Holy... Gears of War and UT3 confirmed for Mac

[raskol]

Simply not true. There are enough of us who DO have the needed hardware to make it worth Epic's while bringing the games to market.

As for what we're excited about: playing the games. They will be fun. They will be fun at max detail. They will be fun at min detail. They will not require us to reboot, nor buy an expensive Vista license.

What else is there ever to get excited about with games, if not having fun?

Ok, well there's you and about 1000 other people because unless you think gaming @ < 60FPS is fun then you guys who spent $3000 on MacPros and coffeeshop MacBookPros are the only ones who are going to enjoy these games. And then the next generation of games that require even faster video cards will force MacPro users to spend another $400 on a special Mac version of some outdated video card.

I'm excited about the games. What I'm not excited about is the current line of "Macs". I put that in quotes because a "Mac" does not exist. There is no Macintosh there is only iMac, Mac Mini, MacBook(pro), and Mac Pro. There is no middle.

 

[julesjt]

Games are becoming pretty kickbutt and it requires some high end GPU technology. Once you have a quadcore even dualcore you are fine to play these games, and the only thing needed is updated GPU. So the CPU has a much higher shelf life then GPUs. Mac is stupid for not making the GPU side easily upgradeable to the latest and greatest. And this is not for the FPS but for the high res and all the AA and shadowing features to make the game as beautiful as it can be.

I like OSX a lot and think Vista sucks but being a gamer I am stuck with Vista because jerkoffs allowed DirectX to become the standard over OpenGL which was a mistake for everyone but Microsoft. If OpenGL was the standard we would have Linux, OSX, Microsoft etc gaming platforms.

Now that MAC is Intel at least you can use boot camp, but who wants to pay 2500 bucks for a machine with a year and half old video card. What is Apple thinking?

Apple make great products but make dumb decisions. iPhone with ATT for 5 years with a network with the slowess data network? AppleTV that does not support youtube or other formats?

Steve Jobs is a genius is makes stubborn decisions.

 

[nxent]

very nice. correct me if i'm wrong, but shouldn't gears of war run better on the powermac G5's since the xbox360 is based on the powerpc?

 

[fblack]

Coming to Intel Macs, not to power Macs.

Where did you see that? Its not based on Cider, so there's hope!

I can see GOW for Intel only but maybe G5s will be able to run UT3 especially if it is MP aware like Quake 4. Users with Radeon X800, X850XT, or Geforce 6800 Ultra should have a shot. Heck, Prey can run with a Radeon 9800.

 

[bobber205]

It does support Youtube after a recentish patch.

 

[mixel]

Ok, well there's you and about 1000 other people because unless you think gaming @ < 60FPS is fun then you guys who spent $3000 on MacPros and coffeeshop MacBookPros are the only ones who are going to enjoy these games.

I'd play a game at 40FPS over not being able to play it at all.. And any game that's worth playing now will still be worth playing in two years when the hardware is more powerful/cheaper. Stalker:SOC ran at 40FPS on my PC until the first patch, and it was still worth playing.. WoW goes about 30 on my Macbook much of the time and that's okay mostly. You can probably ramp down the graphics to get higher FPS in UT and GoW anyway.. It's normal to have to do that.. I don't think most PC owners buy kickass gaming ones either, oddly..

More games is never a bad thing.. New iMacs will probably run them fine.

 

[Kosh66]

Where did you see that? Its not based on Cider, so there's hope!

I can see GOW for Intel only but maybe G5s will be able to run UT3 especially if it is MP aware like Quake 4.

The UT3 engine can utilize multiple cores and multiple processors. This has been confirmed a year ago. It hasn't been determined yet, though, how well-threaded it is.

 

[raskol]

I'd play a game at 40FPS over not being able to play it at all.. And any game that's worth playing now will still be worth playing in two years when the hardware is more powerful/cheaper. Stalker:SOC ran at 40FPS on my PC until the first patch, and it was still worth playing.. WoW goes about 30 on my Macbook much of the time and that's okay mostly. You can probably ramp down the graphics to get higher FPS in UT and GoW anyway.. It's normal to have to do that.. I don't think most PC owners buy kickass gaming ones either, oddly..

More games is never a bad thing.. New iMacs will probably run them fine.

