Yeah, looks like it's unlocked but the store isn't showing up. My games list is still all set as unavailable.
They only mentioned Portal and Torchlight for this week and titles are going to be added every Wednesday. I guess because Tuesday is Apple's day for doing stuff.
Sigh, I was really hoping to get HL2 running this week but I guess that won't be happening.
Edit: store is up and no decent games as yet. Portal is great if you haven't played it (and it's free until May 24th) but nothing to see if you've played it through before. 62 Mac games and pretty much all of them are the really low-end puzzle games that aren't very good. Some classics from LucasArts but most of them will be unfamiliar.
I find the interface irritatingly sluggish. Couldn't they have made the thing scroll smoothly? It's a freakin' web page. The download sizes are not that pleasant either. Downloading is convenient in some cases but getting it shipped out on a disc means quicker installs.
The potential is still there and already I've seen a huge number of games I'd never have known were available for the Mac (even though I don't want them).
I'll be trying it out when I get home! Hopefully my Mini/9400M can handle HL2. Leaving that unfinished was among my very few regrets when I unplugged my PC.
Portal runs really well, even on my less than steller REV.A aluminum iMac.
Quote:
Originally Posted by zorinlynx
It's called OpenGL. And the nice thing about OpenGL is that it is multiplatform; you can use nearly the same graphics code on any operating system supporting OpenGL, including Linux and Windows as well.
Apple is actually improving their OpenGL code as we speak, and it's primarily due to Steam coming!
That's good because despite Apple being a member of the Khronos Group, OSX's OGL implementation has usually been very poorly done and generally several years behind the current published specification.
Portal runs really well, even on my less than steller REV.A aluminum iMac.
And so it should, Portal is a three year old game. The funny thing is it won't run on my iMac due to the 7600GT, where the Windows version runs fine on it.
It ran fine on this machine. I was able to run it at native panel resolution (1680x1050). It was still very fluid. I didn't go into the advanced settings at all. The video looked very good.
I didn't get to play much as it is getting late, but it ran great. Excellent development for gaming on the mac platform!
Quote:
Originally Posted by debusoh
I just installed Steam and I am downloading Portal now (free, at least for a while...).
I will let you know how it does on an Macbook Pro 15", i7.
I think it is GREAT that valve brought this platform to the mac.
And so it should, Portal is a three year old game. The funny thing is it won't run on my iMac due to the 7600GT, where the Windows version runs fine on it.
Same here. There?s even a video on YouTube apparently of someone running Portal on GMA950 at low settings and getting decent FPS.
On the single graphics, that's true (but the fact that 25% still use DX9 should say something), but the processors represented could be as old as 2006 or 2H2005 and still be in the middle of that pack. Going by the chart, it's only in the past few months that the quad core users finally exceeded the single core users. The fact that a negligible portion of users are running dual GPU or higher still remains as well, lack of SLI is one of the things that Mac detractors really screamed about on this forum, they had the fervent feeling that it's a very common thing to do when they couldn't prove that it was in widespread use, and it turns out it really isn't.
Yes it does, it tells me that the majority have decent graphic cards. dual core Processors as old as 2006, that are most likely core 2 duo processors, are still decent when you look at the system requirements of the games on Steam. Very few games want a processor under the recommended settings to be either a core 2 duo 2.4 or a quad core. Dual graphics cards were always a niche market, the argument was that it was another hardware feature that the mac computers lack.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffDM
But there's the flip side, 44% of steam users are using 1280x1024 or lower as their primary display resolution. It's also comical that a 5:4 screen is still so commonly used.
Ya so what? Professional gamers at CAL run at 1024x768 with the latest sponsored hardware from Intel, ATi, and Nvidia for the sole reason to absolutely guarantee a playable experience no matter what.
Yes it does, it tells me that the majority have decent graphic cards. dual core Processors as old as 2006, that are most likely core 2 duo processors, are still decent when you look at the system requirements of the games on Steam. Very few games want a processor under the recommended settings to be either a core 2 duo 2.4 or a quad core. Dual graphics cards were always a niche market, the argument was that it was another hardware feature that the mac computers lack.
There were actually a few that posted here that suggested most gamers used it.
Something that's lost is that lacking SLI/Crossfire support really doesn't impact a lot of users as a proportion.
Quote:
Ya so what? Professional gamers at CAL run at 1024x768 with the latest sponsored hardware from Intel, ATi, and Nvidia for the sole reason to absolutely guarantee a playable experience no matter what.
I doubt that 12% of steam users are professional gamers. I suppose it brings up a question whether the hardware survey is reading the actual display panel native resolution or the resolution used.
Not sure why this is filed under "Mac OS" instead of under "Applications", but whatever...
