WoW Supported On New Intel Macs

If you were worried about your Azeroth fix on the new Intel Macs, worry not. Ars Technica reports that World of Warcraft is officially supported on Apple's newest toys. From the article: "What Blizzard did today was pop the cherry on Mac gaming with Intel inside Azeroth. Apple was cool enough to provide a prototype iMac, and Blizzard was cool enough to have been working overtime on the Intel version of Warcraft. WoW for Intel will be publicly available in about three weeks--for free! As if people wouldn't take a Krol Blade to their non-mousing arm in payment for a real FSB for 3D."

Comments

Saw it at MacWorld

[jcr]

Rob from Blizzard was there, manning the little WoW booth in the Apple Design Awards winner's area. He had WoW running on one of the new iMacs, and it looked awfully smooth to me. I didn't ask him what kind of frame rates he was actually seeing, though.

-jcr

Re:Saw it at MacWorld

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't ask him what kind of frame rates he was actually seeing, though.

Probably about the same you'd see on any other Core Duo with a Radeon X1600.

Which would be pretty fucking good.

Re:Saw it at MacWorld

[Databass]

That's a shame, because showing you would have been as simple as hitting Ctrl +R, the FPS hotkey.

Re:Saw it at MacWorld

[jcr]

Sorry, we were talking about other things. It just didn't occur to me to ask about it.

-jcr

Let me just start off by saying

[Johnny Mnemonic]

As if people wouldn't take a Krol Blade to their non-mousing arm in payment for a real FSB for 3D

Thanks for paying attention, but the G5 FSB kicks, has kicked, and still kicks the Intel FSB ass. The high end G5 sports a 1.25 Ghz bus per CPU; and even the iMac G5 had a 667 Mhz bus. So the only real advancement in this regard is on the lousy bus of the PowerBook. So big deal.

It is nice that WoW has announced for the IntelliMac, but going to Intel isn't going to change everything overnight because the G5 didn't really suck that bad.

Re:Let me just start off by saying

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I would say that the heat dissipation of the G5 processor also kicks ass, I didn't need a furnace this winter. On the down side, if I put a heavy load on it long enough, the fans hit a pretty annoying pitch and amplitude, far more annoying than the very quiet 2GHz Xeon systems I had.

Re:Let me just start off by saying

[Anonymous Coward]

The Apple G5 bus benchmarks slower than Intel's, even though it nominally runs at a faster frequency. And, as you point out, the iMac 667Mhz bus is even slower than the 800/1066Mhz bus commonly found on Intel machines.

Re:Let me just start off by saying

[Anonymous Coward]

The bandwidth of the G5 memory bus is pretty high as you've noted - however if you have a close look at any random fetch latency benchmarks, you'll soon find that the Intel chipsets score a lot better (as in, 80-90 on Intel vs 150-160 ns on G5). One can find access patterns that favor the G5 or the Intel; my assessment is that WoW has more of the latter.

Also, take note of the fact that G5 chips prior to the latest dual core parts in the PCIe towers, only have 512KB L2. The new Intel Core Duo has four times that amount. While shared amongst two cores in the Intel chip, it's pretty well known that WoW is only partially multithreaded, i.e. it will max out one CPU and use 10-20% of the other one.

Finally, be careful when comparing frequencies of buses - the G5 bus has 32 bits of read and 32 bits of write "pipe" clocked at 1GHz+ speed; the Intel part doesn't have such high frequency but has 64 bits of data path that is bidirectional. For code that is doing a steady stream of reads or writes, the available bandwidth is comparable. At max read throughput the G5 you cite can move 5GB/s up the read pipe; the Intel can hit 5.3GB/s. One can argue that the G5 can be reading and writing at the same time by virtue of its split pipes, alas, the DIMMS at the other end of the channel are not similarly endowed.

There must be some set of reasons why the iMac Core Duo is in fact outperforming G5 tower systems costing twice as much when running WoW; the factors above are likely to be significant.

I can see it now

[Xeirxes]

...a new generation of Slashdot. Gone is "Will it run Linux?" and here to stay is, "Will it run WoW?"

Re:I can see it now

[Anonymous Coward]

i knew penny arcade had pull in the video game world, but geez, i didn't think they could get a company to port a game just by asking if it can run on the new macs

Re:I can see it now

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, but will it run linux?

Re:I can see it now

[Alarash]

Speaking of Linux and WoW, people should sign the petition. WoW runs fairly smoothly with WINE, once you patched the cursor bug, but it's not as smooth as it could be.

Re:I can see it now

[MadJo]

Indeed, that is my question too.. Mac users are a minority, as are Linux users. So how come that Mac'ers do get WoW natively, and Linux users get ignored by Blizzard (or any other major gaming company).

It is even much easier to get a Linux PC, than an Intel Mac.

I know this is off topic, but it is just something I simply don't get.

Re:I can see it now

[mrbooze]

Blizzard has a long history of releasing its games on both PC and Mac, so they undoubtedly already have the processes, programmers, and infrastructure in place for doing this. Something they wouldn't seem to have for linux.

Pop the cherry?

[Anonymous Coward]

What Blizzard did today was pop the cherry on Mac gaming with Intel inside Azeroth.

This is World of Warcraft we're talking about here. Owning this game would seem to preclude any actual cherry popping from taking place...

Re:Pop the cherry?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. And my god, I swear, does Slashdot go a day without a mention of WoW on the front page? I really need to remove "Games" from my preferences, I know, I know.

Re:Pop the cherry?

[QuantaStarFire]

And my god, I swear, does Slashdot go a day without a mention of WoW on the front page?

