It seems like apple hates gaming....

[couch potato]

so at the next conference, why doesn't Jobs just say it out loud to everyone? He never talks about games, and apple's gaming section sucks. They never try to get games to come to the mac. so he trying to prevent the mac from becoming a potential gaming machine or what?? like someone else said (in another topic) the only way for us to see games like half-life2 were if he were to actually try to get it. Althought they did use quake 3 to benchmark the G5:confused: i think thats one reason macs aren't doing as well.....although things just keep getting better for the mac, Pro apps especially:)

[MacBandit]

It has less to do with Apple as a company and more to do with Apple as a community. It's not cost effective to basically write a new game from the ground up (port it) to sell maybe 5,000 copies. PC games can sell a hundred thousand. In fact OSX is much more conducive to porting and Apple works a lot closer with developers then any time in the past.

[alphaone]

Well...Apple did release 10.2.6 just so UT2003 could work. That seems pretty nice of them to me.:rolleyes:

[Powerbook G5]

You cannot expect Apple to bend over for all the gaming companies out there, they are the ones who need to actively write and program the games to run on the Macs and have an interest in giving the Mac community their gaming fix, not Apple.

[Thanatoast]

If SJ started pushing gaming I think it would kinda backfire. I mean the community already complains bitterly about wait times between release and port. He'd be setting himself up for a fall.

Plus, not all the machines apple sells are really game-worthy. I got a latest/greatest 17 inch imac last fall, but when I downloaded the JKII demo and the WC3 demo, it choked. Of course, it was my first Apple machine and I didn't know the rules yet (pro vs. consumer), but I'm still kinda disappointed, ya know?

[mac15]

Apple is actually improving GPU drivers for games, over at MacOSrumors they were saying the new GPU drivers in Panther push 10-20fps out of all cards. And like Powerbook G5 said, its not apple who's making games. Alot of developers don't want to develop for the max because they can make 80% more sales with a PC version. Although there are so great companies , like Aspyr who bring mac users 50% of games. And Apple has praised them for that, even steve did it in one of his keynotes on 2002

[vollspacken]

I don't really care about current games on mac. I only play oldskool stuff that either runs on os9 or my SE/30 (hehe, check out Macintosh Garden (http://mac.the-underdogs.org/)), or the stuff of my youth on Amiga and C=64 emulators...

for games I suggest that you either build yourself a PC (if you want to be on the safe side and play everything) or wait a little bit, since most of the good/really successful games also get a release for mac os...

vSpacken

[scem0]

Gamers use PCs.

Game companies know this so they make games for PCs and not macs.

If apple got more market-share then maybe the game companies would start making the games for mac too.

For apple to get more marketshare they need to lower prices, and make macs more affordable because, let me tell you, they aren't.... :o ;)

scem0

[Freg3000]

I want Apple to make their own game which uses all of the Mac's capabilities to the fullest. Make it use Altivec, and maybe make it 64 bit for the new G5. Get a game out there are show people it is not simply that macs are slow to run good games but rather lousy ports that take too much time and are never worth it.

[Codemonkey]

I still don't understand why anyone (except the rich, but chances are if you're hanging out in forums all day.... anyway... ya.) would spend $3000+ CDN for a gaming machine, regardless of how many [good] games are available.

An xBox is less than 10% of the price, and you can "stick it" to Gates at the same time: afaik they're still not making money on them. :-)

Anyway. If anyone can explain to me, like I'm a 3 year old why you would spend so much money to play some games, I'll give you a big wet smooch.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Freg3000
I want Apple to make their own game which uses all of the Mac's capabilities to the fullest. Make it use Altivec, and maybe make it 64 bit for the new G5. Get a game out there are show people it is not simply that macs are slow to run good games but rather lousy ports that take too much time and are never worth it.

Well Apple didn't make it but QuakeIIIArena is just such a game. It was very well optimized for the PPC chip and also took advantage of Altivec and Dual processors. On a top of the line Mac QuakeIIIArena runs pretty much near the same max FPS as it does on a top of the line PC.

