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Valve Officially Announces Steam and Game Library Coming to Mac in April

cathyy said:
I'm pretty curious to know how the Mac and Windows versions will run too.

Everyone here talks about how Blizzard is the only big company to code games in both OpenGL and Direct3D allowing it to run natively in both Windows and OS X. However I have tried playing Warcraft 3 on both my Pentium 4 computer and my iMac G4. The Pentium 4 pretty much beat the G4 hands down, so my bet is that it'll still run faster on Windows.

I'll wait till the actual OS X port comes out first before commenting further though. (and yes, I do know that it's a native port.)



I understand that everyone is different, but here's just my own experience. Basically, I used to own a crappy Pentium 4 desktop with an outdated ATI 9600 card and used it all the way up to early 2008, before purchasing my Macbook Pro. Initially I was really happy with it, as I could finally play new games without having to set everything to low, and still achieving a pretty decent FPS (30 - 50). I thought that my Macbook Pro was the best investment ever.

That was until I finally decided to replace my desktop 2 months ago. Since I didn't think I'd be using it much I decided to go with cheaper parts. I replaced it with a Core 2 Quad processor with an ATI 5770 graphics card, and the cost of the whole rig totalled up to about US$600 without the monitor. Ever since then, I never wanted to game on my MBP again. Why would I, when my desktop runs every single game at max settings and still achieves 60 fps. Furthermore, these parts aren't particularly top of the line either. (as compared to a Core i7 860 + ATI 5870)

Bottom line, yes, most Macs are able to run games at decent settings while achieving decent FPS. However, PCs will still be the king in PC gaming as they will always be able to provide a far superior gaming experience at a much cheaper price.
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What was the graphics card in the iMac G4 again?

Yea, thats right.
 
victorc26 said:
Gas Powered Games To Include Mac Development Going Forward



Congratulations Mac users. Looks like the flood gates are opening thanks to Valve.
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That is very good news, i knew that once a big name like valve jumped on the Mac platform others will follow. great news indeed. Its only going to grow from here, This means the end of having to use bootcamp to boot into windows to play some games now.

Eidorian said:
The GeForce MX 2 was stuck in the iMac G4 for ages. I pity anyone that had to live with an FX series card as well.
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Yeah the GF 2 mx wasn't a speed demon by any means, But you was to flash a PC version of the GF 7800 to Mac and that would greatly improve performance, and when you upgraded the CPU it got allot better. it could made to match and out perform (in some cases) a PC in games. but with the e/iMac you are stuck with it how it is.
 
MorphingDragon said:
I was one of those people. :'( Not not an iMac, a pc my dad put together for me.
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Yeah i use to run a old PC that had the GF4 MX in it, it was very close to the GF2 but with a little extra but was really a GF2 underneath. it really put a limit with what you could run, and to top it off it was a PCI card which made thing worse, it lacked a AGP slot, but had onboard AGP ATI gfx but that was allot slower then the GF4 MX. i am glad i don't have that system anymore.
 
Does anyone know if this will allow you to play Everquest? From what I understand, you can get Everquest on through Steam (Link)

Or am I completely wrong?

(and I realize there is a EQ version of Mac, but it's almost dead...)
 
DrumApple said:
Does anyone know if this will allow you to play Everquest? From what I understand, you can get Everquest on through Steam (Link)

Or am I completely wrong?

(and I realize there is a EQ version of Mac, but it's almost dead...)
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It won't. Only Valve games will follow the "one version, regardless of the platform" philosophy. How many others will follow..we'll see
 
DrumApple said:
Does anyone know if this will allow you to play Everquest? From what I understand, you can get Everquest on through Steam (Link)

Or am I completely wrong?

(and I realize there is a EQ version of Mac, but it's almost dead...)
Click to expand...

With the Steam for Mac launch only the Valve Source Games (Half Life Series, Counter-Strike, Portal, Left 4 Dead etc) will be available for Mac.

There are dozens of games on steam that would have Mac versions (Civ4, Rome Total War, Spore, Dragon Age, Star Trek DAC, Call of Duty 4 etc...), and I am sure in time the publisher of all these games who have already a Mac version anyways will offer them on steam as well.

Looking at http://www.apple.com/games/articles/ you'll see that most games listed there are on Steam anyways, so the Publishers will for sure add their Mac versions to it over time.
 
macfrom90 said:
Gamers are for crappy pc's and console games. We dont need gamers on Macs. Macs are for people who want to do serious stuff, useful stuff,creative stuff and important stuff
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This is the most obnoxious thing I've ever read on Macrumors, and that's really saying something.
 
Since I'm not in a hurry to update my 10.4.11 system to 10.5, do you suppose Steam would still work on my intel processor?
 
I imagine that we will hear something either today or on Friday with them announcing that it is delayed and will be released next month. This is Valve we are talking about here....
 
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