quality" titles to bridge the gap.

I appreciate the tip on Crossover though - I've heard a bit about it but always been skeptical of emulation, never thought it would be able to handle anything serious...


Cummon.... there must be people around who are just itching - like myself - to see some interesting titles come the way of OSX!!!

[risc]

I just had a quick look at the reviews on insidemacgames.com and there are at least 5-10 reviews a month for games out on OS X and this goes back months and months. I don't think there is a drought on, I just think Mac gaming has been the same as it always has...

Yesterday I tried out Geneforge 4 for OS X it's a great game if you are in to old school RPGs. Unfortunately with OS X you really don't get the opportunity to pick and choose because hardly anything is ever released (compared to Windows). ;)

[Chone]

Crossover is not good enough for gaming, at least not for games released in the past 4-5 years... if even that.

See here is a compatibility list, all that work are Valve games and with a bronze rating... which means its not really playable.

http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/browse/cat/?cat_id=16;sort[medal_id]=DESC

As far as non-bootcamp alternatives I put my biggest bet on 3D accelerated Parallels which is not too far off...

Right now running Windows, games scream on my Macbook Pro and even more on my Mac Pro.

[michaelsaxon]

There are a lot of people switching right now; market forces will likely rectify this.

[Bobdude161]

Focus on the older games. There are tons!!! I have been looking around amazon.com and found many games that were highly rated and were moved over to Mac. But don't count on Mac only games to come out in the near future. I'm sure when Vista comes out, the PC game industry may be considering alternatives.

[Mac'Mo]

not really, the big blockbusters are all going to pc

[gathaar]

If you're a real die-hard gamer, you just don't have to buy an apple computer. The best game I'll ever be able to play on my white macbook is HOMM V i think. I love apple computers/Mac OS, but for games they are just crap.

Luckily there are some good older games to play on my windows partition ...

[fblack]

Alright fellow gamers!

I'm getting antsy as F*** over here. I bought myself a spanky Macbook Pro last January, and waited MONTHS to get it. All this after having waited a YEAR for apple to update their anciently long-in-the-tooth-desperatly-needing-replaced G4 powerbooks.

The reason I agonized over this $2500 machine which has been Rev A garbage 3X over, was so that I could play games.

THEN to add insult to injury, there have been a measly 2 games that I've played on it. Quake 4 and Unreal 2004. I monkeyed with Halo - but I have an xbox and have already beat it AND Halo 2, plus the UB is AWFUL. I played a bit of Doom 3 and it was a terrible shooter.

If I don't get something decent to play on my MBP soon, the hardware will be outdated before I could even have used it... I'd be seriously pissed then.

OH and yes I have Bootcamped twice and played a few windows games... but overall its just a big pain. A bit like having a racecar - you have to haul it around in a big truck anywhere you want to use it, and then unpack it, set it up and blah blah blah before you can even play with it.


Does anyone know of anything exciting on the western front? Is there any hope for REAL mac games?

It has been a drought this past year.:(

Glenda Adams over at Aspyr said they had pulled back quite a bit on releases. IMHO many developers were taking a wait and see approach to bootcamp. Adams said they probably pulled back too much and would release more titles this coming year. Prey is already Gold master and is scheduled to start shipping January 16. Age of Empires 3 just came out like 3 months ago, and Imperial Glory came out about a month ago. So stuff is coming out, hopefully there will be more. :cool:

[Quboid]

I have said it before and i will say it again.
Macs are not for gammers.

ever heard of alienware??

[greatdevourer]

I have said it before and i will say it again.
Macs are not for gammers.

ever heard of alienware?? Alienware? Pah! DIY computing will get you it far better and far cheaper

Tbh, with a lot of Mac gaming, I'm waiting to see what Bootcamp becomes with 10.5 (hopefully, a full VM with that funky Parallels combined desktop thing)

[ericsthename]

Yeah, I read that letter from Aspyr saying how 2006 was the worst year for mac gaming in recent times.

