OS X Mac Gaming is Awesome!

[N19h7m4r3]

How is buying a full Windows license a cheaper option than just buying a native OSX game??

I never said it was, if you look at my quote he states it's recommended getting an Xbox One or PS4 for the definitive edition of Tomb Raider.
If you want TressFX that badly, simply play the game in Windows, as opposed to paying €400-500 for console, and then another €50 for the game.

 

[antonis]

Although if you go through Screenflow as a finished product I would suggest, Web High, and a bit rate of 12k. 5K is just too low for decent quality in my opinion, and 8K is the minimum of what I see as barely passable.

Many thanks. I'll check the above.

 

[saturnotaku]

so over temp 100 it's danger zone?

The processor will throttle itself to a slower speed when it gets too hot in order to avoid burning out. However, if it gets to that point, there likely is something wrong with your machine (poor heatsink contact, bad thermal paste application, etc), and you should take it in for service.

sorry don't have a clue about FPS

Again, that is for you to decide. We can't tell you what is acceptable or not because we all have different preferences.

 

[smoketetsu]

To be quite frank with you all I don't believe TressFX is make or break when it comes to Tomb Raider and the Feral port is fantastic otherwise. Most of the time you aren't even focused on her hair anyway. You can still be thoroughly entertained with Tomb Raider on a Mac... especially if it's one that can run it at decent settings. Plus, whether someone likes additional stuff like that is a matter of taste anyway. Some might not like the floaty look of that type of hair.

And, yeah.. I'd also rather play it in on the hardware and software I already own and invested my money into.

Also, as for what's acceptable performance. What I care most is how the game feels and how smooth it appears rather than hard numbers. That said if it doesn't feel right or it feels slow, sluggish, overtly choppy or appears slo-mo then that's not acceptable to me. I have quite a few Mac games, native and wrapped that don't have any of those symptoms of bad performance. That's all I ask for really when it comes to how well they play.

As for number of titles the Mac could always use more and it's a shame more doesn't come natively than what we currently get. This is the main complaint that I would stand behind... that the Mac doesn't get as many official sanction releases as Windows which is getting an increasing amount.

But hey, could be worse... Linux so far has gotten even LESS releases than Mac although that may change soon with Valve on board with their Linux based SteamOS..... but that's another subject.

 

[erayser]

To be quite frank with you all I don't believe TressFX is make or break when it comes to Tomb Raider and the Feral port is fantastic otherwise. Most of the time you aren't even focused on her hair anyway. You can still be thoroughly entertained with Tomb Raider on a Mac... especially if it's one that can run it at decent settings. Plus, whether someone likes additional stuff like that is a matter of taste anyway. Some might not like the floaty look of that type of hair.

And, yeah.. I'd also rather play it in on the hardware and software I already own and invested my money into.

Also, as for what's acceptable performance. What I care most is how the game feels and how smooth it appears rather than hard numbers. That said if it doesn't feel right or it feels slow, sluggish, overtly choppy or appears slo-mo then that's not acceptable to me. I have quite a few Mac games, native and wrapped that don't have any of those symptoms of bad performance. That's all I ask for really when it comes to how well they play.

As for number of titles the Mac could always use more and it's a shame more doesn't come natively than what we currently get. This is the main complaint that I would stand behind... that the Mac doesn't get as many official sanction releases as Windows which is getting an increasing amount.

But hey, could be worse... Linux so far has gotten even LESS releases than Mac although that may change soon with Valve on board with their Linux based SteamOS..... but that's another subject.

I was going to post earlier today to agree with you on the TressFX comment, but I held off to try it at home first... LOL... After turning it off, I can't say I agree with you. Plus, Lara Croft just looks sexier with the flowing hair... and even sexier in NVidia 3D Vision...

LOL... but really... TressFX doesn't take away from game play, but I would still recommend playing the definitive edition on a console... or if it works through bootcamp... play that. At least have the option to try it... and if you don't like it... turn it off.