Well, let's see:

Zonk:

• World of Warcraft
• City of Villains
• Half-Life 2
• Shadow of the Colossus

Based on the above, probably not.

Re:Pop the cherry?

[chrismcdirty]

Since Zonk is usually the main offender, I tried removing him from my preferences, as I still wanted game news. Unfortunately, he contributes 99% of the games stories. Its just that I notice that its him when its a bad story.

Needs a video upgrade

[DeadBugs]

It's a shame that they are using the X1600. It's one of the worst video cards of this generation. The iMacs would be better served with a 1800XL/XT or 7800GT/GTX.

Re:Needs a video upgrade

[Babbster]

I just resisted the temptation to get very snarky. No applause, please; the warm feeling inside is enough.

Anyway, you're talking about top-of-the-line video cards, cards that are $300 to $500 when they're NOT sold by a company that places a premium on style and raises their prices accordingly. It's also worth noting that the x1600 chipset is going to run cooler than those you mentioned, which is vital for a small all-in-one (even the power supply is in there - no outboard brick) unit.

Anyone who buys an iMac knows that they're not getting a gaming powerhouse. If someone wanted a top-flight gaming PC s/he would buy an x86 system with a serious graphics card or, if a Mac aficionado, a PowerMac - perhaps holding off until the Intel chips get in the latter, on the off-chance that running Windows and getting THAT gaming goodness would be possible.

Re:Needs a video upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who buys an iMac knows that they're not getting a gaming powerhouse

Yes, but thanks to the magic power of the Steve Jobs' RDF, the ultra-proprietary MAC computers can't have their video cards removed and replaced by something actually usable. Even that $299 Dell will kick some serious ass when you put a 7800 in it.

Either start building in decent graphics boards, or at least let the suckers you sell them to replace them.

Re:Needs a video upgrade

[gEvil (beta)]

Even that $299 Dell will kick some serious ass when you put a 7800 in it.

Except that $299 Dell most likely doesn't contain an AGP or PCI-E slot. Soldering that slot onto the board would add a few cents to the cost.

Re:Needs a video upgrade

[Yert]

I was going to make a snarky comment about how I haven't seen a non-upgradable OEM ystem in years.

Then I did my research, and here's the $299 system (after $50 rebate), the Dimension B110. According to Dell's site, it has integrated Intel graphics. According to this guy, the board has no PCI-E or AGP slot, making it virtually a dead-end system.

I stand corrected.


On the flip side, I've built decent Athlon systems, with 256 MB RAM, decent HDD, and on board (but upgradable video) for under $350. They weren't computing powerhouses by any stretch of the imagination, but the box has served as a fairly decent workstation for almost 3 years now, and video and RAM has been upgraded.

Re:Needs a video upgrade

[TomHandy]

Umm, I'm pretty sure that the regular tower-style Macs can have their video cards upgraded, etc. What we're talking about so far are the all-in-one style iMac and the MacBook laptop, neither of which would really be expected to have upgradeable graphics (I know that upgradeable graphics are starting to make an appearance on some higher-end laptops, but it's still not common). I think it would be safe to say that the tower-style Intel Macs will also have standard PCIe graphics cards that could be replaced.

Re:Needs a video upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like your e-penis needs an upgrade. A 1600XT will run games just fine. It's not as fast as a 1800XT obviously but if you are some hardcore gamer that needs the details turned all the way up at 1600x1200, you're not playing on a Mac anyway.

Re:Needs a video upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the regular tower-style Macs don't exactly have a regular tower-style price -- $2K for the cheapest expandable box is extremely steep even for Apple. (ie you could get a low-end G4 tower for $1199 or something).

Re:Needs a video upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering there's only one game, and that game is WoW which isn't exactly that heavy on the graphics, is so slow-paced that 10 frames a second is usable, and can only be played online so lag is a bigger concern than framerate, then I think an X1600 is plenty. In fact, a GF 5600 is plenty.

Re:Needs a video upgrade

[Tycho]

First off, while the X1800XL/XT and the 7800GT/GTX would be faster they put out way too much heat, require too much power and have memory busses that would require a PCB with too many layers to be cost effective.

I disagree with the statement that the "[X1600 series] [is] one of the worst video cards of this generation". While the mid-range X1600 is not as fast as the high-end members of X800 series, as one might expect, the X1600 is still no slouch, it is faster than the 6600 and the X700 from the last generation. While I am not sure what speed of memory the new iMacs use, they do use GDDR3, which puts these new Macs in the same range as the X1600XT. Also the X1600 has more features than the X700 or the 6600. These are not "checklist" type features for instance there is support for two Dual Link DVI ports which is more than the 6600 or the X700 is capeable of. Much of the complaints around the X1600 was about their price/performace ratio when they were priced at $250 for the X1600XL and $200 for the X1600 Pro when first announced. However, the X1600 series never sold for these prices, an X1600 will set you back about $175 and the X1600 Pro is about $130. Currently the architecture of X1600 may seem kind of lop-sided and unusual because it has better shader performance over polygon pushing power. However, the new R580 from ATI, which will be named the X1900 supposedly will be four X1600 cores lashed together and will probably easily outpace the current 7800 series and X1800 series.

Re:Needs a video upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

"MAC" stands for "Media Access Control." Perhaps you meant "Mac," which is an abbreviation for "Macintosh"?

Re:Needs a video upgrade

[Babbster]

As you found out, there are indeed PCs out there being sold with no AGP or PCI-E slot. Another example is the [HP] Compaq lineup, while the HP-branded computers from the same company tend to have upgradeable graphics. I suspect you'd find similar results from any major manufacturer in their cheap PCs.

