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Mac OS X: Game Developer's Playground
Mauro Notarianni writes: "In the Stepwise article, 'Mac OS X: Game Developer's Playground,' Troy Stephens writes, "Mac OS X has the potential to be a superb launching pad for doing game development.'
The author describes how 'Cocoa's developer productivity benefits, when combined with Mac OS X's strong support for technologies such as OpenGL and QuickTime, can empower game developers to create the custom production tools they often need in a fraction of the programmer hours it takes on other platforms.'"
is getting all the companies writing in DirectX to start using OpenGL more often. Get some more of those damn cool PC games ported! Especially the MMORPGs!
I have just started developing with Cocoa and it's really great. The "Application Builder" works flawlessly together with the "Interface Builder". It's also easy to port your *nix programs to Mac OS X. I need to take a closer look on Objective-C though, since I don't feel like using Java.
Apple is also providing excellent documentation and tutorials.
Ciryon
PS. I am actually running Mac OS X on an old iMac G3 300Mhz with 64MB RAM. And it's not that slow actually!! The 10.1 update really speeds things up! Great work, Apple!
The article is talking about internal tools though - not the final shipping product, but all the little pre-production tools that get written along the way.
Since most of these are written on a pretty ad-hoc basis without any real design, a RAD approach does make a lot of sense.
-dair
Sorry, but maybe you should read the article before you comment it. The article talks about tools for games development, not the games themselves.
Don't forget GNUStep. Also , notice that NEXTSTEP's and Apple's and GNUStep's (and pretty much the defacto) Objective C compiler is gcc. So you're saying that Objective-C limits your platform to anywhere gcc is ported ! Thats not really what I would call a portablility issue !
Now if you had pointed out that making use of High level Cocoa classes would restrict you pretty much to Apple until GNUStep caught up then you might have had a point. But Objective-C ? gcc and GNUStep-Foundation look pretty damn portable (and Free) to me, mate.
-- Oh Well
We all have to start somewhere. If the Macintosh can provide a good solid ground for rapid (cheap) game development, as well as a good platform for the gamers to play, then why not ? :-)
The machines does look a lot better than most common PC's, they have nice keyboards and mice etc. And MacOS X is a *nix, which does bring things to its edge, since all slashdotters loves *nix
If there were as many good games available for the Macintosh as for the PC, i'd definitly concider getting myself a Mac next time. I think its worth those 50 % extra money to get rid of windows once and for all anyways =)
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
You have to realize that the box you do your developement on and the target box for the game need not be the same architecture. Many stages of developement can be done on one machine and cross-compiled to the other. I haven't tried it yet, (probably never will because I really don't have the desire to write for windows), but it would be relatively easy to set up a developement environment in Linux that builds an executable for Windows, and to launch the program for testing over a Samba share on the Windows side. So doing the same from a Mac to Windows shouldn't be that difficult.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
...yes but if more people write great apps for MaxOS, then more people will buy Macs. And the new cool iMac is a great gaming platform. Something few comment on is that it's built in wireless networking (airport) mean you could play multi-player games via 802.11. (Assuming it is supported in the games of course.) It is these 'vertical market' applications that can transform a platform.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
To protect my pathetic bandwidth on the local server, the article is also available here on the graphics server. That should cover off any bandwidth issues.
Troy's article really does highlight the use of these environments for tools behind the scene's.. there is an older article on this as well that is linked from Troy's document.
Scott AnguishStepwise
http://www.stepwise.com
We all have to start somewhere.
::gasp:: make money. with < 4% of machines being Macs, a smaller % running OS X and a smaller % yet of those machines being used by gamers, there isnt enough money to let programmers/producers/distributors/resellers put any in their pocket.
The primary purpose a game is produced, is to
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
This is great news. Games written for osX will use OpenGL instead of DirectX, this means that porting them to other operating systems won't be such a chore. With the demise of Loki, it's nice to see somthing positive on the Linux/BSD gaming frontier.
I have just started to develop on the OS X platform using the Apple developer tools and online tutorials, as well as Aaron Hillegass's brilliant Cocoa Programming for OS X book (the link is to Amazon, there was also a review of it here on Slashdot). Some resources I have found indispensible have been:
www.cocoadevcentral.com
& of course,
developer.apple.com
It is a nice environment to program in, although I am finding the objective C and the size of the framework to be the main hurdles. Still, there are so many great resources online and packaged with the developer tools from Apple (a free download with tons of documentation and examples), that I am slowly learning.
