Official cards have to have a lot more engineering and testing done with them. If there was a market for it then you'd see them available.
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Petition to Apple regarding video cards
- Thread starter xcpk
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Official cards have to have a lot more engineering and testing done with them. If there was a market for it then you'd see them available.
no it`s not problem bios/vesa-extension code is highly portable to efi. More you can write extensions and compile them in byte code (U)EFI is able to execute it.
So most difficult part is drivers: no one from final vendors(i mean those companies who only creates boards and just solders GPU on it) is allowed to modify drivers. No one wants to support zoo. The only one thing that they can modify is placed in card-firmware - BIOS extension that performs card init. But even there: they not interesting to create there own implementation: they using reference one with a small modifications.
Back to our PC cards: if the only one way to initialize it properly is BIOS extension execution so we must call it from EFI. Of cause it`s possible to do it. But as all we know it`s not apple way to support old interfaces and devices. And i`m agree with them.
from all this **** we can extract 2 problems:
1) Card init Firmware. (from final vendors)
2) Card drivers. (from chip makers)
I do not see apple in this list. )
So how about the 285GTX for Mac. it was not created by Nvidia, but by EVGA, which also supplied the drivers.
Gaming on the Mac Pro will never reach parity of the PC or consoles and thus, Mac owners will never experience the plethora of video card options available to the PC. Get over it.
I've had to come to that painful realization myself with the previous PowerMacs I owned. I had hoped that the switch to Intel would open the floodgates for Mac gaming but that didn't quite happen, did it?
After all, what incentive is there for game development companies, let alone video card manufacturers, to cater to such a small market that the Mac Pro represents? It's just one more platform to allocate support resources to and one that may not even prove to be worth the effort.
Assuming a game company decides to delve into the Mac market, Mac users still will not be satisfied.
Why? Because unlike their PC counterparts, Mac users will be waiting that much longer for their game to be released and when it finally arrives, the PC version of the game will be reduced by $20 while you'll still be paying full price for yours.
Moreover, level editors are almost never made for OSX. They're made for Windows. So again, you'll be paying full price for a late AND incomplete product. As a Mac user in the gaming world (or 3D animation for that matter), you're a second-class citizen.
The sole reason most games and gaming hardware is made available to the Mac platform at all is because their directors happen to be fond of the Mac - not because of overwhelming market opportunity. Blizzard is one such company whose movers and shakers within the development team like Macs. The majority of game developers do not share that sentiment.
In fact, Steve Jobs would prefer you not to use your Mac Pro for gaming, he wants you to buy an iPhone, Ipod or iPad (because he no longer cares about the professional market, it's all about consumers now) and game with that from the lush selection of games from the App store (from which Apple gets a cut).
Developers see this too and have a greater interest in catering to the mobile market than Apple desktop users.
If you're hell bent on gaming on your Mac without bootcamp, then your energies would be far better focused on supporting cloud based gaming services such as OnLive which, in theory, nullifies hardware requirements to play the latest games - on any platform.
I've had to come to that painful realization myself with the previous PowerMacs I owned. I had hoped that the switch to Intel would open the floodgates for Mac gaming but that didn't quite happen, did it?
After all, what incentive is there for game development companies, let alone video card manufacturers, to cater to such a small market that the Mac Pro represents? It's just one more platform to allocate support resources to and one that may not even prove to be worth the effort.
Assuming a game company decides to delve into the Mac market, Mac users still will not be satisfied.
Why? Because unlike their PC counterparts, Mac users will be waiting that much longer for their game to be released and when it finally arrives, the PC version of the game will be reduced by $20 while you'll still be paying full price for yours.
Moreover, level editors are almost never made for OSX. They're made for Windows. So again, you'll be paying full price for a late AND incomplete product. As a Mac user in the gaming world (or 3D animation for that matter), you're a second-class citizen.
The sole reason most games and gaming hardware is made available to the Mac platform at all is because their directors happen to be fond of the Mac - not because of overwhelming market opportunity. Blizzard is one such company whose movers and shakers within the development team like Macs. The majority of game developers do not share that sentiment.
In fact, Steve Jobs would prefer you not to use your Mac Pro for gaming, he wants you to buy an iPhone, Ipod or iPad (because he no longer cares about the professional market, it's all about consumers now) and game with that from the lush selection of games from the App store (from which Apple gets a cut).
Developers see this too and have a greater interest in catering to the mobile market than Apple desktop users.
If you're hell bent on gaming on your Mac without bootcamp, then your energies would be far better focused on supporting cloud based gaming services such as OnLive which, in theory, nullifies hardware requirements to play the latest games - on any platform.
dude, phaedarus, you are way behind 
Steam is releasing for Mac tomorrow, and Steam has ported all their Source Engine games (Left for dead 2, Half Life, Counter Strike, Team Fortress, Portal) to Mac using native OpenGL graphics. This is the biggest leap in Mac Gaming History.
And all the PC games you buy in Steam, you will have free access to the Mac version.
They also stated "We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Mac and PC"
They even got help from Apple in doing this.
(http://news.softpedia.com/news/Valve-Director-Apple-Helped-Porting-Steam-to-the-Mac-136929.shtml)
Even DICE is interested in releasing the new Bad Company 2 game for Mac!
(http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/09/dice-investigating-bad-company-2-on-mac/)
your whole post is so wrong!
..SO wrong!
Steam is releasing for Mac tomorrow, and Steam has ported all their Source Engine games (Left for dead 2, Half Life, Counter Strike, Team Fortress, Portal) to Mac using native OpenGL graphics. This is the biggest leap in Mac Gaming History.
And all the PC games you buy in Steam, you will have free access to the Mac version.
They also stated "We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Mac and PC"
They even got help from Apple in doing this.
