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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.

They do. Cedega.
 
My reasons for owning Windows is thinning. :D

I love Safari on XP (I dont have a mac yet, but i'm now a fan)
 
I am so glad I decided to go with the first gen. MBP instead of the PowerBook. A guy I knew took the PowerBook over the MBP, he could have returned it because he bought it like a week before the MBP was announced, but he didn't. He wanted Adobe CS2 to be full speed. I sacrificed speed for a little while, but with CS3 out, I am glad I opted for the Intel Mac. Plus I had a feeling the PowerPC Macs would be obsolete sooner than most expected. I feel bad for those who bought PowerPC machines (especially the portables) right before the Intel Switch.
 

No, those are two rather different products. Cedega has been around for a while, and is pretty much version of the Wine compatibility layer specialized for games. It's not a real full time solution. Cider is more of a DirectX compatible SDK for OS X that is supposed to simplify ports. They both have a shared lineage, but are quite different implementations.
 
While quite a large nail in the coffin of the PowerPC, I think this all but spells the death of companies like Aspyr and MacSoft... No? I'm all for more games, but if/when those two companies go under, I will feel bad for them... So many years of loyalty... :(
 
No, those are two rather different products. Cedega has been around for a while, and is pretty much version of the Wine compatibility layer specialized for games. It's not a real full time solution. Cider is more of a DirectX compatible SDK for OS X that is supposed to simplify ports. They both have a shared lineage, but are quite different implementations.

I'm aware of the differences, just thought you wanted a Linux solution.

The reason for the differing approaches is economic, not technical.

They're going that route with Linux vs it being more like Cider is simple: the publishers would would be their customers don't believe there's any money in Linux software.
 
While quite a large nail in the coffin of the PowerPC, I think this all but spells the death of companies like Aspyr and MacSoft... No? I'm all for more games, but if/when those two companies go under, I will feel bad for them... So many years of loyalty... :(

I won't feel bad that they won't be charging $50 for games that were released on Windows a 3 years earlier. I'd don't mind if they die as long as Mac gaming is finally and a more even level with Windows.
 
I'm aware of the differences, just thought you wanted a Linux solution.

The reason for the differing approaches is economic, not technical.

They're going that route with Linux vs it being more like Cider is simple: the publishers would would be their customers don't believe there's any money in Linux software.

I was just saying that the implementation was completly differnent, and there's really no comparing the two. The Mac games compiled against Cider will be real, supported Mac applications, while Cedega is just running Windows games, and even today, the number of games that work perfectly are still small. Cider seems like much less of a crapshoot.
 
Cool. I look forward to testing it. I've had it downloaded for a while but have held off installing since the package informed me it wanted to reboot (so I backed out). I'll have to wait until I can reboot the system. Hope it is stable and worth the install.

(apologies for going off topic)
I'm testing Safari on Windows Vista right now. I'm not likely to switch from FireFox, I just want to try it for a while. The spellchecking seems to be off in Prefences by default, and it doesn't seem to activate in this Beta (Edit -> Spelling -> Check Spelling While Typing). I don't know how to install dictionaries, like i can in FireFox, so not as useful even if it works (I don't want bloody US spelling).
 
While quite a large nail in the coffin of the PowerPC, I think this all but spells the death of companies like Aspyr and MacSoft... No? I'm all for more games, but if/when those two companies go under, I will feel bad for them... So many years of loyalty... :(

Well, if it expands the market for Mac games it could help them -- I'm sure there'll still be a lot of titles that won't make it to the Mac unless a third party licenses and ports them.

I'm not even sure it hurts the PPC that much -- people knew there were very few games available when they bought 'em anyway... I'm sure the pro apps will still offer PPC versions for a while.

Just a sign of how the market is changing a little as it expands, I think.
 
I was just saying that the implementation was completly differnent, and there's really no comparing the two. The Mac games compiled against Cider will be real, supported Mac applications, while Cedega is just running Windows games, and even today, the number of games that work perfectly are still small. Cider seems like much less of a crapshoot.

