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Steam for Mac Details: Native Performance, Chipset Limitations, Closed Beta Underway

apull said:
sorry, i just found this to be a bit funny. you're talking about playing recent games on a $2,000 machine and you call it "average hardware"? I sure hope that machine would play a game or two. the real question is how those games play on the $1,200 iMac with 9400M graphics: answer being not at all.
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The question is if this statement is correct: answer being not at all.
With an MacBook 13" mid 2009 (9400M) you can play all source engine based games without any problems. What games we are talking about? Right, source engine based games. (don't believe that just because Valve now supports Mac others will do the same).
Even most other recent games are playable. Of course not at max settings, but show me a subnotebook that can be compared to a MacBook that can handle this.
The main gaming platform will still be the PC (or consoles), especially for recent games that have ultra graphics, but mostly bad gameplay and are boring after playing few hours. Mac and Windows based Laptops do not have any chance against a PC.
Is this a problem? No, why shouldn't Mac users be able to play a round TF2 if they want to?
 
MorphingDragon said:
Plus, if it were truly a native port they would still be able to use the GMA 950.
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The source games are almost unplayable with a GMA 950, even at the lowest settings on a Windows PC even if you force the game to use directX 8. When you do that though you are not really playing the game. it will be more annoying then enjoying due to the massive frame rate drops and the view distance

Remember its going to be ported over to Mac with it using the openGL API. almost every part of the game has to be reworked to run using openGL and not DirectX. The first Half life was made using the openGL API, so they do have experience with making games running on that API.

(sarcasm) hell you are lucky to get the first half life, or UT99 to run at a smooth framerate with a GMA 950. (sarcasm)
 
4np said:
Note that they are comparing the 9400M integrated GPU (2009 MBP) with the dedicated 330M (2010 MBP) GPU. It is to be expected that the 9400M will not perform very well... However, besides the 9400M my MacBook Pro (3.06 Ghz core2 duo, august 2009) also contains the more powerful 9600M GT (512MB) which performs very well. Also... you are comparing a £ 600,- desktop computer to a notebook which does not really make sense (small space, heat, power consumption, etc etc). It's like comparing Apples ( ;) ) and oranges :)
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They said that the 9600M GT would be somewhere in between those, and since neither is spectacular I have to conclude that your Macbook Pro is not a great gaming machine. You started the comparison between desktops and laptops! I was merely showing you what performance your friends could be getting, for less than the price of your Mac.
 
4np said:
and



They indeed do not have (or did not have) state of the art bleeding edge game pc's no (some need to spend money on diapers and mortgage which is somehow more important than SLI setups;) ) But still I think my MacBook Pro is a very good gaming platform and performs well enough for my likings (and indeed outperformed some of the game pc's). Better is always nice so you won't hear me complain if Apple puts better GPU's in their machines, but I'm happy with what I have right now... A fast performing MBP which works very well for work (software development), runs Unix under the hood, has a very good OS and Window manager and can run games quite smoothly in bootcamp and soon natively as well... :)



Note that they are comparing the 9400M integrated GPU (2009 MBP) with the dedicated 330M (2010 MBP) GPU. It is to be expected that the 9400M will not perform very well... However, besides the 9400M my MacBook Pro (3.06 Ghz core2 duo, august 2009) also contains the more powerful 9600M GT (512MB) which performs very well. Also... you are comparing a £ 600,- desktop computer to a notebook which does not really make sense (small space, heat, power consumption, etc etc). It's like comparing Apples ( ;) ) and oranges :)
Click to expand...

Even the 9600M GT is a poor chip for gaming and really does not perform 'very well' (I too have a late 09 MBP). I have to agree with the chap who questions whether your friends PC's are made from stone and are powered by coal fire. You can buy sub £80 cards for a Windows box which would decimate all Mac's barring the ridiculously overpriced pro cards Apple have as an option on the Mac Pro.
 
I have got the Steam client installed (its floating around so to speak) but as my steam account is not enrolled in the closed beta all I can do is use my friends list (including chat), look at my game library, read steam news, surf the steam community and add non-steam games.

the UI is pretty slick
 
Steam for OS X

Valve said Steam for OS X would be release in late april.

Tomorrow is the last day of this month.

Do you think it's going to be release tomorrow April 30, 2010?
 
apull said:
sorry, i just found this to be a bit funny. you're talking about playing recent games on a $2,000 machine and you call it "average hardware"? I sure hope that machine would play a game or two. the real question is how those games play on the $1,200 iMac with 9400M graphics: answer being not at all.
Click to expand...

There is no denying Apple hardware is usually horribly expensive (though, admittedly, the premium can vary a lot, from almost acceptable when there's just been a complete product line refresh, like the last iMac, to utterly ridiculous just before said refresh).

My post was in reply to somebody who claimed SLI was needed to "even remotely keep up" with Windows gaming, a point with which I disagree, as only a minority of gamers will ever get those high-end gaming rigs. For the rest of us, non-SLI platforms will run just about any game just fine.

Of course, integrated chipsets aren't going to offer serious gaming performance, but the point wasn't a comparison of entry-level Apple HW vs generic PC, it was a question of how well Apple hardware could compare to a "serious" gaming PC.
 
quake 3 has been running on mac pretty much since day one which was more than ten years ago and it's running just fine on my 1st gen macbook. screw steam. camperstrike sucks anyway.

brb, cpm-ctf pickup game starting in #uscpmpickup.
 
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