"It's not Apple's fault for not including unnecessary hacks, it's Windows'/F.E.A.R.'s fault that they need them."
You may not be familiar with how Window's works. You see third party companies make the hardware - not Microsoft. ATI in this case makes the video chip in the MacBook Pro. So first stop for blame should be ATI for not implementing this. Although as the other poster noted, it is in fact implemented in the ATI video driver. Now if the game manufacturer for whatever reason decides not to support widescreen gaming you can blame them too. All modern widescreen capable video cards on Windows have these options by the way.
I'm talking out sites like I buy power. There are a number of them out there, if you take a look in a recent computer gaming magazine there are always plenty of ads. These guys kind of took over the spot Alienware had before Alienware became the land of the overpriced. I find mom and pop shops to be more expensive than building your own as they don't source components in enough quantity to get a better price than you would from some place like New Egg.
Not trying to flame, but I don't see a huge difference between your trader character in SWG and someone that plays the buy low sell high economic game in other MMOs. In the case of EQ2 at least there are plenty of players who's primary role is crafting and selling.
Recent converts like you are ruining the old school Mac community because you are posers.
Point 1 - I'm not a switcher. Point 2 - platform elitism as you are showing regarding your generalism of "Mac users" is stupid and ignorant. You may not realize it, but your elitism is exactly what you are lashing out against: posing. Computers are tools. Use whatever helps you to get the job done in the most efficient manner, whether that job is work or play. Over the course of my life I've used various operating systems. I spent 10 years with a Mac on my desk when I was in the design business. I've used Amigas, Ataris, Commodores, DOS, Windows from version 3 to XP, OS/2, Mac System 6 to OS X, various UNIXes from Sun to SCO, Linux and BSD. There is no perfect OS out there and there is no OS that is used by the rebels, misfits, movers and shakers exclusively. By thinking there is you reveal how utterly effective Jobs' marketing machine is in stamping out little Mac drones and making them feel special. Mac elitism is the worst element of the Mac community. Especially anyone who would look down at a new Mac user and call them "posers" who are ruining the community. Different operating systems have different strengths. And they ALL have weaknesses. Platform elitism is posing of the worst kind. Free yourself of the need to stick your nose in the air and look down at people that prefer Windows or Linux or Plan 9 for that matter. I don't choose my computers so I can be part of some bullshit elitist clique, I choose them based on what I want to use them for.
This is why I stopped building everything by hand. There are now several boutique shops (no not Alienware they are a friggin rip off) that cater to gamers and let you put together your own system components that they assemble for you. The cost actually turned out to be cheaper for me than purchasing via mail order various parts and assembling my own. Plus I got a warranty with it. The big difference is that instead of proprietary parts like Dell uses, the system has a standard equipment from manufacturers that I trust (such as Asus and Abit motherboards for example). The beauty is I only had to build out the basic system, I could carry over my previous hard drives and dvd burner.
"often look forlornly at their Mac-wielding mates and their groovier-than-thou machines"
I guess I just don't associate my "grooviness" with what brand of computer I own, or what OS I run. Anymore than I would sneer at someone for having a MP3 player that wasn't an iPod. With my home computer probably 85% of the time I'm using it I'm in a game. When I'm gaming the OS really doesn't matter. Is running World of Warcraft appreciably different in game on a Mac versus a PC? What I do care about is cost and the ability to upgrade components to improve how well those games run. As a result the only Mac I would possibly consider as a gaming machine is a PowerMac (once they go Intel). The problem there is the limited selection of hardware and the overall cost. Apple currently offers for gaming video cards either a 6600 or a 7800GTX. Who knows if this will change in the future, but compared to a PC the selection is tiny. SLI on a Mac running Windows? No idea if that will happen. Even the current G5 chassis is less than fantastic for upgrades. You are limited in the number of drives you can put in it. I currently have 3 hard drives and 2 optical drives in my PC. And yes I do like having them internal - it saves money and space over a string a external units. I'm not trying to slam Macs, I use and support them every day at work. I just think from the perspective of PC gaming they aren't the best option for a hardcore gamer. Now if you just want to play some games, aren't stressed about bang for your buck and don't care too much about possible lack of upgrades - then they will probably work quite well for you. Especially if you do enjoy using OS X and feel that offsets the other areas.
