 |
 |
Will More Games Be Ported?
|
|
|
|
|
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Jan 2006
Status:
Offline
|
|
Im just curious if the new intel chips will make it easier for companies to port games to mac?
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Jamaica Plain, MA
Status:
Offline
|
|
Originally Posted by mix123
Im just curious if the new intel chips will make it easier for companies to port games to mac?
Yes and no.
Games will still have to be heavily modified to use the OS X APIs as opposed to the ones used by Windows.
However, some performance tweaks will take less time, because that is mostly low-level x86 specific code that will not have to be completely rewritten from the ground up for the PPC.
I expect the Intel Macs will improve the sales of Mac games, as the absolutely embarrassing performance gap has been addressed with the new hardware. The bottlenecks of the old PPC motherboards will no longer be something Mac game publishers will have to worry about in a few years. It's been hard for companies like Aspyr, who try to create good ports of good games, only to run into the serious performance limitations of PPC Macs.
Maintaining both PPC and Intel versions of new games will be a pain, but with PC games requiring faster and faster hardware, it's unlikely that the vast majority of the ports we will be seeing in the next few years will even be worth porting to the PPC. Even some 3-4 year old PC games push current PPC Macs to their limits.
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Houston, TX
Status:
Offline
|
|
Not without a DirectX port or emulator.
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Senior User
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Minneapolis for now
Status:
Offline
|
|
Windows sux except for games. Despite OS X running on Intel PC Macs, games will still run better in Windows. As games are my only performance complaint with Macs, I've resigned myself to going back to Windows for gaming. Only gaming. If Windows will run on Intel Macs then I may get one. If not, I'll keep my PowerBook and build a Windows box. We've lost. Time to wave the white flag.
|
|
Scooters are more fun than computers and only slightly more frustrating
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mac Elite
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Oakland, CA
Status:
Offline
|
|
Originally Posted by Scooterboy
Windows sux except for games. Despite OS X running on Intel PC Macs, games will still run better in Windows. As games are my only performance complaint with Macs, I've resigned myself to going back to Windows for gaming. Only gaming. If Windows will run on Intel Macs then I may get one. If not, I'll keep my PowerBook and build a Windows box. We've lost. Time to wave the white flag.
I have to agree. I gave up on Mac gaming about a month ago and just built an Athlon64 system, and played F.E.A.R. which will probably never make it to the Mac. That game alone was worth it.
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Banned
Join Date: Feb 2006
Status:
Offline
|
|
It depends. if you're talking about the latest greatest, I agree. But man, you can still have a lot o fun playing games on the mac. Take ET for example. Completely free, runs decent, and it's a complete blast. Or UT. Or ut2004. Or Q3. Or gooball (something not available on the PC). There's a lot of ways to waste time.
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 
|
|
|
Forum Rules
|
|
|
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is Off
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Top