Arggg, iMacs! I've never purchased a computer with a built-in display and I never will. In fact iMacs are lame. I say that in all seriousness. Sure I'd buy one for my wife or my kids but I'm a grown man! I'm not going to be seen sitting at some white and silver yuppie... I want to model/render/photoshop/edit video/whatever all day and then kill things later! GOD! Apple please, whatever happened to PowerComputing!!!!!! They built men's computers, not these pansy-ass iMacs!

Doom is what made computers mainstream. There was no such thing as PC gaming before Doom. (yes i know there was, you know what i'm saying) GAMES made computers mainstream. NOT VIDEO EDITING.

 

[nagromme]

Arggg, iMacs! I've never purchased a computer with a built-in display and I never will. In fact iMacs are lame. I say that in all seriousness. Sure I'd buy one for my wife or my kids but I'm a grown man! I'm not going to be seen sitting at some white and silver yuppie... I want to model/render/photoshop/edit video/whatever all day and then kill things later! GOD! Apple please, whatever happened to PowerComputing!!!!!! They built men's computers, not these pansy-ass iMacs!

Doom is what made computers mainstream. There was no such thing as PC gaming before Doom. (yes i know there was, you know what i'm saying) GAMES made computers mainstream. NOT VIDEO EDITING.

That's some impressive and manly trollin'

I'm enjoying all of the above on my iMac, but I still have my good ol' PowerComputing PT Pro!

 

[Kosh66]

Apple please, whatever happened to PowerComputing!!!!!! They built men's computers, not these pansy-ass iMacs!

Except for one slightly more powerful config, Power Computing didn't create anything better than Apple did. And Power Computing got bought out by Apple.

 

[fblack]

Except for one slightly more powerful config, Power Computing didn't create anything better than Apple did. And Power Computing got bought out by Apple.

Yea, but they had really fun ads...

Correct me if I'm wrong but PowerComputing got bought out because Steve Jobs realized that the clone business was cannibalizing mac sales.

 

[Eric5h5]

I like OSX a lot and think Vista sucks but being a gamer I am stuck with Vista because jerkoffs allowed DirectX to become the standard over OpenGL which was a mistake for everyone but Microsoft.

Direct3D is not really the standard; nearly the only things that use it are Windows and XBox. Most everything else on the planet uses OpenGL or a variation of it (such as OpenGL ES), which means there's more OpenGL gaming going on overall than Direct3D gaming.

As for consoles: meh. Gamepads are really only good for platformers or other 3rd-person action games, which is fine, but I like to play other types of games too.

--Eric

 

[Kosh66]

Yea, but they had really fun ads...

Yes, they made it interesting to be a Mac owner.

Correct me if I'm wrong but PowerComputing got bought out because Steve Jobs realized that the clone business was cannibalizing mac sales.

That a big part of it, but there had to be something else. They didn't buy out all the clone manufacturers. I think Power Computing cannibalized a larger part of the Mac sales, and to keep those Mac users, they bought Power Computing out, rather than just cancelling their contract for the MacOS.

 

[fblack]

Yes, they made it interesting to be a Mac owner.

That a big part of it, but there had to be something else. They didn't buy out all the clone manufacturers. I think Power Computing cannibalized a larger part of the Mac sales, and to keep those Mac users, they bought Power Computing out, rather than just cancelling their contract for the MacOS.

Yea I think you hit it on the head. It seems everyone else they just canceled the license but they had to buy out PowerComputing, maybe their deal was a little different because they were the first clone maker?

In May 1995, the Power 80, the first Macintosh clone ever legally sold, was made available to the public. The computer was met with rave reviews. Not only did the computer outperform its Apple counterpart, but it was much less expensive (Apple required only a 7.25% royalty for the Mac OS, less than what Microsoft got in the x86 world).

By the end of 1995, Power Computing had sold over 50,000 Macintosh clones and generated $100 million in sales. Spindler and the rest of the executive team resented their success. Its profits and sales were not coming from new customers; they believed that most Power Computing customers were former Apple customers attracted by lower prices and better performance.

A $100 Million is a nice chunk of change...

http://lowendmac.com/orchard/07/0220.html

 

[takao]

Direct3D is not really the standard; nearly the only things that use it are Windows and XBox. Most everything else on the planet uses OpenGL or a variation of it (such as OpenGL ES), which means there's more OpenGL gaming going on overall than Direct3D gaming.