Hewligan
My Blog: BrainMess
Everyone seems to have forgotten DOOM. The original DOOM development was done on NEXTSTEP -- from the same NeXT later bought by Apple that now gives you Cocoa. And it sold zillions of copies on PCs. As did Quake (more NEXTSTEP development). All the tools used then have evolved.
but with macs holding <4% of the market it is not a viable playground...
I know that actually reading the article will just slow you down, but if you'd bothered, the emphasis was on developer. The guy was talking about how quick and easy it was to develop tools for his Playstation development on a Mac. Not about playing games on a Mac.
Just to clarify (or correct depending on what was actually meant) - Airport is integrated into Mac OS the same way the modem or ethernet is so the game only has to support network play, not specifically airport.
One other correction from this thread (but not the parent post), Mac's have about 5% market share not 4% - hence the Steve Jobs quote: "5 down, 95 to go". Also, 5% market share is a *huge* number of computers. There are more people who use Macs than people who buy Proserpine Cane Growers Suger but I assure you the Proserpine Cane Growers are making plenty of money. You don't need to target Windows to make money in the computing world - you just need to target an audience.
Thanks to SDL & OpenGL the same source code is used for all four supported platforms (Linux, Win32, MacOS9, MacOSX). There's still the odd #ifdef for things like reading directories, but that's about it.
- Andreas
It is DoomEd.
See here
Guvf vf abg n EBG zrffntr
It might be easier to make money in the Mac market. Almost all PC games are available via warez channels seconds after official release. Mac games are very hard to find, which makes you buy games more often since it's not worth the time searching for something you want.
War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
I am impressed..
Well,
at first I'd like to say that I'm a regular OS X 1.2 user (on a TI PB, that is) and
I like OS X quite much, and I make a living of coding (C and C++ mostly, Linux and other *nixes).
I tried to get used of Objective C, but i find it quite cumbersome to use,
and that's why I don't see this happen soon. To get the most
out of Carbon/Cocoa you'll have to use Objective C. That's the
reason why I never got to use it (mostly due to lack of time),
because I'd first have to learn Objective C.
I think this happens to other developers too (read: game developers).
Just my $0.02 anyway...
The article is mostly talking about building games, and the ability to create the tools to do so.
That said, think about the market for the "highend" gamers. You know...the %4 of us that actually buy a GeForce 3 when they first come out? Many such gamers would love to move off of Windows, especially the 98 variants. While Win2k helps a lot, in the end it's still Windows. Many are pushing for Linux to be the next great gaming OS, so much so that more then a few major game companies have already targeted it (even if not completely successful, ala Loki). Linux however, has a long, long way to go (to be very, very kind).
If all the "hot new games" start coming out for Mac (even if they also come out for Windows and/or Linux), it suddenly makes Mac an extremely attractive system for gamers. Gamers of course, being the only people who own a computer that are likely to actually buy a new one before 2030...
Now, if building games on Mac is easier, faster, and thus results in better games to market sooner...
If building a game under Mac implies open standards such as OpenGL instead of DirectX, thus enabling the game to target Mac, Windows, Linux, etc without nearly so much trouble...
The math becomes easy. Develop under Windows and we sell to say, 90% of the market. Develop our game under Mac and we sell to 100% of the market (5% Mac lets say another %5 Linux/Other)...AND we get to market faster AND our development is cheaper... The choice is clear, IMHO.
My
Have you ever tried to _play_ Doom on a NeXT Cube? I have... It runs at something like 0.5 fps.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Most of the time in your life when you want something done you pay someone else to do it. However, the fact still remains that *someone* has to actually do it or it won't get done. It doesn't matter that a lot of games are made by using licenced game engines, someone has to create the game engine and Mac OS X will be very useful for that.
Sorry for the obvious plug but Crystal Space is an Open Source 3D Engine that runs fine on GNU/Linux, Windows, OS/2, BeOS, AND MacOS/X. The MacOS/X port is very alive and kicking. We also have support for OpenGL now (giving frame rates of 100 FPS or more).
Crystal Space is free (LGPL license) and written in C++. It is a 3D engine but more accuratelly it is a game development platform for 3D and isometric games.
Check it out at crystal.sourceforge.net.
Greetings,
Project Manager of Crystal Space (http://www.crystalspace3d.org). Support CS at http://tinyurl.com/cb3x4
However, I wasn't really trying to suggest that it was a feature match with Cocoa (or even OpenSTEP), I implied as much in my comment when I mentioned waiting for them to catch up. My point was purely in response to a comment saying that Objective-C the language would restrict your target platform. Forgetting OSX and OpenSTEP for a second if you just want to code stuff in Objective-C - gcc and the GNUStep non-gui classes are here ,useful and portable today.