I do agree with you on acceptable performance... but for me, acceptable performance is 60+ fps at Ultimate/Ultra settings.... especially for single player games like Tomb Raider or Batman. I can deal with turning down graphic settings on multiplayer games if will help keep up with the competition. If I can't obtain acceptable performance with my current system... I'll just upgrade it instead of buying a whole new system. That's really the only thing that bugs me about Macs.

When I said I would recommend playing TR on another system, I really didn't mean buy a whole new system. If a Mac is all you have, there isn't anything wrong playing on that system. Same reason as you... I play games on my rig... which do own (paid in full)... that I invested my money into. I invested more than what others would spend on a computer, but I don't just game on my rig... I do enjoy overclocking and benchmarking... I also like building/upgrading and water cooling my rig. I like choosing the hardware in my rig. ASUS is my favorite motherboard and it has really great overclocking features. My 24/7 setup is 4.5Ghz offset voltage, and drops voltage to 0.864v at normal use like browsing... so runs very cool. During heavy gaming my CPU runs in the 40's and rarely ever goes over 50c's. Same temps with my GPU's. Since it's water cooled, silent gaming is the way to go. The rig in my sig isn't my first water cooled setup. Yes I do spend a lot on my rigs... but it's my hobby, and I fun doing it. But I do use computer for productivity too. Another hobby is making mods on my iPhone (latest creation)... so I do a lot of photoshop and a little bit of video editing. That's where 3 screens also comes in handy. And I do work remote for my job on my rig.

Again... I don't hate Macs and it's true my wife and I want to replace her out of dated windows computer with a Mac. I think Macs are great computers... but I have no intentions to game on it... unless it can out bench my rig... LOL. I'll still use it... maybe to browse. Plus, I don't want to wait for ports when current games come out... I bought TR for like $10... months before TR came out for the Mac.

Anyhow... while I had my TressFX off, I decided to do a quick benchmark. Everything maxed on Ultra settings at 5760x1080 120hz... and the results are... OH MY

Min FPS=128.0, Max FPS=163.4, Average FPS=144.5

Pretty good... but not worth the added performance. I have plenty of headroom with TressFX on, and with NVidia stereoscopic 3D vision on. TR is a fun game, but it is a beautiful game at the same time. I always find myself pausing in the game for no reason just to look at Lara's flowing strands of hair... LOL

 

[N19h7m4r3]

and even sexier in NVidia 3D Vision...

Oh goodness! I can't stand 3D haha. I find it atrocious looking, and the eye strain doesn't help.

You're actually the first person I've come across that likes it I think. Most people buy the stuff, try and never touch it again.

 

[erayser]

Oh goodness! I can't stand 3D haha. I find it atrocious looking, and the eye strain doesn't help.

You're actually the first person I've come across that likes it I think. Most people buy the stuff, try and never touch it again.

TR is the only game I really enjoyed in 3D. It was well done, and no other games can compare. I don't play all games in 3D, but like TressFX, I have the option if I want to play in 3D or not. TR was worth the price to play in 3D. Lara actually looks 3D... and the environment looks amazing, not fake 3D like Batman the battlefield games. If you actually played TR in 3D, you would would I mean.

 

[N19h7m4r3]

TR is the only game I really enjoyed in 3D. It was well done, and no other games can compare. I don't play all games in 3D, but like TressFX, I have the option if I want to play in 3D or not. TR was worth the price to play in 3D. Lara actually looks 3D... and the environment looks amazing, not fake 3D like Batman the battlefield games. If you actually played TR in 3D, you would would I mean.

I'll eventually try it again, we'll see.

I have to agree that most games look 'fake' or strange in it.

 

[smoketetsu]

All I'm saying is that Tomb Raider is still a great game without that one feature.. (or hell, 3D.... which honestly while it can be awesome isn't comfy to the eyes) and Yeah, no I'm not going to buy a console.. and a TV to go with it to play the definitive edition... In case anyone wonders, I don't know anyone with consoles so I can't just go over to someone's house and play it there either.