[Sol]

To say that Apple hates gaming is to ignore facts like OpenGL's integration in OS X and the force feedback support the Mac got last year. Short of becoming a game publisher what more do you expect Apple to do?

Gaming on the Mac is a niche part of the overall games industry but it is here to stay. After all, even Mac users want to play Quake sometime.

[mstecker]

Okay, I have in my house:

- An XBox.
- A "gaming" PC (dual Athlon MP 2600s, Raedon 9700)
- A G4 (1.4Ghz, 20" studio display).

You'd think, based on the above comments, that the mac would never get used for gaming, but that turns out not to be the case. Some games (Warcraft, Warcraft TFT for instance) just look so great at native resolution on the big studio display that I spend tons of my time playing them there.

Games that run great on my G4 at native resolution:
- Warcraft(s)
- Black and White
- Neverwinter Nights

Games that need me to shift over to my PC:
- UT2003 (it really is too slow even on a fast mac)
- Counterstrike

Games that make me break out my XBox (attached to a Sony 42" Plasma Display):
- Football (the NFL 2003 by Microsoft is the best so far)
- Star Wars KOTOR
- Halo

Still - even with the Xbox support of hi-def TVs and a very nice display, it always feels like I'm using a toy when I play on the console. Sure, Halo's a great game, but when was the last time you put up with anything running at 640x480 on a computer? The resolution of consoles is just too shallow to make for a great gaming experience.

YMMV

[Powerbook G5]

When I am home, I use the family PC for any PC games I buy out of impulse, but I agree with getting an Xbox, or a Gamecube...there are some seriously kick ass games on these game systems that are literally built just for games, so you don't have to worry about getting blue screens of death, getting a worm virus, having to reformat or defrag or reinstall anything...you just turn it on and play away. You can get a kick ass system for like $150 and all the "hits" are around $20-30 and then the regular price for newer releases. I've found it to be a pretty nice solution, and since I'm at college with two other roommates, we end up with an Xbox, Gamecube, PS2, Dreamcast, N64, SNES, and NES...it's amazing what ebay and some scholarship refund checks can do for you when you need your gaming fix. :)

PS- SNES rules them all.

[Fukui]

Its not apple's fault that they don't have directX in OS X. Ask MS :rolleyes: about that one and you have your answer why there aren't so many games for Apple.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Fukui
Its not apple's fault that they don't have directX in OS X. Ask MS :rolleyes: about that one and you have your answer why there aren't so many games for Apple.

I think that has very little to do with it. As with everything in life it's all about the money or in this case the total lack of it in selling games to the Mac community.

[NavyIntel007]

I read a great editorial... I think it was on OSnews.com about what's holding Apple back from gaining marketshare. They flat out said Games. Computer gaming is a huge industry that Apple should not simply ignore. The article went into how the porting industry works for apple gaming companies like Aspyr. When you port a game it costs about 15-20% of what it would cost to create the game. So really, you wouldn't have to sell all that many games to make a profit. I want to say the article said about 771 sold would break even.

Apple should consider buying MacPlay or Aspyr to get into the porting arena to put PC and Mac gaming on the same page. Apple could put forth more resources than these smaller companies. Eventually, Apple should start releasing their own games when marketshare picks up. It would be really cool if Apple made good games but released the demos for PC. At the end of the demo it says "ONLY FOR MAC."

[Codemonkey]

Originally posted by MacBandit
I think that has very little to do with it. As with everything in life it's all about the money or in this case the total lack of it in selling games to the Mac community.

We don't have viruses, and we don't have games, for much of the same reasons.

You sum it up well: money talks. +-3% Marketshare = leftovers and crumbs.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by NavyIntel007
I read a great editorial... I think it was on OSnews.com about what's holding Apple back from gaining marketshare. They flat out said Games. Computer gaming is a huge industry that Apple should not simply ignore. The article went into how the porting industry works for apple gaming companies like Aspyr. When you port a game it costs about 15-20% of what it would cost to create the game. So really, you wouldn't have to sell all that many games to make a profit. I want to say the article said about 771 sold would break even.

