Mac OS X NWN Technology Demo Released

h0tblack writes "At long last the Mac OS X demo of Neverwinter Nights has been released. We now have a torrent running to get the demo distributed and take the load of off the official servers (macgamefiles should have the demo soon). Download the BitTorrent for Mac OS X client if you don't already have it. Then grab the torrent file for the tech-demo from bytemonsoon.com. After downloading the demo, PLEASE leave your BitTorrent window open, this will mean that the load is shared amongst us all and more people can download faster."

Comments

ok, then

[SweetAndSourJesus]

see you all in about a month.

Re:ok, then

[digitalsushi]

Well you must be a real blast at Christmas then!

Re:ok, then

[Jucius Maximus]

" Sadly, I'm uploading faster then I'm downloading :("

To undertand this, you've gotta realise that clients will upload to YOU based on the upload rates they directly experience from you.

When you join the torrent swarm, you initally have no pieces so the download is slow at less than 5 K/s. Eventually you will have one chunk (about 1 MB) and then, in an effort to boost your node's 'ranking' with other nodes, it uploads furiously, making the upload rate faster than the download rate.

But then your node will rise in priority among other nodes because you are uploading, thus they will upload more data to you. In the long run, your upload and download rate will be equal unless you already start with a chunk of the file you got elsewhere that can be shared, or there are a lot of seeds (nodes with the complete file that are uploading only) and bandwidth to spare.

At the end, look at the count for data uploaded and downloaded. They should be quite similar.

Re:ok, then

[Jucius Maximus]

"Of course, given the source is available, all you need to do is hack the source a bit to fool the system iunto *thinking* you hgave done loads of uploads, and you can then download full-speed and not bother wasting your bandwidth with pointless torrent uploads :-)"

Foolish AC ;-) Go back to your Kazaa Lite. Bram (Cohen, creator or bittorrent) already thought of this. Feel free to send outrageous upload statistics to the tracker. That information is not used to determine how much people upload to you. Other clients only consider the upload rates they experience directly. The ONLY way to get high download rates on bittorrent while not uploading is to connect to a swarm with high seed:leecher ratio.

I guess that's it for bytemonsoon

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess all the downloads I was doing at bytemonsoon.com will have to wait for a couple of days... the server will be melting down now.

Why don't the /. guys run their own torrent tracker?

Re:I guess that's it for bytemonsoon

[Jungle guy]

Isn't Bit Torrent designed precisely to prevent the slashdot effect, and to distribute the load among people that are downloading the file? I have never ran a torrent on a website, but according to the author, you can even pull the original file from your server, as long as enough people have left their clients open after the download (in torrent terms, the seed is alive).

Re:I guess that's it for bytemonsoon

[illuvata]

thats true, up to a limit. if too many people try to download from the same tracker, it will overload, and start dropping connection.
in this case, the whole of bytemonsoon will probably be down shortly.

also, there was a site for /. trackers. its down for maintenance right now, but i dont know for how long, so have a look:
http://torrents.slash0.org/

Re:I guess that's it for bytemonsoon

[mhesseltine]

Isn't Bit Torrent designed precisely to prevent the slashdot effect, and to distribute the load among people that are downloading the file? I have never ran a torrent on a website, but according to the author, you can even pull the original file from your server, as long as enough people have left their clients open after the download (in torrent terms, the seed is alive).

Yes, the transfer of the files should be alleviated by using BT as opposed to the server having to serve the files. However, BT still relies on a single point of failure per download, that being the tracker.

For each person that wants to connect, they have to connect to the same tracker, which needs to manage telling each client where the peers are, mananging the throttle, etc. While not as bandwidth intensive as serving the actual files, under a good slashdotting, the tracker itself will get overloaded, and as a result, become ineffective for people.

The logical conclusion would be for /. to run a tracker, because it's obvious from their traffic that they could probably handle it. Maybe even make that a subscriber perk? Taco, are you listening?

Re:I guess that's it for bytemonsoon

[DFX]

actually, we're now getting slashdotted AND dos'd at the same time. now THAT's some good fun.

Re:You can play games on a mac

[Anonymous Coward]

You click it! Duh!

Should be Interesting

[GotSpider]

Should be interesting to see how the Mac platform manages to incorporate intensive 3D graphics, especially now since they have radeons and nvidia chipsets in most of their newer/higher end computers. Enter the complaints about one-button mouse commments, but keep in mind that most of these RPG's have a ridiculous amount of required buttons and commands... when the "Quick Guide" has 10 pages, you're spending too much time learning how to play, instead of actually just playing.