Really, though, it's probably a good idea for them since they often also ship these PCs with power supplies insufficient to drive a high-end graphics card. While folks might end up annoyed that they can't upgrade the graphics card, it might be even worse if they plugged a brand new card in and their system completely stopped working.

Re:Needs a video upgrade

[default luser]

The reason the x1600 architecture is the worst of the next generation is because ATI tried to build a 6600, and failed because they got too greedy.

The 6600 architecture was risky. 8 fragment pipelines, but only 4 ROPs meant the chip would be marginal at REALLY old games (just see how badly it scores in 3dmark 2001), and be excellent for newer games.

One of the benefits of the architecture is "free" anistropic filtering (compared to other architectures), because those 8 fragment pipes are never fully utilized.

The disbenefit of the architecture is poor AA performance above 2x, due to the limited number of ROPs. The 6600 line takes a bigger percentage performance hit in 4xAA than ANY of the 6800 chips (roughly 50%).

The x1600 tries to be a super 6600. With a slightly higher clock speed and 50% more fragment pipes, the x1600 XT should blow away the 6600 GT...but it doesn't, except in isolated instances like Battlefield 2 and Serious Sam 2. Most of modern games can barely keep the 6600's 2:1 ratio of fragment to ROPs full, and that's why Nvidia has yet to release a card with a ratio of fragment to ROPs higher than 2:1.

To top it off, for a card that has supposedly increased raw fragment processing power 77% over a 6600 GT, the memory bandwidth has increased less than 40%. The x1600 XT is clocked fast, but it is memory starved. In addition, the limitation of 4 texture units (versus 8 in the 6600 GT) means multi-texture effects (like bump-mapping) are going to be VERY slow.

I'm not going to talk about the other benefits of the x1000 series, because while they're nice, they're not the reason people hate the x1600.

They should be fixing bugs so I can get my fix

[Wonko42]

Blizzard should be working overtime to fix the truckload of bugs they introduced with the 1.9 patch rather than worrying about whether WoW will run on the new Macs. Who wants to play a game that's half broken?
</dork>

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the sound of me reaching a new personal low. I need to stop playing WoW.

Re:They should be fixing bugs so I can get my fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Might I suggest Guild Wars?
There's even a free preview sort of thing for the next chapter that's going to happen January 20th-22nd, and I personally prefer GW over WoW most days of the week.

"Free"?

[Hikaru79]

What is "for free" supposed to mean? They'll be giving MacIntel binaries out literally for free? Or does that just mean "if you already own it, we'll give you this version for your Mac for free"?

Re:"Free"?

[VGPowerlord]

When you buy World of Warcraft, you're essentially given a serial number that lets you create a single account.

Therefore, it's the "if you already own it, we'll give you this version for your Mac for free" type of free.

Re:"Free"?

[drmarcj]

At $15 a month to play online, it's anything but 'free'! It's never been clear to me why they don't give away every copy in the first place.

Re:"Free"?

[tourvil]

It's never been clear to me why they don't give away every copy in the first place.

Considering the fact that I've seen videos previewing WoW from 2001, I'd say the $50 price tag for the box is to recoup the 3+ years of development costs. The $15 per month is paying for server bandwidth and continued development on the game.

Re:"Free"?

[Babbster]

Considering the fact that I've seen videos previewing WoW from 2001, I'd say the $50 price tag for the box is to recoup the 3+ years of development costs. The $15 per month is paying for server bandwidth and continued development on the game.

Nowhere in there do you mention profit, something I'm sure is present in both the box and subscription prices. :)

Re:"Free"?

[tourvil]

No doubt :)

Re:"Free"?

[vux984]

It's never been clear to me why they don't give away every copy in the first place.

Lots of reasons:

1) They don't have to. With a million-plus people buying it, and lag/over crowding being one of their major challenges the last thing they needed is more players. The price on the box kept the influx of players at a (barely) containable rate.

You'll note that many of the older smaller mmorgs *do* now offer the game for free (at least the base game, possibly with some of the earlier expansions). Partly because the initial development has been paid for (at least in the case of more venerable titles like Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, Eve Online, Dark Ages of Camelot etc) and partly because they need to attract new blood to keep the game going.

2) To pay for development/ new development. Sure they probably *could* charge you 20/mo and give you free expansions instead of 15.00 month with a 20 dollar expansion 3 times a year... but expansion boxes look good on the shelves and attract press/reviewer attention while free downloadable expansions get almost no external hype so its a better marketing model to release for pay expansions.

3) Another side effect is that it helps keep out the riff raff. Scammers, spammers, and so forth are notorious for using the free-with-14-day-free-trial accounts to try their scam/hack/dupe/spam tricks with because if the account is banned they lost nothing.

Pure evil

[Anonymous Coward]

All I can say is damn you Apple and damn you Blizzard! I'm never going to get off this game!

Re:Pure evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you should consider starting a local chapter of WoWA. I think WoW addiction is widespread enough to warrant it having it's own 12 Step Fellowship.

Re:Pure evil

[Kredal]

The only 12 step program I'll do is the Onyxia key quest!

Re:No PPC or x86 Mac client

[Psykechan]

Yeah, feel free to suggest Guild Wars. I'm sure it's the best thing since sliced toast but until they have a Mac client, I can't play the game. I even inquired about it when it launched asking if I purchased the Windows version and if a Mac version came out, would I be entitled to download it. The result was a rather insulting form letter.

WoW is supported on Windows, PPC Mac, and now x86 Mac. Can you guess why WoW has a huge Mac following and GW does not?

I'll give you a moment to think about your answer.

