Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
WWDC: Game On
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I think the news on games for OS X is great - it's about time! Especially with the move to Intel now, I think it's necessary for Apple to step up in the gaming world in order to stay competitive, so again, this is great news. The only thing is, will Apple address its hardware accordingly for these intense new games? I can hear the complaints now, "The iMac is too underpowered to run these games yet the Mac Pro is too expensive! Macs still aren't gaming machines" 
Focusing more on games is great, but Apple has to cover all the bases as well for things to be a true success.
Focusing more on games is great, but Apple has to cover all the bases as well for things to be a true success.completely 64bit: how's that gonna make any difference for a normal user?
UI beyond vista: first of all Vista aint no benchmark, and if it was one, then copying windows taskbar transparency does not make leopard's UI 'beyond it', besides vista's UI is very childish anyway.
EA and Id software: EA does J2ME platform as well, they can be found on friggin' Nokias! its about time they gave Mac some attention, and I doubt if all that GPU intensive programs from these companies would do macbook owners any good .. and there is a huge number of them out there. (also, not every is a gamer)
sleeping: no
I hear you, brother. If there's one singular thing I don't like about iMacs, it's that you can't upgrade the video card. I know why they do it this way so please don't jump all over me. I guess I just feel that once an iMac gets to be 6 years old or so, a video card is the difference between recycling and reusing so to heck with ensured compatibility, etc...
This can only be good news. EA are about as big as it gets in the gaming world (though that's nothing to say for quality). Hopefully others will follow.
Can't wait for the demos for these new games.
Of course I can't wait for the day that I say goodbye to several thousands of dollars inorder to buy a newer computer
Of course I can't wait for the day that I say goodbye to several thousands of dollars inorder to buy a newer computer
good stuff!!
But now Apple needs a Mac that can gaming...up the GPU in the MacBook and Mac Mini, and the iMac.
But now Apple needs a Mac that can gaming...up the GPU in the MacBook and Mac Mini, and the iMac.
Great news on the gaming front - though I was a bit disappointed with the fact there was no new graphics hardware to back this up!
I sometimes think the Mac gets a bad rap in terms of games performance. I recently played Lego Starwars under emulation on a 24 inch iMac (before the Universal Binary was released). Can't remember the website now, but it was noted that the game ran really slow! My experience was very different - I was amazed how well it ran! Guess the Core 2 Duo and concurrent / parallel OpenGL help!
I think Microsoft has done well with DirectX, but if you go digging in the Cocoa APIs and OpenGL you'll see a ton of stuff that compares very favourably. Microsoft have just packaged all the elements up as a gaming API.
The BIG new thing in DX 10 is support for the new shader architecture - with geometry shaders being added to the rendering pipeline. This is a big deal because actual geometry can be created on the GPU - no normal map / lighting fudges. OpenGL supports this too - on the PC at least - via a couple of nVidia extensions.
New hardware goes with this, and nVidia's new 8800 desktop cards and ATIs new cards support the Unified Shader Architecture. The new MBPs now have this which I thought was really cool. I'd hoped the Mac Pro would see a similar update today. I'm not going to get a Mac Pro until these cards are supplied because they are much more than an incremental upgrade in terms of speed / throughput etc.
I've not seen the demos yet, but it may well be OpenGL 2.0 (I know this is supported in the latest OS X - depending on hardware of course). OpenGL is going through a massive upgrade this year (the specification is anyway, not sure how long it will take Apple etc. to implement this). This will be far more efficient than the current model. Incidentally, it'll be around the time Leopard comes out that these revisions are expected to be completed.
EA doesn't official support games on Vista. They recommend switching to compatibility mode, but that usually fails. I have high expectations for Crysis though. No room for stupid problems like this with a DX10 game.
oh my lord! this is fantastic news! I was going to load xp onto my mac pretty much to run c&C3 and madden 04 (yes, i'm a bit behind
now, i do not need to be harmed by the windows virus and giddy up!
my lord..the power of a mac pro with those games = SWEET!
now, i do not need to be harmed by the windows virus and giddy up!
my lord..the power of a mac pro with those games = SWEET!
A testament
This I think is a testament to two things: Apple's OS X market share rising and the complete superiority of OS X over Windows.
The remark about EA employees using OS X is really the issue here. This is dramatic evidence that there is a seed change happening in favor of OS X. Apple's market share will rise dramatically over the next few years at the expense of Windows.
Vista sucks and Leopard is making it even more so. You have to be some kind of Microsoft fanboy to deny it.
My only issue with Apple is they need to offer better graphic card support for gaming.
This I think is a testament to two things: Apple's OS X market share rising and the complete superiority of OS X over Windows.
The remark about EA employees using OS X is really the issue here. This is dramatic evidence that there is a seed change happening in favor of OS X. Apple's market share will rise dramatically over the next few years at the expense of Windows.
Vista sucks and Leopard is making it even more so. You have to be some kind of Microsoft fanboy to deny it.
My only issue with Apple is they need to offer better graphic card support for gaming.
[sarcasm] Come on, a Mac Pro with a 2.66ghz CPU and outdated radeon x1900XT is only $3000. Anybody should be able to afford that and if you think that isn't good enough, you don't belong on the Mac any you windows heathen.[/sarcasm]
Seriously This is a good day for the Mac. I'll be very interested in how these games run using cider technology. I hope we see a day where other companies follow the lead of blizzard and ship the Mac version in box with the PC version.
However, Apple you're leaving us hanging here on the hardware front.
EA doesn't official support games on Vista. They recommend switching to compatibility mode, but that usually fails. I have high expectations for Crysis though. No room for stupid problems like this with a DX10 game.
I understand you can run games on Vista by checking the box next to "Run this program as an administrator" in the Properties box of the game. I suppose compatibility mode helps too...
After EA and Id had hit the stage, I seriously believed that OpenGL 2.0 would be one of the new features of Leopard, and that those games would be the first to use it.
But, this still is very good news!
But, this still is very good news!
Question
I wonder if EA et al would be prepared to commit a serious level of resources to Mac development if the only machines available capable of playing modern games cost over $1,500.
To put it another way: What has Apple told them about the Mac mini's replacement?
I wonder if EA et al would be prepared to commit a serious level of resources to Mac development if the only machines available capable of playing modern games cost over $1,500.
To put it another way: What has Apple told them about the Mac mini's replacement?