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Spore, Call of Duty 4 Confirmed for OSX
1up is reporting that, along with the big announcements from yesterday's MacWorld event, the welcome news trickles down that OSX will be getting some more games. The much-delayed Spore has been confirmed for the platform, as has the hit FPS title Call of Duty 4. "In Spore's case, the magic of cross-platform portability is achieved through the use of a special software layer supplied by Toronto-based TransGaming Technologies. This software is capable of interpreting hardware calls to Windows DirectX into Mac-capable instructions. Through use of this technology, Electronic Arts (and others) seem hopeful about bringing even more games to mac in the coming months."
So, if transgaming is making this possible, will linux ports be far away?
Maybe they'll port Spore and Duke Nukem Forever to the Phantom while they're at it.
I was wondering why Spore was so delayed. I can now blame it on Mac porting. Now all they need is a smug commercial with the Mac guy showing off his abilities to delay games on Windows! (I am just joking, don't hurt me)
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Or they could, you know, use some cross-platform APIs like OpenGL and SDL and stop mucking around with half-assed solutions like Transgaming's.
Is that so hard?
So is this like using Wine to run Windows Games on Linux?
Wake me up when a game company actually compiles something for a non windows platform besides a dedicated server.
This "technology" provided by TransGaming is called "Cider". It's already been used to "port" some games to OS X. One such EA Game that I've already purchased was Battlefield 2142. And let me tell you, Cider leaves much to be desired. The poor performance imparted by this emulation layer causes it to play like it's on an old Pentium III machine, despite the fact that it's running on a quad-core Mac Pro. To top it off, the graphics quality, even when turned up all the way, is far lower than it should be. It seems as if the Cider emulation layer can't translate all of the DirectX APIs, so it only does some of the more basic ones, leaving advanced graphics effects out.
This is not what I would like to see as the future of gaming on OS X. I want to see *real* ports of games, not some bullshit emulation layer that makes the game think it is running on Windblows.
Despite what EULAs say, most software is sold, not licensed.
Years ago, Doom was announced for the Mac. Mac faithful write breathless posts on the Net proclaiming that the tide is turning and game developers were obviously finally 'waking up' and about to start supporting their niche platform.
Years ago, Duke Nukem was announced for the Mac. Mac faithful write breathless posts on the Net proclaiming that the tide is turning and game developers were obviously finally 'waking up' and about to start supporting their niche platform.
And so on, and so on, and so on...
So pathetic.
Call Of Duty 4: Spore Wars
Some sort of biowar sim, I would guess.
Now they just need to confirm it for Windows! (And actually, you know, complete and ship the game...)
Regards, John Hancock.
Doesn't Boot Camp and/or Virtualization make porting kind of pointless?
And here I was, thinking that EA had written these games using OpenGL and OpenAL, thus allowing them to easily port the games over to growing platforms. Then I saw mentions of Transgaming, and all hopes were dashed.
You have a point - although I'm sure an exception can be made for games. Not as if you're going to be wanting to check your email or run other apps as you frag away.
Wasn't Spore only delayed once?
Technoli
What's next? Apple's already established a cut-out between programmers and OpenGL with Core Graphics and related technologies. Are they going to dump OpenGL next?
Don't say it can't happen... they just shipped the first Mac without Firewire.
First of all I'll say I like Windows - I use windows. I've tried the alternatives and I'm sticking with it.
OK, for those still reading I'll qualify that - I use it, but it does stifle the alternatives (and the same could be said to a lesser extent about OSX).
Secondly, when you run an OS it takes an overhead and that overhead is getting bigger every day. If you look at the original Xbox and compare with a PC with equivalent spec (they're all the same parts) it's an awful lot faster.
With most apps you want an OS to hold stuff together. I don't want to have to close Final Cut and wait a minute to check my email etc. Games are the exception to this - it's full screen and you don't want anything running in the background and you're not going to play for 30 seconds.
My proposal is a very very lightweight linux (or whatever, windows if MS would let it) OS that you could bundle with the game and would sit in it's own partition. User wouldn't even be aware it was there. They'd just know that when they started it on their OS of preference their machine would reboot. Once they quit out of the game, it'd boot them back into their OS of choice.
Now that's the 'I'm not sure if people would like it bit' - but on the flip side when they started their PC, they'd get the 'game OS' option popping up and could be playing faster than if they had to load Vista or OSX and would run faster with the lower overhead.
Reading through what I'm typing, it would seem I'm suggesting that Linux made their own 'console system' that runs on commodity hardware - and I think that's what I mean
Reading back through that again, I realize that I'm off on a tangent of improbability, but it's a nice idea. If you wanted to pull it back into reality, then think where money could be made. I run Steam on my PC and buy games through it. I prefer the whole idea over tracking into town, picking up an overpriced DVD and dealing with patches from each game maker. Lightweight OS that'd just run my screen, sound, network and input devices would be nice. It it updated drivers for my hardware and patched the games that'd be dandy. I'd then cough up for the games that ran on this new system.