Re:Waste Of Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Well,

I can state with confidence that this is not the case (re money changing hands for a PR stunt). Blizzard is supporting Intel Mac with WoW because our Mac players want it.

In fact, at the start of Macworld we had the Intel binary handy but no hardware to show it on, we had a G5 tower in the booth. After some discussions with Apple staff here and there, we were able to arrange the Intel demo over by the gaming area. It worked out very well and the vast majority of players that subsequently test drove it, were highly satisfied with the performance and stability shown on the new iMac.

We started working on WoW for Intel Mac at the time of the WWDC announcement in June 2005, in order to be prepared for the new hardware's inevitable arrival. The upcoming 1.9.3 patch will contain the first end user shipment of that work in the form of the new universal-binary executable.

G5 bashing again... who pays you?

[ppolitop]

One more ignorant article :(
Decent FSB - doh... and please don't confuse it with memory latency, which is improved btw in the latest g5s.
Speedier etc? I am tired of hearind those uninformed statemens. "Like real gaming on PC?" Doh doh doh!!!!!!!!!
I have been running wow at my dual g5 2.0ghz since its introduction and never had performance issues. Yes, I do own a gig of ram and a geForce 6800 ultra :)
All these people who state these new iMacs are soooooo much snappier etc never used a g5 one. And just happen to notice how snappy is a computer out of its case running virtually nothing but a demo. I am not impressed at all. Look closely at the pictures... 46fps? WTF? Try your pc or your 'older' (lol) g5 mac with the camera SO CLOSE to the character so as to avoid far distance drawing and see if it drops so low.... And settings set 'virtually to max'. lol again. That could mean anything - remember 'heavy' settings on wow are just two.
Yes Apple, you can fool pc guys with that 2x statements ******* (****** intel compiler on spec test - we all know what this compiler does-, multithreading on dual core, massively improved subsystems for intel, with --DONT_OPTIMISE :P flag for g5 and you get peak this difference)
You will not fool your previous high end users (not fanatics - users that chose willingly).
Because we can see the benefits from a superior architecture, we can see that the new MacBook pro (sic) is bulkier, lacks FW800, s-video, modem, DL 8x DVD player has half the battery life than a PB used to have...
Oh, and since I don't post often, I will take this opportunity to state something I always wanted to :
Macs of the current breed feel snappier that x86 pcs with windows. Not the opposite. You dont get slow window redrawings on macs having first the title bar and then the icons one by one, or panes half by half :P G4 laptops are MORE THAN decent. When you see slow game performance on macs, its 90% of the time a poor port of the 39849384938 x86 optimisations that existed in the original. G4 and of course G5 can actually outperform x86 chips in actual day-by-day operations. Yes, its true!!!!
Hail to the new intel DRM chips. Hail to the new pro-consumer apple. Hail to my new athlon-64 pc :)

the doc
P.S. Sorry for my English. I tried

Re:G5 bashing again... who pays you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Other than IBM having no interest in making a mobile 970 chip for Apple, IBM has been destroying Intel and AMD on price and performance. The quad G5 from Apple is so far ahead of anything even built from scratch with AMD or Intel chips.

I can't believe that technological lead Apple has is all going away.

"Hail to my new athlon-64 pc :)"

Exactly. No one but stupid, diehard Mac nuts are going to waste money on these new Intel systems.

Re:G5 bashing again... who pays you?

[sgant]

Other than IBM having no interest in making a mobile 970 chip for Apple, IBM has been destroying Intel and AMD on price and performance. The quad G5 from Apple is so far ahead of anything even built from scratch with AMD or Intel chips.

I can't believe that technological lead Apple has is all going away.

"Hail to my new athlon-64 pc :)"

Exactly. No one but stupid, diehard Mac nuts are going to waste money on these new Intel systems.

Yeah, the Quad G5 was not bad...but hardly a tech leader. They're kind of lagging behind. Take a look at Boxx Technologies which is a leader in high-end 3D and editing:

Apexx 4 Specs:
4 Dual AMD Opteron dual-core processors; Integrated DDR Memory Controller
Up to 64GB of DDR400 Memory
Dual PCI Express graphics; Supports two NVIDIA SLI-ready Quadro® cards
Windows Server 2003(64-bit); Red Hat or SUSE Linux SLES 9 pre loaded
Up to 15, 3.5", hot-swappable drives for up to 7.5TB total data storage

How much for a full beast? I have no idea! I bet it's quite a bit though.

But to be fair, this is a very high end workstation, so it's not fair to compare it to the Quad G5. As far as abandoning the G5, I think it's the best for Apple. It's a dead end for them....IBM is TOTALLY slow in dragging these things out.

Apple was being held hostage by IBM and their chips, and IBM didn't seem all that concerned. Switching to the x86 world, Apple has options now. If things do go sour between Intel and Apple, there is always AMD to pick up the pieces! There are many more choices now instead of being tied to only one company, IBM.

But hey, you were SO close to saying "Apple is doomed" or "Apple will finally die now" in your post...you just needed that extra little push to put you square into the stereotypical troll. Try harder next time!

Re:G5 bashing again... who pays you?

[sgant]

My god. Is this what has become of the Apple crowd? Braindead fucks like this clown?

So Steve told you to hates teh IBM, and now you hates teh IBM.

Well guess what punk? You're going to be getting the system retards of your magnitude deserve this year from Intel.

Actually, I don't own a Mac nor have I even touched one in almost 5 years, so I'm not part of the Apple crowd. Guess I'm just a normal braindead fuck. Also, I try to respond in a controlled manner and try not to let these things...computers...upset me so much. You obviously define yourself and others by what computer platform you run for some strange reason. Interesting.