Re:Should be Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

especially now since they have radeons and nvidia chipsets in most of their newer/higher end computers.

Newer? My iBook was the bottom of the line 2 years ago, and it has a radeon in it.

Enter the complaints about one-button mouse commments, but keep in mind that most of these RPG's have a ridiculous amount of required buttons

It's a good thing I can hook up my 5 button MS mouse to my iBook.

Re:Should be Interesting

[Richard5mith]

Should be interesting to see how the Mac platform manages to incorporate intensive 3D graphics...

Probably about the same way as it did a couple of years ago when the first public test of Quake III Arena was released for it (a week before the PC version).

Re:Should be Interesting

[Arker]

It's real interesting how ignorant posts about Macs get modded up like this.

My little tibook runs Wolfenstein 3d better than my PC with 3 times the mhz rating (both have 64mb Radeons too.) Remember, mghz does not reflect performance when you're comparing two different architectures, the PPC is a lot more efficient. Macs deal with graphics just fine, thanks.

And yes, you can use any USB mouse you like on your Mac, you're not limited to one button. Macs are designed so that you can use a one button and do everything you need to on regular desktop stuff, but they work just as well as anything else when you give them more.

Re:Should be Interesting

[Arker]

Not all "64M Radeons" are equal. Your PC might have a completely different chip than the Mobility Radeon 9000 in your laptop. Perhaps it has a Radeon 7500. I don't know.

Nonetheless, they're comparable, and if all this hype about Macs being so 'underpowered' was true you'd certainly expect the AMD with 3 times the clock speed and a comparable videocard to toast the poor little TiBook. In fact, it doesn't, and that's my point.

OK, MHZ is not an viable measure of performance.

Exactly.

Saying that Macs are underpowered because the clock speeds are lower is just as ignorant as saying that my 3/4 ton Ford pickup is underpowered because the engine red lines at a lower rpm than your Chevette does.

But the PPC isn't any more efficent than a PIII (unless what you are doing is Altivec optimized). At least not according to most benchmarks. So a 1Ghz PPC G4 should perform like a 1.5Ghz P3 (after some Altivec optimization), which is roughly equivilent to a 1.6Ghz Athlon XP, which is roughly equivelent to a Pentium 4 at 2Ghz. Which is fine to run most games.

Actually the 1ghz G4 performs about like a 1.5ghz PIII (which is actually better than a PIV at the same clock speed, remember) on pure integer benchmarks IIRC. That means no Altivec. And my experience is that in practice the whole systems tend to perform significantly better than you'd expect if you just look at the CPU benchmark.

I'm not claiming Apple has anything that will beat the top of the line Intel/AMD stuff on benchmarks, bear in mind. But their best stuff gets a lot closer than people seem to think, and the importance of system design shouldn't be underestimated either.

Good old Bioware

[d3faultus3r]

putting nwn on all three major operating systems. I hope this will start a trend for Bioware.

Re:Good old Bioware

[Junks Jerzey]

putting nwn on all three major operating systems

Windows, MacOS X, and PalmOS?

Re:Good old Bioware

[platipusrc]

putting nwn on all three major operating systems
Windows, MacOS X, and PalmOS?

I got the impression that he was talking about BSD, Plan9, and VMS.

Re:Good old Bioware

[frankie]

I hope this will start a trend for Bioware

Trend? No, this is not a trend. This is merely Bioware's partial answer to the claim they made three years ago.

âoeWe are planning a simultaneous PC/Macintosh/Linux release for Neverwinter Nights, with all three versions to be included in a single box.â

-- Bioware's official NWN FAQ, until it was changed late June 2002 (after the Windows version went gold)

Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

Will this really be viable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will this really be viable? There are some serious man-hours spent on this port, is it reasonable to expect this project to be profitable?

Probably not. However, it appears Bioware are pressing ahead (and doing it inhouse) because they are a games company that wants to be around in the long run, and stay one step ahead of its competitors. Writing portable code isn't something that comes as second nature to most Windows coders, least of all games coders, but they clearly think (correctly) that Linux is going to be a force in the long run on the desktop.

