Mac Gaming problems and solutions...

[Ol3s]

I've been thinking a lot about the problems and solutions

Problems:
1)Bootcamp, in my opinion this is a very big problem in mac gaming, as it actually gives developers a reason not to port games to mac.
2)Apple, it gives no support for games, there is no way (or at least i haven't found it) to get from apple.com to apple.com/games. Less people know you can play games on a mac, less copies of a game are sold and little initiative is left for porting more games.
Apple isn't even bothered to talk to developers.
3)No exclusive games, xbox has halo, wii has mario, ps has something else (we could consider resistance), and this is how you get more consoles to sell.
4)A relatively small market share (osx has 4%)
5)Aspyr giving sh*t excuses to why they dont port so many games at the moment (no good pc games to port wtf)
6)A general lack of developers developing for mac (no Valve, GSC Game World, Rockstar, Crytek)
7)Virtualisation, same reason as bootcamp.
8)Price of a mac, well not so much in europe (its about the same as a pc) but the rest of the world
Of course these are not all the problems, not even all major ones

Solutions:
1)Apple should really care more, on the mac page put a photo of an upcoming game or something, apple should also develope a game for mac, seeing as they are the only ones who will make a profit on it. They should talk to developers
2)Get rid of boot camp
3)get rid of crossover
4)Aspyr and other porting houses should get of their fat asses, especially macsoft
5)Oh I dont kno, how about lower the prices of the games, who the fu*k will buy red alert 3 for mac if pc version is cheaper.
6)Oh and how about buying out a developer apple, buy gsc or something and then we'll see cossacks and stalker on mac.
These are not all the solutions either.

Note: i did not add cider as a problem, honestly i think it is helping, at least developers/publishers get of their asses and port.

 

[MacsRgr8]

I understand what you're saying.
When Apple switched to Intel, and when it was clear that Windows would run natively on an Intel-Mac, (first via the "hacked"-way -remember narf2000- ?, later Boot Camp) this was one of the first discussions that aroused.
Virtualisation (VMware, Parallels, VirtualBox) are not considered solutions for gaming...

But, of course... playing DirectX 9 and 10 games natively on Windows on a Mac using the latest Windows drivers for your grfx card, made it perfect easy.

However, being able to do this on a Mac has a few advantages too:
- You only need one computer: one Mac. Not, one PPC-based "serious work" Mac, and one "serious gaming" Windows based PC.
- More Macs are sold than before, hence more Mac OS X users, thus making the platform a little more attractive to make Mac OS X native games.
- Porting is easier to Mac OS X x86. Cider is case in point. It's probably true of most ports. But, serious developers (Feral, Aspyr, not EA) still make games UB.

I do wish Apple did more to help the cause. Open GL, Open AL, (hopefully Open CL) all seem such brilliant technologies to help game developers. But, somehow Apple doesn't take gaming seriously.
Steve has "promised" so much abut gaming in the past. Remember the iMac Rev A intro? Steve was so into gaming ... quote: "Somehow the previous board didn't like games, but we do!".
Id software also made some appearances on stage during Steve-notes, demoing Quake 3 on Mac OS X, and the awesome pre-pre-pre-alpha showoff of Doom 3 on the GeForce 3 card at MacWorld Tokyo many moons ago.

But, in all honesty... I think Steve loathes gaming.

But, as I see it:
Gaming is fun. It helps you let off steam.
It also helps development of 3D engines and 3D grfx acceleration on grfx cards, of which stuff like Open CL, Core Image, Quartz Extreme all take advantage...

One thing:
Some of us pirate software. Just don't pirate games for Mac OS X. These developers know they won't make a huge profit because of the small market.... Applaud their effort, and if you like a game... just go out there and buy it. Otherwise we might loose these guys.
Only run Windows if there is no option left...

 

[Ol3s]

Some of us pirate software. Just don't pirate games for Mac OS X. These developers know they won't make a huge profit because of the small market.... Applaud their effort, and if you like a game... just go out there and buy it. Otherwise we might loose these guys.

I have been thinking the same thing

 

[Rodus]

Unfortunately Mac gaming has always been a sad state of affairs. I only run PC games if there is no Mac version available of a game I want, Half-Life 2, DoW etc. Steve Jobs has always been a major problem as no matter what he's declared in the past, he does NOT like games, however as it's quite possible he'll not return to Apple as CEO this could well change. Despite many claiming that DX is the best for gaming the fact that the PS3 uses OpenGL means that this technology is obviously well though of and does have bags of potential, I don't think there's anything that DX can do that OpenGL can't. More users switching to Macs will help and if Apple started using some decent GPU's as standard then that too would convince more people that the Mac is a relevant gaming platform, there's no insurmountable reason why it can't be.

 

[apfhex]

Id software also made some appearances on stage during Steve-notes, demoing Quake 3 on Mac OS X, and the awesome pre-pre-pre-alpha showoff of Doom 3 on the GeForce 3 card at MacWorld Tokyo many moons ago.

And don't forget, Halo was originally introduced at Macworld. Of course it was a very different game they showed off. And then Bungie went to Microsoft and Mac gamers everywhere cried. (side note: I still want the game that Halo WAS going to be when they showed it back then. The final Xbox product was underwhelming to me.)

The iPhone/iPod Touch seem to have really taken off with game developers. Maybe this will somehow translate to Mac gaming, though, it's true Apple hasn't even bothered to talk to developers that have come to them about Mac game development. There's also the whole limited hardware options argument especially when it comes to video cards.

But for now, I'm really happy we have BootCamp. There are piles of games I've had the opportunity to play, games that would never have gotten ported anyway. I play OS X games whenever possible, but there's so few, and they sometimes perform very poorly compared to their Windows counterpart. At least we still have Blizzard! Can't wait for Diablo III on OS X.

 

[edddeduck]

Nevermind

Edwin