The Mac as a Gaming Platform, the New Era

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This is what people have had arguments against Apple for years. Software support and gaming. Well, now it's taking off. No more arguments. Wait, everyone will just flame Steve Jobs. Like he gives a shit.
 
Can't argue with this. Valve is making a smart move. It's not going to make anyone "switch to" Mac, but it will make Mac users more intensive and perhaps more exclusively Mac.
 
builderbobftw

It is fine to experiment in your home and I am not going to question that. The internet is full of hacking procedures on everything but I am trying to establish the performmance difference between gaming parts and Pro parts for those who don't know this yet but want a future in the legal world. You can hack a Mac too. Well, if you do you already know its builded over the same PC parts, but the motherboard is not standard. The Mac Pro uses the same Intel Xeons, ATI cards and also NVidia Quadro parts. It is limited in configurations as the selection of parts is limited. But if you come to me with the price argument, well, go to HP or BOXX for a high end workstation or rendering server and come back with the numbers. Those machines are for serious business and you pay a lot more for smaller but considerable increments in performance. They do the hack too, but it comes with a service and a warranty. Well, a Mac Pro is a qualified workstation that can run some big graphic apps but is not the ultimate machine for performance. It is not a gaming rig or a server.

Try to go to Pixar or Dreamworks or to any serious big or small creative studio with this arguments. Hacking hardware and installing Pro graphic drivers on gaming parts, making very little or no difference in what you use or call workstation, server or gaming machine. All this will put in risk a business just to save little money. What is next, hack the software license too? Or do you pay for your license? If you do, then why are you hacking a gaming card with Pro drivers?

You can bypass all that but then, when your clients systems fail in a critical time give a call to Nvidia or ATI or Intel or any PC maker and explain to them what you were doing with their parts and drivers.

And, if you get cut running a business with a funny license be prepare to pay all the money you never had.

When you pay $3500 for a Pro card, 7K on a Mac or 20K for a BOXX workstation you are getting a service, a warranty, from the company and the engineers who created the card and the drivers. And who will pay for an expensive Pro app like Autostudio over a gaming rig. Are you going to pay an expensive license to install the software on a gaming rig?

Bring in your rigs but with the support, license and warranty and then we are talking.

Then ask me again if I am "serious". Serious is exactly the wrong concept you used.

Be very careful with what you are saying as there is younger friends here and there and they need to know the right way. If they decide later to take a short cut they may face the consequences.
 
Heres my 2 cents worth:
Apple brings with it as was pointed out in the Article, a certain amount of closed hardware, which DOES make it far easier to code a game for. Look at what the Xbox is capable of with its limited set of hardware. That being said, this is somewhat attractive..
Now on to the hardware in question: This will burst the bubble some people live in that Mac's have some magical greatness about them that makes them better than a PC (I've met several people who still believe this to this day amazingly enough). the fact does remain however that there are only 3 or mac configurations that are capable of delivering reasonable game performance right at this moment. The 4850 while being dated can play most games at a reasonable FPS with "stock" settings. Obviously this will not capture the hearts of enthusiasts, but enthusiasts arent who pay the bills. Console game sales obliterate PC game sales. Nuff said on that subject.
Enter Hackintosh: Knowing how easy it is to create a hackintosh these days, it basically amounts to any Intel Core iX series cpu's w/ board and an nvidia GTX2xx series card. These bastards deliver performance that is *on a similar* level with their Windows installation on the same hw. I've personally only tested Bioshock, but the performance was similar when on OS X on this hackintosh with a GTX260 as it was on windows. (Windows won, btw.. but as another pointed out, no new drivers for OSX since June). Apple could realize that their current thought process behind their computers just isnt going to get them a win, and in order to compete with OEM PC makers and microsoft, they will need to loose their high horse mentality and start a war for regular PC hardware. Their gadgets make their money any way. Open OSX up to OEMs and support only a strict set of hardware configurations. Thus keeping the same "quality" they have now for the most part, the base standard for developers of games to go by, and open PC owners to the Apple experience by turning their PC into a Mac, legitimately, by installing software. This may get some attention, and enter them into the game for real.
That said, they'll never do it until Jobs dies or quits, as he is just to blind to see past his own pride to admit Macs arent magical with fairy dust on the inside, but just another PC with their software on it.