I just don't understand why! Yes I realize the mac is a fairly "niche" market, but it still represents a significant market - especially in the personal side of things.

I think it's apple's job to make the effort to convince developers that they're serious about reversing this stigma that the mac is a bad gaming platform.

[Chone]

Yeah, I read that letter from Aspyr saying how 2006 was the worst year for mac gaming in recent times.

I just don't understand why! Yes I realize the mac is a fairly "niche" market, but it still represents a significant market - especially in the personal side of things.

I think it's apple's job to make the effort to convince developers that they're serious about reversing this stigma that the mac is a bad gaming platform.

Mac OS X is a pretty sloppy gaming platform, there is no doubt about that, Macs are good gaming computers when they are running Windows :rolleyes:, seriously if you like games then buy a PC or use Bootcamp, I stopped buying games for the Mac around 2000 when I got a PC and I never regret that decision, the only game I might buy for the Mac is HoMMV but thats just because I need something to play on my MBP to blow some time without needing a restart, when I want to play a real game, I don't mind going over to the Windows side.

And Apple is doing less and less to convince developers that Macs can be viable gaming platforms, for example a 1200 17" iMac will be outdated for games in a few months (its already a tad outdated) and you can't upgrade the card... the only computer thats good for gaming is the Mac Pro, simply because you can upgrade the components in it, then again a Mac Pro with 2GB of RAM and a X1900XTX will run you more than $3000...

[Haoshiro]

When I switched from PC to Mac I didn't expect to be gaming...

So I bought this Mac, and a 360 for gaming. My only complaint is the occasional LAN party I used to host, the game selection for that is really reduced, so I'll Boot Camp soon just for those days (which are only a few times a year).

[IEatApples]

If you're a real die-hard gamer, you just don't have to buy an apple computer. The best game I'll ever be able to play on my white macbook is HOMM V i think. I love apple computers/Mac OS, but for games they are just crap.

Luckily there are some good older games to play on my windows partition ...HOMM V (http://www.freeverse.com/heroes5/) all the way!!! :D

Mac OS X is a pretty sloppy gaming platform, there is no doubt about that, Macs are good gaming computers when they are running Windows :rolleyes:, seriously if you like games then buy a PC or use Bootcamp, I stopped buying games for the Mac around 2000 when I got a PC and I never regret that decision, the only game I might buy for the Mac is HoMMV but thats just because I need something to play on my MBP to blow some time without needing a restart, when I want to play a real game, I don't mind going over to the Windows side.

And Apple is doing less and less to convince developers that Macs can be viable gaming platforms, for example a 1200 17" iMac will be outdated for games in a few months (its already a tad outdated) and you can't upgrade the card... the only computer thats good for gaming is the Mac Pro, simply because you can upgrade the components in it, then again a Mac Pro with 2GB of RAM and a X1900XTX will run you more than $3000...I think the 20" & 24" iMacs are quite good for gaming, but I agree that Apple should look into getting better cards for their machines.

(256MB should be a minimum). :D

[Homy]

"Does anyone know of anything exciting on the western front? Is there any hope for REAL mac games?"

Have you played Call of Duty?

[PlaceofDis]

but now the software is much much more compatible.

Its just gaming... I would expect that Apple would see less games, but usually there are a steady stream of "higher quality" titles to bridge the gap.

Cummon.... there must be people around who are just itching - like myself - to see some interesting titles come the way of OSX!!!

1. how is the software more compatible? OS X is just as different from Windows as ever. they just use similar hardware now, which has no bearing on making a game, in fact right now its still harder as they have to use XCode to create Universal binaries instead of whatever they used to use in-house for porting games.

2. Apple doesn't care about gaming. they couldn't care less if one game per month came out or 50.

3. it would be nice to see some new titles head this way, but right now its hard for the ports to be done, and its a niche market. not the best of situations.