-- Oh Well
It was a spiffy little language but these days you can do most of the same things with C++ using templates and the STL, and the C++ code will be much more type safe at compile time.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You used to develop applications quickly in VB, now Cocoa has gone above and beyond, letting you build *good* applications quickly.
The difference between PC and Mac is like Ford and Toyota.
Toyotas are somewhat 'prettier' according to the general populace, and they might last longer than the other guy. They're also made with the complete idiot in mind; it's a car for everyday people, not just wrench heads.
Fords are more 'core', they don't make their vehicles look like they're smiling. They don't use kids in the TV commercials in a shameless attempt to grab naive young moms. And their cars tend to die a little younger than their asian counterparts if you treat them equally. However their cars are designed with the hobbyist's aftermarket in mind. You can rip out parts and upgrade the engine/tranny if you have the slightest idea where you're going.
That's how I see Mac vs PC. Macs work well, they're nice machines for the common user, and you can't do shit with'em unless Steve Jobs said you could (licensing). Sure, there are a few clever folks who have learned the arcane art of Mac tweaking, but it is grossly undocumented and beyond the reach of 99% of their userbase. I don't see myself desoldering stuff on the mobo just to push a G4 from 500 to 550mhz. Na-uh!
PC's are cobbled together from a bunch of different sources.. board from Asus, cpu from AMD, ram from Micron, etc. You can make a sucky PC, or you can build the '68 Mustang of all boxen. Or what if you've already got a piece of shit ? You can swap things out and make it better at minimal cost. Get that queer TNT2-M64 out of there and throw in a Radeon or Geforce2. Throw in a Globalwin heatsink and clock that mutha' out! Or what if something breaks ? Don't ship your entire box to the manufacturer or store, just throw out the dead part and buy another one, then send it back on RMA and sell it off when it comes back.
The bottom line is that it's still a debate on Quality vs Hackability, with many people on each side. There is little point in battling between these factions, but it is good to remind ourselves the mindset behind each of them, instead of just mindlessly bashing one another.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Games are written in C++ these days. Portability is more
This is no more an issue in the latest dev tools Apple a rereleased a functional Objective-C++ compiler. This is the tool with which abiword is being ported to macosx.
none Yet.
Does anybody here really cares to read the things he/she is replying to???
The topic is game development!
For that you need some tools with which you get a certain job done fast and clean - Objective-C/{NextStep,OpenStep,Cocoa} provides just that!
The problem is you're dealing with 2 completely different kinds of technologies. One is cross-platform and relatively "free", the other is held back by proprietary code (like most Apple "innovations"). Additionally, even with the new development tools, getting QuickTime to play nicely with OpenGL is a job within itself.
DirectX is no better in the proprietary code department, but at least you can setup a few function calls that will seemlessly pull together 3D graphics, video, sound and input routines that would work on a variety of PC hardware. I just wish that the "Direct-like" projects in Linux would be more ported to Windows, and that they supported more hardware-specific calls like pixel shaders.
If you're looking for a high-end system check out the Power Mac's. They include a GeoForce 4 MX or ATI Radeon 7500, and the higher end models are dual 1 ghz systems. Now this is my idea of a development system. To bad I can't afford one :`(
The more I use OS X, the more I like it, even though my exposure to it is rather limited.
The point of this article really is that you should use the tools you feel comfortable with to do the job. All you people who are saying stuff about the mac not having enough market share to justify it obviously haven't read the article.
Being a person who likes low-level stuff, I rather hate using API's and stuff that make all this stuff easy. I prefer to write my own loaders, blitters and stuff... I've developed my own game tool library over the years and use it for all sorts of things because it's what i'm most comfortable with and can get things done more quickly.
But I feel my view is similar to that of many other game developers (ones who are truly passionate about it) and we are a stubborn bunch (is this just coders in general?) and once set in our ways, tend not change them, even if another way is better.
Sadly, in my view, game development is less of an art and more of a process now. Remember the days of DOS where you had direct access to the hardware and wrote your own graphics, input and sound routines? You really couldn't use a 3rd party library because it would conflict with your code or other libraries. Besides, that was just a lame thing to do.
Anyways, less chat, less shovelware, more coding, more polishing.