By teaching themselves the ins and outs of porting games, they've learned (the hard way it seems) that portability has to be a concern from the beginning. Using SDL isn't hard, but it makes porting so much easier it's untrue. Make sure any 3rd party engines you use will run on other platforms or are easily made portable. And so on.

I think it's telling they outsourced the porting of the Mac client, but kept the Linux port in house. They could have easily hired LGP for instance to port it, or done what was done for Unreal Tournament and get a freelancer in, but they didn't. That makes me think they value the experience and want to keep it internal to the company. Assuming BioWare stick around, I'd expect to see more Linux ports in future.

Re:Will this really be viable?

[lpp]

FYI, BioWare did the Mac port themselves. MacSoft is only the publisher for the Mac version.

Re:Will this really be viable?

[dthable]

Writing portable code isn't something that comes as second nature to most Windows coders...

Is it really second nature to any coder?

Re:Will this really be viable?

[travail_jgd]

I don't think the ports (Linux or OSX) will be profitable anytime soon. There's too much of a learning curve. But there's three good reasons to continue with the ports:

First, it makes the Aurora engine much more appealing to potential licensees, especially if they follow id's model (buy the engine, and get all platforms included). The Linux and Mac gaming markets are miniscule compared to those running Microsoft OS's, but having all versions available may give a 1%-2% increase in sales. It's still an advantage.

Second, everyone in IT has heard that Redmond wants to "secure" the Windows platform. At some point in the next 3-6 years, writing software for the Wintel platform is going to get more expensive -- either through "certifications" or by paying a percentage of revenues. Bioware may be trying to move all of their eggs out of the single basket. (Yes, I know that flaming Microsoft is in bad form. Mod appropriately.)

Third, with Linux and OSX support, the Aurora engine (and possibly the tools as well) isn't restricted to the x86 32-bit platform. Other developers are bumping into the limitations of the x86 architecture, so having x86-64 or PPC support may help Bioware in the near future.

Re:Will this really be viable?

[lpp]

I hate to burst your bubble, but the Aurora Toolset is only available to those using the Windows platform. BioWare opted not to port the toolset to Linux when they discovered that Borland would not have a Linux capable C++ Builder version available in time for their major development push. Likewise for the Mac. In addition, MacSoft explored the possibility of farming out the toolset port to a third party Mac porting house (OmniGroup as I recall), but the time estimate was 1 year of development and thus the plan was scrapped.

The last I heard, BioWare still wasn't planning on porting the toolset even now with a C++ Builder Linux environment available from Borland, likely because it uses the CLX framework and the version BioWare used was likely only using VCL.

Re:Will this really be viable?

[LMariachi]

Except that the toolset is not being ported. You'd think the wisdom of porting content-creation tools would be obvious given the creative bent of Apple's demographic, but Mac users just keep on getting the shaft. So let's everyone lighten up on the "portable code" accolades.

Re:Will this really be viable?

[SideshowBob]

"However, it appears Bioware are pressing ahead (and doing it inhouse) because they are a games company that wants to be around in the long run, and stay one step ahead of its competitors. Writing portable code isn't something that comes as second nature to most Windows coders, least of all games coders, but they clearly think (correctly) that Linux is going to be a force in the long run on the desktop."

I wanted to respond to this even though its pretty late in the day and this topic is no longer near the top of the stack on Slashdot.

Writing portable code has benefits in and of itself, regardless of the economic factors of any particular platform. (I believe most games are profitable on the Mac however)

Portable code that has been run through multiple compilers, run in multiple environments, QA'ed by multiple testing teams, etc. is in my experience a damn sight more bug free than single platform code.

Just the differences in compilers can bring to light surprisingly subtle bugs in code.

Do yourself a favor and try to compile your projects with different compilers on different platforms. You may be surprised at the things that you find that would've slipped under your radar using only 1 toolchain on 1 platform. This does not mean GCC on Linux and BSD on x86. It means GCC on Linux/BSD for x86, GCC on Darwin/PPC, VC++ on Win32, and maybe another combo.

Re:Will this really be viable?

[artur9]

If you know how to do it it's easy. I was once responsible for a system supported on SunOS 2, VM/SP (IBM mainframe), and VMS.

When the decided to port it to Windows NT after about 3 years they did it in 2 weeks.

BTW, it was code that did data marshalling/marshalling across TCP/IP.

My modem is blazing away!

[Anonymous Coward]

>After downloading the demo, PLEASE leave your BitTorrent window open, this will mean that the load is shared amongst us all and more people can download faster."

