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Apple Improving Open-GL?

was wondering when this would hit this site.. been a few days already.. anyway, I don't care a lick about games at all.. just plain boring, BUT, I do care about pro apps that make use of open gl, so I don't care how they do it, or who they do it for, as long as we all benefit in the end.

My only question is, why did this take so long? I know Steve's not big on listening to consumers, even faithful ones, but graphics has been the driving force in buying for years, and with the options on 2 macs to have decent graphics cards, you'd think they'd throw some muscle behind it. While I hit on it, why can't I upgrade the gfx card on an imac? I want an imac, not a tower, so why can't i pay an extra $whatever to get a real card? that's just plain bad thinking. One size does not fit all.
 
jared_kipe said:
Doubtful, only thing that is going to make people start making more mac games is when we get some reasonable market share, and it is profitable to do so.
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Yes, and the mac gaming marketshare will improve tremendously if OpenGL becomes significantly faster. Right now, the latest games only play well when run on a high-end PowerMac. That's a small market.

If OpenGL can be accelerated enough to allow iMacs, eMacs, powerbooks, and ibooks to be a decent gaming machine, the chances of a profitable software launch will multiply.
 
Open-GL, Open GL, or OpenGL? :p

Seriously though, I suspect this may be due to the somewhat "beta" status of Mac OS X. In the WWDC 2004 - Graphics and Media State of the Union, it is mentioned that Tiger should fill in the "last of the big holes in Quartz" (I realize Quartz is 2D). Which leads to the idea that Tiger is probably the finalization of the graphics frameworks. And that if graphics don't directly improve in Tiger, they should by 10.5 because the major groundbreaking changes are over for a bit.
 
I've got a serious question (please no flames).

Personally, if I was going to get into games, I'd get an Xbox or something - its sole purpose is to play games (and much cheaper than putting a gaming computer together),

Why are so many Mac users dead-set on playing games on this platform?

(I'm seriously curious.)
 
This is good to hear

I guess its also Pro Apps making use of OpenGL and not just games that has made Apple think about this

Hopefully this means new graphics cards as well
 
iGary said:
I've got a serious question (please no flames).

Personally, if I was going to get into games, I'd get an Xbox or something - its sole purpose is to play games (and much cheaper than putting a gaming computer together),

Why are so many Mac users dead-set on playing games on this platform?

(I'm seriously curious.)
Click to expand...

Personally I like PC games much more than console games. They are more complex, because they can store GBs of data on the harddisc and still have the cd/dvd in the slot. In console games, with the exception of GTA, there often is just one way with slight variations to play through. Once you did that the games are boring. I'm more fascinated of games like Diablo2, Age of Mythology, WoW (when I have a new computer) because the long time motivation is better.

I played "Lord of the Rings-the two towers" on a friends Playstation. We were through in one evening, 10 hours and 5 beers. 50 € wasted. Diablo2 I played for over a year due to the random dungeons and until I had my sorceress on lvl 95. 50 € well spent...
 
iGary said:
I've got a serious question (please no flames).

Personally, if I was going to get into games, I'd get an Xbox or something - its sole purpose is to play games (and much cheaper than putting a gaming computer together),

Why are so many Mac users dead-set on playing games on this platform?

(I'm seriously curious.)
Click to expand...

I'm not one of those that cares anything about playing games on a Mac. Since it sounds as though Open GL will benefit more than just gaming, then this is a positive move on the part of Apple. It will allow the Mac to appeal to a broader range of customer. Not just those for games, but those into 2D & 3D graphics. Can't afford to forget about the professional user either
 
Apple finally realizes their OpenGL is so pitiful. They are busy working on an update so they can show off Doom 3 running on a PM 3.0 Ghz at WWDC and saying, look, 90 FPS at 1600x1200. And it'll just get sneers from the audience.
 
its obvious this is one of the biggest complaint switchers have is that they give up the gaming moving to mac osx. So since apple is oriented towards switching now they are working feverishly to increase the gaming experience. I've heard the tiger increases doom3 frame rates significantly (due to better drivers etc). I like this news cuz since i've move to apple (past 3 years) i haven't done much shootem' up gamin
 
Improving OpenGL

BrianKonarsMac said:
seriously though, i'm so surprised this wasn't a top priority before, at least apple is taking some initiative.
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I agree. This should of been a priority long before now. The article also stated that Apple is trying to make it much easier to port from DirectX to OpenGL.

Is Apple finally starting to get gaming?
 
If Apple does want to start taking gaming on the Mac seriously, they shouldn't wait for third party developers to catch up. With Apple making iLife and iWork updates (hopefully) every year, why not also get a first-party team together to develop one big game each year? One thing they could guarantee is that if the game was impressive enough, EVERY Mac user would buy it, much like iLife. Bundling the game with every new consumer Mac would also be a huge boost. But this thing's got to be superb.
So Apple, if you're listening - court some big names to come to you guys and blow us away at MacWorld 2006 with a 3 part bundle - iLife, iWork and a game for $199.99 (and with a hefty student discount for me and others, of course).
Ah, who am I kidding - it'll never happen.
 
chameeeleon said:
Ah, who am I kidding - it'll never happen.
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I think you're right. ;)

I also think there would be *tremendous* pressure on Apple to create the best game on the market if they WERE to create a game. And we all know how tough the competition in the gaming industry is. Plus, if they only make ONE, what kind of game would they create? A FPS, RPG, sports game? The list goes on, and not all Mac owners would buy the game just because it's a Mac game.
 