But would you care to elaborate on how what I said was braindead? Back it up with actual facts instead of so much insane emotion on your part? Share with us something of substance instead of something like "G5 kicks ass man". Care to share with us what Apple will actually be coming out with to replace the current PowerMacs because you act like you already know. Also, why hide behind an anonymous coward post? If you really believe what you're typing, you would actually stand behind it and not care one iota what someone mods you.

Re:G5 bashing again... who pays you?

[Anonymous Coward]

The latency improvement on the new G5 memory controller is measurable, about 20 ns of difference from the old model. While this is a welcome improvement, it's still not as fast as the Intel chipset.

Still, note that in the iMac price/form factor category, Apple is still using the older 970FX, which is single processor and 512KB L2.

The new iMac has two processors and four times as much L2, and lower memory latency on top of that (plus it's DDR2-667 and not DDR2-533 like all the current G5 systems have).

If you compare old iMac G5 and new iMac Core Duo, it's really no contest. Skipping ahead two generations of GPU is icing on the cake.

Re:G5 bashing again... who pays you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and the G5 is not the shining achievement of computing. I am a mac sys admin at a university. I have to support a variety of macs including 10 G5 2.3 ghz machines and one older single processor G5 running 10.3. The G5 on 10.3 is quite stable but the newer ones are touchy. It could just be 10.4 though. As for speed, they seem faster than my home pc (dual xeon 2.0ghz), but not OH MY GOD faster. I like apple and I also like pcs. The switch upset me in the sense I really believe risc processors are quite nice, but the intel chips are getting faster all the time. If intel keeps innovating to keep up with AMD, we will have some real kick ass processors in the future. And for the record IBM SUCKS ASS. THey sold their pc division to CHINA. When I say that, I don't mean it offensively to chinese citizens, I mean THEY SOLD IT TO THE FUCKING CHINESE GOVERNMENT. I don't support companies being owned by a goverment too well. The actual government owns like 15 percent of the company. Thats bull shit. I think microsoft's lack of xbox 360s proves IBM can't ship parts to their customers for shit too. Apple was right in switching to a BIG, RELIABLE company. Big red can go fuck themselves.

Linux support?

[StonedRat]

So, if WoW runs on a unix system on an intel cpu, how much work would it be to get it running on linux?

Re:Linux support?

[lowmagnet]

Yes, because blizzard WANTS TO support all the distributions out there. I bet if there was only one Linux there would be WoW for it. It's not FUD to say that Linux is fractured among two main desktop environments, two major X11 implementations, and more distros than I can count. Mac OS X is supported because there is only one.

Re:Linux support?

[wed128]

Actually, that IS fud. Binaries in linux are pretty much universal, and libraries could be linked statically and/or provided locally to the game. All of this could be packaged in a loki installer a-la UT2004. it works, i've seen it.

Re:Linux support?

[netfunk]

Yes, because blizzard WANTS TO support all the distributions out there. I bet if there was only one Linux there would be WoW for it. It's not FUD to say that Linux is fractured among two main desktop environments, two major X11 implementations, and more distros than I can count. Mac OS X is supported because there is only one.

Oh, stop saying this. It didn't stop me from shipping Unreal Tournament 2004 without a single line of code that is Gnome, KDE, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Gentoo, or Suse (or whatever) specific. I figured (at least, I hoped) if there WERE issues in a given desktop or distro, the distro would make changes to support a popular game, but in practice, this never needed to happen. We used SDL (which is really the Gold Standard on Linux now, like DirectX would be on Windows), and OpenAL, which hid all sorts of other platform differences under the hood. Loki_setup handled installation across all distros for us, and we didn't worry about package managers.

UT2004 was probably my most popular endeavor, but there are lots of other games I've shipped with similar experiences.

People don't support Linux for a number of reasons, and while one of them is almost certainly the belief that Linux is terribly "fractured," in reality, it's not even remotely a problem...at least not in terms of shipping a game.

So stop spreading the belief.

--ryan.

Re:Linux support?

[jcr]

how much work would it be to get it running on linux?

How many copies will you buy?

When you're ready to cut a P.O. for two hundred thousand copies, I'm sure Blizzard would happy to take the order. Let us know when you do it.

-jcr

Re:No PPC or x86 Mac client

[Phantasmo]

Given the way the downloadable client works, I'd say you'd be perfectly entitled to use your account with the Mac version if it ever ships.
Unfortunately A.net went with DirectX for everything so porting it anywhere else would be a big job.

two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a very simple story here - Apple is now offering a noticeably higher price/performance ratio on two of its best selling products, which just happen to include a top notch application package, free dev tools, a history of being virus-bulletproof on the internet, and now, noticeably better performance on the top game of the year.

I don't think anyone expects the new iMac to compete with a custom built tricked out PC gaming rig. But anyone claiming that a 2GHz Core Duo plus ATI X1600 graphics isn't a snappy machine, probably needs to readjust their idea of what kind of machine most end users actually have.

I see one group of people claiming that these new machines are "just PC's in a pretty case" and a different group calling them "ultra proprietary". That's baffling.

GW more like D2 wrt "Massive"

[AHumbleOpinion]

Might I suggest Guild Wars?

Well maybe for those who are willing to drop "Massive" out of MMORG. You only have a large number of players around when you are in the chat / trade area. Once you and your small party go off to fight / adventure you get put into an instanced world all by yourself. It's much more like Diablo II. Lots of people when you are in Battle.net chat, only a handful are with you when in the game. Nothing wrong with this, GW is an awsome game, it is fun, but it's not quite a MMORG so comparisons to WoW are limited.