The whole point to a good OS development platform is that you can use one platform to develop for ALL. The Mac "market share" BS does not apply in this discussion. If you disagree, try developing a Java or C++ app on Windows with ONLY the software provided in the retail or OEM release and get back to us. You can't. Mac OS X, as with any good *nix distro, contains a full suite of dev apps. Apple's are notable because they give you a full-featured IDE, not just the compilers.
Mac OS X contains EVERYTHING necessary to write for anything right now. And yes, its a new OS and Apple hasn't documented everything with crystal clarity, but this is the first OS I've noted with intraplatform compatibility not only at the desktop level, but the developer level as well.
/.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
I agree 100%. In other news, TBL didn't use the NeXT platform to develop the WWW because NeXT had virtually no market share, and everyone's favorite game, DOOM, also wasn't developed on the NeXT because it had virtually no market share. I will be updating the history books accordingly.
</sarcasm>
Developers usually chose the development platform for ease of use. NeXTStep was used for Doom and Quake. Playstation 2 games are made on Linux, etc. Besides this article isn't talking about making games on OSX for OSX, but making tools on OSX, with a obvious slant towards the console market.
I'm working in the games development industry, both console development and PC -- the article is talking about a platform for _development_, not for running the final product. In a typical game development environment, you spend half your time writing tools to create content -- if you can write tools faster on OS X with Cocoa, you'll save time and money. I found this article very interesting and I've already invested in an iBook to do some homework and try out Cocoa...
The interactive way to Go -- http://www.playgo.to/iwtg/en/
What's the difference between Cocoa and Carbon? I got incredibly ticked off at my PC and sold it and went ahead and purchased the new iMac. I have every intention of programming on it and have mainly a Java background but can do C/++ if needed. Hopefully my iMac will get here soon...
Neat article, but the conclusion is badly flawed. The main thrust seems to be "Cocoa/OpenGL doesn't require you to map out your VRAM like Playstation 1 did, so that makes it easy to write games!"
Does it hell. It removes one obstacle, but it's not going to write the game for you, nor is it going to make the Mac a more attractive proposition - technically or as a market - than DirectX, either XBox or generic PC Windoze versions. Hobbyists take note, but commercial developers, don't get too excited.
OpenGL is a fine API, and I'll happily accept that Cocoa is nice too, but the whole DirectX SDK really has matured into something usable. Many AAA Windows games now ship with only D3D (no OpenGL) 3D support (Max Payne, Operation:Flashpoint spring immediately to mind) and it doesn't hurt them. The big downside to using DirectX is cross platform portability (porting the app, and the DirectPlay network component), but commercialism comes into play again: it's better for a game to work really well under DirectX only than to work fairly well under DirectX and on Macs (or Linux for that matter).
If this means anything to anyone, I used to work for a company that was writing native D3D Retained Mode games, back in the DirectX 3/5 days. It was a suicidally stupid thing to do, and the games side of that company did indeed collapse under the weight of ripping the thing apart and starting over with D3DIM / OpenGL / glide support. I've no historical reason to love DirectX, or to think that apps hardwired to a specific API are a good idea. But even given that, I still think that a native DirectX 8 game makes a lot more sense, both technically and commercially, than OpenGL/Cocoa on a Mac platform.
Sorry guys, but this reads like another "I love Macs, so here comes the cognitive dissonance," article designed to get people on board the Macwagon. The only thing I can completely agree with is that developing for the Playstation 1 was like trying to teach a chimp to recite Shakespeare translated into Latin.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Yes, but the only people that care about upgradable video cards are YOU PEOPLE! The people that would buy the iMac are not the kind that sit and fret over what kind of video card they have, and what their FPS is in Quake 8. I know its been said before around here, but the iMac is not designed for you, the iMac is designed for people who want to check their e-mail, surf the web, play their MP3s, print their digital photos, (insert iApp here); all on a box that don't look like the big beige monster took a crap on their desk. (/Rant)
OK, glad I got that out of my system. Personally, I think OS X is the best thing since sliced bread (and maybe even cheese in a can!). The implementation of OpenGL is 3x what it is in Classic Mac OS. My Quake 2 (yes I'm a purist) framerates jumped 20 FPS just from switching to OS X. 60+ FPS on a 3 year old system on your Rage 128 makes me a happy little camper.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
It seems that few of you read the article its self. The article suggests that Cocoa is ideal for designing custom tools since it is easier to make iterative changes to the tool. It is not saying that it is the best target platform to develop games for.