Why is openGL improvement important even for a console gamer like me? Cause my 400 mhz gamecube can run insane video filters on a game like Viewtiful Joe, yet Final Cut Pro staggers after putting two videos together, and Motion just plain looks like poop when it's able to run realtime. 1.6 ghz powerbook!!! An xbox can run Doom III better than me??? Apple fix it!!!
 
Good Good Gaming is something macs have always sucked(if we are honest with out selfs) in. But I am curious to know how will this help games that are already out. Such as wow....
 
For PC switchers like myself, I think a lot of us want our mac to be able to do most things our PC's could do, and that includes gaming.

Example, some friends of mine at uni all live in the same corridor. 2 of them have PC's one has a mac. The PC users started to play Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, and my Mac buddy noticed you could get a mac version! So he did! And..... it didn't work! I'm not an idiot when it comes to macs and even I couldn't get it to work. (No problems on my 12" Powerbook, but never worked on his 15")

Anyway, so what I'm saying is that the fact that he couldn't play a game that all of his friends could on a computer that we both felt was far superior really put us on a downer. PC gamers are a different breed to console gamers. I'm slowly turning into a console gamer, but only as I dislike windows...
 
This is DEFINITELY good news! I would like to see the true power of the mac graphics cards to come. This machine needs to quit being so bottlenecked. The Doom 3 performance on my machine is a let down to say the least.
 
actual graphics

With the whole 'year of HD' bit i'd imagine this might have a lot to do with motion graphics/video/3D programs as much as it would have to do with gaming. These programs can rely a lot on open GL and 'can' tax a GPU a lot more than a game ever will. This is, in a sense, a bigger issue since its more of an industry currently on the mac and its a bigger problem when you have to work a lot slower with annoying non real time feed back than when you just get 20fps in a game.

I love games but i hope this is more of their focus but it will bennefit both either way.
 
iGary said:
I've got a serious question (please no flames).

Personally, if I was going to get into games, I'd get an Xbox or something - its sole purpose is to play games (and much cheaper than putting a gaming computer together),

Why are so many Mac users dead-set on playing games on this platform?

(I'm seriously curious.)
Click to expand...

It's more about preference I guess.

I prefer non-FPSes, so console gaming is ideal for me. It seems you only have three genres on the Mac/PC these days: FPS, MMORPG, and RTS. In essence, every shooter from the last decade is pretty much the same. MMORPGs have been gimmicky on the most part, and RTSes are great on computers. Hey, if you like those genres, more power to you, and game on. But, I just had enough of them, not to say I've completely quit. :)

Also, any computer nerd loves to show off his toy, so what's a better way than to use a game to benchmark you machine? Honestly, that's partially the reason computer gaming is so appealing to the nerd-types. And all that tweaking to your machine is nerd's dream! And computer gamers are so shallow. God, it's just disgusting what kind of gamers we have today. They don't care about gameplay. It's all about pretty graphics. At least most consoles gamers aren't like that.

---------

For people comparing consoles to computers: please don't.

Two major reasons:
1) Console hardware is dedicated and lacks overhead from an OS and other useless hardware a computer has.
2) Graphics quality in consoles are utter crap. At best, you'll get HDTV resolutions, but the pixels on a TV are bigger and blurs the picture so it looks good. Hook up your console to a DVI display (with the proper adapters). You'll see how crappy it can get. Yes, Halo 2 (even at an HDTV resolution) looks like crap when you compare it to Doom 3 or Half Life 2.

-------

Apple, if you care about gaming, get Havok ported to the Mac. I don't care how. Just get it done. Havok is hurting us more than you think.
 
That idea about making 1 huge game every year is not such a bad idea.They should make them online that way they can release updates to them consistently throughout a year. But I think they will need help in doing so. The ideal partnership would be Nintendo however. Best games, desperate, online venture, exclusivity etc etc, and they both have simialar ideals and aims.
 
Macs do not "suck"

AoWolf said:
Good Good Gaming is something macs have always sucked(if we are honest with out selfs) in. But I am curious to know how will this help games that are already out. Such as wow....
Click to expand...

You must be a new Mac user. There was a time before Windows when Macs had colour screens and PCs did not. There was also a Mac-only game called Marathon which out-doomed Doom in graphics and gameplay. The company which made this game was called Bungie. They also worked on a game called Halo, which was first demonstrated during an Apple Keynote on a PowerMac with a 64 MB graphics card. Another game which was first demonstrated during a keynote was Doom 3.

Low frame rates in 3D games started being the norm in Mac games after the games industry decided that Direct X was the bee's knees. Most Mac games today are Open GL ports of Direct X games. Almost nothing takes advantage of Mac-only features like wide-screen displays, Altivec, dual PPC processors and 64 bit processing. Even if some games featured optimisations like these, PC gamers would still reject Macs because more games are available on Windows.
 
iGary said:
I've got a serious question (please no flames).

Personally, if I was going to get into games, I'd get an Xbox or something - its sole purpose is to play games (and much cheaper than putting a gaming computer together),

Why are so many Mac users dead-set on playing games on this platform?

(I'm seriously curious.)
Click to expand...

One thing, mainly: keyboard and mouse will always beat gamepad. Try playing Halo on a PC/Mac against people on Xbox. They won't stand a chance.

I wish/hope the next consoles will have something like a speedpad n50 and a mouse. Not optionnal, or at least make all games support it as a requirement (first person shooters at least).
 
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