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Claims of Apple Games Just PR Fluff?
GameSetWatch is running an editorial written by Alex Handy, the former editor of Game Developer magazine and a well respected figure in the games journalism business. Today he's discussing the recent show of support from EA and id Software for the Apple platform, essentially saying that he doesn't think much of it because it's all been said before. "We've been here before. I've been here before. Waaaaaaaay back in 1999, id was right there at MacWorld, with Carmack talking about how rad the OS was, and demanding that a multi-button mouse arrive. And this was Mac OS 9! People applauded. Those, like myself, who covered the Macintosh gaming world for a living saw a bright future ahead. EA wasn't there, but Activision was, and Aspyr was bringing Madden to the Mac anyway. MacSoft was bringing Unreal Tournament over, and StarCraft was still on the Mac, and still kicking ass. And then, nothing happened. There was a little while there when Mac game companies were expanding, and the best PC to Mac game porting house, Westlake Interactive, was barely able to keep up with all the demand for its services ... By 2001, the brief flash that was the Mac game boom was gone."
As has been said ad nauseam on various forums, you don't need a $5000 computer to play games! I play UT, RtCW, and Flight Sim X on my MacBook Pro just fine. An ATI X1600 is perfectly sufficient to play games. Only the most hardcore of hardcore care about video cards higher end. Yes, the GeForce 8800 Ultra and Radeon HD 2900 are the models that make all the review sites (okay, really just the 8800 Ultra,) but in reality, those will sell less than 5% of each manufacturer's total sales. The mere fact that INTEL sells more graphics chips than ATI and nVidia combined should tell you that the vast majority of computers DON'T have the latest greatest chip. And game developers know this. Most games are written to be at least playable even on Intel integrated graphics. The few games that really 'need' high-end graphics have equivalently small target markets. Just like Toyota. They make a $100,000 car, but they don't expect it to be their highest-selling car by a longshot. They expect their second-cheapest car to be the biggest seller. And so, yes, there are accessories for the high end car, but there are far more for the low-middle end cars.
(A better car example would probably be the Honda Civic vs. the Honda S2000. Yes, you can buy 'tuner' kits for the S2K, but there are far more tuner kits for the Civic.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
ATI 1900 on mine. Except that it gets freaky hot and crashes the computer if you try to push 3D with it, unless you use a third party application to spin the front fan up. A lot of people on the forums have the same problem. Eventually I'll put a third party cooling rig on it but you'd think that dropping 5 grand on a computer that you wouldn't have to do that...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's funny that you use your Windows PC for fun and your Mac for work, because that is the exact opposite of how the Mac is marketed by Apple.