And you will enjoy the fine selection of two gaming video cards you get to choose when you buy the system. Seriously it would be nice if at least some of the third party video card makers release Mac drivers for their cards. I honestly don't know what the prospects will be for things like SLI on Apple hardware. I guess time will tell.
It's kind of sad at how many of these exist. Being a geek used to be about finding what worked for you (hence the endless debate of vi versus emacs). The thought that a "geek" would want a Mac because a Mac is what cool "geeks" have is entirely contrary to the nature of being a geek. Oh well, I guess punk rock is all about Hot Topic these days as well. I just read a post from someone asking where he could find a high quality version of a Misfits song. You can't! It's punk rock, it was recorded on a bad 4 track in the 70s.
Oddly enough most of the stuff coming out of MS games division is pretty stable. And they did relase Rise of Nations which is IMHO one of the best RTS games of all time.
With Lionhead no. Honestly, Peter Molyneux's work with Bullfrog was much more groundbreaking. Populous was the first appearence of many of the elements now common in RTS games. At Bullfrog Molyneux was involved with some fantastic and groundbreaking games:
Populous Powermonger Theme Park Syndicate Magic Carpet Dungeon Keeper
Great stuff and games I highly enjoyed. I guess the only reason I pay attention to him is in hoping that he'll hit paydirt again. Who knows if he will. Of course the same could be said for my interest in what Richard Garriott does.
I think part of the reason the Movies didn't sell well is that it's really three games that aren't meshed together very well. You have the standard tycoon style movie studio game, the sims-esque manage your actors and directors component and the movie maker. The tycoon part is pretty simple, the sims part highly annoying and the movie making interesting but irrelevant to the game (the quality of the movie you make in it has no bearing on how well the movie does at the box office). The movie making tools are the most fleshed out part of the game but they aren't a "game" in the traditional sense. So it feels like the other elements were put in to have a game component rather than just selling the movie maker as a software "toy". Much like in Black and White where on one hand you had the pet element which was pretty interesting and on the other hand you had a mediocre RTS. It seems like Lionhead comes up with great ideas, but can't always turn them into great games. I do appreciate them making the effort. Even their failed experiments are more interesting than most of the games out there.
"FORCING USERS TO BOOT INTO LOVING AND SENSUOUS ARMS OF MAC OS X. And as we all know, once you go Mac, you DON'T GO BACK."
I know you were being funny, but comments like this turn me off of the Mac community. Just gives me unpleasant images of someone in a black turtleneck whacking off while they bring the dashboard up and down. This retarded view that it's not just an operating system, it's some wonder of the modern world, a thing of true beauty in a wasteland of mediocrity. Whatever. I use OS X every day and it has it has it's warts just like any other OS. I wish it always "Just Worked" because it doesn't.
"Secondly, the MacOS logo is still color in Boot Camp, but the other logo is greyscale. One is the new hotness, the other is old and busted. "
Isn't the old happy Mac face the logo for OS 9? I thought OS X just had the big X. I really hate that happy Mac face. The way it would smile at me on reboot after OS 8 or 9 shit the bed and spontaneously exploded. Then that bastard would chastise me because the computer wasn't shut down properly. Like I had a chance to shut it down! Grrrrr.
"Once the machine's in the user's posession, it's a different story."
You have an interesting IT department. I suppose if you have savvy users that handle their own tech support this is true enough. In general it isn't true of most businesses. Having to support two operating systems on a single computer does increase the cost of managing that system. We run Macs when there is a business case too. Just the same as we do with Windows. In the case of a Mac needing to run a Windows app, we either do it via Virtual PC or more commonly via terminal services. The Mac remote desktop client works great with Windows terminal servers.