 
[citation][nom]jecastej[/nom]builderbobftwIt is fine to experiment in your home and I am not going to question that. The internet is full of hacking procedures on everything but I am trying to establish the performmance difference between gaming parts.[/citation]
I agree with your response, in principle. However, reality is that in 8 years I've only use this "service" or "warranty" twice on any workstation we have at my company. All this REALLY serves to satisfy in the case of a company like pixar and what not whose very survival is based on their computers functioning, is to lower their insurance rates. For the most part I've handed HP tons of money over the last decade for that very reason, and never really saw any gain from it. Perhaps I'm just lucky. But I do know that my PC at home beats the snot out of my workstation at work for rendering 3d imagery, and both have been running for just as long, working *almost* the same duty cycle. (I'd say it evens out when you factor in the strain of a 1.33Ghz overclock of CPU and 130mhz on ram, not to mention the bus speed increase to achieve this.) My home PC was infact cheaper than the HP workstation. I believe thats all builder Bob was saying, is that realistically and working the statistics, you don't get the performance to justify the increased cost -- However from a corporate perspective which doesnt mind paying top dollar for a mythical support contract that makes everyone feel warm and fuzzy, its not all about performance. In a small business I'd say screw the extra money to BOXX or HP, its not worth it. Build one and build it well, save the 800 - 2000 depending on configuration, and go buy yourself a new toy or something.
 
If anyone is interested in gaming on the mac, they could just build a Hackintosh ^_^ (personally I hate apple....but hey, if thats your thing, go for it)

They cost around 900 bucks (has decent gaming capabilities with a 9800 GTX, 4 gigs of ram and an intel quad.... ps this is just one guide I found online a little while ago).

Hackintosh Link if your interested ^_^
 
Hi all, Guess what I gave away my Dell Quad Core 2.3ghz, 8gb, DDR2, Ati Radeon 4670 1gb ddr5 with 25in HP 2509m LCD 1080p monitor with Steel Series Merc Stealth Keyboard. No, I'm not rich, no I'm not crazy and yes one of my friends didn't have a computer.

Before I gave it away I was gonna upgrade to a Radeon 5870 6 Edition, and Buy 6 24in monitors (or maybe just 3 to be honest..Portrait mode though 😀 ) ...This would of Cost me a lot of money, and even more in electricity bills.. not to mention Buying a new power supply..but thats no biggie. My Dell Was a Studio 540 I purchased last Sept, I Upgraded to that 4670 1Gb because I was originally playing on a smaller monitor 20in at a mere 1600 x 900.

Well then I started thinking.. I don't want a higher Electric bill, I dont wont bezels in the middle of my monitors.. So I will instead buy a Larger Monitor ...say like a 27in LED that runs @ 2560 x 1440 which is the next step up from an 1920 x 1080/1200..

I started looking, and after Researching a lot and really thinking about it, I started looking at Apple with their 27in LED LCDs...NICE.

What was that??.... If I purchased the Dell ultraSharp 27in LED with 2560 x 1440 Res.. it would Cost me about $1200.. and If I throw in the Video Card (not the 5870) 5850 it would be an extra $250-300 (maybe more??).

Wow that would be an amazing $1500...
The iMac would cost me $1980.00 with free shipping (amazon). about $500.00 more...
and I would in the process be upgrading my CPU to an i5 quad running at 2.66ghz as well as having the the option two run BOTH Modern OS (sorry linux..your good..but not polished enough yet) both Fully Optimized to the hardware...kinda of like a Game Console if you will.

Then I hear that Valve was going Mac... NICE I mostly only Play WOW & TF2, Starcraft, Warcraft3 & Valve Games anyways...I don't expect to play all future games that will come out in 3-4 years at Full Spec. Anyways I am GLad that Valve is doing this and not Apple.. because APPLE would of FU-KED this UP, they don't know shit about Game Development..only how to stall it and deny it...GO VALVE/Blizzard FTW!

All-in-one designs aren't for everyone, So I under stand if I get Hammered by Tower lovers...been their done that.
 
Very important.
Here is a simple argument no one can't refuse anywhere and to prove manny here doesn't know what they are talking about but are ready to offer complicated and uninformed answers.

