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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."
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.
[citation needed]
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Now they just need to confirm it for Windows! (And actually, you know, complete and ship the game...)
Regards, John Hancock.
With OS X's Unix status, Linux ports are certainly feasible.
Uh, what? Why does Apple have to allow this? Transgaming markets Cedega, formerly WineX, a fork of WINE. Apple don't 'allow' them to do anything, they ported their codebase from using X11+OpenGL to use Quartz+OpenGL.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Virtualization works fine for basic stuff but games don't perform well in it. And boot camp is nice but avoiding a reboot is not exactly pointless in my opinion.
No.
Virtualization limits speed. Last I checked, virtualization didn't give you access to the GPU. The guest OS recognizes a driver provided by the environment with limited capabilities. It's fine for web browsing and cross platform testing, but in now way would let you do any kind of gaming. The corollary to this is that TransGaming/Cider is actually virtualization as well. But in this case, it's specialized to the graphical calls and is designed to be fast and efficient for this one task, though never as efficient as something compiled to run natively.
As for Boot Camp, if I wanted to buy a computer and buy a copy of Windows to run on it, I wouldn't have bought a Mac...
No. Native is always better. Virtualization works for easier software, but graphics intensive work is really slow because that stuff has to be translated to the native APIs. CPU bound tasks run fine. Quicken will run fine. Maya would run at almost native speed (during final rendering, probably not normal work). Half-Life will drop tons and tons and tons and tons of frames. Don't forget you lose quite a bit of memory to the vitualization environment and guest OS.
At this point Virtualization is pointless for anything more complex than Zuma or other little PopCap type games.
BootCamp works. I use it to play Half-Life 2. But I have to quit everything I'm doing and reboot. That takes time. It takes all sorts of extra hard drive space for the Windows install (just like virtualization).
It works. It's a pain. Don't expect anyone to rely on it. That's like saying "Your bike works for your 50 mile commute to work, doesn't it?"
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
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.
Possibly, but I doubt the Mac port is using X11 for the display, so a port to Linux probably wouldn't be as easy as you think.
I read the internet for the articles.
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.
If you wanted to play games you wouldn't have bought a Mac.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The corollary to this is that TransGaming/Cider is actually virtualization as well.
No. Cider is an implementation of the Win32 API, just like Wine.
From the Cider page:
Cider works by directly loading a Windows program into memory on an Intel-Mac and linking it to an optimized version of the Win32 APIs. Games are "wrapped" with the Cider engine and they simply run on the Mac.
Cider is no more virtualization than GTK or Mesa are "virtualization".
You are still innocent until proven guilty. What's changed is what they do to innocent people. - notnAP, #26891325
You used to be correct, but that's thankfully changing. Parallels 3.0 now uses DirectX from WINE and a special driver for Windows to deliver 3D acceleration for Windows applications running on OS X. In my experience, I'd have to describe the result as "somewhat buggy, but overall impressive." You can see some videos if you're curious how well it actually works. VMware is rumored to be working on similar technology.
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.
I'm assuming that's a joke...
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
You obviously haven't checked recently. Both Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion support 3D acceleration, and games (like half-life 2, doom, civ4, WoW (only ones I can attest to, only ones I've played in parallels)) work just fine, at near native speeds.
Frag 'em all...
It sure is....
And, if you really still don't get it, click here.
Misery loves company. Online misery loves unsuspecting random strangers.
Apparently CoD4 works pretty well already. I tried searching for spore and wine, but I just got a bunch of hits about yeast.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The guest OS recognizes a driver provided by the environment with limited capabilities. It's fine for web browsing and cross platform testing, but in now way would let you do any kind of gaming.
Hey now, there is one kind of gaming that works great under virtualization.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
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.
You won't find much information about running Spore with Wine because Spore isn't out yet!
Of course nobody's run spore on WINE yet. Spore isn't out yet.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
You skipped the next sentence:
TransGaming's Cider implements common multimedia Windows APIs such as Direct3D, DirectInput, DirectSound and many others by mapping them to Mac equivalents.
It's virtualization at the API level, rather than the hardware level. I don't know if that was the grandparent poster's meaning, but I'd say it's a fair use of the term. The Mac's native OpenGL drivers are "virtualized" into DirectX drivers through the injection of an additional layer of abstraction that the original game doesn't realize is there. Just like virtualization software places an additional layer of abstraction between the OS and the real hardware that the OS doesn't realize is there, as a means of making it play nice with others.