Mac's are also a good possiblity for console development (PS2, Gamecube). Especially since the compiler used is frequently based on GCC. OS-X's BSD core makes it easy enough to port the tools, and provides another alternative for those who are not intrested in using Linux or Cygwin based tools. However, since most of the art tools are used on NT/W2k boxes (Such as 3ds Max), it is probably simpler for the time being to stick to Windows based environments.
END COMMUNICATION
This is just the next logical step in form of a set of more powerful technologies (some of which have been around for a while... QuickTime is traditionally solid). The Macintosh has always been a terrific game development platform (well, except in the really early days when it only had black and white ;). The software and the hardware are remarkably consistent and homogenous respectively. How could develops expect MacOS X to be any different? Developing games for the Mac is almost as smooth as developing games for a console.
Why bother.
I'll admit I didn't read more than the Slashdot headlines, but didn't MS just buy a bunch of OpenGL stuff from SGI?
If they decide not to license or to restrict the use of the technology, wouldn't that begin to cripple the use of OpenGL as a development environment?
I can't believe they would, but then again this IS MS we're talking about.
Am I the only one who thinks this particular quote stinks of AppleSpeak? You know it wasn't written by a programmer if they use the term empower. I'll leave the details of the analysis of this particular platform to a game programmer and stick to fiddling with the linux kernel for now, thanks very much (a platform which is also supported on apple hardware <w>).
:wq
You know, Apple does make towers. And Mac users got the GeForce3 at least one day before the x86 crowd.
Quit complaining about problems with Apple's product line that DON'T EXIST.
I have a website. It's about Macs.
Keep dreaming. If a Ford product development person heard you say this, they'd gasp in horror -- that's certainly not the message they want car buyers getting. The hobbyist market you speak of is a tiny fraction of Ford's sales, and I assure you that concern for them plays little or no role in deciding a vehicle's design. Families with kids, on the other hand, most certainly do -- and if you haven't noticed any kids in their commercials, you haven't been paying attention.
To most people, a car is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Same with computers, which is why Macs are superior to PCs for most people. That Macs have such a small market share relative to PCs now can be attributed to (1) the fact that the Mac's advantages can't be boiled down to a few numbers, like clock speed, and (2) the fact that most computer-illiterate people, when looking for advice on what sort of machine to get, end up talking to some geek who loves tinkering and thus prefers PCs. I used to be one of those guys -- built a few computers of my own, salivated over the latest hardware, ran Linux and FreeBSD, and hated Macs. But eventually I outgrew that phase and discovered that, lo and behold, Macs were better for my day-to-day needs, because they had a simpler interface and required me to jump through fewer hoops to get the most common tasks done.
And now that OS X is out, if I get the urge to tinker, I've got lots of options on the software side -- at least as many as Windows gave me. And while Mac hardware tinkering is out of the reach of the average Mac user, PC hardware tinkering is also out of the reach of the average PC user. But if you really enjoy tinkering with PC hardware (which means a bit more than just assembling your own box out of parts), then Mac tinkering is quite possible.
I believe (and he can correct me if I am wrong) that John Carmack developed Quake on a NeXT system. Mac OS X is essentially NeXT, so I see no reason for you to slight it as a development platform based on Quake's extensive success. Grame Devine (also of id Software) also uses a Mac for all of his work.
I have a website. It's about Macs.
Ironic that you should make this complaint on the day that Apple becomes the first computer company to sell systems with the GForce 4 graphics card. See here.
*** Quantum Mechanics: The Dreams of Which Stuff is Made ***
We recently rewrote our game tranquility, originally for SGI, to run on OS X (100% rewrite, not a port). We selected OS X over MS because of two major reasons... (1) we hate MS and (2) we love UNIX. OS X gave us the ability to completely work around a shifting (and shifty) MS playing ground... and because OS X is based on a UNIX kernel, we felt that stability and capability were superior.
We were not wrong. OS X is a blast to write games for. While our game servers are SUN (though they could be MACs)... the client internet code was written on a SUN and compiled straight away, with no errors, on the MAC. This type of simplicity and uniformaty indeed make OS X a beauty to write for.
However... we also selected OpenGL as the clients drawing system, simply because it matched the needs of the game (which was originally written in SGI GL). Apple has yet to release its version of OpenGL in source form to developers. Releasing it would help developers to support it, increase its efficiency, as well as remove a couple of the remaining problems (it IS open source, after all, but Apple has made some changes within the code). Instead, Apple seems to prefer its game developers to use its alternative (and prop. platform)... which immediatly removes porting possibilities.