Apple should consider buying MacPlay or Aspyr to get into the porting arena to put PC and Mac gaming on the same page. Apple could put forth more resources than these smaller companies. Eventually, Apple should start releasing their own games when marketshare picks up. It would be really cool if Apple made good games but released the demos for PC. At the end of the demo it says "ONLY FOR MAC."

Well I think MacSoft will be bringing a lot more games in then ever before and way more then Apple users are use to. They are under new management by the guy who use to head up Bungie. Since I mentioned Bungie we use to have a company that had games that said Mac only that made PC games envious then MicroShaft bought them out.

[bousozoku]

Originally posted by alphaone
Well...Apple did release 10.2.6 just so UT2003 could work. That seems pretty nice of them to me.:rolleyes:

It's especially nice of them, considering that they broke the drivers early on in 10.2.x, fixed and re-released them in 10.2.5 and 10.2.6.

If Apple were more consistent, they would have more of a gaming market. It took them a while to get Game Sprockets together. By the time they'd gotten some developers interested, they dropped them.

As Mac game buyers go, there are fewer game buyers than there are pirates on PCs. If MS ported DirectX to Mac OS X today, there still wouldn't be many games because there aren't many people buying them. (Software houses have emulated the important DirectX calls to make porting easier.)

How many of those millions of Macs are being used to create posters and billboards and multimedia? How many are being used in schools? It's unlikely that those will never play games.

I believe that we'll see more converts buying Macs to play games in-between doing something more creative but it's not as though any Apple machine will ever be the ultimate gaming machine--that would be some game console.

[rueyeet]

I have to admit I find it highly ironic that the Wintel people can, sometimes in the same breath, criticize the Mac for not being a decent enough gaming platform and then call Macs overpriced "toys". Yet those same dedicated gamers will drop thousands of dollars to get the ultimate gaming rig: basically a big expensive toy. :rolleyes:

But at the same time, gaming is one of the major reasons that people buy computers, right up there with Internet connectivity, digital media, and *gasp* doing actual work. And people mostly will want one machine that'll do everything they might want to do on it--that's why email appliances have largely flopped.

The interesting thing is whether this will continue to be a vicious cycle--less games leads to less Macs sold leads to even less games--or whether Apple will manage to tip marketshare up enough to swing the cycle the other way.

[couch potato]

wow, i knew this topic would be a hit:D

ok, i can't deny that gaming has gotten better. A LOT BETTER. Now we get games around the same as PC users do, at least more often than we did. Halo, Doom 3, etc...

Hmm, i didn't know that apple released that UT2003 fix.... sorry about that.

but still...

i love macs. more than PC's for sure, even if PC's have more games. apple has the best apps for any creative person, or someone in the movie, music, art, etc... industry.

its just that, people always said that they wouldn't release games for macs because their sales would be to low because there aren't enough mac gamers; or because the hardware is too slow :( well, the number of mac users has really grown fast, and so has the number of gamers. the G5 is a kick a** machine, and i think any game would run great on one. maybe macs just aren't gaming machines :(

[Powerbook G5]

I'm just happy that Sim City 4 is on the Mac because I've played it out to death on our Dell system and would love to be able to play it when I leave for college.

[Fukui]

Originally posted by Codemonkey
We don't have viruses, and we don't have games, for much of the same reasons.

You sum it up well: money talks. +-3% Marketshare = leftovers and crumbs.
Well, like Scem0 said...apple needs to do its part and raise the market share more than .3 percent a quarter...lower the prices.

[Powerbook G5]

The thing I never liked about gaming on computers is that I have to deal with installing, keeping up on maintainence, and patch updates and all that...then being confined to the computer chair and playing on a 17 inch screen...whereas on a gaming system I have my 32" tv and all I have to do is put the disc in and turn it on. For this reason and the pure cost difference, I am typically happier with my Xbox and Gamecube and use my Mac for everything else.