Very true. Cider sounds like it should be a viable solution for publishers in a way Cedega flat out isn't.

It's rather ironic that Cider is making DirectX a de facto cross-platform standard of sorts, albeit without the blessing of the originators...
 
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.

Well, while that's probably true, what I'm thinking about is FSF/OSS development of the Cider concept so they can do their own dynamic wrapping of Win32 binaries. I'm not sure what kind of adaptation would be required but surely getting Win32 binaries to run (at all) on BSD/Mac x86 has gotta be some kind of use to the Linux folks.
 
All the more reason to upgrade to an Intel Mac! (Just as long as it doesn't have integrated graphics :eek: )

Gotta snag me one of those iMac Intel Core 2 Duos on clearance when the new models come out!



I'm not even mad. Old PPC macs have seen their day anyway. Bring it on I say.
 
One thing that's not been discussed (I think): what's the performance of games going to be like under Cider (compared to the Windoze versions)? Could the "wrapper" encourage game developers to get lazy and not optimise their games for the Mac? I hear the graphics card drivers for the Mac aren't exactly well optimised either. :confused:

Nevertheless... I was previously in a dilemma as to whether to get the 128Mb or 256Mb (video memory) MBP. I guess the decision has been made for me. :cool:

SL
 
Once upon a time there was an open source project called Wine.
Wine is a project which aims to allow a PC with an x86 architecture processor running a Unix-like operating system and the X Window System to execute programs that were originally written for Microsoft Windows. Alternatively, those wishing to port a Windows application to a Unix-like system can compile it against the Wine libraries in the form of Winelib.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(software)

CodeWeavers' CrossOver product for Linux, and later their CrossOver Mac, is a commercial fork of the Wine project that's focused on supporting Microsoft Office, Outlook and some other programs like that. They contribute most of their code changes back to the parent Wine project, too.

TransGaming's Cedega for Linux (originally called WineX) is a commercial fork of an old version of Wine back when Wine had a more permissive license. (Cedega's source code is publicly available but that's about it, seems. Not sure what the Cedega license in turn permits. You can install it for free by compiling yourself.) It's focused on supporting 3D graphics and gaming. While Cedega is sold as a product to gamers who can get Windows games to work on it depending on the games' support status in the latest version of Cedega, it has also seen some official support from game developers wanting to help their games work on Linux. This is the route they're taking with Cider. Compare to compiling against Winelib in above quote.

So all those code bases are originally the same.

Performance will depend really on how much the developers optimize the Cider compiled version, but during runtime there is no extra software layer slowing things down or anything. I'm not sure to what extent Apple's less game-friendly OpenGL drivers will matter, but Apple really should work on this if they want to have games consistently running at similar speeds on OS X and Windows on the same computer.
 
Pros: Will get games onto the Mac in a timely fashion, possibly in the same game box as the PC version so that retailers will actually sell it.

Cons: Entrenches Direct X as the API for games.

Pros: If the game sells well, then the publishers will see a market for games on the Mac and they may develop them natively for the Mac rather than via middleware.

Cons: Existing game porting companies will lose out, although there will probably be enough PC only games still to give them a market.

Pros: Game porting companies might write their own games instead of porting games or going bust.

Cons: Games might feel a bit Windowsish, but then again games have their own user interface anyway so it isn't a big issue.

Pros: Game prices may reduce in line with the Windows versions.

Cons: Intel only - it's only been a year, folks!

Pros: May attract more people to the Mac side if they know there are some games available. The next iMac's 8600M or equivalent graphics will be more than capable of playing most games decently, and the current X1600Pro ain't that bad really.

Cons: It is only the (non-lowend) iMac, MacBook Pro and Mac Pro that will be able to run the games due to Apple's use of integrated graphics elsewhere. This restricts the market somewhat. At least the iBook's low-end discrete graphics could have run a game of the era, albeit with lower settings.

Cons: EA! Harry Potter?! Still probably will sell well...

