[Johnny_B]

I've been a Mac user all my life and I want to game on my Mac. Mac has worse drivers than Windows and less games. But I think it's time for Apple to think different.

Apple think the old fashion way, changing modells and manufactures (ATI, Nvidia, Intel) all the time. And in this game Windows seems to be the winner. But look a the consoles? There you get great performance and graphic for "less". Not as good cpu, not as good gpu, etc. So my thought is why doesn't Apple just go for ONE graphic card in all machines? Making it super easy to making superb drivers and optimized games for Mac?

Stupid or smart idea?

[SpaceMonkey]

No, that would be counter-productive, because most Mac games are ports from Windows.

[Johnny_B]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

No, that would be counter-productive, because most Mac games are ports from Windows.

Now it is. But that doesn't mean that it has to stay this way? Companies makes alot of games to PS3, and they have a really different platform than most consoles and computers who use Intel cpu's and not Cell.

[Horsepoo!!!]

JohnnyB, you're actually not far from the mark.

Macs are probably much easier to develop for than PCs for the very reason that even though Apple uses nVidia cards in some machines and ATI cards in others, there only is about 5-6 cards at any one time to develop for. MacBooks, MacBook Pros, iMacs and Mac minis all have fixed graphics cards...you can't swap them out...and these cards usually only get updated once every year to a year and a half (if we're so lucky) a new when a new model or a model revision finally comes out...Mac game developers know exactly which card they'll be working with.

Many current games and probably every future game that requires a fairly fast processor will be Intel-only. So Mac is actually the cleanest platform to develop for...5 different Macs with (at most) 5 different graphics card. Sure, this is not as good as developing for a console which has a fixed processor and video card spec for the next 4 years but it's damn near close.

Compare that to PCs which can have any combination of hardware possible and the choice of 30 different graphics cards.

And you're right...in general consoles have weaker processors and video cards than what is available to computers. But they have the advantage of all being dedicated processors giving the console a significant edge over having consistent performances.

Still...if game developers develop for technologically inferior systems, why is the excuse of gamers always "all Macs have terrible graphics card"? I hear this all the time and it's bogus since the Wii is the perfect example of a console that is technologically inferior than the other consoles of its generation as well as PC/Mac computers yet it's the most popular. The fun factor of the game should *always* trump graphics...so I don't know where this graphics card business being the deciding factor to gamers and PC game developers comes from.

Game developers that target high end cards are shooting themselves in the foot...they're targeting a small PC crowd and give Mac users zero chances of playing their game in the next year or so. I don't care though...it's their loss and, in general, developers that push graphics to their limits usually forget to actually make the game fun to play.

Macs are become very popular amongst students. These students will eventually find a significant other and have children. What computers will you find in their household? A Mac. The dreaded cycle will finally be broken. These people will recommend Macs to their friends. These people's children will have Macs and want games to play on them.

The Mac is going to break 10% market share in a few years and probably 15% in 5+ years. Game developers will have no choice but to develop games that work on Mac even if they still have shitty graphics cards ten years down the road.

The Mac platform is larger than any console platform. Granted, when someone buys a Mac, they're not buying it solely for gaming. Numbers indicate that the number of Intel Macs in existence today are close to 15 million (or more perhaps). In a few years (if Apple keeps its pace up) there will be 30 million Intel Macs out there. Even if only 1/3 of these people are interested in gaming, that's 10 million potential gamers.

People buy consoles and console games because they want it to "just work" out of the box. What's the percentage of games that "just work" out of the box for PCs and out of the box for Macs? I'm guessing it's probably slightly or much higher on Macs considering the hardware is not an unknown to the developers and the number of Mac models to test on can be counted on two hands.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by Johnny_B 

Now it is. But that doesn't mean that it has to stay this way? Companies makes alot of games to PS3, and they have a really different platform than most consoles and computers who use Intel cpu's and not Cell.

It's chicken-and-egg. What you are describing would only be of any benefit if Macs have a larger share of the marketplace, and it actually makes business sense for major game development houses to make Mac-specific games. As it stands right now, what you are describing would only kill off Windows ports, and give us fewer options, not more.

Not to mention, professionals in the video/arts industry rely on graphics cards to do a lot more than just gaming, and they would require more options than a "one size fits all" game-oriented graphics system.

[Johnny_B]

Re: Horsepoo!!!
In the current line there are 4-5 cards yes. But look at the iMacs. Now it's ATi Radeon HD 2400 and 2600. The old ones are far from outdated and most still be counted with, there you have a build in Intel, and Nvidia GeForce 7300 and maybe the best gpu in an iMac GeForce 7600. So then we have 5 cards just at the recent iMacs. There are many different cards in the Mac Pros to, current gen and previous gens. When you count them all you actually get alot of cards to optimize for when you make games, and alot of different cards for ATi, Nvidia and Intel to make drivers for.

Re: SpaceMonkey
Ofcourse a iMac 24" had to have a "better" card than Mac Book, since it has a greater resolution to fill. But I'm talking about the same technology and gpu, not the same clock speed.