Waitaminute...

[thatguywhoiam]

... there's a Windows version of WoW?!?
huh. learn somethin' everyday.

Re:Waste Of Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Shame about PC gaming going into decline, considering Vista hasn't even shipped yet!

Intel based Mac changes nothing

[AHumbleOpinion]

So, if WoW runs on a unix system on an intel cpu, how much work would it be to get it running on linux?

The exact same amount as when Mac OS X only ran on PowerPC. The new Intel based Macs change nothing. The problem is that Mac OS X apps are not really written to a "unix api", they are written to Apple proprietary APIs, carbon or coacoa. Mac ports in general get you closer to Linux than Windows-only games, OpenGL is required and things like DirectPlay are avoided, but this is true whether the Mac target is PowerPC or Intel. I suppose if you have a PowerPC only game, no Windows version, then an Intel Mac port would get you closer. However when a Windows vesion already exists then the PowerPC/Intel CPU issues, byte ordering for example, have already been worked out.

Free Universal Binary replaces the ppc-only binary

[Vandil X]

When the universal binary is complete, it will download like a regular patch and replace the ppc-only binary currently found on all Mac WoW installs. It will be just like any other client patch that replaces the binary.

According to the WoW Mac Tech Support forum, you can install WoW for Intel-based Macs by two means:

1. Copying your PPC-only installation to the Intel-based Mac, running WoW (in Rosetta) and patching to the universal binary.
   
   
2. Install the game on your Intel-based Mac from your original discs (under Rosetta), patch to 1.9, then to the universal binary.

And as a bit of trivia, Blizzard's Mac team used to be a small Mac porting company. Clearly a solid investment by Blizzard.

The cover story you are attempting to sell ..

[IAmSceptical]

Let me see if I understand the cover story you are attempting to sell us:

1. Apple announces that they will switch all of their computer lines to Intel.
2. A company that has been porting it's games to Mac for over 10 years decided to start porting it's most popular game. A game which is also the most recent, the one to run most poorly under Rosetta emulation, and the one that collects a monthly fee from each player.

Yeah, right, did you really think you could sell the spin above to the sophisticated readers around here?

Re:The cover story you are attempting to sell ..

[kongjie]

its

Let them fix the servers first

[Big_Mamma]

I think that anyone that plays this game thinks the same at the moment... With the world servers overloaded all the times (it's already fragmented in 50+ small ones in europe), and recently even crashing every other day (EU-Neptulon, thu 2100, today at 1700 till now), Blizzard really need to start fixing stuff instead of dreaming about expansions and new features. I wonder if they are paying any attention, because today, it's one of the two continents that have crashed on my realm. About everyone and his dog has paged a gamemaster and the forum is full of it, but there was no reaction from Blizzard till 3 hours later - [SERVER] Restart in 15:00. I guess it's too much to give an ingame reply, or post it in the status page or forum...

Re:Let them fix the servers first

[Mikey-San]

there was no reaction from Blizzard till 3 hours later

God forbid you go outside and take a walk in the park or read something in a nice cafe somewhere for a few hours.

Re:Let them fix the servers first

[punkrokk]

Yea, no shit, we wouldn't wanna have to play WOW for only 22 hours a day. Why spend money porting it to Mac, when you can use all your money making bigger crazier instances (then you need better hardware), more levels, more guaranteed revenue, and more spyware to take over your already pretty bogged down smokin computer. (then you just HAVE to buy a new one so the gaming experience doesn't suffer)

Re:Let them fix the servers first

[Sunburnt]

"God forbid you go outside and take a walk in the park or read something in a nice cafe somewhere for a few hours."

What a delightful bit of snobbishness fuels this troll's post! I think this simpleton imagines every WoW subscriber hunched in front of a computer, waiting for Blizzard's technical staff to permit them to be entertained.

Most folks, the employed-adult majority of WoW players included, have a limited amount of time with which to entertain themselves. When this time presents itself, they form an idea of how they would like to be entertained: "I will chill in the park for an hour," "I will go read in a cafe for an hour," "I will play WoW for an hour." People can generally find a different outlet for entertainment if their plans are foiled, but are rarely amused by frustrated intentions.

When one's outdoor-chilling objectives are foiled by torrential rains, there is no recourse to the weather. When one's cafe-reading objectives are foiled by an unexpectedly closed establishment, there is little recourse other than not spending money in that place, at least at that time.

OTOH, WoW is an on-demand subscription service, similar in essence to HBO - a constant fee is paid to ensure 24-hour accessibility. Let's say that a user has set aside five hours of free time on a weekend to play WoW, but due to a technical issue they are denied service for three hours of this time. Certainly, one hopes that the user in question can entertain themselves during this time. The point remains that they are being denied a service for which payment has already been rendered, which provides one with a valid complaint to the provider of the service. For a company that does business online with as many paying customers as Blizzard, a 3-hour response time to these complaints is absurd.

Of course, Mikey-chan is not interested in discussing issues with online services. The only intention of his post appears to be expressing contempt for other /.-ers' hobbies and contrasting what I assume are his own superior forms of entertainment, although I must wonder what great authors amuse one with such a narrow and supercilious view of others. Tolstoy? Sartre? Ann Coulter?

Hopefully the above post is rated "Troll" with haste.

Re:Let them fix the servers first

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, Mikey-chan is not interested in discussing issues with online services. The only intention of his post appears to be expressing contempt for other /.-ers' hobbies and contrasting what I assume are his own superior forms of entertainment, although I must wonder what great authors amuse one with such a narrow and supercilious view of others. Tolstoy? Sartre? Ann Coulter?