Furthermore, and sadly... Apple enjoys Objective C... which quite frankly I've never been able to properly sink my teeth into. Bastardizations of a standard language such as C, into deviants such as C++ and Objective C, do nothing good for anyone. It makes porting or even rewriting difficult... and obscures readability of the code. It also wastes development time in learning a new language.
My upshot? OS X is a WONDERFUL game platform, if you ignore Apples desires and stick to the UNIX layer and standard C, as much as possible, for your designs. Specialized tools, libraries and langauge only serve to make programming more difficult.
I would /love/ to own a Mac, but can't possibly afford them. I've been able to build a nice PC by buying and upgrading bits gradually over the past few years. I've finally ditched Windows now that Linux supports most of the hardware that I love, (getting my ATI TV Tuner working was the final hurdle) and I'm pretty happy with my machine. If I had had to go the Mac way, I would probably be stuck with a 6-8 year old machine cos that's all I could afford, probably with a string of over-priced USB, firewire or SCSI peripherals like CD burners, DVD etc. when IDE devices would have done a fine job.
There is a downside to the pre-packaged mac, too. One of my friends is a graphic designer, and he has a G4. We're sure there is something wrong with it - it runs like a dog (a big, fat, lazy dog) and has recently started taking ages to print even simple jobs. The supplier claims there is nothing wrong with it. If it were a PC I would play with the BIOS, try some different RAM, stick my harddrive in it and see if my apps ran more slowly etc. At the moment we are trying to come up with some benchmark stats that might prove that it is running more slowly than a G4 would be expected too. If we don't manage that then he's stuck with £2000 worth of crap.
Actually this is a bad thing for trolls, cause pages are unreadable if you don't filter out -1 posts.
If computer costs really factor into your decision, you don't make a living coding.
My PC environment was easily over 5K when including a laptop (bought 3 months used to save $800 off the costs), a docking station at home and the office, Win2K, Off2K Pro, Visio Enterprise Edition, Text Editors that don't suck, etc.
We may switch the office over to Macs. The OS X experiment was promissing, but the platform isn't there yet. 6 Months? Hell yeah. We do PHP/Java development. The cost of the Windows machines don't even account for the hardware to have a Unix development environment to actually work in.
Alex
Quake and Doom were developed under NeXTSTEP. Carmack loves NeXT as a platform for both the end user as well as the developer. He's made various statements in his .plans throughout the ages and still dedicates his love to NeXTSTEP, OpenStep, Rhapsody and Mac OS X.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!! I'm sorry but I just lost it here and feel a major rant coming on.
HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO READ THE SAME IGNORANT COMMENT!!!
I know reading the article is tough but even if you read just a few of the preceding comments you would have noticed that this is about the development platform NOT the the Target platform which are NOT the same thing. In the case of this article it was Playstation 2 (which lacking a keyboard would be difficult to code on;) It could just as easily have been XBox, Nintendo, or Windows.
He actually talked about using Cocoa / OpenStep to rapidly develop a program so he could quickly and easily map the VRAM for the PSX game he was working on, instead of having to use paper and pencil. He talks about rapid application development, that leaves one with a complete program, not a hobbled together mess of copied code. He then goes on to talk about how he loaded in some of the C++ based graphics code related to the game they were using, so he could load the textures and arrange them as if his application was a PSX.
What the article is talking about is how to use OS X / cocoa to develop back end applications for game development. OS X can also run maya and lightwave, so you got 3D rendering stuff down also. One can also spend more time using OS X to get the over all look of a game finished (UI, networking, etc.) a lot faster (and cheaper) because of Cocoa, and then after finalizing the game behavior, porting it to the more expensive and timely operating systems, such as windows.
I'll be the first to admit that I don't know the reasoning behind why NeXT was used to develop those things. However, many times people use what they have available to develop their ideas at the start because, well, that's all they have.
Here you will find this lovely quote:
If I can convince apple to do a good hardware accelerated OpenGL in rhapsody, I would be very likely to give my win NT machine the cold shoulder and do future development on rhapsody.
More Carmack-style old pro-OS X ranting can be found here. There's a lot more around, but I gotta run. Google reveals all.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
How much Cocoa/Objective C/InterfaceBuilder development have you done?
This is not a wise-ass question. I want to know which is easier/better but want to hear the opinions of people that have used both - not just people that having used one *imagine* that it is easier than the other.
