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Why vista is better than OS X in running video games

H

HSJR

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 26, 2009
93
0
Mac OS X is perferct in everything, but when it comes to video games; vista has the advantage. Why do you think OS X is not performing well against vista in running video games?

Note: Do not ever think that Pc games producers will neglect their market shares that they gain from Pc users. There are many games that released on pc exclusively.

Actually I wish that OS X can run games smoothly as vista do now, so I do not have to run vista through bootcamp; like many others.
 
Tallest Skil said:
Logical impossibility.

Why is it better?

DirectX is more developed.
Click to expand...
OpenGL isn't? :p

Games made specifically for OS X run just fine. Porting has nearly always lead to strange translation overheads in the past. As much as I have complained about Cider/Transgaming CoD4 on OS X runs almost as fast as it does in Windows.
 
Tallest Skil said:
Logical impossibility.

Why is it better?

DirectX is more developed.
Click to expand...

Do you mean that stone age operating system has found better way to deal with video games?

Jethryn Freyman said:
OpenGL is fine, the game programmers just can't be bothered (or don't know how, don't have the experience) to optimise it for Open GL.
Click to expand...

Is it because mac users around the world are less than 15%; so the pc games producers do not employee people who have the experince to optimise games for Open GL?

Eidorian said:
OpenGL isn't? :p

Games made specifically for OS X run just fine. Porting has nearly always lead to strange translation overheads in the past. As much as I have complained about Cider/Transgaming CoD4 on OS X runs almost as fast as it does in Windows.
Click to expand...

I am afraid not; many people who bought OS X games have found running slower on their mac.
 
Yup, it's pure 'chicken and egg' syndrome.

10 - Because developers don't spend effort optimizing games for OS X (there are a few, but they're mostly Mac-only developers,) OS X is perceived as slow for gaming. GOTO 20

20 - Because OS X is perceived as slow for gaming, developers don't take the time optimizing for it. GOTO 10

For reference, Apple did make a push back when OS X first came out. Halo was originally developed on a Mac, and was going to be a Mac exclusive at first. Then Microsoft bought the developer, and turned it into the crown jewel of the Xbox division. Apple was the launch customer for a few ultra-high-end video cards back in the day (like how they got the new Xeon 5500-series "Nehalem" chips a month early,) even.

OpenGL is neglected for the same reasons. Developers spend more time and effort on DirectX, so OpenGL is neglected. Because OpenGL is neglected, developers don't use it. (Microsoft's effort to destroy OpenGL didn't help, either.) OpenGL has markets that it dominates, like visualization software, design software, etc; and so that's where the OpenGL standard has refined itself; not so much on gaming.
 
ehurtley said:
Yup, it's pure 'chicken and egg' syndrome.

10 - Because developers don't spend effort optimizing games for OS X (there are a few, but they're mostly Mac-only developers,) OS X is perceived as slow for gaming. GOTO 20

20 - Because OS X is perceived as slow for gaming, developers don't take the time optimizing for it. GOTO 10

For reference, Apple did make a push back when OS X first came out. Halo was originally developed on a Mac, and was going to be a Mac exclusive at first. Then Microsoft bought the developer, and turned it into the crown jewel of the Xbox division. Apple was the launch customer for a few ultra-high-end video cards back in the day (like how they got the new Xeon 5500-series "Nehalem" chips a month early,) even.

OpenGL is neglected for the same reasons. Developers spend more time and effort on DirectX, so OpenGL is neglected. Because OpenGL is neglected, developers don't use it. (Microsoft's effort to destroy OpenGL didn't help, either.) OpenGL has markets that it dominates, like visualization software, design software, etc; and so that's where the OpenGL standard has refined itself; not so much on gaming.
Click to expand...

With all issues that in Vista, will developer continue working in direct x? I believe mac has better performance & better stability than windows. I do not think games will come in mac sooner; but hopefully they manage to reduce the gap between them & windows in gaming.
 
