Electronic Arts, id Software announce commitment to Mac gaming

[melgross]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

OK.... I am a bit puzzled (any others?): My posts on appear exactly 1 hour and 10 minutes prior to when I actually post them.

Maybe the internet (or WWW, or whatever!) is being a bit screw-y today. I wonder if that might explain some of the Safari-related problems people have been experiencing. (See the "Safari for Windows" thread below).

My last post to you was sent in at about 4.41 PM New York time, but ended up as being listed at 3.37 PM.

I wonder what this one will come out as?

[mrtotes]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

OK.... I am a bit puzzled (any others?): My posts on appear exactly 1 hour and 10 minutes prior to when I actually post them.

Maybe the internet (or WWW, or whatever!) is being a bit screw-y today. I wonder if that might explain some of the Safari-related problems people have been experiencing. (See the "Safari for Windows" thread below).

Funny because I thought I had first post and I have replies to my post apparently before I posted. Has AI been running Leopard beta and Time Machine on it's servers.

EDIT: This is my second post actually. It's not do to with Safari 3 Melgross as I'm on IE5.5 here!

[John French]

OMG YES BF 2142 IS COMING TO MAC!!!! I CAN FINALLY PLAY WITH MY PEEPS

And then go pwn them

I'm gonna upgrade to the new MBP when those games come out so I get the better graphics card. yeah, the X1600 is great, but I wanna go as far as I can! (staying w/ a mac laptop, anyways...) Given EA's rep for resource-hungry games, I can be sure that I'll need the extra horsepower....

[AppleInsider]

In what may have been the only unexpected announcement at Apple's annual developers conference on Monday, chief executive Steve Jobs revealed that two of the PC industry's largest game developers are actively working to bring their most popular titles and latest technology to the Mac platform.

In the opening minutes of his keynote address, Jobs invited Bing Gordon, CCO and co-founder of Electronic Arts (EA Games), on stage to announce a commitment to bring EA's portfolio of hit games to the Mac OS X operating system.

Gordon said the first EA Mac titles are slated to ship this summer and include the wizarding adventure Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, racing sensation Need for Speed Carbon, military action thriller Battlefield 2142 and the real-time strategy hit Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars.

Being the first Mac OS X games published by EA, the titles are being ported to take advantage of the Mac’s performance to run with stunning visuals and signature gameplay at blistering speeds, Gordon said.

Later this year, EA also plans to ship Madden NFL 08 and Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 08 for the Mac in sync with their worldwide launches.

Following Gordon was id Software co-founder John Carmack, who used his time on the WWDC stage to offer the first public demonstration of his firm's upcoming Tech 5 technology running live on Mac OS X.

The new rendering technology, which will power id's new internally developed game (of unknown nature), practically eliminates the texture memory constraints typically placed on artists and designers. It also allows for the unique customization of the entire game world at the pixel level, delivering virtually unlimited visual fidelity, Carmack said.

Combined with a powerful new suite of tools designed to specifically facilitate and accelerate this content creation process, id Tech 5 will power games that contain vast outdoor landscapes that are completely unique to the horizon, yet have indoor environments with unprecedented artistic detail.

While shown for the very first time running in real time on a Mac, id Tech 5 will also support the Xbox 360 and Playstation3 console platforms as well as the PC.

Before departing, Carmack said he'd have one more Mac related announcement to make during this July's E3 Media and Business Summit in Santa Monica, Calif.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[Joe_the_dragon]

now apple needs to have better gaming hardware a $2000+ sever / workstation hardware with FB-DIMMS and only a 7300gt is not the way to do it.
The low end hardware in the mini sucks for gaming as well and it should have 1gb base ram.

The I-macs are not that good as well, laptop cps and video cards, as well no high end video cards, and you are forced to buy other upgrades to just be able to pay more for a better video card and gamers don't like AIO's.

The mac book black at $1500 should have better video then gma 950.