Mikey-chan doesn't spend his time doing anything so pedestrian as reading. No, no. He simply gets a couple of twenties and heads down to the local adult bookshop. There he can amuse himself with all sorts of interesting photos and videos and then get a bunch of tokens and spend the rest of his entertainment time sticking his finger through a hole in the wall of the video booths.

Re:Let them fix the servers first

[Big_Mamma]

Doh. It's a *multiplayer* game, and people make appointments to get 40 friends together to do the challeging parts of the game. And generally, it's planned on Sat / Sunday, because people don't have to work.

After the little crash, most of us went away for food, shopping etc, be back at 21:00 and hope that someone noticed that the server needed a little restart. It's a good thing you have voice comm instead of only the ingame chat.

NSFW?

[/dev/trash]

Pop a cherry? Sexist pig.

Re:No PPC or x86 Mac client

[GoofyBoy]

>WoW is supported on Windows, PPC Mac, and now x86 Mac. Can you guess why WoW has a huge Mac following and GW does not?

And you expect any other conclusion?

Thats like saying "Game X is available on the PS2 but Game Y is not. Guess why Game X is more popular on the PS2 than Game Y." Duh.

Re:Waste Of Time

[Zibara]

I have to admit that I was impressed with the performance on the G5 there and the fact that the binary was completed so fast. The iMac must have been amazing. And this IS big news, given that World of Warcraft has taken the gaming world by storm.

Re:Waste Of Time

[AHumbleOpinion]

Shame about PC gaming going into decline, considering Vista hasn't even shipped yet!

Blizzard before WoW: Zero Monthly PC/Mac Subscribers.
Blizzard after WoW: Five Million Monthly PC/Mac Subscribers.

Do you think the above is more or less relevant to Blizzard's decision making than some general industry statistic, assuming of course you are quoting the statistic correctly and that it was correct in the first place.

Re:No PPC or x86 Mac client

[Raistlin77]

best thing since sliced toast

Maybe, but is it better than sliced bread?

What Does Blizzard Have Against Linux?

[nukem996]

I really not see a reason why Blizzard cannt/wont port games like WoW and WC3 to Linux. If anything is programmed right it will work fine on Linux, Mac, and Windows without much change in the code. This new version for Mac should work fine on Linux, they probably just need to recompile it.

Re:What Does Blizzard Have Against Linux?

[jcr]

I really not see a reason why Blizzard cannt/wont port games like WoW and WC3 to Linux.

No money in it.

Next question?

-jcr

Re:What Does Blizzard Have Against Linux?

[BenjyD]

While I imagine their codebase is reasonably portable, it is still going to be a lot more than just a recompile to get a game to Linux. All the system level stuff (input, sound etc) would have to be redone, probably using SDL. Then they have to test, develop an installer, distribute etc.
Given that cost, the size of the intersection of Linux users who want to play WoW, have a fast enough computer, have a supported 3D card and can get the drivers installed, don't already have a Windows/Mac install and would be prepared to pay for it is probably far too small for Blizzard to bother.

Re:What Does Blizzard Have Against Linux?

[Kadin2048]

Mod parent up.

the size of the intersection of Linux users who want to play WoW, have a fast enough computer, have a supported 3D card and can get the drivers installed, don't already have a Windows/Mac install and would be prepared to pay for it

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the best summary of the reason why you don't see a Linux version.

Many -- if not most -- Mac users don't have a PC. Therefore if there's no Mac version, they don't play or buy the game. However a lot of Linux users either dual-boot or own a second computer that has either MacOS or Windows. So the number of users that you would actually get to buy the game, who absolutely wouldn't buy it without a Linux version, is quite small.

WoW on a Mac

[Macgrrl]

The issues I've seen with WoW on a Mac were more to do with the video codec not coping in high end instances (imps in MC, Razorgore, Vael, etc...) where there were too many items to render. I'm not sure how the intel processor is going to address the OpenGL problems.

Of course, Proudmoore would need to stay live for more than an hour at a time for this to be important at the moment...

No Support = Something Against, why?

[AHumbleOpinion]

I really not see a reason why Blizzard cannt/wont port games like WoW and WC3 to Linux.

Why do you think Blizzard has something against Linux? It may simply be a sound business decision. Even id has said that supporting Linux clients do not make business sense, they just do it because they think it is cool [old Game Developer Magazine interview].

It is really that Linux gamers offer Blizzard very little. Linux gamers generally dual boot or emulate, so they are already customers. Offering a Linux version would generally not produce a new sale, it would replace a Windows sale with a Linux sale, there is no new money to pay for development and QA costs.

If anything is programmed right it will work fine on Linux, Mac, and Windows without much change in the code. This new version for Mac should work fine on Linux, they probably just need to recompile it.

Things are far more complicated than you suggest. For now I'll just say that Mac OS X apps are not written to some "unix api", they are written to Apple proprietary APIs, carbon or coacoa. Mac ports in general get you closer to Linux than Windows-only games, OpenGL is required and things like DirectPlay networking are avoided, but this is true whether the Mac target is PowerPC or Intel. The new Intel Macs have not changed anything.

Re:No Support = Something Against, why?

[nukem996]

For awhile I did some graphics programming in OpenGL with GLUT and SDL. I did all my development on Linux but I was about to sit down at a windows machine open up MS C++ 6.0 and compile it with no problem. The only reason why I brought up the Intel Mac is because some games use asm in their code. It is really that Linux gamers offer Blizzard very little. Linux gamers generally dual boot or emulate, so they are already customers. Offering a Linux version would generally not produce a new sale, it would replace a Windows sale with a Linux sale, there is no new money to pay for development and QA costs. Isnt that the same for the new Intel Macs? I thought all Intel Macs could run PPC apps fine(via emulation). Someone will soon port wine to Intel Mac, I woudlnt be surprised if transgaming releases cedega for Intel Mac, they could use that. Also apple has said that they are doing nothing to prevent Windows from being run on their machines so once M$ makes Windows XP work with the Macs(and im pretty sure they will quite soon) why not just tell the new Intel Mac users to dual boot with Windows?