[IEatApples]

3. it would be nice to see some new titles head this way, but right now its hard for the ports to be done, and its a niche market. not the best of situations.It's not that hard anymore thanks to Cider (http://www.transgaming.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=2&meid=-1). :)

[gathaar]

I have said it before and i will say it again.
Macs are not for gammers.

ever heard of alienware??

Yeah Alienware is good, in the last "PCGamer" I bought (Now I don't buy them anymore with my mac) all gaming computers are from alienware.

There's also this Falcon Northwest MACH V which is very good. It only costs
$7 670 ^^

[poppe]

It has been a drought this past year.:(

Glenda Adams over at Aspyr said they had pulled back quite a bit on releases. IMHO many developers were taking a wait and see approach to bootcamp. Adams said they probably pulled back too much and would release more titles this coming year. Prey is already Gold master and is scheduled to start shipping January 16. Age of Empires 3 just came out like 3 months ago, and Imperial Glory came out about a month ago. So stuff is coming out, hopefully there will be more. :cool:

Age of Empires III is a joke... I bought that... Waisted fricken 54.95 on it... I was so so so excited to take my beautifully crafted MBP and play against my girlfriend on her Dell. Guess what. AOE3 is not cross platform compatible. So I emailed them on what a joke it was. There response. My letter will be passed on to the higher authorities or something.... how lame... now I have to find a way to not take a huge loss on it and get the windows version so I can just bootcamp...

I'm bitter... Its just that the only game I ever play is Age. Nothing else really is all that fun. Well halo, but I have the Xbox for that.

[fblack]

Age of Empires III is a joke... I bought that... Waisted fricken 54.95 on it... I was so so so excited to take my beautifully crafted MBP and play against my girlfriend on her Dell. Guess what. AOE3 is not cross platform compatible. So I emailed them on what a joke it was. There response. My letter will be passed on to the higher authorities or something.... how lame... now I have to find a way to not take a huge loss on it and get the windows version so I can just bootcamp...

I'm bitter... Its just that the only game I ever play is Age. Nothing else really is all that fun. Well halo, but I have the Xbox for that.

I havent bought AOE3 yet, I didn't know it wasn't cross platform, that bites. I mainly play Halo and COD 1 on my mac and some Halo CE on my PC...

[Counterfit]

<- Just started playing WoW on 3.5 year old hardware. :o

Runs pretty damn well considering. Slight to moderate slowdowns in Stormwind, even less in Ironforge.

[grabberslasher]

I'm sorry, but that MacBook Pro isn't going to get much gaming action. Let me explain:

The only good games we get these days are FPS, Strategy games and The Sims :P

On the FPS scene, the MPB can't even run Doom 3 or Quake 4 at max settings (without any antialiasing even), not to mention Call of Duty 2. I have a 17" 2.16GHz MPB (and have been gaming on the Mac since Spectre VR and Spelunx, so nyah), but it's just not up to modern gaming standards.

The graphics card is mainly to blame - the ATI X1600 just is nowhere near as good as even the 3 year old GeForce 6800 GT (both at 256MB).

Age of Empires 3 runs awfully, Civilization 4 same, The Sims 2 is just about bearable, CoD2 is playable on lower resolutions.

The next good game that we're going to get that isn't a year outdated is Unreal Tournament 2007, and I have serious doubts as to whether the X1600 will be able to keep up. After playing Gears of War on my Xbox and seeing just what the Unreal Engine 3.0 graphics entail, I think gaming on portable Macs is screwed.

Hopefully I'll be proved wrong, we'll see in March or so.

[fblack]

I'm sorry, but that MacBook Pro isn't going to get much gaming action. Let me explain:

The only good games we get these days are FPS, Strategy games and The Sims :P

On the FPS scene, the MPB can't even run Doom 3 or Quake 4 at max settings (without any antialiasing even), not to mention Call of Duty 2. I have a 17" 2.16GHz MPB (and have been gaming on the Mac since Spectre VR and Spelunx, so nyah), but it's just not up to modern gaming standards.