Right-o! As someone who is keen on the whole "distributed" part of the internet, I shall leave that window open as soon as my download is done. You will all have the benefit of the uplink of my 2400 baud modem! Torrent away!

Don't even run OSX

[Xzzy]

But I'm letting a torrent run on my station at work just to be a nice guy. ;)

Not that I suspect bandwidth is going to be a problem, I peaked at 2030 kB/s downloading. But I've always felt bad for mac users getting shafted and wanted to help.

Just don't tell my employer.. not sure they would be too impressed watching me output the 1300 kB/s I'm doing atm..

Re:Don't even run OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always felt bad for mac users getting shafted and wanted to help.

I've always wanted to shaft Mac users too.
Signed,
Bill

BitTorrent or NWN

[allenw]

One and a half sentence about NWN.

Four and a half sentences about BT.

I think the heading should have read "OS X NWN Demo Available via BitTorrent".

Re:Keep it open?

[PhoenixK7]

How does that have anything to do with cutting edge technology? Its just the model under which the client was designed. Its a download app not a p2p client in the same sense as most pieces of software out there. You can chose which software you want to continue to share and which to not.

Unfortunately this results in some things becoming virtually unobtainable once people are no longer interested in a file, but there's usually at least a few people still seeding and leeching files even with somethings that are months old.

Mirror of the .torrent file

[Motherfucking Shit]

I've mirrored the .torrent file here. I removed the spaces from the filename, but it's otherwise identical to the copy from ByteMonsoon and I'm downloading from it now.

Any other mirrors? :)

Re:Mirror of the .torrent file

[Jucius Maximus]

"I know *nothing* about bittorrent, this is the first thing out there that makes me want to try it. So I installed the Windows client (I'm at work), but I keep getting the message: "Error, Problem connecting to tracker - 10060 - operation timed out".... is this common?"

Firstly, this is a demo for a mac game so you might not want to download it if you only have a windows machine.

Your office firewall might be blocking outbound connections on ports other than common ones (80,21, etc.) so you can't connect to the tracker.

Also, it could be that the tracker is overloaded. It's the bittorrent equivalent to a 404 error. (The tracker keeps track of what IPs are downloading so clients will know whom they should connect to in order to get parts of the file, and they also keep track of many transfer statistics. Bandwidth used by the tracker tends to be between 1/1,000th and 1/10,000th of the overall transfer used to upload and download the file. But with VERY popular files, even a tracker can get swamped just like a slashdotted site.)

Re:Mirror of the .torrent file

[damiam]

The thing about bittorrent is that, even though the bandwidth is shared among all the downloaders, the site hosting the file (also known as the "tracker) still has to keep track of all the downloads going on. While most bittorrent sites don't need too much bandwidth, they often run out of CPU power at high loads (such as right after /. links to them). That's probably what you're seeing here. Wait a while and try again.

Re:You can play games on a mac

[someguy456]

How do you frag anyone with just one mouse button?

Simple: morse code.

confusing

[Boromir son of Faram]

Okay, so I guess I see what BitTorrent is. It seems to make sense. Now, what is "OS X", and can I get it for WinME? Thx.

And, tada: Linux installer/binaries in SoU Expack.

[2Flower]

It was announced yesterday that the Shadows of Urentide expansion pack which goes on sale tomorrow comes on disk with a linux version.

Yes, it's way the hell after the announced simultaneous three platform release, but at least it's here and if you're not too busy playing Tux Racer and complaining about lack of instant gaming support, it's the most extensible and community supported RPG system to date. Have fun and remember, the campaign the game ships with ain't nothing compared to some of the great stuff the community has produced, so don't limit yourself. (Although the story in SoU's single player campaign looks pretty good in its own right.)/p

But is it playable?

[jkabbe]

I always wonder when they use the term "Tech" demo. Is this thing playable? Or is it just some pretty graphics?

Mirror for the Torrent File

[nexUK]

http://www.blobweek.com/torrents/

Re:Keep it open?

[Jhan]

How does that have anything to do with cutting edge technology?

I'd guess it's an attempt at satire, since the most intuitive and logical thing to do (yep, I got the file, now I can close the window), is also the most wrong thing you can do.

Its just the model under which the client was designed.