[ollywilson2003]

Hopefully in a few years, when the G5 is commonplace high end games will run acceptably on Macs

[Powerbook G5]

By then, we'd all be demanding that we had reasonably priced G6's for gaming. :D

[Frohickey]

Originally posted by Freg3000 I want Apple to make their own game which uses all of the Mac's capabilities to the fullest. Make it use Altivec, and maybe make it 64 bit for the new G5. Get a game out there are show people it is not simply that macs are slow to run good games but rather lousy ports that take too much time and are never worth it.

I was thinking the same thing a while ago, when I found out that Brian Greenstone (aka Mr. Pangea) was working for Apple.

I think he's not working for Apple anymore. Would have been nice too. Testing G5 with Apple branded games. Woohoo!!! :D

[PowerBook User]

I wish there were more games for the Mac. Hopefully that will change with the G5 and with more people using Macs. Didn't there used to be more games for the Mac in the early/mid 90's?

[ollywilson2003]

Originally posted by Powerbook G5
By then, we'd all be demanding that we had reasonably priced G6's for gaming. :D

Lol unfourtuantly thats very true.

[bousozoku]

Originally posted by PowerBook User
I wish there were more games for the Mac. Hopefully that will change with the G5 and with more people using Macs. Didn't there used to be more games for the Mac in the early/mid 90's?

More games were available, but not what I would call top ten games. The Marathon series was probably the most interesting thing and it was unique to the Mac for a while.

[Macmaniac]

I have been a Mac gamer all my life, from Warcraft I to III, I've got the entire Starcraft, Diablo, and Warcraft series. I play War 3 on my CRT iMac which has a 16mb vid card, its slow but I am in the top 500 for random team on TFT, not bad for a slow gaming machine!

[spinner]

The one thing I would like to see that would help the Mac gaming community is including both the Windows and the Mac version (when there is one) in the same box like Blizzard does. I have to order all the games I want because there is no local Mac stores, just Wal-Mart, Target, etc. With hybrid CD's I would be able to find these games locally and save shipping costs. I am sure that there are other users (switchers maybe) that would also benefit from this as well.

[bousozoku]

Originally posted by spinner
The one thing I would like to see that would help the Mac gaming community is including both the Windows and the Mac version (when there is one) in the same box like Blizzard does. I have to order all the games I want because there is no local Mac stores, just Wal-Mart, Target, etc. With hybrid CD's I would be able to find these games locally and save shipping costs. I am sure that there are other users (switchers maybe) that would also benefit from this as well.

I think we'll see more of that since Aspyr has recently taken up publishing games on the PC side too. Perhaps, they'll make certain everything gets put into the same box. :)

[couch potato]

yeah Aspyr and Macsoft are doing great:) It would be cool if someone coded a really popular shooter but it was mac only.:)

[AppleMatt]

Originally posted by mac15
Apple is actually improving GPU drivers for games, over at MacOSrumors they were saying the new GPU drivers in Panther push 10-20fps out of all cards.

I have tested all the Panther betas on a variety of hardware, and I can assure you that at the moment that's not true at all, infact graphics performance (especially OpenGL) is worse, quite noticeably.

As an example, the 12" PowerBook I'm on now can get around 16-23fps in UT2003 (with the audiolib file and no firefights), in Panther that drops to around 7-10fps. It's a similar case for all games.

I'm hoping that this will get a miraculous boost, and also that the new nVidia drivers will make a debut in Panther, giving an OS much better suited for gaming on the same hardware.

AppleMatt

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by AppleMatt
I have tested all the Panther betas on a variety of hardware, and I can assure you that at the moment that's not true at all, infact graphics performance (especially OpenGL) is worse, quite noticeably.