Re:No Support = Something Against, why?

[AHumbleOpinion]

For awhile I did some graphics programming in OpenGL with GLUT and SDL

But that often leads to a least common denominator approach. It probably is best for major titles to go with best of breed APIs on their repsective targets and to use platform specific features that enhance the user experience.

"Linux gamers generally dual boot or emulate, so they are already customers. Offering a Linux version would generally not produce a new sale, it would replace a Windows sale with a Linux sale, there is no new money to pay for development and QA costs."

Isnt that the same for the new Intel Macs? I thought all Intel Macs could run PPC apps fine(via emulation).

Technically they will run but they will be unplayable. When emulating under Windows you are only emulating the system APIs and not the CPU instructions. With Rosetta the Pentium has to emulate PowerPC CPU instructions.

Someone will soon port wine to Intel Mac, I woudlnt be surprised if transgaming releases cedega for Intel Mac, they could use that. Also apple has said that they are doing nothing to prevent Windows from being run on their machines so once M$ makes Windows XP work with the Macs(and im pretty sure they will quite soon) why not just tell the new Intel Mac users to dual boot with Windows?

Wine may very well turn out to be a disincentive to porting someday. What may save Mac gamers, compared to Linux gamers, is that Mac gamers have a proven track record of spending money. The lower testing costs might help too, Linux's multiple distributions and much wider hardware support makes it more expensive to test. More configuration permutations. But in general I agree that Wine is a long term threat, deja vu OS/2 2.x.

Telling Mac gamers to dual boot is not practical. Linux is different in that Linux gamers already have a history of dual booting and they already tend to have a copy of Windows, Mac gamers have a history of buying native versions of games and not already owning Windows. Yes, it is a chicken-and-egg like problem, but that is Linux's problem not a game developer's problem. Game developer's just go with what is, unless they are also Linux advocates like id.

Re:No Support = Something Against, why?

[Kadin2048]

Mac gamers have a proven track record of spending money

This, I think, is not brought up enough. Mac users have a long track record (I remember reading an article in MacWorld or MacUser, back during some of the really bad years, that quantified it) of being ready to plunk down money for just about anything. It's no surprise -- until the Mac Mini, every Mac user had paid close to a thousand dollars for their computer by itself, and probably more for accessories: they're used to spending money on stuff.

Mac users don't balk when they walk into CompUSA and see that their version of a game is $20 more than a PC version, they're just glad it exists.

Although you don't hear it too much on Slashdot, there at least a few Linux users out there who basically refuse to pay for software. Their attitude is "if I wanted to pay for software, I'd be running Windows." Even though that may only represent a very, very small minority of Linux users, it's very representative of software developers' opinion of Linux users. The failure of Loki and the admission of ID Games that their Linux division doesn't turn a profit just substantiate the idea that there's no money to be made marketing commercial software to the Linux-using home market.

To bring back the oft-abused car analogy for another round, it's as if you were making car stereos, and you had a choice whether to make a version for expensive, upscale cars mostly owned by people with cash to burn, or kit-built cars built from scrap favored by technical people and hobbyists. It's a no-brainer, you go where the money is, and the Macintosh market has a proven history of being profitable, if you can deliver a good product to it. Linux is still perceived as a gamble, and one at which nobody has currently been successful.

"awfully smooth"

[mnemonic_]

"awfully smooth." Does that mean it was running "badly well"? Try to learn the meanings of words before using them.

Re:"awfully smooth"

[jcr]

If you're going to be pedantic, it really helps to be correct:

awfully adverb

  1 [as submodifier ] (used esp. in spoken English) very : I'm awfully sorry to bother you so late | an awfully nice man.
  2 very badly or unpleasantly : we played awfully.

Note the first definition, you pompous little git.

-jcr

Re:"awfully smooth"

[vague disclaimer]

Plus, awful was originally synonymous with awe-inspiring.

RETRIEVING CHARACTER LIST...

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally, more players will be able to cram themselves into the few milimeters of empty space left on the WoW servers.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Easier to get? I think not.

[Kadin2048]

It is even much easier to get a Linux PC, than an Intel Mac.

Erm, no. It's cheaper to get a Linux PC, certainly, but I don't know about easier. I can walk down to my choice of CompUSA or the nearest large shopping mall with an Apple store, plunk down my American Express, and walk away with an iMac under my arm. And I can plug that sucker into the wall and into my router and be online, playing WoW, today, with basically zero effort.

You can't do that with Linux, at least not right now. You can get a preinstalled Linux machine mail-order, if you know where to order it from (I would suggest that most people probably do not, while pretty much anybody could point you towards a place to buy a Mac), but Linux machines aren't very accessible to most people.

I say this as a person who plays WoW using Cedega on a x86 Linux box -- mostly because it was cheaper for me to get a PC and load Linux and Cedega on it, than it was to either upgrade my Mac's processor and video card or buy a new Mac. The biggest advantage Linux has is that it's cheap, both in terms of licensing costs and that it runs on commodity hardware. They're not something that you just walk down to your local mall and buy, though. And it's still more intimidating to use than a Mac.

Linux has a long way to go before it can realistically be said to be "easier to get" than a Mac.