Nor am I going to suddenly start using bootcamp just so I can have better hair on Lara. Speaking of which I used to use parallels to play a few Windows games but I don't any more. I don't want to deal with another OS.. period, end of story. IF I go back to Windows for gaming it'll be on a new rig I put together and devote the entire computer to it. But I can't just buy up a bunch of expensive hardware willy nilly at the moment.. So I'm just sticking with what I've got. Even if it doesn't meet up to others approval.

Long story short, I had a fantastic time with Tomb Raider on the iMac on my signature using the Feral edition. That's what's important to me. In the thick of the action I didn't give a crap that I didn't have the best hair possible nor that I didn't have the new definitive edition art assets. Especially when she's sliding down hills avoiding debris and grappling on cliffs and stuff like that... and the fact that Feral's port is one of those that supports full positional 5.1 (or 7.1) surround when that many channels is enabled in the sound card is icing on the cake.

 

[D-Dave]

... ideally, games should abandon the resolution settings, instead replacing it by a 'quality/performance' slider. Furthermore, the game should draw to an offscreen buffer of a potentially different size than the display and then upscale the contents to fit the display.[...] while maintaining the same or better image quality.

Erm, upscaling only works with reasonable image quality if it is done by natural numers (2, 3, 4....) and even then (especialy for the lower numbers) image quality is nowhere near perfect (check those damnb x2 apps on your ipad).
That is the reason why so many games do have the resources in multiple resolution dependent formats.

Ah...to the original topic. I think games developed to run on OSX are fine to play. But most games for OSX are ports from existing PC/Console games which often turns out to be disadvantagious...for example Lord of the Rings online runs smooth on my Windows gaming rig, it runs ok on my mac using bootcamp or a virtual winbox but crashes like there is no tomorrow when using the native mac client (and I think the main reason is that it is just a port, not a native developement as blizzard does it)

 

[leman]

Erm, upscaling only works with reasonable image quality if it is done by natural numers (2, 3, 4....) and even then (especialy for the lower numbers) image quality is nowhere near perfect (check those damnb x2 apps on your ipad).
That is the reason why so many games do have the resources in multiple resolution dependent formats.

This is simply not true. Integer upscaling (I guess you talking about nearest neighbour filtering here) results in blocky and grainy textures. Even simple linear interpolation will provide a better result for most cases. In general, the higher the magnification scale, the lower the image quality — and there is nothing you can do about it (there are some interesting techniques which improve the quality dramatically). An x1.5 upscaled image will have higher quality than x2 upscaled image and so on. The reason why games have resources in multiple formats is because a) upscaling ALWAYS results in loss of image fidelity b) its more convenient c) it allows them to use simple filters which allow higher performance

 

[edddeduck]

This is simply not true. Integer upscaling (I guess you talking about nearest neighbour filtering here) results in blocky and grainy textures. Even simple linear interpolation will provide a better result for most cases. In general, the higher the magnification scale, the lower the image quality — and there is nothing you can do about it (there are some interesting techniques which improve the quality dramatically). An x1.5 upscaled image will have higher quality than x2 upscaled image and so on. The reason why games have resources in multiple formats is because a) upscaling ALWAYS results in loss of image fidelity b) its more convenient c) it allows them to use simple filters which allow higher performance

FYI OS X uses a lot of upscaling these days hidden away from the user if you use Apple's latest windowing code and features. The main monitor resolution is not altered when you enter full screen. So if you select 640x480 in a game your monitor is not running at that low resolution of 640x480, the game is just rendering off screen to a 64x480 buffer that is then upscaled to the native resolution of your monitor.

This has some performance impact (as you need to do the scaling), 640x480 upscaled will generally look nicer (if a little softer) compared to native 640x480 but it's not by much. However upscaling by a direct factor like 2x 4x etc will give you a much crisper image with a lower performance penalty. When you start to interpolate 1.5x upscaling the maths is no longer as simple and the end results are not quite as sharp.