If you want to try a Pro app consider this first:
Go to this link, this is an Nvidia official page.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_11761.html

I mentioned specifically the Nvidia Quadro 580 in one of my post. It cost $170 on Amazon and Newegg and it give you 55 - 70% of the top performance on most Pro apps
But the Quadro 1800 offers close to 90% of the top performance on most apps and it cost $400 in Amazon

Don't use gaming card with pro app. Do the research and don't use lame excuses and arguments
If you are a student do what you can but there is no excuse for professionals.
 
This made me think about how Halo was orginally going to be distributed for Macintosh platforms but that didn't happen. Well anyway more competition might make for better prices.
 
This article's title is really ironic to me. It just so happens that one of my most memorable game experiences of all time was playing the original Unreal... on my family's old Power Mac G3 with Rage Pro (later Rage 128) graphics. Back then (1998) there was a mini-resurgence in Mac gaming as well, with several popular PC titles coming to the Mac after a long hiatus.

As the article mentions, gaming on Macs is nothing new. Those in the PC gaming scene back when Quake 3 was hotly anticipated may remember that id's Q3Test demo came out first for the Mac. Not to mention the now famous Bungie started developing exclusively on the Mac and Doom 3 was also first shown to the public at Macworld.

Of course, nowadays my main rig is a custom-built PC, but I had a lot of fun on that old Mac. As others alluded to, my only concern with Steam coming to Macs is a compromise in graphics technology, as OpenGL and DirectX's feature sets don't perfectly overlap; plus DirectX evolves faster. Then again, I suppose I don't really play Valve's games for the graphics :)
 
Wolfgang, how can you write stuff like this and not be embarrassed? Why not do some fact checking? The Mac wasn't even out in the late 1970s, how were there games for it? The Lisa wasn't released until 1982, and the Mac until 1984.

The Apple II line was out then, and did play games. But, this was almost from the beginning, and the color graphics made it quite good at games for that time. That and VisiCalc made it a big seller.
 
TheKurrgan

I get the idea but I think this has changed with the new generation of Pro graphic cards and I still see manny pro apps tied with genuine Pro cards. But I was talking about a cheap $170 Quadro vs gaming cards performance in my post and this guy comes with the 2K PC I build destroys a 2K Mac. Everybody can do that body, what is your point? But the argument against the Mac is not remotely true if you use Mac specific software with unique advantages. So, gaming performance from hacked systems is the recipe for everyone. Go figure.

Later I mentioned the top $3500 Quadro and BOXX gear to compare the Mac Pro with other expensive PC workstation systems. But if you use a 2K gaming PC it will destroy a high end PC workstation gaming and not just a Mac Pro.

The hardware/price is everything argument needs to go away. And the gaming Crisys is all too. This is a repetitive tunnel vision that wont answer every question.

But then what? will ASUS or someone else give us a new OS with alternative Pro software and gadgets? Basically there is only Windows, OSX and LINUX for most users. And you need a Mac to run OSX.
 
i have owned and still own mac products...let me tell you...they are not built for games. that's why i also have built a windows gaming machine.
 
n fact, the first Mac games date back to the late 1970s

Wow... there were games for the Mac before there WAS A Mac? WOW?!
Apple had the AppleII in the late 80s.

The Macintosh came out in 1984 (you know, the 1984 ads) and there were very few games. The 1985 Amiga quickly had more games since it had color, Stereo sound and graphics horse power for 1/3 the price.

You pretty much messed up the entire article at the very beginning.

But in the end, its good for Mac users to have Steam. My guess, those games just run in OpenGL since 3D gaming cards can do two things: DirectX and OpenGL.
 
Interesting note here: I REALLY enjoyed this article. well written, well structured, topic well handled. I look at the author. it's not one of the regulars. pity. let's have THIS standard more regularly please. (Guenter's last article was also awesome (i think he worte it together with Tuan).

please...more effort per article = happier readers.
 
[citation][nom]ksampanna[/nom]But could it play Crysis[/citation]
Yes, some of them could, the higher end iMacs and of course the Power Mac can, maybe not as good as a custom gaming rig but it would do a decent job.
 
great article. I hope this evolution helps against the rise in popularity of the closed, expensive and sucky consoles.
 
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