Has anyone tried Portal yet? I just played for about fifteen minutes and have to say I'm a little disappointed. I played Portal under Windows on a lesser-equiped PC (1.83ghz C2D, Radeon 9800 Pro, 1GB RAM PC vs 1.83ghz CD, Radeon X1600, 2GB RAM Mac) and got higher resolution, more detail, and higher FPS on the PC. I also ran Half-Life 2 on the Mac using Boot Camp at higher resolution and it was smooth as butter. With Portal I tried bumping up the detail and resolution and got unplayable framerates. It is also virtually unplayable because of the inability to view through portals to see what's on the other side (I couldn't find a setting that enabled this necessary graphics option which was enabled by default when I played it on the PC).
I'm glad to see Valve porting these older games and supporting new ones on the Mac, I'm just disappointed with the performance I've seen.
It's called OpenGL. And the nice thing about OpenGL is that it is multiplatform; you can use nearly the same graphics code on any operating system supporting OpenGL, including Linux and Windows as well.
Apple is actually improving their OpenGL code as we speak, and it's primarily due to Steam coming!
Looks like steam is using a translator, and not OpenGL directly.
civ4 apparently needs to be installed on a non case-sensitive partition...
I have to reinstall my system according to valve. nice.
Yes, unfortunately that does appear to be the case according to Valve's support documentation: a case-sensitive filesystem is unsupported.
It's been awhile since I've read up on this, but it seems to me that formatting your startup partition using a case-sensitive filesystem is not recommended outside of very particular situations (I can imagine a file server, for example).
It is also virtually unplayable because of the inability to view through portals to see what's on the other side (I couldn't find a setting that enabled this necessary graphics option which was enabled by default when I played it on the PC).
That's a bad sign because that's what happens with the unofficial Cider port of Portal when you drop down to Direct X 8. From the last post, it would seem translation is indeed going on. That explains the framerate issues too.
I guess it's time to have the view of 'oh well, it's better than nothing I suppose'. When they said tier 1 platform, I was hoping for tier 1 treatment.
They are probably focusing on just getting working versions right now though and this would be the quickest way. I already gave up waiting for HL2 on the Mac and just installed it on Windows again and it plays at maximum with 2xAA on the 9400M. People are going to me mighty mad if the Mac version ends up looking like the unofficial port because the reflections look terrible.
Just an FYI, if you purchased Torchlight via Runic's website and bought the Windows version, you can just register your key on steam and it will allow you to download the Mac version free of charge.
Comments
http://twitpic.com/1n792l
http://twitpic.com/1n74x9
http://twitpic.com/1n7b4s
its up for me!!!
Yeah, looks like it's unlocked but the store isn't showing up. My games list is still all set as unavailable.
They only mentioned Portal and Torchlight for this week and titles are going to be added every Wednesday. I guess because Tuesday is Apple's day for doing stuff.
Sigh, I was really hoping to get HL2 running this week but I guess that won't be happening.
Edit: store is up and no decent games as yet. Portal is great if you haven't played it (and it's free until May 24th) but nothing to see if you've played it through before. 62 Mac games and pretty much all of them are the really low-end puzzle games that aren't very good. Some classics from LucasArts but most of them will be unfamiliar.
I find the interface irritatingly sluggish. Couldn't they have made the thing scroll smoothly? It's a freakin' web page. The download sizes are not that pleasant either. Downloading is convenient in some cases but getting it shipped out on a disc means quicker installs.
The potential is still there and already I've seen a huge number of games I'd never have known were available for the Mac (even though I don't want them).
It's called OpenGL. And the nice thing about OpenGL is that it is multiplatform; you can use nearly the same graphics code on any operating system supporting OpenGL, including Linux and Windows as well.
Apple is actually improving their OpenGL code as we speak, and it's primarily due to Steam coming!
That's good because despite Apple being a member of the Khronos Group, OSX's OGL implementation has usually been very poorly done and generally several years behind the current published specification.
I will let you know how it does on an Macbook Pro 15", i7.
I think it is GREAT that valve brought this platform to the mac.
Portal runs really well, even on my less than steller REV.A aluminum iMac.
And so it should, Portal is a three year old game. The funny thing is it won't run on my iMac due to the 7600GT, where the Windows version runs fine on it.
It ran fine on this machine. I was able to run it at native panel resolution (1680x1050). It was still very fluid. I didn't go into the advanced settings at all. The video looked very good.
I didn't get to play much as it is getting late, but it ran great. Excellent development for gaming on the mac platform!
I just installed Steam and I am downloading Portal now (free, at least for a while...).
I will let you know how it does on an Macbook Pro 15", i7.
I think it is GREAT that valve brought this platform to the mac.