As an example, the 12" PowerBook I'm on now can get around 16-23fps in UT2003 (with the audiolib file and no firefights), in Panther that drops to around 7-10fps. It's a similar case for all games.

I'm hoping that this will get a miraculous boost, and also that the new nVidia drivers will make a debut in Panther, giving an OS much better suited for gaming on the same hardware.

AppleMatt

What version/s have you tested?

[AppleMatt]

Originally posted by MacBandit
What version/s have you tested?

On the Beige G3: WWDC preview only.
On the PowerMac: WWDC, SU, 7B21.
On the PowerBook: Every build.

I will try again tonight, but I remember doing it for UT2003 and getting no boost, and seeing no improvement in WC III. Alien vs Predator runs fast on Jaguar anyway, so can't really be used.

I'm still downloading Panther 7B39, my connections is maxed but I fear it will cap soon, I've been getting so much lately.

edit: Thinking about it I could just run the UT2003 benchmark, which is a fairer way than checking the fps (due to every game being different).

AppleMatt

(as a side-note, people please stop PM'ing me about how to get Panther, it's really annoying. I can't be the only one getting these.)

[Mac Kiwi]

Originally posted by AppleMatt
I have tested all the Panther betas on a variety of hardware, and I can assure you that at the moment that's not true at all, infact graphics performance (especially OpenGL) is worse, quite noticeably.

As an example, the 12" PowerBook I'm on now can get around 16-23fps in UT2003 (with the audiolib file and no firefights), in Panther that drops to around 7-10fps. It's a similar case for all games.

I'm hoping that this will get a miraculous boost, and also that the new nVidia drivers will make a debut in Panther, giving an OS much better suited for gaming on the same hardware.

AppleMatt



So much for hoping for a huge increase in OGL speed in 3 apps then :( ......hang on if thats the case {not doubting what you are saying} then that means Pixar have been "really" tweaking their version of Smeagol or Panther,no way they would put up with crap OGL....hmmmm

[MacBandit]

As long as we are on OpenGL. I just got my ATI9800 and got it installed. Well UT2003 Demo runs slower then it did with my G4MX 32MB. I would laugh but it's not really funny. I think that maybe the Demo version was made specifically for nVidia hardware. nVidia sponsors UT2003 so if you're going to release a demo and want to minimize it's size just drop support for ATI hardware and just let ATI hardware utilize basic drivers. That's all I can assume.

Yes, I am running the very latest drivers I made sure to download and install them right away.

Other then that quirk QuakeIIIArena looks awesome. I turned on all the graphics in QuakeIIIArena and set the resolution to 1600x1200. I then went to the ATI control pane and made a profile for QuakeIIIArena with maximum quality graphics full AA and everything. I still get 100FPS+ in QuakeIIIArena with all that stuff turned on and let me tell you it looks stunning.

[Mac Kiwi]

Cheers,thats kind of reassuring :) glad you are enjoying your card as well :)



I wonder out of that 100,000 estimated G5s the new owners upgraded to 9800 Pros.It could make Nvidia and ATI approach the Mac card market a bit differently from now on with a bit of luck.

[CmdrLaForge]

Market share and number of games released for the mac are influencing each other quite strong.

A company developing games is interested as every company in there ROIC - return on invested capital. Of course a port is much cheaper then a completely new product. But still the companys will only look on that value. What is the ROIC if they develop the game for the Mac. Or is it better releasing a new game for the PC world. Where they can get a better ROIC - thats what they will develop.

On the other hand the availability of good games is very important for increasing the market share for apple. I think they know this fact and will do a lot to make the make a good gaming machine as well

[bousozoku]

Originally posted by MacBandit
As long as we are on OpenGL. I just got my ATI9800 and got it installed. Well UT2003 Demo runs slower then it did with my G4MX 32MB. I would laugh but it's not really funny. I think that maybe the Demo version was made specifically for nVidia hardware. nVidia sponsors UT2003 so if you're going to release a demo and want to minimize it's size just drop support for ATI hardware and just let ATI hardware utilize basic drivers. That's all I can assume.