Edwin

 

[erayser]

All I'm saying is that Tomb Raider is still a great game without that one feature.. (or hell, 3D.... which honestly while it can be awesome isn't comfy to the eyes) and Yeah, no I'm not going to buy a console.. and a TV to go with it to play the definitive edition... In case anyone wonders, I don't know anyone with consoles so I can't just go over to someone's house and play it there either.

Nor am I going to suddenly start using bootcamp just so I can have better hair on Lara. Speaking of which I used to use parallels to play a few Windows games but I don't any more. I don't want to deal with another OS.. period, end of story. IF I go back to Windows for gaming it'll be on a new rig I put together and devote the entire computer to it. But I can't just buy up a bunch of expensive hardware willy nilly at the moment.. So I'm just sticking with what I've got. Even if it doesn't meet up to others approval.

Long story short, I had a fantastic time with Tomb Raider on the iMac on my signature using the Feral edition. That's what's important to me. In the thick of the action I didn't give a crap that I didn't have the best hair possible nor that I didn't have the new definitive edition art assets. Especially when she's sliding down hills avoiding debris and grappling on cliffs and stuff like that... and the fact that Feral's port is one of those that supports full positional 5.1 (or 7.1) surround when that many channels is enabled in the sound card is icing on the cake.

In my 4th paragraph I said there is nothing wrong playing on a Mac, if you have nothing else. The rest is just preference. You have your opinion... which I understand, and I can have mine based on the experience I had through playing Tomb Raider in TressFX and 3D. You can't miss what what haven't experienced... so it's easy to say you don't need these features. Since I at least have the option to play with these features, it just isn't as beautiful without it for me. I love this game and only wish for everyone to have the same experience... but nothing wrong with playing without the added features. Story and gameplay are still great.

 

[leman]

FYI OS X uses a lot of upscaling these days hidden away from the user if you use Apple's latest windowing code and features. The main monitor resolution is not altered when you enter full screen. So if you select 640x480 in a game your monitor is not running at that low resolution of 640x480, the game is just rendering off screen to a 64x480 buffer that is then upscaled to the native resolution of your monitor. This has some performance impact (as you need to do the scaling), 640x480 upscaled will generally look nicer (if a little softer) compared to native 640x480 but it's not by much.

Yes, and this is why Apple recommends agains using the display capture and related APIs. That said, I don't really see the principal difference between upscaling done on the host (be it CPU or GPU) or on the monitor itself (because any non-native resolution on an LCD needs to be upscaled to the native one) — besides the performance impact.

However upscaling by a direct factor like 2x 4x etc will give you a much crisper image with a lower performance penalty. When you start to interpolate 1.5x upscaling the maths is no longer as simple and the end results are not quite as sharp.

Sorry Edwin, but here you lost me. AFAIK, the math exactly the same no matter which upscaling factor you use and only depends on the scaling method you use. From your description I take that you are talking about nearest neighbour vs linear filtering, which are standard on any modern hardware and also have exactly the same performance characteristics. While it is true that nearest neighbour will give you a 'crisper' image, the result will be less accurate then via linear interpolation. Nearest neighbour is not 'crisp', its pixelated. Sometimes, it is a nice property to have, when you are going for that retro pixel graphics look. But most games I am aware of use linear filtering for magnification, exactly because they don't want to end up with that blocky pixelated decals and textures. There are numerous techniques to improve the quality of magnification filters, but the nearest neighbour (aka. pixel doubling/trippling etc.) is known as the least quality one of them all.

