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Aspyr to Drop Game Support for Snow Leopard as OS X Mavericks Launch Nears
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It's not a discrepancy (which implies they are talking about the same thing). It's two software developers talking about their individual audiences. Because they are two different programs, even perhaps style of program, they get different numbers
To clarify, those are my customer breakdowns. They are not the OS market as a whole.
Since 10.6 only has opengl 2 this was inevitable.
Any computer I have running Snow Leopard is doing so because it struggles to render the newer OS X user interfaces smoothly because the GPU is old. The same GPU's would struggle with newer games anyway.
Feral have also silently dropped 10.6 support also. The latest update for Rome is 10.7+ . Before this update it supported 10.6.
I don't think this affects anyone. Any Mac user who wants to play games will be using the latest OS X because of how driver updates work on OS X.
Any computer I have running Snow Leopard is doing so because it struggles to render the newer OS X user interfaces smoothly because the GPU is old. The same GPU's would struggle with newer games anyway.
Feral have also silently dropped 10.6 support also. The latest update for Rome is 10.7+ . Before this update it supported 10.6.
I don't think this affects anyone. Any Mac user who wants to play games will be using the latest OS X because of how driver updates work on OS X.
Performance gains?
I hope this also means there might be an increase in performance for these games when running on OS X. Many times the gap between how the same game runs on the same hardware but in Windows is too big.
I hope this also means there might be an increase in performance for these games when running on OS X. Many times the gap between how the same game runs on the same hardware but in Windows is too big.
Not really. Even though new PCs can still run XP, most new games wont run on it. Just look at the bigger productions on steam released this year as an example.
You are right, but even support for XP will end (microsoft is ceasing support on April 8, 2014 - they wanted to end it sooner if you remember, but pressure from the business/corporate world changed that). And in the case of XP, support for new harware is helped along by hardware manufacturers themselves - being able to go over to nvidia, intel, amd's etc site and grab drivers.
Sure you could consider not supporting SL on new harware as "artificial", on Apples part. You could consider Aspyr not supporting SL to be artificial too. But it makes sense logistically. Quality of product can be increased, and resources focused more precisely by not needing to support as many software and harware configurations. Can you imagine Asypr needing to test their software ports on GMA945 setups?
Out of interest, how far back do you think Apple software support should extend? Should we be able to install Tiger on a 2013 rMBP or haswell Air?
But I bet all them releases run on Vista and/or 7, both of which are older than Snow Leopard.
Since Tiger was my favourite OS X, I'd like that very much. But in seriousness, I feel it should be longer than it is. And I would have appreciated longer PowerPC support off them too.
I'm not a gamer (so perhaps this is a wrong thread for me
) but even though I generally agree with everything you say I found it surprisingly difficult to give up Snow Leopard (still have it as the primary OS on 2 out of my 3 Macs) if only for just a few reasons. The main reason is Spaces/Expose which you mention. I still find the SL version far superior, especially on a desktop even after 2 years using Lion and Mountain Lion. There are a couple of other things (like the lack of color icons in Finder sidebar in ML and L) which seem very minor but add up when taken together.Yeh I know what you mean, sometimes feels like purposely engineered obsolescence. In many ways the whole thing is a no win situation.
It's not quite as simple as you make it sound.
If I want to upgrade my Mac from Snow Leopard to Lion/ML, it costs about $20. Then my version of Parallels Desktop is incompatible with Lion, so that's another $50 or so, plus I have the worry of whether there will be any compatibility issues when bringing my virtual machine across, I REALLY don't want to have to rebuild that from scratch.
I'd also have to go through all my other apps and games to see which what else breaks, I've no doubt there would be other costs/incompatibilities.
It's certainly not necessarily simple/cheap to upgrade. Odds are, I'd lose the ability to run as many games/apps I own, as I'd gain the ability to run new ones.
That's an odd thing to say when it is Microsoft that offers the better user support by a factor of about 10. What am I talking about? Apple is only screwing the USERS when it FORCES them to constantly update OSX whether they want to or not (or else lose ALL support from both Apple and most developers, especially when they remove support for older systems like happened with PowerPC when Snow Leopard came out). You, the USER are the one that gets punished by these actions, not companies when you find your otherwise useful Intel Mac Core Solo rendered USELESS by Lion and no option to upgrade the computer or the operating system will leave you with a big WORTHLESS paperweight (unless ironically you use Windows or Linux on it).
"Oh but your old software will continue to function as it always has" is the response I used to hear about PowerPC complaints, but it's a bald-faced LIE. You CANNOT continue to safely and effectively use the world wide web when 100% of browser support has been DUMPED for your operating system. More and more web sites simply will not work and even those that do will get slower and slower as they keep adding more advanced features that older machines simply cannot handle (99% of which are nothing but bloatware/adware garbage, but such it the reality of the Internet). Bugs in existing software will never be fixed either. Any newly found security holes will not be plugged and whereas they were probably always there in the past, no one knew about them whereas once found, they are more likely to be exploited (true that's more common with older software in Windows, but it's still a reality of life on the Mac as well as those using Java can easily attest over the past year).