Yes, I am running the very latest drivers I made sure to download and install them right away.

...


Did you try resetting everything to defaults and then applying your changes. It may still think that you're using a GeForce 4MX. I remember having to force several games to look at changed hardware after installing a new video card.

[Powerbook G5]

It does seem odd that the 9800 would perform so poorly compared to that nVidia you swapped out. I may very well be that you need to clean out something that still thinks you have the older card onboard instead of the ATi.

[bosskxx1]

Originally posted by MacBandit
I think that has very little to do with it. As with everything in life it's all about the money or in this case the total lack of it in selling games to the Mac community.

No actually Direct X is basically why there are not a lot of games on the Mac. While I do agree that market share is a also a big part too, Direct X is what makes games not come to the mac as a cross platform hybrid. If everything was in Open GL, than it would be some simple (well I don't know how simple) coding in C++ (I believe) to make the game a hybrid. Then Wintels, Macs, and Linux machines can run the game off 1 CD. It is possible, but Microsoft doesn't want it that way. That is why they pay (a lot) big game corporations to write there games in Direct X.

To make a port you have to convert the Direct X to an Open GL code, plus other things. Now there are programs that can do this, but they are not that greatly optimized for the mac (Using Velocity Engine, software optimizations, etc.).

The problem is that Mac games can't survive alone. There is simply not enough people to buy them, game companies realize that, and don't even bother with a separate product. However if all games were made into a Hybrid product than many more Mac citizens will have a lot more selection, and as a result there would be a lot more people buying Macs, especially high end ones. Having one CD (a hybrid) is the only way to go if macs are going to succeed in the gaming world.

Just suppose that every game was available for the Mac (separate from PC), people will still buy Wintels, because many games are bootlegged from friends. Also many places like Walmart, BJs, Office Max, Staples, Target, etc. which are much more common that Apple Stores, Comp USA's, and best buys, have only PC selection of games. So its a loose loose situation for Macs if they just make it a Mac product. I really do hope that game manufactures are fed up with Microsoft and start developing using open standards so they can make games for both Wintels, Macs, and Linux machines.

So bottom line is that if game manufactures would get their act together, develop everything in open standards, optimize for every OS/processor/video card, and ship everything in a hybrid CD, then Macs would really has the potential of being a good Mac boost because gamers usually by high end systems and high end video cards.

In the game world everyone is being bought and sold to make games for their propriety systems. Apple just doesn't have the extra cash or connections with game manufactures to get this done. While I do like companies like Aspyr and Macplay that port games to the Mac, the bottom line, it is just not enough.

[AppleMatt]

The latest 10.2.7 build (6R43) seednote states;

"extensive changes to ATi/nVidia drivers" and also that "graphics" had been improved.

You never know, might bring a little boost to our games before Panther arrives.

AppleMatt

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by bousozoku
Did you try resetting everything to defaults and then applying your changes. It may still think that you're using a GeForce 4MX. I remember having to force several games to look at changed hardware after installing a new video card.

Yeah, actually I did all my tests on a clean system install.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Powerbook G5
It does seem odd that the 9800 would perform so poorly compared to that nVidia you swapped out. I may very well be that you need to clean out something that still thinks you have the older card onboard instead of the ATi.

Well it does perform better in everything else including vastly superior in Quake it's just UT2003.

[mstecker]

I wonder if whatever it was that they snuck into the OS for UT 2003 (I forget which release it was, but I remember that one of the release notes mentioned specific tweaking for UT2003) was specifically optimized for Nvidia?

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by mstecker
I wonder if whatever it was that they snuck into the OS for UT 2003 (I forget which release it was, but I remember that one of the release notes mentioned specific tweaking for UT2003) was specifically optimized for Nvidia?

I don't know. I wonder how the ATI9800 would work with the full release version of UT2003 as apposed to the demo I am using.