You can argue over the definition, but the concept behind Cider is quite analogous to virtualization in the general sense.
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
That's only half-true. Or, rather, the grandparent post is only half-untrue.
Neither Parallels nor Fusion support 3D acceleration to the hardware's full level of capability (i.e., DirectX 9 with shaders, which is what most recent games require). They don't give the virtualized system real access to the GPU -- instead, afaik, they're providing their own still-limited drivers within the virtualized OS that feed the calls back through OS X.
The games you list only work because they're old or designed to be compatible with older computers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_VMware_Fusion_and_Parallels_Desktop
Parallels only supports up to DirectX 8, and the latest beta of Fusion has experimental DirectX 9 support but no support for shaders. Both programs are definitely progressing but there's still a significant tax to be paid in image quality, speed, and compatibility.
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.
As for Boot Camp, if I wanted to buy a computer and buy a copy of Windows to run on it, I wouldn't have bought a Mac...
Why not? PCWorld (http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136649-page,3-c,notebooks/article.html) recommended a MacBook Pro running Boot Camp as the best Windows PC of 2006/7...
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.
Wouldn't the OSX port be using openGL?
I think changing renderers, input, sound, and network play away from directX would be the big chunk of work.
I'd bet doing an OSX port would a huge step towards making a Linux port.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
Nevermind, its just another hackjob contract by transgaming.
Spore and COD4 would have done much better by paying icculus instead for real ports.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
X11 has almost nothing to do with managing the display for video games in Linux, just like Windows API has almost nothing to do with managing the display for video games in Windows. Aside from an extremely limited amount of basic window setup code (we're talking an amount of code on the order of hundreds of lines--almost nothing in projects of this scale), all video functions are handled by DirectX or OpenGL. Not to mention the fact that there are plenty of open libraries (SDL for example) that remove the need for even that little amount of platform specific code. I'm only a hobbyist game developer, but that's my experience with it all.
Property is theft.
The iMac is $1199. For that price you could get a good gaming computer with a Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM and a 8800GT, and additionally buy a suite with video editing programs to get the software that comes standard with a Mac. Comparing a $1200 computer with a "cheap" PC is not a fair comparison.
so if I have a mac and a wii which version should I get?
I think you have Wine/Cedega/Cider confused with emulators. Which is sad because Wine's name was designed to prevent this confusion
Wine Is Not an Emulator.
Wine is a native implementation of w32 libraries. That is why you don't need a MS Windows license. The wrote their own API that behaves just as the w32 one does.
Wine still has problems but their is no guest OS as you have stated.
That may be true, but what are the chances they're going to use SDL instead of a Quartz Extreme based solution. AFAIK there is no Quartz Extreme renderer for Linux yet.
I read the internet for the articles.
It has nothing to do with the computer. It's the OS.
Microsoft has put a lot of love into DirectX, and because of that, gaming companies focus on Windows. Apple's done an OK job with OpenGL -- not great, but not bad. But what Apple hasn't done is provide a rich toolkit for everything else. For example, apple's HID support, while excellent, is almost impossible to program for ( I say this with experience ).
I bought my mac to get work done, and my PS2 to play games. I can and do play games on my mac, but frankly, the experience on the PS2 is better, even if the graphics are worse than what my MBP could do.
Now, as regards the lack of directx on the mac, technically toolkits like Ogre3D would fit the bill for cross platform gaming. Ogre uses DirectX on windows, and OpenGL on mac & linux. Ogre3D supports USB HID on all platforms, and has networking/physics bindings ( to Newton, ODE, and probably others ) as well as a thorough maths toolkit and so on and so forth. I don't seriously expect big companies to use Ogre3D, but frankly, a small company could use Ogre and have cross platform games more or less for "free".
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
Well, sort of... but mostly I just thought he was lying so I challenged him to prove his statement.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
If your coworker really spent a thousand dollars on video cards, he is a moron. You can get a good gaming rig that will run anything except the very latest games at highest settings for less than $500 (less if you buy a $300 Dell and drop in a 7900GT). If you want to run everything at max settings, yes, you'll have to spend a thousand dollars, but compare that to consoles, where you must buy the console itself and a HDTV to go with it. IMHO, PC gaming is much, much less expensive than owning a 360.
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
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...
I was talking about Doti's post...lol
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=420596&cid=22070542
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."