Well, before Jobs came back and OS X became the plan, the Mac community had been waiting for Copland for 2 years (Copland development being started in 94). So 4 years late is a bit much, but it was still 6 years from the announcement of a modern OS from Apple until the release of OS X. The OS X transition took a long time as well, both due to OS stability and application porting. The magazine publishing company I work with only just transitioned to OS X last year.
Oh man everytime I use Windows BIOS just ruins my day. There I am using my computer, running programs and man oh man that clunky BIOS just brings me down. I've tried to get help for this depression but I guess the doctor really needed to prescribe me a new Intel Mac with EFI for my BIOS blues. I'm so stuck in the '80s and it's holding me back. Even my salary is stuck in the '80s. And I still listen to the Go Gos.... on vinyl. Save me Apple, work your EFI magic on my sad 80s retro life.
"I guess if I wanted to look like a dork and carry around 30 1GB minidiscs, swap them every 5 minutes, and deal with the hassle of remembering which music is on which disc, I would go with that format. Not to mention that at Sony prices, a player and 30 minidiscs would probably run you a lot more than $300. But hey, you get to stand out from the crowd by being the guy with a dorky player."
Oh noes I got teh dorkies! Nows I'll never get laid!
When it comes to performance the FX 5000 series is generally pretty crap. I did buy a 5700 Ultra (it was cheap) as an upgrade from a 4400 but in actuality the performance difference was minimal. I later swapped it out for a 6800GT. The biggest issue with the FX series is that although they are DX9 capable, if you enable any DX9 features your performance just bottoms out. Forget about anitaliasing or aniso filtering. At least they are pretty stable cards!
"The failure to dual boot though isn't apple's fault, but the fact that winXP is outdated"
Let's see, Windows XP is designed to run on standard x86 computers using BIOS. It doesn't support EFI because the machines it is designed to run on don't have EFI. Since it appears to do the job it was designed for I'm not sure how not running on computers it was never designed to run on makes it outdated.
The Lisa actually had a features the first Mac lacked - the most important being multitasking. The Lisa was very innovative, perhaps too much. Things like custom diskette mechanisms (the "twiggy" drives) and 1 megabyte of RAM added to the overall cost.
"Virtual PC for Mac/Intel running Windows at near-native speeds will be a better one."
Running Virtual PC or VMware currently on Windows with a Windows virtual machine does not quite fit the "near-native speeds" description. I would expect a substantial performance hit on a Mac as well. Good enough for basic applications but terrible for intensive ones including (but not limited to) gaming.
I'm talking about on average. And yes I've tried FTP and yes I use Firefox and not IE for HTTP transfers. And yes I avoid non-resumable HTTP for transfers whenever possible. I don't mean to say you will NEVER saturate the bandwidth on a single link, I'm just saying it doesn't seem to happen very often. Obviously it depends on the relative connection speeds between the locations and the route taken by the data. I actually tried out fileplanent's premium service and was disappointed to only be able to get a max of about 200KB/sec.
Uh, huh sure. If you are talking about home users yes, I would agree with you that the growth is in notebooks. From the business side - I don't think so. I manage about 150 computers at work, of these notebooks are only used for positions that require the computer to be mobile. Desktops have a lot of advantages in a corporate environment including:
lower cost to purchase more durable cheaper service plans easily replaceable components not likely to get lost or stolen no need to worry about being connected to insecure networks out of the office (at home or on the road)
And for computer intensive tasks, it's cheaper to get a more powerful desktop. Our graphic design department runs on Power Macs and almost all of the designers own a Power Mac at home. Some have Powerbooks but those are their second home computer and not used for their primary design work. Obviously the same goes for gamers - cheaper, faster, more upgradeable are strong desktop selling points for computer gamers.
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"It's not Apple's fault for not including unnecessary hacks, it's Windows'/F.E.A.R.'s fault that they need them."
