The State of Mac Gaming
This is more of an experience post, of me just wanting to share thoughts in relation to Mac gaming and native ports.
Over the years I've bought a bunch of games and if I I'll always buy games from Mac publishers (Feral or Asypr usually) if I can
Feral in my experience usually has had excellent ports. Usually running at near PC performance, which seems to be no small feat. I'd happily pay double, triple even, because I love the work they do SO MUCH. They also seem to have a habit of porting my favourite games, which is another great thing. I read this forum on a regular basis and have had many of my annoying questions answered by Eddeduck (Feral employee) and have a better understanding of how it all works thanks to them. Mafia ii was the only port they've done i've ever had issues with but as far as i'm aware that wasn't really their fault
In terms of Aspyr I have far less knowledge about and i've only bought a few of their titles, but i've never read ANYTHING positive about the work they do. Comparing some of their titles to Wine ports (which is sadly believable in my experience). Duke Nukem ran terribly, RAGE had texture issues, Black Ops I hear has issues. COD 4 I bought for $11 a few weeks ago and it runs flawlessly so props to them for that. However that could be down to the age of the game, but I don't know
I'm curious to know what the expected margins are for a graphically intensive AAA title from a Mac porting house
Rockstar ports have been fine, apparently being Wine versions but for those games it really doesn't matter due to their age. EA is apparently the same but I don't know. I do wish more Mac games took advantage of proper full screen mode in Lion.
From what i've been reading it seems Apple may be to blame for having not always PC level performance. (http://bit.ly/ao44Ui). From what i've seen the latest fully supported version of Open Gl is 2.1 which came out in 2006, 3.0 (2008?) is 95% supported, 3.1 a quarter, 3.2 70%, 3.3 10%, 4 and above (mean't to rival Direct X 11 in performance) isn't supported at all. Which seems crazy! What is Apple doing? I could understand them being a version behind for stability but being years behind doesn't really make much sense.
Overall i'm very thankful to Feral and Aspyr for doing the great work they do on OS X!
Thanks!
This is more of an experience post, of me just wanting to share thoughts in relation to Mac gaming and native ports.
Over the years I've bought a bunch of games and if I I'll always buy games from Mac publishers (Feral or Asypr usually) if I can
Feral in my experience usually has had excellent ports. Usually running at near PC performance, which seems to be no small feat. I'd happily pay double, triple even, because I love the work they do SO MUCH. They also seem to have a habit of porting my favourite games, which is another great thing. I read this forum on a regular basis and have had many of my annoying questions answered by Eddeduck (Feral employee) and have a better understanding of how it all works thanks to them. Mafia ii was the only port they've done i've ever had issues with but as far as i'm aware that wasn't really their fault
In terms of Aspyr I have far less knowledge about and i've only bought a few of their titles, but i've never read ANYTHING positive about the work they do. Comparing some of their titles to Wine ports (which is sadly believable in my experience). Duke Nukem ran terribly, RAGE had texture issues, Black Ops I hear has issues. COD 4 I bought for $11 a few weeks ago and it runs flawlessly so props to them for that. However that could be down to the age of the game, but I don't know
I'm curious to know what the expected margins are for a graphically intensive AAA title from a Mac porting house
Rockstar ports have been fine, apparently being Wine versions but for those games it really doesn't matter due to their age. EA is apparently the same but I don't know. I do wish more Mac games took advantage of proper full screen mode in Lion.
From what i've been reading it seems Apple may be to blame for having not always PC level performance. (http://bit.ly/ao44Ui). From what i've seen the latest fully supported version of Open Gl is 2.1 which came out in 2006, 3.0 (2008?) is 95% supported, 3.1 a quarter, 3.2 70%, 3.3 10%, 4 and above (mean't to rival Direct X 11 in performance) isn't supported at all. Which seems crazy! What is Apple doing? I could understand them being a version behind for stability but being years behind doesn't really make much sense.
Overall i'm very thankful to Feral and Aspyr for doing the great work they do on OS X!
Thanks!
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