The graphics card is mainly to blame - the ATI X1600 just is nowhere near as good as even the 3 year old GeForce 6800 GT (both at 256MB).

Age of Empires 3 runs awfully, Civilization 4 same, The Sims 2 is just about bearable, CoD2 is playable on lower resolutions.

The next good game that we're going to get that isn't a year outdated is Unreal Tournament 2007, and I have serious doubts as to whether the X1600 will be able to keep up. After playing Gears of War on my Xbox and seeing just what the Unreal Engine 3.0 graphics entail, I think gaming on portable Macs is screwed.

Hopefully I'll be proved wrong, we'll see in March or so.

Some people can get a little better performance, by running their games off an external HD that has like a WD Raptor 10,000rpm in it (if you can afford it, LOL). At least using an external you dont burn your internal drive out. I burned my HD on my dell laptop when I first got halo. :o But hey it was a poopy 4200rpm drive.

But yea the X1600 is weak, I've said that before. I was looking for an upgrade on my desktop PC a while back and saw many deals for the 1600, but ended up steering away from it. This is what Tomshardware.com had to say about it:

The X1600 is an odd duck. It sports 12 advanced pixel shaders but it's crippled with a four-pipeline architecture. It's often referred to as a "12-pipeline" card, but this is not entirely true, as it's 12 pixel processors work in banks of three and output four pixels per clock - the hallmark of a four-pipeline architecture.

Regardless, the result is a card that offers relatively high performance in some games, and relatively low performance in other games.

I remember reading that the early MBPs had the GPU underclocked, probably to save battery life and heat. But that certainly doesn't help performance either. Still its tough to engineer stuff into a 1" sandwhich. :)

[ericsthename]

1. how is the software more compatible? OS X is just as different from Windows as ever. they just use similar hardware now, which has no bearing on making a game, in fact right now its still harder as they have to use XCode to create Universal binaries instead of whatever they used to use in-house for porting games.

2. Apple doesn't care about gaming. they couldn't care less if one game per month came out or 50.

3. it would be nice to see some new titles head this way, but right now its hard for the ports to be done, and its a niche market. not the best of situations.

Were you around during the OS9 (and earlier) times? Cross compatibility has become much easier on apple recently - iTunes mac/pc, .doc export in pages, powerpoint cross compatibility... msn chat via Adium and even PC networking has become possible.

Yeah, the hardware's the same, but the amount of software for Mac has not only improved in quantity, it's become better crafted to co-exist with the unfortunate majority of users...

[ericsthename]

I'm sorry, but that MacBook Pro isn't going to get much gaming action. Let me explain:

The only good games we get these days are FPS, Strategy games and The Sims :P

On the FPS scene, the MPB can't even run Doom 3 or Quake 4 at max settings (without any antialiasing even), not to mention Call of Duty 2. I have a 17" 2.16GHz MPB (and have been gaming on the Mac since Spectre VR and Spelunx, so nyah), but it's just not up to modern gaming standards.

The graphics card is mainly to blame - the ATI X1600 just is nowhere near as good as even the 3 year old GeForce 6800 GT (both at 256MB).

Age of Empires 3 runs awfully, Civilization 4 same, The Sims 2 is just about bearable, CoD2 is playable on lower resolutions.

The next good game that we're going to get that isn't a year outdated is Unreal Tournament 2007, and I have serious doubts as to whether the X1600 will be able to keep up. After playing Gears of War on my Xbox and seeing just what the Unreal Engine 3.0 graphics entail, I think gaming on portable Macs is screwed.

Hopefully I'll be proved wrong, we'll see in March or so.

Spectre VR was sweet... I used to play that back in the day. Yeah, after seeing Gears of War, its hard to imagine the MBP coping with anything near that level of detail, but on computers at least you can turn down the res and reduce the textures a bit. It would be nice to see some decent games come our way, at least so you can justify the extra coin for having a dedicated card!