You may not be familiar with how Window's works. You see third party companies make the hardware - not Microsoft. ATI in this case makes the video chip in the MacBook Pro. So first stop for blame should be ATI for not implementing this. Although as the other poster noted, it is in fact implemented in the ATI video driver. Now if the game manufacturer for whatever reason decides not to support widescreen gaming you can blame them too.
All modern widescreen capable video cards on Windows have these options by the way.
I'm talking out sites like I buy power. There are a number of them out there, if you take a look in a recent computer gaming magazine there are always plenty of ads. These guys kind of took over the spot Alienware had before Alienware became the land of the overpriced.
I find mom and pop shops to be more expensive than building your own as they don't source components in enough quantity to get a better price than you would from some place like New Egg.
Not trying to flame, but I don't see a huge difference between your trader character in SWG and someone that plays the buy low sell high economic game in other MMOs.
In the case of EQ2 at least there are plenty of players who's primary role is crafting and selling.
Yes because when you are supporting 50 users with their own Macs you should run around and turn that message off on all there computers.
Recent converts like you are ruining the old school Mac community because you are posers.
Point 1 - I'm not a switcher. Point 2 - platform elitism as you are showing regarding your generalism of "Mac users" is stupid and ignorant. You may not realize it, but your elitism is exactly what you are lashing out against: posing.
Computers are tools. Use whatever helps you to get the job done in the most efficient manner, whether that job is work or play.
Over the course of my life I've used various operating systems. I spent 10 years with a Mac on my desk when I was in the design business. I've used Amigas, Ataris, Commodores, DOS, Windows from version 3 to XP, OS/2, Mac System 6 to OS X, various UNIXes from Sun to SCO, Linux and BSD. There is no perfect OS out there and there is no OS that is used by the rebels, misfits, movers and shakers exclusively. By thinking there is you reveal how utterly effective Jobs' marketing machine is in stamping out little Mac drones and making them feel special. Mac elitism is the worst element of the Mac community. Especially anyone who would look down at a new Mac user and call them "posers" who are ruining the community.
Different operating systems have different strengths. And they ALL have weaknesses. Platform elitism is posing of the worst kind. Free yourself of the need to stick your nose in the air and look down at people that prefer Windows or Linux or Plan 9 for that matter.
I don't choose my computers so I can be part of some bullshit elitist clique, I choose them based on what I want to use them for.
This is why I stopped building everything by hand. There are now several boutique shops (no not Alienware they are a friggin rip off) that cater to gamers and let you put together your own system components that they assemble for you. The cost actually turned out to be cheaper for me than purchasing via mail order various parts and assembling my own. Plus I got a warranty with it. The big difference is that instead of proprietary parts like Dell uses, the system has a standard equipment from manufacturers that I trust (such as Asus and Abit motherboards for example).
The beauty is I only had to build out the basic system, I could carry over my previous hard drives and dvd burner.
"often look forlornly at their Mac-wielding mates and their groovier-than-thou machines"
I guess I just don't associate my "grooviness" with what brand of computer I own, or what OS I run. Anymore than I would sneer at someone for having a MP3 player that wasn't an iPod.
With my home computer probably 85% of the time I'm using it I'm in a game. When I'm gaming the OS really doesn't matter. Is running World of Warcraft appreciably different in game on a Mac versus a PC?
What I do care about is cost and the ability to upgrade components to improve how well those games run. As a result the only Mac I would possibly consider as a gaming machine is a PowerMac (once they go Intel). The problem there is the limited selection of hardware and the overall cost. Apple currently offers for gaming video cards either a 6600 or a 7800GTX. Who knows if this will change in the future, but compared to a PC the selection is tiny. SLI on a Mac running Windows? No idea if that will happen.
Even the current G5 chassis is less than fantastic for upgrades. You are limited in the number of drives you can put in it. I currently have 3 hard drives and 2 optical drives in my PC. And yes I do like having them internal - it saves money and space over a string a external units.
