Cider is a type of executable "wrapper" that allows minimal code rewriting to be done on a Windows game so it can be played on the Mac.
Essentially it acts as an emulation/interpretation layer between OS X and the game. The game might make Direct X calls, for example, which is an API that is not present on the Mac, and the wrapper translates these in real time into the appropriate OpenGL calls.
In the past this sort of on the fly translation has led to poor performance of the games in question, and instability in some cases (the EvE Online cider-wrapped client was a nightmare).
A native port (a true port) is rewritten to act as a native app on the platform it is running on. Depending on how it was written in the first place this might be a lot of work - for example, if the game engine doesn't have a Mac native version, or the game relies extensively on Windows-exclusive APIs.
Native ports are faster, better, less resource intensive, tend to be less buggy and give an all-around better experience. They are harder work for the developers than simply wrapping up the windows executable and clicking "ship game and charge $60" though.
Two things here are not true. First, when someone wraps a game they do literally no code changes to the game itself. They just install it into a wrapper and whatever support files and change some settings. I know, I've wrapped many games myself.
Secondly it's not always true that a port is faster, better, less resource intensive, etc. it highly depends on the job the person doing the port. The quality of native ports varies drastically and some are actually worse in performance without delivering much if any benefits in terms of features compared to a wrapped port. Take a look at this article:
http://portingteam.com/frontpage/_/community-articles/reviews/mac-gaming-is-native-always-better-r19
By the way it's true that Aspyr never does cider ports but that's no guarantee that this game will run well. First of all this game had performance problems even on windows so much that people in interviews asked if the sequel is going to be optimized for PC. Secondly... I've actually played this in a wrapper and it doesn't play as well as say.. Crysis does in the same kind of wrapper believe it or not. Unless Aspyr pulls some miracles out of their hat their port wont fare much better.
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"
Aspyr Media, Inc., the leader in Mac game publishing"
Bah. Like to blow thier own trumpet much?! Even says on thier home page "
The greatest mac publisher on earth, ever"
I've yet to buy any of thier games that make me think those are anywhere near true. Never quite seem to pull it off.
Still, good to see this game coming to the Mac... I enjoyed it and think those mac users who've not played it yet will too! (As longs it works and doesn't miss out multiplayer like they did with Company of Heroes
)
It's true. They have delusions of grandeur over there. They've hardly brought any new games to the Mac these past two years .. Feral has been beating them in both number of titles and also the features that those titles have.
Feral games tend to have better controller support and they've even been shipping games with true multichannel surround sound support if one has the capability of setting that up in audio MIDI setup. Neither DNF or RAGE shipped with that kind of support.
Aspyr games have even been only supporting one type of gamepad ONLY (wired 360) with a built in driver that demands you don't have any third party driver installed but Feral games support over 30 different kinds and the number is slowly growing. They even support the wireless 360 pad with third party driver and the Sony PS3 pad with no driver installed.
If anything Feral deserves that title more than they do.
