Steam Prompts OS X Graphics Update

Stoobalou writes "Mac gamers got a massive boost when online gaming hub Steam started supporting the platform a few months ago. The arrival of the online service, which allowed Mac-toting gamers to play some of the same games as their PC brethren, in some cases cross-platform, created a great deal of debate between the two camps, with the PC crowd pillorying Mac fans for the relatively poor performance of their expensive hardware. Now it seems that Apple has gotten the message, as they have provided a graphics update for OS X Snow Leopard which will make progress toward closing the gap between the two platforms."

Comments

Valve...

[epiphani]

Valve, if you're listening...

Please, please, please do steam and your games on linux. You've already made them POSIX and OpenGL, you're 85% of the way there.

I will buy every damn game you release on linux. I never want to run windows again, and if I can get portal and TF2 on linux, I won't.

Re:Valve...

[not already in use]

You've already made them POSIX and OpenGL, you're 85% of the way there.

More like 10%.

This is the problem with Linux: What company in their right mind would port to the platform that is both hardest to develop for and has the smallest user base? xorg, driver issues, distro inconsistencies all make porting games to linux an absolute nightmare. A lot of fundamental changes need to be made to desktop linux before it will really be taken seriously by anyone but Id. John Carmack even came out and said that Rage wouldn't be commercially supported on Linux, and that they'd provide an executable and let people fend for themselves as far as actually getting it to run.

Re:Valve...

[BitZtream]

Yes, adding another distro is a great idea ... if you want to run games from Value you have to use their distro. If you want to run EA games you have to use their distro.

Contrary to the common but ignorant belief that more Linux distro's is a good thing, they aren't. Linux's main problem to commercial adaptation is the number of distros and the problems dealing with inconsistancies between them (did you even read the post you're responding too?) ... adding more distros doesn't help the problem when the problem is already 'too many distros'.

And for what? A few thousand sales at the very most? When instead they can dedicate that same person to Windows and get 100,000 sales from their work?

Don't expect Value to start asking for your resume, you've already show you have absolutely no idea why they haven't done it already.

DLL Hell on Linux is actually far worse than DLL hell on Windows, package management tools or not, its not a problem they can solve, again, contrary to popular belief. If you think package management tools can solve the problem then you clearly don't understand the problem.

I don't know if they write the drivers

[Sycraft-fu]

That would be rather complex, but their certainly control the drivers. They dictate what they do, what can be released, and so on. Net effect is the same.

However it is a larger problem than that, OS-X also doesn't have a very fast 3D layer. Despite what you might think, DirectX is fast and able when it comes to getting things to graphics cards. Also Windows provides a good way to plug in an OpenGL (or any other) API that can get at the hardware fast and low overhead. OS-X is not so good in that regard. Apple has never really had a gaming focus.

Perhaps this is going to change, we'll see. Apple has in the past talked up the games thing and hasn't delivered anything, but maybe they are more serious this time around.

Re:Mobile chips

[Dog-Cow]

I'm guessing you're a complete and utter moron. And my guess is correct.

Those complaining are complaining about the games performing better ON THE SAME Mac running Windows.

Re:True.

[jythie]

I disagree that most mac users are 'technophobic'. I see the lions share of our engineering students using them now, and many CS students have macs that dual boot or just go with linux boxes.

And yes, you can get a cheaper Dell. You can always get a cheaper Dell. I can go down the local korean computer shop and get something cheaper then that. There will always be cheap solutions that have the same 4 or 5 basic metrics people use to compare systems when they are lazy.

I have been building custom game rigs since the 80s and am still running one when my MacBook is not sufficient. I agree, you can get the best $/Perf out of role your own, but it also eats time. I spend more time maintaining my windows gaming rig then all my OSX machines put together, which when I only have a few hours for gaming per week can really add up. Next non-trivial part that fails (last one was just the CMOS battery) I will probably be simply replacing the machine.

One of the 'places' where macs excel is for people who just want (or only have the time) to use the computer, not treat the computer as part of the experience.

I will agree though, having some mac offerings in the midrange (Mac Pros are serious overkill for gaming) that you can swap out the video and sound systems would be nice.

Re:Slow graphics on Macs?

[bonch]

Wake me up when Crysis is worth playing. Crysis is the game every single PC gamer cites when mocking the Mac, but it's not even a good game. The days of graphics demos disguised as games died in the late 90s. Visuals are a solved problem. More people play 2D FarmVille than all the copies of Crysis ever sold because most people don't care anymore about high-end graphics. Gamers like you are now a smaller niche than the Mac userbase itself.