The mac books pros are better for gaming. But at there price you can get a desktop with 1-2 high end video cards and a high speed desktop cpu with 2-4 gb of ram with as well a fast desktop HD.

[anantksundaram]

Yawn. Marginal.

I could play all this stuff with Bootcamp + XP.

[Ringo]

Great for you. Not everyone wants to reboot just to play a game.

Not to mention paying for Windows.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

OK.... I am a bit puzzled (any others?): My posts on appear exactly 1 hour and 10 minutes prior to when I actually post them.

Maybe the internet (or WWW, or whatever!) is being a bit screw-y today. I wonder if that might explain some of the Safari-related problems people have been experiencing. (See the "Safari for Windows" thread below).

I'm having odd problems like that as well. some of my posts appear above the posts I'm answering, with an earlier time stamp.

Something is screwed up. Earlier, I couldn't get to the site at all. a couple of my posts then got posted an hour after I sent them.

Right now, I don't seem to be getting e-mail notifications of posts to threads I'm on.

how about you?

[Ringo]

Great for you. Not everyone wants to reboot just to play a game.

Not to mention paying for Windows.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

OK.... I am a bit puzzled (any others?): My posts on appear exactly 1 hour and 10 minutes prior to when I actually post them.

Maybe the internet (or WWW, or whatever!) is being a bit screw-y today. I wonder if that might explain some of the Safari-related problems people have been experiencing. (See the "Safari for Windows" thread below).

Oh MAN!

That last one came out as 1.51 AM!!!

What gives?

It would be nice if someone from the site told us what was going on.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

OK.... I am a bit puzzled (any others?): My posts on appear exactly 1 hour and 10 minutes prior to when I actually post them.

Maybe the internet (or WWW, or whatever!) is being a bit screw-y today. I wonder if that might explain some of the Safari-related problems people have been experiencing. (See the "Safari for Windows" thread below).

Well, now I'm also wondering if this time thing is from the new Mac version 3.0 of Safari I just installed.

But that doesn't account for the earlier site problems.

[waytogobuddy]

In Other News,
Apple highlights not one, not two - but three product streams that make mac games irrelevant. Tough timing id, and EA.

With Bootcamp being built in (ie. no CD etc.) and being able to put windows and osX to sleep to (more) quickly switch between them, what's the point of buying a mac game over the windows version? Oh and that is of course assuming that parrellells and the other guys don't get up to adequate performance levels.

why mac games?

mac. click (shut lid). open Game machine. click (shut lid). Open Mac.

[Marvin]

Originally Posted by mrtotes

Is there any hint whether these will be Universal or Intel only?

here's your answer:

http://www.transgaming.com/?name=New...=article&sid=5

"Cider is a sophisticated portability engine that allows Windows games to be run on Intel Macs without any modifications to the original game source code."

[mrtotes]

Is there any hint whether these will be Universal or Intel only?

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by waytogobuddy

In Other News,
Apple highlights not one, not two - but three product streams that make mac games irrelevant. Tough timing id, and EA.

With Bootcamp being built in (ie. no CD etc.) and being able to put windows and osX to sleep to (more) quickly switch between them, what's the point of buying a mac game over the windows version? Oh and that is of course assuming that parrellells and the other guys don't get up to adequate performance levels.

why mac games?

mac. click (shut lid). open Game machine. click (shut lid). Open Mac.

I don't think it will work that way unless Apple enables better user access to hibernation, short of almost running the battery down during sleep, it's an odd terminal command right now. Hibernation is kind of slow on both OS X and Windows, maybe only 2x as fast as a normal boot-up rather than instant-on. Sleep mode alone is not enough because the OS stays in memory during sleep. What you suggest may as well be a virtualization system, to be as fast as sleep would be but still switch operating systems.

[petermac]

Originally Posted by mrtotes

Is there any hint whether these will be Universal or Intel only?

Good question, my guess will be intel only.