Game makers could sell one version of their games to anybody with an x86 system. Users would get better performance from their hardware. OSS people would be chuffed at breaking MS monopoly.
Anyway, just ideas..
I wonder what the performance and graphical quality losses will be, as well as what kinds of quirks may result.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
Eve Online was ported this way and allowed for both Mac and Linux clients.
See: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/14269
We need a good mac desktop for gameing to be a big thing on mac osx.
a $2300 system with a 2600xt is not cutting it.
you can add a 8800 gt for $200 more but $2500 for a 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon system with 2gb of 800MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM and only a 8800 gt and only a 320GB hd.
looks real bad to next to other gameing system at that price that have a desktop cpu 4gb of ram, raid, XFI sound card, and SLI and there good gameing systems that you can get for $1500 - $2000 with better video cards, faster cpus, more ram, more hdd space, good sounds cards and more.
The mini has a carp video for gameing.
the imacs have a video card is slower at gameing then the older one where.
The rest of the imac hardware is ok it just needs a better video card.
also a $7000 - $1500 desktop with good video card is needed.
Oh yeah...
Yay, beacuse MAC games weren't slow enough already. If it was OPENGL then this wouldn't even be an issue.
I suppose they'll add a "metrosexual gene" for the Mac version. iSpore: breed with style.
I was about to say 13256278887989457651018865901401704640, but it appears this number is private property.
On the one hand, I am really looking forward to Spore on OS X.
But transgaming? I am not feeling good about that. This isn't a proper port, it will very likely not take advantage of any OS X features, for example. I loved the Loki Linux ports because they did - Civ:CTP on Linux had different profiles and savegames for each user, by storing them in the user's home directory. The windos version didn't.
On OS X, one of the things that's great is how integrated everything is - calender and TODO apps all use the same backend storage so you can access the same data with them all, you aren't tied into a specific program, you can change to another program without losing your data, without even converting or ex-/importing it. There are a number of integrations that Spore could make use of, but if it's not a proper port, then none of that will happen.
EA, if you are listening, please tell us that this is only a stepping stone and that you do plan to properly (sup)port games to OS X in the future.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
If you're going to do a fair comparison, consider only the Mac Pro system. The Mac Mini and iMac are obviously geared toward a different market. Just like most PC makers have an ultra-high end model for gaming and 3D processing.
On the Mac Pro, there is nothing stopping you from installing any PCI-X graphics adaptor that has Mac OS X drivers. Apple sells hardware that fits the average user's needs for the hardware. Most people are using Apple computers for creative work that doesn't require just-in-time 3D graphics.
I can promise you, a well written game will run on lessor hardware on a Mac than in Windows. In particular in Vista, because the OS consumes so much memory, x64 sucks, and the OS uses the GPU for basic stuff.
I think the video card thing is a cop-out. If developers wrote more solid code, they could drop the minimum specifications on what kind of hardware is required. Look at consoles, they run, generally speaking on inferior hardware in particular less RAM and slower CPUs, and provide a very solid user experience. The reason is the code is far more optimized for the hardware, which you'll only be able to truly achieve on platform with known, or reasonably expected hardware. Also consider that the operating systems in consoles are very tuned, something that any UNIX variant like OS X will be able to actually accomplish better than Windows. Linux/UNIX kernels can be compiled for the specific hardware being addressed. Mac OS X is developed internal to the hardware developer, and can be optimized to run on the exact hardware it is designed for. I would think the Mac (if it had greater marketshare) would be a game developer's wet-dream because it is the practically only platform today where you have this combination of predictability, OS taylored to the hardware, and robust OpenGL support, and not get effed when Microsoft decides to freeze DirectX on legacy OSes (Windows XP) to force an upgrade. Microsoft even effed their Windows Vista/DX10 certified hardware customers by making 10.1 non-backward compatible.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
What is the point of installing any PCI-e graphics card when the system costs $2300 to start and there is lack video cards with drivers for mac os / ones with EFI roms in them.
The point is there have NO good $600 - $1000 desktop the mini at $600 to $800 is very over priced for it's hardware and gma 950 sucks at games + only coming 1gb of ram and slow laptop hd makes for a very poor gameing system. also they have no $1000 - $2000 desktop as well. The Imacs do not fit in with what a alot of games want in a desktop system and there weak video cards do not help.
so if I have a mac and a wii which version should I get?
Spore is not vaporware, I observed people playing it at Macworld yesterday. On a Mac. Then I went home and played Crysis on my PC. I shot everything on the screen that looked like a Spore and then died when I ran out of ammo. Dang Spores...