I'm not trying to slam Macs, I use and support them every day at work. I just think from the perspective of PC gaming they aren't the best option for a hardcore gamer. Now if you just want to play some games, aren't stressed about bang for your buck and don't care too much about possible lack of upgrades - then they will probably work quite well for you. Especially if you do enjoy using OS X and feel that offsets the other areas.
And you will enjoy the fine selection of two gaming video cards you get to choose when you buy the system.
Seriously it would be nice if at least some of the third party video card makers release Mac drivers for their cards. I honestly don't know what the prospects will be for things like SLI on Apple hardware. I guess time will tell.
"image concious" geeks
It's kind of sad at how many of these exist. Being a geek used to be about finding what worked for you (hence the endless debate of vi versus emacs). The thought that a "geek" would want a Mac because a Mac is what cool "geeks" have is entirely contrary to the nature of being a geek.
Oh well, I guess punk rock is all about Hot Topic these days as well. I just read a post from someone asking where he could find a high quality version of a Misfits song. You can't! It's punk rock, it was recorded on a bad 4 track in the 70s.
Damn now I feel old.
Oddly enough most of the stuff coming out of MS games division is pretty stable.
And they did relase Rise of Nations which is IMHO one of the best RTS games of all time.
With Lionhead no. Honestly, Peter Molyneux's work with Bullfrog was much more groundbreaking. Populous was the first appearence of many of the elements now common in RTS games. At Bullfrog Molyneux was involved with some fantastic and groundbreaking games:
Populous
Powermonger
Theme Park
Syndicate
Magic Carpet
Dungeon Keeper
Great stuff and games I highly enjoyed. I guess the only reason I pay attention to him is in hoping that he'll hit paydirt again. Who knows if he will. Of course the same could be said for my interest in what Richard Garriott does.
I think part of the reason the Movies didn't sell well is that it's really three games that aren't meshed together very well. You have the standard tycoon style movie studio game, the sims-esque manage your actors and directors component and the movie maker. The tycoon part is pretty simple, the sims part highly annoying and the movie making interesting but irrelevant to the game (the quality of the movie you make in it has no bearing on how well the movie does at the box office).
The movie making tools are the most fleshed out part of the game but they aren't a "game" in the traditional sense. So it feels like the other elements were put in to have a game component rather than just selling the movie maker as a software "toy". Much like in Black and White where on one hand you had the pet element which was pretty interesting and on the other hand you had a mediocre RTS. It seems like Lionhead comes up with great ideas, but can't always turn them into great games. I do appreciate them making the effort. Even their failed experiments are more interesting than most of the games out there.
"FORCING USERS TO BOOT INTO LOVING AND SENSUOUS ARMS OF MAC OS X. And as we all know, once you go Mac, you DON'T GO BACK."
I know you were being funny, but comments like this turn me off of the Mac community. Just gives me unpleasant images of someone in a black turtleneck whacking off while they bring the dashboard up and down.
This retarded view that it's not just an operating system, it's some wonder of the modern world, a thing of true beauty in a wasteland of mediocrity. Whatever. I use OS X every day and it has it has it's warts just like any other OS. I wish it always "Just Worked" because it doesn't.
"Secondly, the MacOS logo is still color in Boot Camp, but the other logo is greyscale. One is the new hotness, the other is old and busted. "
Isn't the old happy Mac face the logo for OS 9? I thought OS X just had the big X.
I really hate that happy Mac face. The way it would smile at me on reboot after OS 8 or 9 shit the bed and spontaneously exploded. Then that bastard would chastise me because the computer wasn't shut down properly. Like I had a chance to shut it down! Grrrrr.
"Once the machine's in the user's posession, it's a different story."
You have an interesting IT department. I suppose if you have savvy users that handle their own tech support this is true enough. In general it isn't true of most businesses.
Having to support two operating systems on a single computer does increase the cost of managing that system.
We run Macs when there is a business case too. Just the same as we do with Windows.
In the case of a Mac needing to run a Windows app, we either do it via Virtual PC or more commonly via terminal services. The Mac remote desktop client works great with Windows terminal servers.