 

[soulsyphon]

if people didn't play horrible games like batman or free to play... you wouldn't need to install windows or own a windows computer.

i switched to apple in 2008... i never once had to install windows to play a game i wanted... all the games i like are on osx, and most of them natively too.

the only one that i play that isn't native and running under a wrapper is eve online... but i'm not going to get myself on windows just to play eve.

mostly games that have millions of players are on osx except call of duty and battlefield... but those are fps games... you can play counterstrike and you'll get the same experience... the others just have fancier graphics but no actual gameplay difference... spawn, run, shoot, die ... ya i don't like fps, i used too when i was a teenager but i grew out of it fast.

i'm sure someone is going to reply that my opinion is my opinion or that i like horrible games, even though i only listed eve.

 

[erayser]

if people didn't play horrible games like batman or free to play... you wouldn't need to install windows or own a windows computer.

i switched to apple in 2008... i never once had to install windows to play a game i wanted... all the games i like are on osx, and most of them natively too.

the only one that i play that isn't native and running under a wrapper is eve online... but i'm not going to get myself on windows just to play eve.

mostly games that have millions of players are on osx except call of duty and battlefield... but those are fps games... you can play counterstrike and you'll get the same experience... the others just have fancier graphics but no actual gameplay difference... spawn, run, shoot, die ... ya i don't like fps, i used too when i was a teenager but i grew out of it fast.

i'm sure someone is going to reply that my opinion is my opinion or that i like horrible games, even though i only listed eve.

Your opinions is what it is... you do what makes you happy. You have a preference... and I have my preferences. I just find it humorous that people have to post negative things on games that they can't play natively just to feel good about their system. I agree that you can have just as much fun with different games, but the experience is not the same. It's easy hate what you can't play... but if the games were available natively, I'm sure a lot of Mac players would play and enjoy it as much as Window's and console players Yes, I prefer Windows for gaming and other things, but I am happy with the advancements with mac gaming as well. It's not there yet, but it is getting better. I have no hate for Mac or other platforms... I just love the competition and the advancement of technology... no matter what platform it's on.

See what I mean N19h7m4r3... what was your definition of this thread again... LOL...

 

[N19h7m4r3]

Y

See what I mean N19h7m4r3... what was your definition of this thread again... LOL...

Haha!

I don't understand the bashing either, not everyone likes the same games, platforms, food, drinks, clothing anything. Never a need to demean or bash someone else's preferences.

Come on now folks. I can't speak for the Batman games, never played them but not all free to play games are horrible, not all FPS are only on Windows, and so on so on.

This thread went from trying to celebrate the fact that Mac OSX gaming as a whole is growing and improving, and it's getting better and better. Which is why it's great!

It seems to be turning into mush though.

Can't we all at least be happy that the new Unreal Tournament is going to be on Windows, OSX, and Linux? That Unreal 4, the Cryengine, improved Unity, and other other engines are all natively supporting OSX, and Linux now?

Personally I think Personal Computer gaming as a whole is Awesome! It's only growing better and better, and it doesn't matter what OS you use as long as you have fun.

 

[smoketetsu]

In my 4th paragraph I said there is nothing wrong playing on a Mac, if you have nothing else. The rest is just preference. You have your opinion... which I understand, and I can have mine based on the experience I had through playing Tomb Raider in TressFX and 3D. You can't miss what what haven't experienced... so it's easy to say you don't need these features. Since I at least have the option to play with these features, it just isn't as beautiful without it for me. I love this game and only wish for everyone to have the same experience... but nothing wrong with playing without the added features. Story and gameplay are still great.

I just felt like you are trying to sow the seeds of discontent with me and make me unable to enjoy what I have because it's lacking those features that you deem the game to not be the same without. Here, I'm being more positive and saying the game is still pretty damned awesome even without them! Maybe it's actually for the best that I don't play the game in 3D or with TressFX so I don't spoil myself against what I've got! I also haven't played Tomb Raider in an expensive home theater with a huge screen in 3D, 4k resolution, DTS: NeoX (11.1 surround) and rumble seats... but I can't lose sleep over what I can't have right now. To a person who has experienced that anything less is pitiful.

