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Another Mac port gets cancelled due to Apple's poor graphics support
- Thread starter Cougarcat
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Agreed. I was originally thinking of macOS for this actually, but since we had Android talk going on, I just sort of forgot and talked about iOS, haha
Traditionally, even for games consoles, platform holders are not usually motivated by companies delivering ports that are identical to those from other platforms. They really want exclusive products for their platform or at least have the superior version on their devices.
Correct, the dominant platform holder is in a very strong position, so developers tend to optimise or release only for their platforms - see the NES & PS1 for examples.
Whilst this makes sense, surely having a popular title that runs identically to its counterpart on another platform, is better than having nothing at all. And let's face it, Apple won't get games that run better on macOS than on Windows because of Metal... And for the tripple A market, not exclusives either. The developers will make it with Windows in mind, and the GPU vendors will do driver optimisation for the Windows drivers to work with the game. That won't happen for macOS.
Arguably, they might be able to take some performance wins with creative software with Metal, and Final Cut already beats Premiere performance wise by a long shot, but again, Windows is the dominant platform on the desktop, so I refer to your second paragraph.
On iOS, Metal only makes sense with respect to the above. But with the Mac, Vulkan as an alternative could draw some of the software that would otherwise not be produced for the Mac to the platform. The Mac isn't the dominant platform in the desktop space, and only getting iOS game ports to the Mac with Metal won't exactly make the Mac look like a serious desktop. And I'm not saying that's all there'll be, as you've proven earlier, UE4 is a great example of serious Metal use and such, and Metal seems fine considering it's current maturity level, but for the not-dominant platform, betting on cross-platform technologies seems like a good way to attract more software.
Largely this applies to the Android vs. iOS argument as Eric5h5 suggested, as iOS is clearly a dominant platform ala NES or PS1.
For the Mac I'd ask you to think as if you're a platform holder: were you investing significant sums and effort into your own API to compete with another why would you then implement it on even one of your devices? That suggests a lack of commitment so external developers might not be willing to invest in the API believing that you'll revert to the competition. This could then undermine the potential competitive advantage for the more profitable, and therefore important, dominant platform. Development eco-system unification makes lots of sense to platform holders, which is why Apple and Microsoft are both so keen on it - they may approach UI's differently but they've both been unifying the development APIs for the last decade so that they maximise the return for all development effort.
There's always more to the picture than simply Option 1: More Games Now and Option 2: Fewer Games Now. We'll see who was ultimately more right or more wrong in time - S/W development is rarely an absolute right/wrong because its always a compromise.
Definitely. As I've stated earlier, I can see the argument, and understand it, but I also feel like there's a strong case against it, and both sides have merit. It'll be fun to see it play out.
Absolutely, and the good news is that all career progress, settings, etc. are carried over from the Windows version from the Steam Cloud.Still, F1 2016 is a reasonable substitute for F1 2015 I'd say
The bad news for me though is that there is an issue with my G27 steering. It uses the full rotation, and therefore is unusable at the moment.
I have contacted Feral about this.