The bottom line is I have Windows XP on my Macbook Pro. I don't use it much (mostly for a few games), but it still runs the latest versions of Firefox and Chrome and most games as well. Thus, it's still a useful operating system even though it's been out for a dozen years and any computer that supports it will only be limited by the capability of its hardware, not the ability to run the Internet.
Thus, I have to say the idea that Apple is "consumer driven" is complete and utter bullcrap. Apple tells US what to do, not the other way around. If anything, Apple is a self-driven corporate bully whereas Microsoft kow-tows to its customers, both user and corporate alike. It is the Mac users that kow-tow to Apple's demands, not the other way around.
Consumers want constant updates and improvements. Business customers want stability and longevity. Hence why consumer products have a constant and fast upgrade cycle. Business have a much slower cycle, and Microsoft is expected to keep long term legacy support.
Huh?
Honestly, this is probably the LEAST of the issues making Mac gaming lacklustre!
Especially considering on Macs, graphics card support is typically handled by Apple themselves -- you aren't really going to see a game taking advantage of improved graphics frameworks unless it's written so it targets the latest OS (or at least gets patched so it does).
I'd be more worried about OS X games if they wrote for the "lowest common denominator" all the time and held back the performance, just to make sure it ran on old versions of the OS.
Almost everyone (including Apple themselves) have standardized on only supporting OS X for a maximum of 2 versions back from whatever's current. That will always anger or upset some people out there, but IMO, that's simply the price of progress. There's a reason your 3+ year old computer isn't worth too much compared to what you paid for it when it was new (even when physically, it's in mint condition).
The people who insist they "don't need to upgrade" and cling to older systems or older operating systems are welcome to keep using all the software they bought during the time-frame it was a "supported" machine. It will still run as good as it ever did. (And specifically to address the comment posted above about older browsers becoming useless? Yep - that's true, but once you start talking about the Internet, you're demanding the ability to work with the whole outside world. You're not just talking about programs that run strictly on your machine without outside interaction. If one of your basic requirements is using Internet based web sites and services, then yeah -- you may have to "pay to play".)
Honestly, this is probably the LEAST of the issues making Mac gaming lacklustre!
Especially considering on Macs, graphics card support is typically handled by Apple themselves -- you aren't really going to see a game taking advantage of improved graphics frameworks unless it's written so it targets the latest OS (or at least gets patched so it does).
I'd be more worried about OS X games if they wrote for the "lowest common denominator" all the time and held back the performance, just to make sure it ran on old versions of the OS.
Almost everyone (including Apple themselves) have standardized on only supporting OS X for a maximum of 2 versions back from whatever's current. That will always anger or upset some people out there, but IMO, that's simply the price of progress. There's a reason your 3+ year old computer isn't worth too much compared to what you paid for it when it was new (even when physically, it's in mint condition).
The people who insist they "don't need to upgrade" and cling to older systems or older operating systems are welcome to keep using all the software they bought during the time-frame it was a "supported" machine. It will still run as good as it ever did. (And specifically to address the comment posted above about older browsers becoming useless? Yep - that's true, but once you start talking about the Internet, you're demanding the ability to work with the whole outside world. You're not just talking about programs that run strictly on your machine without outside interaction. If one of your basic requirements is using Internet based web sites and services, then yeah -- you may have to "pay to play".)
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This.
When I forst got a Mac, any big AAA title released for Mac OS X felt like another step closer to heaven, now I know better.
I've learned the hard way that OS X and gaming shouldn't be combined (exclusives and online-only games aside - you just can't help it in those cases)
Hence Boot Camp, hence Windows 7.
Glassed Silver:mac
Never mind about games -- I just got back from my sister's. I had given her my first generation Mac Mini many years ago. It had been working fine for her. All she does is check e-mail and browse the Web. But she called me the other day claiming that the Mac could no longer print her e-mails.
It turned out that Yahoo's new layout uses some scripting that can't be read by her Mini. Yahoo kept telling her to update to the latest version of Safari or Firefox or Chrome -- but the new browsers aren't compatible with her machine. I tried switching her to GMail, but had the same problems.
Older computers are rapidly becoming completely obsolete, even for things as simple as checking e-mail.
I've run into the same issues on my iMac G4 on 10.5 (prettiest computer ever). You should give TenFourFox a try. Or better yet, use a native mail app, which will be a lot faster
Which blows because in the end, no one has to be forced into buying a new computer every 4 years. After all, these are no $199 iPhones, these are $1000 machines that should last 10 years...
Microsoft also owns the lion share of the gaming market. I didn't know that businesses buy computers to play games.
This statement is untrue.
Apple is not ruled by the consumer. This is just how Apple's Marketing (and Steve's RDF) have made it appear for years now.
If I had to say anything I would say the opposite, as MS had to listen carefully to the console market and pitched the Xbox into a crowded market where it had no market share.
Consumers rule Xbox, as MS has had to give their customers exactly what they wanted to succeed.
Apple gives us what they want as part of their future business plan and then convince us that we need it.
In that respect, Apple is ruled by business.