I'm also kind of like, why can't people just accept that others have different preferences and can live without an arguably trivial feature or two? In my opinion this thread has been turning into mush specifically because of stuff like this!

Yes, I accept that you can't live without them.. fine... moving on.

Also, the Batman games are great games. I don't see why there should be hate against them unless you don't like games with hand to hand fighting elements to them or you don't like Batman or comic books. Or you just don't like games at all.... also, to date I haven't had to install Windows to play those "horrible batman games" and the only thing I'm missing is the least well received one so far... The Batman games are some of the best on the Mac in terms of sound, control support, etc.

Also, even wrapped non native games are improving.. why just recently I've played Mirror's Edge with greater performance than ever and full positional 5.1 surround via 5.1 LPCM channels enabled in Audio MIDI setup via an HDMI Cable to my A/V receiver in Wine.

I've played Singularity and FEAR3 and noticed graphical effects that I didn't notice working before such as shader based rain and particle effects. FEAR3 also had positional 5.1 surround.... Singularity didn't but that's because it uses dsound and Wine doesn't support multichannel in dsound yet. But it's only a matter of time.

On the other hand wrapped games still seem to be hit or miss a lot more than native games tend to be. South Park Stick of Truth was pretty glitchy in some areas until I did some specific things to fix it like switch it to the right wine wrapper. Turns out there isn't a one size fits all wine engine some work better with some games than others. Which is makes it good that one can dedicated a wrapper to a game and have it sandboxed from the others basically. Wine also has CSMT which benefits some games... I've been playing most of my UE3 games with this: http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-devel/2013-September/101106.html

Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition.. I play that now and then in Wine and ironically enough if I turn down the resolution from the native it gets slow... but if I play it at 2560x1440 it's just fine. Funny that.... I have a fight stick that I play it with and I can pull off the combos just fine especially once I started getting a hang of the game.

When it comes to compatibility layer software it seems Wine is leaving cider in the dust these days. Transgaming has yet to get their act together when it comes to multichannel sound and since they forked from wine ages ago they might not get stuff like CSMT into their engine any time soon or other changes that allowed more shaders to work in Wine or better performance. In the latest Cider game I've played Max Payne 3 the antialiasing didn't seem to work either.

On the other hand Wine is likely still a little behind native porting efforts in terms of adopting newer OpenGL standards like even 3.x or 4.x. Native porting efforts are doing more with D3D10 and 11 effects at this point.... Wine is catching up to making D3D9 complete. Hell, Wine tends to use Mesa particularly on X11 which is even slower than apple at adopting newer OpenGL standards. They're barely working on OpenGL 3.x support now.

Also, something I've noticed with a native game. Star Wars The Force Unleashed by Aspyr... my previous iMac struggled in some areas in 1080p with the game seeming kinda slo-mo. However, on my current iMac I can edit the plist and enable 2560x1440 and it outperforms my previous iMac in all areas. SWTFU is one of those games that feel slo-mo when the performance goes down and it doesn't at all at any time now. Plus, I've gotten multichannel 5.1 surround enabled and improved by replacing apple's openal with openal soft.

Serious Sam 3: BFE had a rocky start on the Mac platform but it's now one of the best if not THE best peforming game on the platform. Partly because croteam had an excuse to work on it from also porting it to Linux. Partly because the Mac I have now is newer than when I first played that game. It's also another game I improved the multichannel sound by using OpenAL Soft with it rather than apple's openal.

Lastly, if anyone is expecting mac first or exclusive games at this point you are barking up the wrong tree. Hell, many games aren't even PC first and get ported to PC later on. Such as all those Eidos games ported by nixxes or the aforementioned Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition. On the other hand development has been shifting to being totally PC based rather than console dev kits from what I can tell... even in Japan. But I digress.. you aren't going to find any Mac first or exclusive development at least not from AAA games so if you are holding out for that you are going to wait a long long time if ever.

