technical reason for lack of gaming support?
when I switched over to macintosh I was kind of surprised to read many post about, if you like gaming then get a pc...
I was wondering why the macintosh is not good for games,
I mean I know many games exist but the consensus seems to be that pc's are better for motion graphics.
I guess what surprises me is the mac is superior in editing video. which you would think means a superior graphic engine.
so whats the scoop, what is the technical reasons...will it change when they go intel or is the problem an inherit part of being a unix based os.
thanks for the info in advance. Scott
I was wondering why the macintosh is not good for games,
I mean I know many games exist but the consensus seems to be that pc's are better for motion graphics.
I guess what surprises me is the mac is superior in editing video. which you would think means a superior graphic engine.
so whats the scoop, what is the technical reasons...will it change when they go intel or is the problem an inherit part of being a unix based os.
thanks for the info in advance. Scott
Comments
Originally posted by fahlman
DirectX and optimized graphics drivers.
ok...maybe be a little kess technical , lol How does this relate to the mac, are you saying the mac is not good for games because a lack of effort or is it a technicla hurdle that can't be over come....sorry for the questions, I just really want to understand this.
I discuss the macs attributes alot with pc people and this is always a subject that comes up.
Originally posted by mercury7
ok...maybe be a little kess technical , lol How does this relate to the mac, are you saying the mac is not good for games because a lack of effort or is it a technicla hurdle that can't be over come....sorry for the questions, I just really want to understand this.
I discuss the macs attributes alot with pc people and this is always a subject that comes up.
From my understanding of things mac (which is pretty limited), I would say his comment is refering to drivers for graphics cards which are generally optimized for PCs, while there is less of said optimization on the drivers used by macs. The thing is, macs (and the backing software) have not been developed for gaming so much as PCs. This disparity between Macs and PCs does not have so much to do with a technical hurdle as it does a lack of effort. The lack of effort springs, of course, from the market shares Tidelwav mentioned.
Anybody feel free to correct me.
There's also the issue of DirectX, which is Microsoft-made, and is therefore only available on PCs. OpenGL is available on all platforms, but I don't believe it is quite as popular for its own reasons.
Also, according to ATI/nVidia, the aftermarket for graphic card upgrades on Macs are so small (read: unprofitable or not profitable enough) that they usually don't even manufacture Mac-specific hardware unless Apple specifically asks them to. It's a small market because most of Apple's systems can't be upgraded.
So basically the market just isn't very conducive to a thriving gaming community. Apple needs to eliminate their proprietary hardware needs so that ATI and nVidia can more easily develop "universal" cards. It would also be very beneficial if they engineered their mainstream systems to allow graphic upgrades.
The move to Intel could be a start, but there is more to do beyond that. That's still years off.
Published: March 18th, 2002
Microsoft DirectX is an advanced suite of multimedia application programming interfaces (APIs) built into Microsoft Windows; operating systems. DirectX provides a standard development platform for Windows-based PCs by enabling software developers to access specialized hardware features without having to write hardware-specific code. This technology was first introduced in 1995 and is a recognized standard for multimedia application development on the Windows platform.
What DirectX Does and How
Simply put, DirectX is a Windows technology that enables higher performance in graphics and sound when you?re playing games or watching video on your PC.
At the core of DirectX are its application programming interfaces, or APIs. The APIs act as a kind of bridge for the hardware and the software to "talk" to each other. The DirectX APIs give multimedia applications access to the advanced features of high-performance hardware such as three-dimensional (3-D) graphics acceleration chips and sound cards. They control low-level functions, including two-dimensional (2-D) graphics acceleration; support for input devices such as joysticks, keyboards, and mice; and control of sound mixing and sound output. Because of DirectX, what you experience with your computer is better 3-D graphics and immersive music and audio effects.
Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me), Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP support DirectX 9.0c. For more information, please refer to the Frequently Asked Questions.
Mac OS X lacks DirectX.
some catching up to do in this area, it seems though that video editing would be suffering too...and from everything I have read it is not....Perhaps just better written software is giving them the edge here. I personally just got into video editing so I have not even experienced it on a pc. I am not a big gamer but I can definitely see that if apple has designs on capturing larger markets they will have to come up with there own version of directx that smokes the competition, perhaps that new sony chip will be incorporated in some way with the intels...Ive heard its capable of running osx all by it self.
Originally posted by mercury7
I was wondering why the macintosh is not good for games,
Here is a resume.
(1) Lack of properly optimized graphics drivers. The ones on the PC side are considerably better optimized.
(2) Much more GPU options on the PC side. This one, like the previous, is directly related to market share.
(3) DirectX vs. OpenGL. As already said, there is no DirectX for the Macintosh. But there is OpenGL instead. The problem is that the Apple OpenGL implementation still is not optimal (Apple had recently an open job for OpenGL optimizations). Besides, OpenGL has not yet reached the performance level of DirectX.
(4) The x86 Intel processors have higher clock speeds, and unlike what the MHz myth says, megahertz matters here if the game is coded properly.
(5) The vast majority of games are written with the x86 architecture in mind and their Macintosh versions are just ports that generally suffer in performance. Perhaps the most tragic recent example of this is Doom 3.
so whats the scoop, what is the technical reasons...will it change when they go intel or is the problem an inherit part of being a unix based os.
From the above it is clear that the Intel switch will have little impact, if at all, in the Macintosh games business.
also, is it me or is the sims 2 highly unoptimized? the required specs are about the same as X2 The Threat, yet X2 runs great on my 1ghz pb, but the sims 2 is unplayable
Originally posted by fahlman
If some enterprising person, or group of people, wrote an open source alternative version of OpenGL for windows that took advantage of the GPU on a Windows computer couldn't it be installed with games. Most games I've purhased check for a version of DirectX anyway. Why not just install a non-Microsoft versin of OpenGL. Like Sun offers of Java?
The OpenGL spec is freely available (thats one of the reasons why there's the word open in its name) and has implementations on most platforms and is callable from lots of programming languages (even Fortran).
The problem is that windows games developers choose to use DirectX (Id being a notable exception) and this makes porting to the Mac a more difficult task.
Originally posted by Placebo
I've really started to consider buying an Xbox 360 just for gaming. Unless Apple opens Mac OS X, I'm not buying a new computer any time soon.
Apple IS opening Mac OS X by porting it to X86.
By using the same instruction set, the possibility of virtualizing Windows becomes possible.
In human speak? Run any PC game on Mac.
Yes, there are some unknowns, but you have to admit, PC and Mac being X86, we are knocking on the door.