"the only thing that use it are windows" ... i don't think "only windows" should be used in any way when talking about market shares

on the opengl vs direct3d debate: one ism ore focused at providing an clean interface for professional ueses outside games and the other was mainly designed to take out as much as it can from pc games hardware and thus both prevailed at exactly those...

sure opengl is the winner of the hearts in terms of games because it's the actual standard but it's one of those cases where a quasi standard is dominating

 

[&RU]

Gears of War on the Mac will be great. If they release Halo 3 and Fable 2 for the Mac I won't need to get an xBoxen 360. The fewer reasons to leave my Mac the better.

Hey, and enough iMac bashing up there. They are bullet proof and they pay the bills.

 

[Kosh66]

Gears of War on the Mac will be great. If they release Halo 3 and Fable 2 for the Mac I won't need to get an xBoxen 360. The fewer reasons to leave my Mac the better.

Yeah, I'm starting to wonder if I'll need my Xbox 360 that I bought in February. I bought it because it appeared that the Mac gaming market was dwindling last year, but now it seems to be picking up.

 

[Chone]

Direct3D is not really the standard; nearly the only things that use it are Windows and XBox. Most everything else on the planet uses OpenGL or a variation of it (such as OpenGL ES), which means there's more OpenGL gaming going on overall than Direct3D gaming.

As for consoles: meh. Gamepads are really only good for platformers or other 3rd-person action games, which is fine, but I like to play other types of games too.

--Eric

Yeah and Windows is *ONLY* the biggest gaming platform on earth. Xbox is not far behind as well.

So yeah, MOST stuff uses DirectX not OpenGL, sorry to break it to you but as far as gaming goes, the DX API IS THE standard, who uses OpenGL? Mac developers (and there are tons of them ) and id software, giddy up.

 

[bobber205]

Yeah and Windows is *ONLY* the biggest gaming platform on earth. Xbox is not far behind as well.

So yeah, MOST stuff uses DirectX not OpenGL, sorry to break it to you but as far as gaming goes, the DX API IS THE standard, who uses OpenGL? Mac developers (and there are tons of them ) and id software, giddy up.

Doesn't the PS2 and 3 use OpengL? I thought that Nintendo system did too.

 

[Chone]

Doesn't the PS2 and 3 use OpengL? I thought that Nintendo system did too.

Well yeah the PS3 uses OpenGL (I don't think the PS2 does) and the Nintendo consoles do as well but they are also specific variations of OpenGL (which means developers just have to re-learn the new specific consoles APIs anyway) and believe it or not, the combined Windows and Xbox platform is STILL bigger (gaming-wise) than Sony's PS3 and Nintendo's Wii console.

My point is, out there on the gaming market, DirectX is bigger than OpenGL, OpenGL is only used because Microsoft won't let anyone touch DirectX and OpenGL is still an effective, easy and more importantly open API.

 

[bobber205]

Well yeah the PS3 uses OpenGL (I don't think the PS2 does) and the Nintendo consoles do as well but they are also specific variations of OpenGL (which means developers just have to re-learn the new specific consoles APIs anyway) and believe it or not, the combined Windows and Xbox platform is STILL bigger (gaming-wise) than Sony's PS3 and Nintendo's Wii console.

My point is, out there on the gaming market, DirectX is bigger than OpenGL, OpenGL is only used because Microsoft won't let anyone touch DirectX and OpenGL is still an effective, easy and more importantly open API.

By "bigger" do you mean more people use DirectX on to game than OpenGL? Or does that count the millions of workstation boxes that rarely see a game outside of mindsweper?

 

[Chone]

By "bigger" do you mean more people use DirectX on to game than OpenGL? Or does that count the millions of workstation boxes that rarely see a game outside of mindsweper?

Yeah, I do mean the gaming scene... after all this is the games forum and the gears of war/ut2k7 for mac thread, right?

 

[ob81]

Now all I need to do is locate that site with the plug in for the wireless xbox 360 controller. \o/

 

[icecone]

Now all I need to do is locate that site with the plug in for the wireless xbox 360 controller. \o/

Why? If you can use the mouse?

 

[Eric5h5]

Yeah and Windows is *ONLY* the biggest gaming platform on earth.

How is that possible, when console + handheld sales exceed PC game sales by over 6:1?

So yeah, MOST stuff uses DirectX not OpenGL, sorry to break it to you but as far as gaming goes, the DX API IS THE standard, who uses OpenGL?

Who uses Direct3D aside from Windows and Xbox, which together still accounts for a minority of all games sold? Nintendo DS and PSP don't use Direct3D either.

--Eric