"How can that translate to "four years late"?"
Well, before Jobs came back and OS X became the plan, the Mac community had been waiting for Copland for 2 years (Copland development being started in 94). So 4 years late is a bit much, but it was still 6 years from the announcement of a modern OS from Apple until the release of OS X. The OS X transition took a long time as well, both due to OS stability and application porting. The magazine publishing company I work with only just transitioned to OS X last year.
Oh man everytime I use Windows BIOS just ruins my day. There I am using my computer, running programs and man oh man that clunky BIOS just brings me down.
I've tried to get help for this depression but I guess the doctor really needed to prescribe me a new Intel Mac with EFI for my BIOS blues. I'm so stuck in the '80s and it's holding me back. Even my salary is stuck in the '80s. And I still listen to the Go Gos.... on vinyl.
Save me Apple, work your EFI magic on my sad 80s retro life.
"I guess if I wanted to look like a dork and carry around 30 1GB minidiscs, swap them every 5 minutes, and deal with the hassle of remembering which music is on which disc, I would go with that format. Not to mention that at Sony prices, a player and 30 minidiscs would probably run you a lot more than $300. But hey, you get to stand out from the crowd by being the guy with a dorky player."
Oh noes I got teh dorkies! Nows I'll never get laid!
You are very funny.
When it comes to performance the FX 5000 series is generally pretty crap. I did buy a 5700 Ultra (it was cheap) as an upgrade from a 4400 but in actuality the performance difference was minimal. I later swapped it out for a 6800GT.
The biggest issue with the FX series is that although they are DX9 capable, if you enable any DX9 features your performance just bottoms out. Forget about anitaliasing or aniso filtering.
At least they are pretty stable cards!
"The failure to dual boot though isn't apple's fault, but the fact that winXP is outdated"
Let's see, Windows XP is designed to run on standard x86 computers using BIOS. It doesn't support EFI because the machines it is designed to run on don't have EFI. Since it appears to do the job it was designed for I'm not sure how not running on computers it was never designed to run on makes it outdated.
The Lisa actually had a features the first Mac lacked - the most important being multitasking.
The Lisa was very innovative, perhaps too much. Things like custom diskette mechanisms (the "twiggy" drives) and 1 megabyte of RAM added to the overall cost.
"Virtual PC for Mac/Intel running Windows at near-native speeds will be a better one."
Running Virtual PC or VMware currently on Windows with a Windows virtual machine does not quite fit the "near-native speeds" description. I would expect a substantial performance hit on a Mac as well.
Good enough for basic applications but terrible for intensive ones including (but not limited to) gaming.
I'm talking about on average. And yes I've tried FTP and yes I use Firefox and not IE for HTTP transfers. And yes I avoid non-resumable HTTP for transfers whenever possible.
I don't mean to say you will NEVER saturate the bandwidth on a single link, I'm just saying it doesn't seem to happen very often. Obviously it depends on the relative connection speeds between the locations and the route taken by the data.
I actually tried out fileplanent's premium service and was disappointed to only be able to get a max of about 200KB/sec.
"Desktops are dead for most."
Uh, huh sure. If you are talking about home users yes, I would agree with you that the growth is in notebooks. From the business side - I don't think so. I manage about 150 computers at work, of these notebooks are only used for positions that require the computer to be mobile. Desktops have a lot of advantages in a corporate environment including:
lower cost to purchase
more durable
cheaper service plans
easily replaceable components
not likely to get lost or stolen
no need to worry about being connected to insecure networks out of the office (at home or on the road)
And for computer intensive tasks, it's cheaper to get a more powerful desktop. Our graphic design department runs on Power Macs and almost all of the designers own a Power Mac at home. Some have Powerbooks but those are their second home computer and not used for their primary design work.
Obviously the same goes for gamers - cheaper, faster, more upgradeable are strong desktop selling points for computer gamers.
David Marcus: "He cheated."
Kirk: "I changed the conditions of the test. I got a commendation for original thinking. I don't like to lose"