And in case anyone gets the wrong impression... NO I didn't get my Macs simply just to play games. A reason why I get a personal computer... and a mac is a personal computer... is because I like having one system that can do everything. From productivity to entertainment.... and somewhere along the way I found that I prefer Mac OS... at least once it became Mac OS X.

I find it ironic or amusing that this is a site called Mac rumors (not iPod rumors, not iPhone rumors.. not iDevice rumors!) and yet there's a lot of anti-mac sentimentality here and people having to justify being on a Mac for one reason or another.

 

[smoketetsu]

That Unreal 4, the Cryengine, improved Unity, and other other engines are all natively supporting OSX, and Linux now

Yes, this is great.. But, when did they announce Cryengine for Mac? I know they are working on Linux support but haven't heard anything about Mac so far... except that one RPG on kickstarter but they might be over-promising at this point and might not be able to deliver. Their listing of Mac could be seen as a "we'd like to deploy on this platform as well"... rather than taking it as announcement that cryengine is coming to Mac.

Many gaming news sites seem to have a blind spot for the Mac though.... so Crytek supporting Mac may be a well kept secret... and that RPG may have spilled the beans? Who knows.

UE4 supporting Mac is great but I don't have a lot of confidence in virtual programming's work since they like transgaming seem to not have their act together supporting all the features that Feral for example does.... and their most recent ports are some of the worst performing.... and it's said they worked on UE4 for Epic, no? I'll just have to see how good this support is when games ship with it... and by the way... I'd almost bet Feral and Aspyr's services will still be needed for AAA games who don't want to have to support, do Q&A, etc. for an additional platform themselves.

 

[erayser]

@smoketetsu... Sorry, I see your point... and really, it wasn't you that got me going in this thread. I usually post here just to mention that Windows isn't as bad as people make it out to be in this forum. I think we can get along talking about games together without bashing OS, or making excuses for games we can't play since it's on a different platform. I'm not trying to single you out... it just turned out that way. There are many comments like this in this thread/forum.

I know everyone has the reason's and preferences, and most likely, they have valid points of why choose one OS over the other. I've never bashed Mac's or their OS in this forum... I am still and Apple fan. I think the worst thing I said about Mac, is that we can't upgrade... but I think there are Mac owners that might agree on that. I said we, because a Mac is still a future replacement for our old HP PC... but the thing won't die... LOL.

I've talked N19h7m4r3 in private on this general topic in this forum. We both have preferences... and we play on different platforms, but we also enjoy talking to each about technology in general, the new hardware that's coming out this year, and the future of gaming on all platforms. I know I kind of picked on your comments recently, but it really wasn't just you. I do sincerely apologize for that. I'm hope we can still discuss gaming together in the future. I can't wait for the time where we all can game together... and be blind of what platform we are using in the background.

Anyhow... on to the celebration of Mac and Windows gaming in the future, and I hope you... and everyone... is having a great weekend.

 

[smoketetsu]

@smoketetsu... Sorry, I see your point... and really, it wasn't you that got me going in this thread. I usually post here just to mention that Windows isn't as bad as people make it out to be in this forum. I think we can get along talking about games together without bashing OS, or making excuses for games we can't play since it's on a different platform. I'm not trying to single you out... it just turned out that way. There are many comments like this in this thread/forum.

Yeah, I have to admit I haven't followed this forum enough to see the windows gaming bashing. Whenever I come here it always seems to be Mac bashing.. perhaps I'm just unconsciously being selective.

On the other hand if you follow a site like DSO Gaming http://www.dsogaming.com you can see there are stuff about gaming there too to complain about as well. People wanting APIs better than DirectX, complaints about console gamers and console ports. Complaints that the graphics or AI aren't the best that they can be in a game. Some games aren't well optimized even in Windows... and it can only get worse when ported to other platforms like Mac or Linux.

Still that site seems to report quite a few things before many other sites do so I frequent it.