Aside: Harry Potter would probably run well on the Apple TV if only Apple had given it Bluetooth and made a bluetooth controller available.
 
EA games for windows do not have native support for widescreen. Does that mean there won't be widescreen support for Mac OS either? Seems that all intel iMacs and Macbooks (Pro) have a widescreen.
 
i'm one of the "lucky" guys who bought the latest PowerBookG4 model...

blizzard can do it, too... why are all the other companies that lazy? okay EA is a capitalistic bitch (search for statemants of ex-members...) - i didn't expect anything else than that.
if they would just concentrate on a few titles and make them universal instead of pushing all games out that they have.

steve jobs said that the ppc would also be supported in the future. well part of... like we see here

it's not apple if i have to buy a new computer just after 1,5 years...
 
Pros: Will get games onto the Mac in a timely fashion, possibly in the same game box as the PC version so that retailers will actually sell it.

Cons: Entrenches Direct X as the API for games.

This is nothing new. Porting houses use their own DX to OGL wrappers.

Pros: If the game sells well, then the publishers will see a market for games on the Mac and they may develop them natively for the Mac rather than via middleware.

Cons: Existing game porting companies will lose out, although there will probably be enough PC only games still to give them a market.

Game porting companies were created out of necessity, not because they are the best solution. Original publisher support is much more ideal because it does not involve having to give developer source code to a third party.

Pros: Game porting companies might write their own games instead of porting games or going bust.

Cons: Games might feel a bit Windowsish, but then again games have their own user interface anyway so it isn't a big issue.

First both Aspyr and Destineer have published at least one cross platform title and both already publish many windows games. Ironically, cider makes more plausible that we could see their non-Mac titles. When it comes down to it, Apple's failure to gain marketshare in the gaming/prosumer ranks doesn't make Mac game porting a very lucrative business. We've seen both Aspyr and Macsoft cut back and Macplay leave the game entirely because of this.

Second, the only time there is any difference between Mac and PC games when it comes to interface is while running in windowed mode. You won't see a bunch foreign looking windows like you would with emulation or an x11 layer, you'll say the same menu bar options that you would see in any other Mac game or program.

Pros: Game prices may reduce in line with the Windows versions.

Cons: Intel only - it's only been a year, folks!

PowerPC machines are much slower and add both significant time and significant cost to ports. I know it sucks for existing PPC users, but for Mac gaming to really move forward, it must be intel only

Pros: May attract more people to the Mac side if they know there are some games available. The next iMac's 8600M or equivalent graphics will be more than capable of playing most games decently, and the current X1600Pro ain't that bad really.

Cons: It is only the (non-lowend) iMac, MacBook Pro and Mac Pro that will be able to run the games due to Apple's use of integrated graphics elsewhere. This restricts the market somewhat. At least the iBook's low-end discrete graphics could have run a game of the era, albeit with lower settings.

Apple does need to broaden their horizons when it comes to hardware. Focusing such a great operating system on the wants such a small group of users is a waste.

Cons: EA! Harry Potter?! Still probably will sell well...

Aside: Harry Potter would probably run well on the Apple TV if only Apple had given it Bluetooth and made a bluetooth controller available.

You gotta ahve the games aimed at kinds too.
 
:D, transgaming is a infamous name, just check wikipedia out, these vampires feeding on the blood of opensource projects deserve nothing but getting my spit on.

Explain what you mean by "feeding on the blood". Are we not supposed to use opensource software to bring more software to the Mac platform? Or is it we have to do it for free? Hmm... my bank doesn't let me have my house for free. And the grocery store doesn't give me food for free.

It's not like they're just repackaging the work in an overpriced installer. There appears to be a significant amount of work to make these games work seamlessly on the Mac. Otherwise, you could just download wine for free, and make all PC games work with just a few makefile modifications. But hey, feel free to prove me wrong.
 
Will the Intel Mac platform secretly become the best computer gaming platform?

Imagine not having to constantly upgrade boards and download patches, the game just works - like on a console!
 
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