Sadly I must say I beleive most people posting here have not understood anything about the article. The article is not about making games for MacOSX but making the tools to make the games. Like map editors, texture encoders, character editors and other authoring... And also tools to manage the actual flow of development or help with managing ressources. The PlayStation VRAM map tool is exactly that. think of it as tool to help the team manage the VRAM on the playstation.
That doesn't mean the game is on OS X, just that OSX is nice to build support tools for game development.
It shouldn't come as a surprise. I remember Id made a map editor on NeXTSTEP a while back in the Doom days if I remember well... anyway... NeXTSTEP is one of the ancestors to OS X.
I must say prototyping is indeed much much faster on OS X. And I don't feel like I am a super pro in it yet. It pays to develop the concept on OSX before developing the actual app on whatever platform you need it on.
Spending $100 (maybe up to $1000 with all the other stuff) more to get an arguably very nice development suite isn't usually the make/break point for software (or game) developers. Even with buying a semi-high-end Windows box *and* spending the extra $$ on the development software you still weigh in less than the average Mac box. Another thing (in response to another post) is that many Macs haven't been super game machines. Good, yes, but not super. An example here is the new iMac. It has a Geforce2MX in it. In the Windows world, this is an OK card for low-end games but it is not acceptable for many game players now, much less for newer game engines for which it is unacceptable (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=158 0). I'll be honest and don't know all the specs of the iMac (like what can be upgraded or not, if anything) but given that the iMac is introduced with "substandard" video card with respect to the game engines that are currently out and those coming soon, I wouldn't recommend the iMac as a gaming platform.
The article is not a testimonial about OpenGL performance on the Mac, nor is it a crisicism of OpenGL performance on the Mac. :-) Neither is it an endorsement of Objective-C as the best language in which to write a performance-critical game engine. (For that purpose I would personally choose either a tight subset of C++ or an OO approach to structuring C code.)
The article is about the production process, and developing tools to aid in that process -- a domain in which I can say from experience that developer productivity is far more of a priority than getting every last drop of execution speed -- particularly if you can develop tools that will make a process more efficient for several artists/programmers: the efficiency of the development process then goes up in proportion to the number of people on the team who benefit. That's where Cocoa provides much needed leverage. Objective-C contributes to the efficiency of the development environment by being an appropriately flexible OO language for RAD. IMHO, as the article states & illustrates, it's very appropriate technology for the domain of custom application development. :-)
CousinChimpy
(Troy Stephens)
CUPERTINO, Calif., Jan. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Apple® (Nasdaq: AAPL - news) today announced the ultimate digital powerhouse for creative professionals -- the new Power Mac(TM) G4 featuring dual 1-GHz PowerPC G4 processors, the industry's first NVIDIA GeForce4 graphics card and a DVD/CD burning SuperDrive(TM), priced at just $2,999(US).
Yes. At almost 2X the cost of a high-end x86 machine with a Geforce3Ti500 card.
Yes, as I replied in another thread though. This machine is 2X the cost of a high-end PC with a Geforce3Ti500 card. Not only that but nVidia has used the MX designation to indicate the use of SDRAM or SGRAM on their video cards instead of DDR. So, the Geforce4MX is already running at 1/2 the memory bandwidth that it is capable. On the other hand, I'm eager to see the Geforce4 cards that come out for PCs (with DDR) =)
To quote Tim: "I wrote the program using a NeXT computer. This had the advantage that there were some great tools available -it was a great computing environment in general. In fact, I could do in a couple of months what would take more like a year on other platforms, because on the NeXT, a lot of it was done for me already. There was an application builder to make all the menus as quickly as you could dream them up. there were all the software parts to make a wysiwyg (what you see is what you get - in other words direct manipulation of text on screen as on the printed - or browsed page) word processor. I just had to add hypertext, (by subclassing the Text object)"
His observations regarding the productivity of NeXTSTEP development ring true for MacOSX today...
CousinChimpy
(Troy Stephens)
codewarrior is certainly available for cross-platform development, although a bit pricey.
Does anyone know here I can find a MacOS X programming job in the SF area? I'm very interested in getting one, but the regular job boards I look at never have any. Is there some place on the net where such things are posted? Or are there just not any such jobs??
My email address is in my profile.
If Apple would *really* like to woo game developers, they should bring Input/GameSprockets to OS X. QuickTime and OpenGL are nice, but using a mouse/keyboard for game input is jsut plain unacceptable to most gamers.
How will I get my Money Puzzle Exchanger fix?!?!