Anyway, I've nothing against my PC gaming brethren. Hell, I'm not above playing games on a Windows PC. Again, I'm just sticking to what I've got for now. In the future this may change but if I do end up switching back.. Yes, back.. to a Windows PC it'll be wholesale. I do realize that there are benefits to it. Some that might outweigh my operating system and industrial design preferences.

Like for example I could setup a better sound card and perhaps get even better sound support than I do now in quite a few games. I could use the driver control panels to force different types of antialiasing which is a feature that I really like that others might consider trivial. Or being able to play the games with stuff that so far hasn't reached the mac like hardware PhysX and other middleware like that... or have a larger selection of native games in Steam without having to fuss with Wine, Crossover or Parallels.

On the other hand I do enjoy tinkering with that stuff and finding configurations that squeeze more performance, features, etc. out of my games and I enjoy seeing them improve over time. A thing I like about Wine is I can use some of those dll's that windows people use to improve the image quality of their games like SweetFX, FXAA tool, ENB Series, etc. I can also override certain dll's like OpenAL for better sound support easier with Wine. Reminds me of my DOS days and watching the PC platform improve over time in the 90's.

 

[Huntn]

Yeah, I have to admit I haven't followed this forum enough to see the windows gaming bashing. Whenever I come here it always seems to be Mac bashing.. perhaps I'm just unconsciously being selective.

I've not seem much if any Windows bashing here regarding games. Usually if there is bashing it is regarding OS preferences. I'm using Windows 7 all of the time, and I admit that with the proper safeguards it does ok, and it runs circles around the MacOS in the gaming performance department. These issues with games are not necessarily the MacOS's fault in itself, but more about how games are developed, at least that is my impression. Overall, the MacOS is just much more elegant, less issues, an OS gem.

 

[antonis]

Regarding the gaming gap between windows and OS X, Apple is not doing anything they can to close it. Sometimes, it seems they are actually doing the opposite. They released the new Mac Pro that offers crossfire out-of-the-box in windows, while they have done nothing to support the same thing under OS X. This is not the way to close the gap.

 

[smoketetsu]

Windows may run circles around Mac OS in terms of game performance but I've played some games with not half bad performance in Mac OS recently. Hell, today I started playing DmC the reboot by Ninja Theory in Wine and I can play it on ultra in 2560x1440 on the iMac in my signature running it in 10.9.3. Gaming in Mac OS isn't as dire as people here make it out to be.

I wouldn't say Apple is doing absolutely nothing to close the gap.. they are working on further driver improvements. I do admit they are glacial slow on the uptake on newer versions of OpenGL. Not as slow as MESA (http://www.mesa3d.org) though as I mentioned before. People complain that Apple is only on OpenGL 4.1 right now but MESA is only on 3.1.

Speaking of which, People constantly whine and complain and ask for newer versions of OpenGL but then they turn around and not upgrade their software and sometimes even their hardware and still expect to be able to run the latest and greatest. Sometimes they even turn to wine for games that have been ported natively using the latest version of of OpenGL available in the latest version of OS X like 4.1 in Mavericks just so they can run said game on their old OS via OpenGL 2.x. Tomb Raider is such a game where that happened.

 

[ilyasdesign37]

if people didn't play horrible games like batman or free to play... you wouldn't need to install windows or own a windows computer.

i switched to apple in 2008... i never once had to install windows to play a game i wanted... all the games i like are on osx, and most of them natively too.

the only one that i play that isn't native and running under a wrapper is eve online... but i'm not going to get myself on windows just to play eve.

mostly games that have millions of players are on osx except call of duty and battlefield... but those are fps games... you can play counterstrike and you'll get the same experience... the others just have fancier graphics but no actual gameplay difference... spawn, run, shoot, die ... ya i don't like fps, i used too when i was a teenager but i grew out of it fast.

i'm sure someone is going to reply that my opinion is my opinion or that i like horrible games, even though i only listed eve.

batman is an great game on iMac via bootcamp stunning graphics