And so it should, Portal is a three year old game. The funny thing is it won't run on my iMac due to the 7600GT, where the Windows version runs fine on it.
Same here. There?s even a video on YouTube apparently of someone running Portal on GMA950 at low settings and getting decent FPS.
Hopefully this will change. At least it was free!
On the single graphics, that's true (but the fact that 25% still use DX9 should say something), but the processors represented could be as old as 2006 or 2H2005 and still be in the middle of that pack. Going by the chart, it's only in the past few months that the quad core users finally exceeded the single core users. The fact that a negligible portion of users are running dual GPU or higher still remains as well, lack of SLI is one of the things that Mac detractors really screamed about on this forum, they had the fervent feeling that it's a very common thing to do when they couldn't prove that it was in widespread use, and it turns out it really isn't.
Yes it does, it tells me that the majority have decent graphic cards. dual core Processors as old as 2006, that are most likely core 2 duo processors, are still decent when you look at the system requirements of the games on Steam. Very few games want a processor under the recommended settings to be either a core 2 duo 2.4 or a quad core. Dual graphics cards were always a niche market, the argument was that it was another hardware feature that the mac computers lack.
But there's the flip side, 44% of steam users are using 1280x1024 or lower as their primary display resolution. It's also comical that a 5:4 screen is still so commonly used.
Ya so what? Professional gamers at CAL run at 1024x768 with the latest sponsored hardware from Intel, ATi, and Nvidia for the sole reason to absolutely guarantee a playable experience no matter what.
Yes it does, it tells me that the majority have decent graphic cards. dual core Processors as old as 2006, that are most likely core 2 duo processors, are still decent when you look at the system requirements of the games on Steam. Very few games want a processor under the recommended settings to be either a core 2 duo 2.4 or a quad core. Dual graphics cards were always a niche market, the argument was that it was another hardware feature that the mac computers lack.
There were actually a few that posted here that suggested most gamers used it.
Something that's lost is that lacking SLI/Crossfire support really doesn't impact a lot of users as a proportion.
Ya so what? Professional gamers at CAL run at 1024x768 with the latest sponsored hardware from Intel, ATi, and Nvidia for the sole reason to absolutely guarantee a playable experience no matter what.
I doubt that 12% of steam users are professional gamers. I suppose it brings up a question whether the hardware survey is reading the actual display panel native resolution or the resolution used.
Has anyone tried Portal yet? I just played for about fifteen minutes and have to say I'm a little disappointed. I played Portal under Windows on a lesser-equiped PC (1.83ghz C2D, Radeon 9800 Pro, 1GB RAM PC vs 1.83ghz CD, Radeon X1600, 2GB RAM Mac) and got higher resolution, more detail, and higher FPS on the PC. I also ran Half-Life 2 on the Mac using Boot Camp at higher resolution and it was smooth as butter. With Portal I tried bumping up the detail and resolution and got unplayable framerates. It is also virtually unplayable because of the inability to view through portals to see what's on the other side (I couldn't find a setting that enabled this necessary graphics option which was enabled by default when I played it on the PC).
I'm glad to see Valve porting these older games and supporting new ones on the Mac, I'm just disappointed with the performance I've seen.
It's called OpenGL. And the nice thing about OpenGL is that it is multiplatform; you can use nearly the same graphics code on any operating system supporting OpenGL, including Linux and Windows as well.
Apple is actually improving their OpenGL code as we speak, and it's primarily due to Steam coming!
Looks like steam is using a translator, and not OpenGL directly.
http://netkas.org/?p=435
I have to reinstall my system according to valve. nice.
civ4 apparently needs to be installed on a non case-sensitive partition...
I have to reinstall my system according to valve. nice.
Yes, unfortunately that does appear to be the case according to Valve's support documentation: a case-sensitive filesystem is unsupported.
It's been awhile since I've read up on this, but it seems to me that formatting your startup partition using a case-sensitive filesystem is not recommended outside of very particular situations (I can imagine a file server, for example).
It is also virtually unplayable because of the inability to view through portals to see what's on the other side (I couldn't find a setting that enabled this necessary graphics option which was enabled by default when I played it on the PC).
That's a bad sign because that's what happens with the unofficial Cider port of Portal when you drop down to Direct X 8. From the last post, it would seem translation is indeed going on. That explains the framerate issues too.
I guess it's time to have the view of 'oh well, it's better than nothing I suppose'. When they said tier 1 platform, I was hoping for tier 1 treatment.
They are probably focusing on just getting working versions right now though and this would be the quickest way. I already gave up waiting for HL2 on the Mac and just installed it on Windows again and it plays at maximum with 2xAA on the 9400M. People are going to me mighty mad if the Mac version ends up looking like the unofficial port because the reflections look terrible.