(http://news.softpedia.com/news/Valve-Director-Apple-Helped-Porting-Steam-to-the-Mac-136929.shtml)
Even DICE is interested in releasing the new Bad Company 2 game for Mac!
(http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/09/dice-investigating-bad-company-2-on-mac/)
your whole post is so wrong!
..SO wrong!
dude, phaedarus, you are way behind
Steam is releasing for Mac tomorrow, and Steam has ported all their Source Engine games (Left for dead 2, Half Life, Counter Strike, Team Fortress, Portal) to Mac using native OpenGL graphics. This is the biggest leap in Mac Gaming History.
And all the PC games you buy in Steam, you will have free access to the Mac version.
They also stated "We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Mac and PC"
They even got help from Apple in doing this.
(http://news.softpedia.com/news/Valve-Director-Apple-Helped-Porting-Steam-to-the-Mac-136929.shtml)
Even DICE is interested in releasing the new Bad Company 2 game for Mac!
(http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/09/dice-investigating-bad-company-2-on-mac/)
your whole post is so wrong!
..SO wrong!
Totally agree! I've been counting the days until tomorrow.
So even if the Mac Pro hasn't come out yet, I can at least kill some time on Steam now instead of lingering too long on these forums lol.
But yes, gaming just got serious on the Mac. I'd expect video card offerings to improve dramatically from here on out.
dude, phaedarus, you are way behind
Steam is releasing for Mac tomorrow, and Steam has ported all their Source Engine games (Left for dead 2, Half Life, Counter Strike, Team Fortress, Portal) to Mac using native OpenGL graphics. This is the biggest leap in Mac Gaming History.
And all the PC games you buy in Steam, you will have free access to the Mac version.
They also stated "We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Mac and PC"
They even got help from Apple in doing this.
(http://news.softpedia.com/news/Valve-Director-Apple-Helped-Porting-Steam-to-the-Mac-136929.shtml)
Even DICE is interested in releasing the new Bad Company 2 game for Mac!
(http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/09/dice-investigating-bad-company-2-on-mac/)
your whole post is so wrong!
..SO wrong!
WOW! Source engine games will be released simultaneously for the OSX. That's excellent news, dude!
Except how long did it take to get to this point? 6 years for a great classic like HL2 to finally be made available on OSX? I love the idea that future source-based games will be made available to the Mac platform except... current developers aren't really enamoured with the source engine anymore.
Don't get me wrong, playing some of those great titles is past due on the Mac platform. But how long will I have to wait before other developers decide to jump over? When can I play Crysis? S.T.A.L.K.E.R.? Prototype? GTA? F.E.A.R.?
I recently wrote to Crytek Germany to gauge their interest for OSX. Their reply was muddied with corporate mumbo jumbo but hovered more or less on "no plans to support OSX at this time".
Access to source games is nice. But not quite enough for me as a serious gamer. We deserve access to all the gaming world has to offer and not every game developer will be willing to port or simultaneously develop their titles for OSX.
The correct path is to get cloud computing off the ground where hardware and OS platforms are irrelevant.
That was a bold move by EVGA... but how many people here actually purchased one? I suspect most people flashed a cheaper PC card and stole the drivers, pretty much ensuring that EVGA will not repeat this mistake with the latest gen NVIDIA cards.
Due to it's need for a 256K EEPROM chip and literally NONE of the PC GTX285s checked so far having one...flashing GTX285 is basically a no go.
I have done fewer than 10.
Soldering a new SOIC8 chip on a $300 GPU is dicey, and requires removing 12 screws first. A couple other people have tried and created doorstops.
Gaming just isn't a priority for Apple. They'll never let multiple third parties produce and develop Mac cards in volume because they're (a) Massive control freaks (b) Paranoid about bad user experience and (c) Don't want to cannibalize New Mac sales by extending the lives of existing systems with upgrades.
I do all my gaming on an Xbox. Less hassle, everyone has the same hardware and it looks OK in HD.
I do all my gaming on an Xbox. Less hassle, everyone has the same hardware and it looks OK in HD.
I see... I haven't been following the journey on that card. Hopefully that bodes well for EVGA and the future of graphics cards on the Mac Pro. I'm sure if all people accounting for the over 50,000 views on Netkas' thread purchased the Mac version of the card, we'd see some 480's soon.
It's not that gaming isn't a priority for Apple. I'm sure they would welcome it - it's just that they don't control it. They don't make GPU's and aren't a gaming software studio house.
The fact is that gaming on a computer in general is in decline... just walk into any game shop and see how much shelf space is reserved for PC games! Apple has, what? 7-10% share of the computer market, and maybe 5-10% of those are desktop/iMacs capable of running a decent GPU? If my math is even close to correct, it means that Apple gamers represent less than a percent of the PC gaming market which is already in steady decline compared to consoles.
BTW, I too game on a console (PS3)... even though I'm a die-hard mouse FPS fan... thank god for my FragFX.
Apple has about 4% of worldwide market for PCs. It is only 7-10% when count in selective markets like US retail were the demographics get skewed (akin to the periodic "Macs top greater than $1,000 PC market" stories.
Surveys like this make it look like PC gaming is in retreat:
http://games.venturebeat.com/2010/05/09/americans-spend-25-3b-each-year-on-video-games/
However, what they tend to skip over are the free games folks play (since primarily interested in counting money as opposed to usage. )
It isn't just about desktops running a decent GPU. Laptops can run a decent ( from a mainstream perspective) GPU. Consoles don't have new bleeding edge GPUs in them every year or every other year for that matter. The core of the gaming market isn't aimed at the upper edge where the GPU is straining to deliver frames.
The issue with PCI-e cards is that it is only MacPros you can put these in. So yes for the "must have a GPU released in last 6 months" game, it is a very small market to target.