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EA Games Use TransGaming's Cider; To Require Intel Macs
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FleurDuMal
macrumors 68000
It's a shame that we'll still be charged a bloody fortune for it.
Go into most shops on the high street and you'll still see Mac Civ IV for £35-40, whilst the Windows version is £15. 😡
Go into most shops on the high street and you'll still see Mac Civ IV for £35-40, whilst the Windows version is £15. 😡
Might be different though; in the case of something like Civ IV, another company ported it and publishes it, and sets their own prices..... and you don't get the kinds of discounts as PC versions.
If EA is publishing both PC and Mac versions themselves, there is more leeway for them to set prices across the board.
The big question I think is would they release hybrid game discs (like Blizzard does), or release separate Mac packages?
Yes, new spell check in safari. It underlines in red anything it deems to be misspelled. It beats holding down ctrl--d.
Sorry to hijack the thread, but I had underlines in the previous version of safari (2.0.4). Maybe it was a Tiger only feature? (are you on Panther or Earlier?)
Anyway.. I remember hearing about Cider a while ago and it sounded very good. I have a G5 PPC and would of liked to see some universal games making it's way, but I've got a MBP on the way so that should take care of my gaming requirments 🙂 .
ErikGrim
macrumors 604
You're kidding right? Maybe you've just forgot to tick "Check spelling as you type before" 🙄Yes, new spell check in safari. It underlines in red anything it deems to be misspelled. It beats holding down ctrl-
0098386
Suspended
Hate to break it to you, but it's EA bringing games to the Mac 🙁 😉
I'm hoping this acts as a catalyst for other studios to follow. I couldn't care less for EA, but if they bring over Half Life 2/Steam then along with Parallels I'd be able to ditch my XP partition.
not sure why this is getting negative votes. this sounds like the dawning of cross-platform gaming for personal computers. i'm really looking forward to see how computer gaming will evolve in the next few years. for those of you not on intel macs yet - trust me, this is a good thing.
Westside guy
macrumors 604
I seem to recall getting in a few forum arguments here, maybe a year or two ago, because very few people would believe that a significant number of developers were likely to abandon the PPC platform very quickly. Unfortunately it seems like a lot of the "new blood" coming (or coming back) to the Mac development community are pretty much ignoring PPC from the get-go.
I don't think announcements like today's are particularly good news; though at least these are only games (which usually have their own unique interface anyway). But I'd really prefer to not see many Windows-styled interfaces on my Mac - and that's exactly what we're getting with this "development" model.
I don't think announcements like today's are particularly good news; though at least these are only games (which usually have their own unique interface anyway). But I'd really prefer to not see many Windows-styled interfaces on my Mac - and that's exactly what we're getting with this "development" model.
Hopefully Cider works as Transgaming has been advertising it for a while now. At least they weren't making up the bit about being in talks with major developers. From what I understand, it's not quite the same as Cedega or Wine in that it's not just a Windows binary running on top of a compatibility layer. In essence it's more of a set of APIs to compile against to create native apps for OS X, so it may actually work, assuming the APIs are complete. I'm looking forward to C&C 3 for OS X.
twoodcc
macrumors P6
How much of a performance hit does this make the games take? While obviously its less than virtualization, it also has to take some resources away in order to "macify" the program. But how significant is that hit (any guesses are welcome as well)?
Releasing discs with both the Mac and Windows binary on them makes a lot of sense for EA -- they just have one production run to deal with etc., no separate SKU so they can benefit from the economies of scale...
I hope that's the way it goes, it'll make getting the Mac version both easier and cheaper.
Well, this is a "quick and dirty" method of porting games. It's waaaaay cheaper than a "true" port. I don't think EA would be willing to put the investment into "true" ports right now.
The other thing is games don't compete for your $$$ in the same way apps do -- a Mac app with a Windows-ish UI is much less likely to be successful.
I'm not sure I understand how Cider works. It sounds like you could wrap it around CAD programs, say, Pro-E, or any other program, yes/no?
MikeTheC
Guest
Not that this affects me in the slightest as I don't play games, but I'm glad to hear that the Mac platform will no longer be the red headed stepchild. I mean to tell ya, folks, that s*** was getting pretty old.
Actually, I wonder how this will impact the Linux community.
Anyhow, good news.
Actually, I wonder how this will impact the Linux community.
Anyhow, good news.
The program's developers could, the end user can't. It's got to be done at compile time.
There's other products that can be used at runtime such as CrossOver Mac. Bear in mind that because it's a re-implementation of Win32 (and an incomplete one at that), how well stuff works varies. Lots doesn't, from what I've read, and their own compatibility lists aren't terribly inspiring...
With games coming to the Mac platform again, I really want one of those new MBP's with updated graphics cards. If only I had a spare $2k lying around.
It would be nice, that way you don't have retarded situations like Neverwinter Nights for Mac selling for $49.99 right next to the Windows version for $19.99. I think that hurts Mac gaming more than anything right now. As much as I'd like to support Mac gaming by buying games, I'm not going to pay $50 on a game that was released on Windows a couple years ago.
I don't think TansGaming has anything like Cider for Linux at the moment, but I don't really see what would stopping them. That would really make it much nicer for developers, though I'd still prefer to use crossplatform options like OpenGL, SDL, and OpenAL.
dongmin
macrumors 68000
I don't really the point of your distress.
1. These developers aren't "leaving" PPC because they weren't in it the first place. CIDER is bringing new developers, or in the case of EA bringing them back, into the Mac fold.
2. Most games have their own UI, so it really doesn't matter what platform the game originated from.
You are also kind of missing the big picture here. As today's keynote showed, the Windows vs. Mac dichotomy doesn't exist as strongly as before. The two OS's are copying each other more and more, which is inevitable. As much as Apple likes to take digs at Microsoft, Apple is moving more and more towards platform neutrality.