Personally I say benchmarks be damned. I've been playing UT2003 for about 4 hours today and I have to say I haven't seen it stutter once. With the G4MX it was just a matter of playing a step or two ahead because anytime you got into heavy fights it would stutter. It is extremely smooth now.

[Mac Kiwi]

Do you think it goes as deep as say ATI or Nvidia being close enough to certain game companies,so they {the game companies} write something which will run crap or not as well say on the competitions cards?.......makes me wonder.



It was not that long ago that people would swear by Nvidias drivers either.

[AppleMatt]

I read on www.tomshardwareguide.com that UT2003 was written with nVidias in mind over ATi.

AppleMatt

[AngryAngel]

Didn't the nVidia logo on UT2003 start-up and the text "the way it's meant to be played" give you the hint?

[Powerbook G5]

Well, according to Al Gore, he invented the internet...and he is a board member of Apple computer...does that mean the internet was set up with Macs in mind? ;)

[Dont Hurt Me]

Back on subject, apple does need to promote more gaming on the mac. also apple should get together some great software guys/gamers and have them do a full blown mac game that utilize's altivec,and uses macs to the max. nothing lame but something that kicks butt and for adults like Halo,Doom3,etc. something that makes you want to buy a mac.

[Mac til death]

Steve talked about the new Nascar game at the January Macworld, I don't know if you remember it...

I approve of the job Steve is doing... G5, iTunes Music Store, iChat AV, there's not much to complain about.

He can't twist developers' arms to make them port (much less write) games for Mac OS X. He's doing a great job with Apple and Pixar.

[bousozoku]

Originally posted by MacBandit
I don't know. I wonder how the ATI9800 would work with the full release version of UT2003 as apposed to the demo I am using.

Personally I say benchmarks be damned. I've been playing UT2003 for about 4 hours today and I have to say I haven't seen it stutter once. With the G4MX it was just a matter of playing a step or two ahead because anytime you got into heavy fights it would stutter. It is extremely smooth now.

Oh, you've been looking at numbers all this time, and I thought that there was a problem with the card. :D

If you want to find out how it works on the retail version, send it to me and I'll test it for you. :D

[Powerbook G5]

The thing I never get is why people get upset that a PC puts out, say, 380 fps and a Mac *only* puts out, say, 260 fps...or if one card puts out more than the other...isn't is impossible to notice a difference when playing between the two? Usually when a video game goes over 100 fps it can get a bit dizzying...

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Powerbook G5
The thing I never get is why people get upset that a PC puts out, say, 380 fps and a Mac *only* puts out, say, 260 fps...or if one card puts out more than the other...isn't is impossible to notice a difference when playing between the two? Usually when a video game goes over 100 fps it can get a bit dizzying...

Typically if the game exceeds 100fps you will turn on video synch anyhow which limits the output to the refresh rate of the monitor. This is done because the card is outputing 2-3x as many frames/sec over the refresh rate of the monitor and can actually make the game look like it's jumping. I actually have to do this now with the ATI9800 in my Dual/GHz/DDR PowerMac.

First off yes it's true having 300fps+ is just bragging rights and yes I do tuck it into my sock. Though what people are toughting are maximum frames per second. What matters is how it runs with 32 charachters on the screen with a mass of projectiles flying everywhere. Even if your card is cranking out 300fps there is a situation somewhere that can make it drop to 16fps. That is why people are looking for faster and faster fps. Eventually you'll be able to run a hundred players at once and not worry about slow down.

[Powerbook G5]

That's true, I wasn't thinking about that. I haven't played any recent computer games beyond Sim City 4 since I've found it easier to use a Gamecube/Xbox than my PowerBook.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Powerbook G5
That's true, I wasn't thinking about that. I haven't played any recent computer games beyond Sim City 4 since I've found it easier to use a Gamecube/Xbox than my PowerBook.

See I knew I would find someone that agreed that I tuck it into my sock.
:p :D

[Powerbook G5]

Heh...not exactly the mental image I'd like after dinner...:p