Saladinos said:
It is now (although OpenGL is catching up), but that's not the reason it became the API of choice for games. Microsoft's Embrace, Extend, Extinguish (EEE) policy is responsible for that.
Click to expand...

In all fairness, Microsoft has done a lot to make 3D programming easier. Direct3D may have started off as a poor also ran but they've listened closely to what developers want, and they're not afraid to do regular radical overhauls and cleanups.

OpenGL is more burdened by legacy support because of all the professional applications that use that API. And a lack of forward looking vision from the leadership has bred a relatively complicated field of single vendor extensions to the standard.

All of which is of course fairly insignificant compared to Microsoft's inherent staying power. They simply don't have to be succesful from the start, like most other companies. Instead they can just subsidise any product for as long as is necessary for it to succeed.
 
xp FTW

normally if your gaming you should be straying towards xp anyway...less RAM use. You loose DX10 but i mean if you have a decent machine to game with then you really shouldn't notice a substantial difference.
 
whats the point talking about it when there isn't even anything close to a competition in this area?
 
One major issue is the Xbox. It is a big reason for why developers are not using OpenGL.

The Xbox(360) uses directX. So when a developer writes a PC game engine, or one for Xbox porting it over would be much easier then if they started off with openGL.
Working with driectX gives an *almost* instant cross platform (across 2 MAJOR platforms) compatibility.

The market right now is making the developer stick with microsoft. Writing a game using the DirectX APIs pretty much gives you a huge market share right a way.

OpenGL leaves you will a bunch of linux distros (honestly, how many linux users do you know that will buy a game? Alll the ones I know live off open source ;) ), OSX (Macpro is the only real equivalent to a hardcore gaming rig, imacs are ok but still not the greatest.) and some other consoles (wii and ps3[PS3 has its own issues with the SDK being a huge pain to work with]).
 
Games which are simultaneously developed on Mac and PC run as good on Mac as they do in PC, look at WOW, it runs superbly on Mac, sometimes even faster than an equivalent PC. Or any other Blizzard game. But they seem to be the only studio left which don't port to Mac but rather develop on it.
 
I've noticed that X-Plane, which is a native MAC application, runs faster on Vista (bootcamp). Most likely because the graphics drivers are more mature on the Windows side.
 
It's also because of the nature of the gaming industry. Unlike other programs (CS for example) games sell much much better when they are new and "hot". So most studios adopt a strategy of producing lots of games quickly, cash in on them and start over. Its really difficult for them to invest time to develop for another platform. Especially when that platform has less than 10%. If onLive delivers thought, I think most our problems will be solved.
 
Seyyerin said:
normally if your gaming you should be straying towards xp anyway...less RAM use. You loose DX10 but i mean if you have a decent machine to game with then you really shouldn't notice a substantial difference.
Click to expand...

I was going to make a similar comment - Vista would not be my choice for running anything, much less games. RAM utilization on XP is far better as you mentioned and XP is not DRM infected, nor plagued with the poorly implemented "cancel or allow" dialogs. XP rules the roost for gaming, but then again I could care less about DX10 and consider Windows just a gaming shell anyway....

If I could use a keyboard and mouse on a PS3 and could play HL2 and Guild Wars, Windows would be gone :)
 
UNIX enthusiasts may tout OpenGL's superiority to Direct3D due its platform-independent nature, but when it comes to game development, D3D clearly wins out. While the early versions of D3D (back in the days of proprietary APIs like 3dfx's GLide) sucked donkey ass, Microsoft has steadily reworked D3D to be a very high-performance API. Direct3D is optimized to allow developers to more easily implement graphical features found in modern FPS-style 3D games and modern GPUs have very well-tuned D3D drivers (yet often have less than stellar OGL ICDs). OpenGL is far less gaming-specific than D3D and is more complex to implement and develop for (from what I understand). Also, game developers who use D3D have the advantage of being able to develop for the Xbox 360 and easily reuse that code to in a Windows port (and vice-versa).
 
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