- Brad Carps Just Another Mac Perl Hacker #!/usr/bin/l33t
A recent (and enormous) reason for this is the release of the X-Box. Being similar to the PC, and using DirectX-derived technologies, it is quite easy to port between X-Box and the PC, which are 2 huge markets now.
Economically, DirectX is hard to beat.
The main reason why Apple lost game support is because they refused to support developers.
Anyone remember Game Sprockets? They had potential, directx style, until Apple canned them and quit supporting developers.
Mac OS X is only a potential gaming platform if apple gets their ass in gear.
But its a Geforce 4 MX. Emphasis on the MX. That means it uses the old NV17 graphics core, not the fast NV25 in the upcoming full versions of the Geforce 4 cards.
From what I understand, Apple is working on a language called Objective C++. Basically, Objective C is C with some object oriented extensions, right? Well, Objective C++ will be, if I understand correctly, C++ with dynamic typing that will make it compatible with Objective C. Once they have that...
BlackGriffen
This guy should've looked into bin packing. It would've practically automated his tedious chores to a point where he would've have to even click and drag. At least reduce it.
The other XP APIs people posted, Crystal Space and SDL, are written in C++. Now I have nothing against C++, but if Apple wants native OS X games it would be very useful to have a native, cross-platform, game API.
I have heard of Apple's Game Sprockets project, but AFAIK this is a proprietary Mac API.
Anyone have a suggestion for an XP Objective C game API?
Yes it is true that game development has been gravitating towards licensed engines because the cost of developing from scratch a AAA engine has been steadily increasing. What is NOT true is that games based on licensed engines involves "just scripting the NPCs and loading some fansy GFX" This is complete BS. Do you think that RTCW is just "some fansy GFX" slapped on the Quake 3 engine? Beyond the back-end (rendering, sound, input) everything content wise had to be created, and anyone creating a game will confirm for you that generating the content for a game is one of the most involved aspects. Did ST:Voyager Elite Forces just drop in some new models? No! The enhanced the rendering engine, implemented pretty decently intelligent bots for the single player campaign and scripted tons of events (ala Half-Life) that made the game so much more than "just" Q3 with new models and levels. This is NOT just filling in a "template" it involves editing the engine's source code to get it to do what you want. Because you do get the full source to the engine you can extend it in any way you see fit, this hardly fits with any definition of a "template" that I know of.
Now for just a little nit-picking. It's the Unreal engine, there is no such thing as the Unread engine, you can at least get the names of your examples correct. Secondly, it's a lot not alot (2 words not one), you emphasise this but you spell it incorrectly! Third, if you're going to make sweeping generalizations about licensed engines with incorrect facts and assumptions you could at least let us know who you are. Of course I'm probably guilty now of feeding the trolls but I just wanted to sweep away a little bit of the FUD that was floating under the bridge.
man RTFM
No manual entry for RTFM.
You obviously know very little about Quicktime. Please explain how quicktime is in any way dependent on the sorenson codec (not codecs, there's only one)? It's a fucking codec! Now, a lot of quicktime content is dependent on the sorenson codec because that is what the developers used to compress the media. If sorenson went away, quicktime would be the same as always (just missing a closed source, but great codec).
Sometimes I really wonder why such blatent FUD makes it in people's comments. :)
--
Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things.
Though many have noted that the article was aimed at developers, I should note that the 4% marketshare is nearly meaningless. Consider that a huge percentage of the other 96% consist of things like server farms and office computers. No one plays games on server farms. Only fools play games at the office.
Apple gets a much larger chunk of the home market and the educational market, which is the reason there is still any game development going on for the Mac at all.
Incidentally, I still get upwards of 20% of visits to my websites from Mac users.
Visit sunny Knowumsayin.com, home of the pork shirt.
You talk about that like its a good thing.
Cool game - Any connection between you and the people who made Alpha Waves back in 1990?
He's tried reinstalling the OS, but that hasn't made any difference. Apart from that (and correct me if I'm wrong) there's not alot we can do because the Mac warranty is case-on. If we take it to bits, the warranty is void and we have no hope of getting it fixed for free. Even when the warranty is expired, if I tinker with it and trash the logic board, it will have to go to a Mac specialist for a new one - I can't buy a new one for £100 from a shop in town.
Don't get me wrong - I love Macs - but there is definitely an advantage in the wealth of knowledge and tinkering ability available for the x86 PC platform that isn't so easily available for the Mac.
I think you would still have to admit there is far more scope for tinkering with PCs and generally messing around with old/secondhand components at a reasonable price than on the Mac. Which is a good thing _and_ a bad thing of course.