[anantksundaram]

OK.... I am a bit puzzled (any others?): My posts on appear exactly 1 hour and 10 minutes prior to when I actually post them.

Maybe the internet (or WWW, or whatever!) is being a bit screw-y today. I wonder if that might explain some of the Safari-related problems people have been experiencing. (See the "Safari for Windows" thread below).

[melgross]

Originally Posted by mrtotes

Funny because I thought I had first post and I have replies to my post apparently before I posted. Has AI been running Leopard beta and Time Machine on it's servers.

I don't know what's going on, but they aren't being forthcoming about it.

They should send a post to each forum, and news discussion, as to what the problem is, what they are doing about it, and how long they estimate it will take to fix.

[fraklinc]

i bet they must be a ton of people that want their money back from WWDC,what the heck was that all about? they show everything they show last year, and who cares about another bowser i can already see apple stock falling from $126 to about 80 bucks, just watch and see,

[mrpiddly]

Apple should make a game engine/game that would be much like the source engine from valve. Even better, they should just buy valve and give the source engine and its tools a good apple makeover. That actually would be my dream, apple buys valve and makes a game so extream that it kills everything else ever. (also the entire game would free and they would distribute the source code plus they make it so it can only be played on OSX)



This will not happen and is only a dream so dont go crazy and start yelling at me

[melgross]

Originally Posted by Stefan1904

Games for the Mac. Great. But where is the hardware for that. Games like C&C 3 need a decent gpu and even the gpu in the new macbook pro is only a midrange card. All the integrated gpu crap just sucks for gaming. There is only one conclusion. Apple will release an expandable Mac with better gpu options. Just my two cents.

How many Windows portables that cost the same as the MBP have better GPU's than the new one has? The 8600 is pretty good. What are you expecting in a portable?

[Stefan1904]

Games for the Mac. Great. But where is the hardware for that. Games like C&C 3 need a decent gpu and even the gpu in the new macbook pro is only a midrange card. All the integrated gpu crap just sucks for gaming. There is only one conclusion. Apple will release an expandable Mac with better gpu options. Just my two cents.

[anantksundaram]

Originally Posted by Ringo

Great for you. Not everyone wants to reboot just to play a game.

Not to mention paying for Windows.

Couldn't you use Parallels if you hate rebooting?

And, $149 (which is only $20 over Leopard) for a legit copy of Windows XP Professional was not that much to pay for opening up a whole world of games etc (esp. for my 11 and 8 year olds). It also enabled me to use a whole lot of financial, statistical, and simulation software for which I had to previously use a computer at work.

I could go on.

The larger point is: good for you, if as an Apple user, you are pleased with being possibly able to play four games from EA!

[britwithgoodteeth]

Originally Posted by fraklinc

i bet they must be a ton of people that want their money back from WWDC,what the heck was that all about? they show everything they show last year, and who cares about another bowser i can already see apple stock falling from $126 to about 80 bucks, just watch and see,

No offense, but are you retarded?

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by fraklinc

i bet they must be a ton of people that want their money back from WWDC,what the heck was that all about? they show everything they show last year, and who cares about another bowser i can already see apple stock falling from $126 to about 80 bucks, just watch and see,

You don't know what you are talking about. It's a developer's conference, not MacWorld Expo. There is far more to it than what the keynote would indicate, with numerous tracks in many different software technologies and easy-to-get help.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

Couldn't you use Parallels if you hate rebooting?

Without knowing how the new version works, that's a bit much to say. I haven't seen any reviews of it yet. Their site says it only supports up to DirectX 8.1 and they make no claim of how much or little hit it takes vs running it in BootCamp. The EA games aren't out yet either, so there is no information or basis of comparison with the full Windows counterpart.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

Without knowing how the new version works, that's a bit much to say. I haven't seen any reviews of it yet. Their site says it only supports up to DirectX 8.1 and they make no claim of how much or little hit it takes vs running it in BootCamp. The EA games aren't out yet either, so there is no information or basis of comparison with the full Windows counterpart.