Yeah, it works for what it was designed to do, but it's awful as a general P2P system, which is what much of the SD crowd is elevating it to.... As you yourself say, it's worthless for anything but new files, essentialy a broadcast system. But it's really good at that!

Re:Hopefully

[sebi]

I'm buying a copy for myself and every friend that has a mac and will play it.

If I make you my friend will you buy me a copy as well? I promise that I will play it.

Re:Keep it open?

[tuffy]

Unfortunately this results in some things becoming virtually unobtainable once people are no longer interested in a file, but there's usually at least a few people still seeding and leeching files even with somethings that are months old.

Of course, once virtually nobody is interested in the file any longer, the main "seed" machine should have no trouble fulfulling the entire request for the file itself since, by definition, there won't be any competition for it. And, should the file suddenly gain new popularity, the Torrent-ness will ramp right back up again to keep the bytes flowing smoothly.

At least in theory.

.torrent needed for Mac?

[psoriac]

Don't tell me all nine of you hit up their 56k server and blew it up...

KIDDING! ;-)

NWN OSX Demo Available - Please Have Mercy

[philam3nt]

Submitters, enthralled with the idea of having their story ran on Slashdot, dread the inevitable bandwith-monster that in some cases renders the story near-useless (the poor server someone uses to blog melts before the story hits ~70 comments). Therefore, never being able to trust Slashdot with their bandwith and at the same time wanting their news to reach as many as possible, the submitters are starting to make the preperations we all wish the editors cared about.

With a file this size the Bittorrent may be the only feasible way for their news to reach the whole Slashdot community - resulting in the Bittorrent being more important (it decides the fate of the story regardless of content).

I imagine we're going to see this more and more unless Slashdot ever decides some sort of bandwith management (caching, Bittorrent, early-warning) of the stories is profitable, because by this point the editors are clearly not going to do it out of the goodness of their heart (in part because the community will mirror or Bittorrent on its own).

Performance Notes on NWN Demo

[slycer9]

Hardware: 17" tiBook, 1GB RAM
Game Settings: All options MAXED, no anti-aliasing
Resolution: 1440

Pros: Runs flawlessly, no hitches, slow framerates or draggy performance.

Cons: No NPC voices. No speech during spellcasting. No shiny water. (tho I don't remember if my vid card supports it)

Very nice job, runs great. Now just gotta wait for the DM Client!

Boy, that's one slow transfer.

[corporatemutantninja]

Doesn't this guy take potty breaks? Every time someone posts a Mac story he's STILL sitting there waiting for that 17 meg file to transfer. This has been going on for months. Somebody please give him a zip drive.

NWN Performance notes :Edit:

[slycer9]

Just finished a discussion with some folks at Bioware.
Turns out a couple of the glitches aren't glitches at all.
1) Only 4 voicesets were included to compress the filesize for downloads.
2) Shiny water is not dependant upon your video card under OSX, because the current Mac implementation of OpenGL does not support it as of yet.

So, in review...neither of the glitches are bugs at all.
Game still runs flawlessly, smooth gameplay, excellent mouse response.

Gaming on the Mac... It's why I switched!

[XbainX]

Ok, I'm sure plenty of you have seen it, but for those of you that haven't check this (Quicktime format) out. If you weren't convinced that gaming on a Mac is totally awesome, you will be now!

Props to redvsblue.com and their work.

What you're all forgetting, of course

[writertype]

...is that the game itself ain't all that hot. Or at least the single-player version of it. Very little story, and it pales in comparison to Baldur's Gate 1 & 2. Personally, I found it as much fun as compiling a Linux dis-... Oh.

You'll have a ball.

Re:Got BitTorrent_OSX_3.2.2a.dmg, now what?

[coldguy]

open Disk Copy (it's in Applications/Utilities).

drag the file on to Disk Copy's window or the icon on the Dock.

or, just ctrl+click or right-click (depending on how many buttons your mouse has) on the file and go to Open With -> Disk Copy.

Some of y'all might encounter...

[masada555]

...a problem with the NWN file. It may show up on your desktop as a document. Just Get Info and append the .dmg extension. Problem solved. Happy gaming!

At last!

[swelling]

I have been waiting for this for quite a while and it is definitely worth it!

I am running a 17" iMac (800Mhz G4/256MB/Ge4 32MB) and the action is excellent, not choppy at all. I was worried that the performance of the game would leave people without a high-end machine in the dust, but everything seems pretty good so far.

Nice job Bioware and MacSoft!