I have seen a review of how version 2 ran using BootCamp, and it wasn't pretty.

While some aspects are ok, some were 20%, 30%, and in the case of disk access, 50% or more, slower than running it normally.

As DirectX 8.1 is already almost useless for newer games, one is limited to OpenGL games. How the performance through BootCamp will be, I can't imagine, except to look at what I said, above.

[anantksundaram]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

Without knowing how the new version works, that's a bit much to say. I haven't seen any reviews of it yet. Their site says it only supports up to DirectX 8.1 and they make no claim of how much or little hit it takes vs running it in BootCamp. The EA games aren't out yet either, so there is no information or basis of comparison with the full Windows counterpart.

So then, given all the uncertainly and ifs and buts, to me it sounds like non-news (which was the point of my original post that said "yawn.")

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

So then, given all the uncertainly and ifs and buts, to me it sounds like non-news (which was the point of my original post that said "yawn.")

Let me put it this way: your suggestions weren't really any better or helpful either.

[mdriftmeyer]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

You don't know what you are talking about. It's a developer's conference, not MacWorld Expo. There is far more to it than what the keynote would indicate, with numerous tracks in many different software technologies and easy-to-get help.

This has to be the first WWDC where Cocoa finally is top billing and everything from the Finder to Xcode 3.0 is written in ObjC-2.0/Cocoa.

This is the first developer conference I wish I had attended.

[TBaggins]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

The larger point is: good for you, if as an Apple user, you are pleased with being possibly able to play four games from EA!

The game selection on the OS X side, while certainly not as wide as PC, is a bit better than most people think:

http://www.apple.com/games/

.

[anantksundaram]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

Let me put it this way: your suggestions weren't really any better or helpful either.

My friend, I will claim neither! Ever.

Just some stream-of-consciousness stuff, that's all.

[Marvin]

Originally Posted by TBaggins

The game selection on the OS X side, while certainly not as wide as PC, is a bit better than most people think:

http://www.apple.com/games/

Yeah but then they go and try to buy those games and find that they cost 3 times the Windows version. This is really why transgaming's software is the easiest for most developers. Instead of having dedicated mac devs, they can focus on making a good product and just recompile with the transgaming devkit and they automatically get more sales.

I can actually see this becoming a big driving force for Mac gaming because as soon as big developers like EA get on board with popular titles, it should heat up the competition a bit. It probably won't attract PC gamers because they'll know they are just using Cider but it's quite good for Mac users who miss out on good titles.

One huge concern I have is whether or not they are going to have any low-level kernel extensions for copy protection. I've seen that more and more on PC games and I hate it. You have to restart after the game installs in order for it to verify your disc. The likes of the id games for Mac, you just drag the application into place. It's so much easier and I hope that won't change with transgaming.

[TBaggins]

Originally Posted by Marvin

Yeah but then they go and try to buy those games and find that they cost 3 times the Windows version.

Eh? The prices appear to be what new PC games cost. Probably you're comparing to bargain bin prices, for titles that come out first on PC, and then hit the bargain bin by the time the Mac version comes out.

That does happen, but so do simultaneous or near-simultaneous Mac-PC releases. A lot of my PC friends were shocked that Mac folks got World of Warcraft at the same time they did.

.

[Marvin]

Originally Posted by TBaggins

Eh? The prices appear to be what new PC games cost. Probably you're comparing to bargain bin prices, for titles that come out first on PC, and then hit the bargain bin by the time the Mac version comes out.

Mainly I mean just separate versions of each. Price lowering happens based on sales. PC games have such huge sales that the game drops in price pretty quickly but Mac versions take ages to go down in price if they ever do.

If Transgaming releases are both in the same package, this shouldn't be a problem but I meant for existing games it still is a problem.