[atlcane]

Now that Apple will be using Intel processors, do you think that we will see more games being made for MAC. Will porting games from PC to MAC be easier? I hope so. I would really like to get my hands on The Battle Of Middle Earth.

[The iMac Man]

Porting will be easier, but will take even longer now because they are still going to have to support PPC Macs, which means they will basically have two versions of the game to test before they can ship it.

Does this mean more games? No, not necessarily. I think it means that games could be ported more easily, but it's still gonna take the porters a lot of time, money, and effort to do it, and if they don't think the game will sell well, they wont port it. I don't really see this switch as something that is going to make porters port every game they can get their hands on.

[Horsepoo!!!]

They may have to support two versions for like 1 year...but most games nowadays have difficulty running on anything but the high end G4s and G5s. In two years when the transition to Intel is actually complete and IBM's processors (which are likely to not get updated much if at all in the next 2 years) are slow and stale, the only computers that will support the games (speed-wise) are going to be Macintel computers.

So frankly, I'm not buying in that "we'll have to support 2 versions, so dev time will be twice as long" bull****. Maybe a few games *during* the transition will need to be Universal Binaries if the port houses care to support the PPC crowd. But I don't expect the Universal Binaries to be important for very long for the CPU/graphics card intensive games that will simply not run on anything but the fastest G5s anyhow (which will be a very small market anyways.)

If we take Doom 3 for example. Aspyr may have had the intention of supporting G4s but I think they abandoned the idea when they realized the G4s weren't fast enough. The same will be true with Macintel computers. For most triple-A titles that push hardware to their limits, there won't be any need to make Universal Binaries since [email protected] will barely cut it...and how many people will have 2.5+GHz G5s in a year from now?

[The iMac Man]

Well, I'll take the developer's words WAY before I take yours....

[Horsepoo!!!]

Even if the developer's words were twitch reactions to shocking news? The developers will take a step back in a year (or earlier) and realize their reaction was overblown.

Port houses will breathe a sigh of relief when they can finally stop all the mad optimization to get games using the Doom 3 engine to run fast on G5s and simply support Macintel chips.

From years of experience discussing with developers and emulator porters, the developers are always right, until they're wrong. And their code can't possibly be optimized further, until it is.

So don't always take a developer's word. I can tell you right now, the bulk of them are most often wrong than right.

[The iMac Man]

LOL, you are crazy you know that right?

[Dog Like Nature]

I think Horsepoo!!! is right. By the time the Intel Macs are ready the PPC lines will have stagnated even more than they currently have. Even though SJ said "we have some exciting PPC products in the pipeline", that doesn't mean they're going to be cutting edge performance-wise.

[The iMac Man]

If you think developers can, and will, just up and drop PPC support that fast, you are insane.

Developers are going to have to support PPC for many years to come.

[Kristoff]

I'll say this:

Games are always the first applications to tell you your hardware sucks.

Aspyr made their Game Agent specifically to tell you how much your hardware sucks, and that you'll have to upgrade x,y,z to play Games p,d,q.

So, I foresee a whole slew of games that require the Intel mac and offer no support for PPC.
Thanks Steve!

I guess I'll always have RTCW ET!

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by The iMac Man

If you think developers can, and will, just up and drop PPC support that fast, you are insane.

Developers are going to have to support PPC for many years to come.

Application developers maybe ...but game developers won't have to support PPC for 'many years'. Game devs/porters will have a choice to make for games that can still perform well on G5s and G4s: support PPC-only, support Intel-only, support both. But games that will push the hardware limits aka Quake 4, Unreal Tournament 2007 or whatever game will be out once the whole Mac line has transitioned to Intel processors will have no choice but to be an x86 binary-only. Why would developers port it to PPC if they'll have to optimize the crap out of a game to manage 10fps when they'll easily achieve 50+ on the Macintel computers with little to no optimization?

[The iMac Man]

So, you think the top of the line G5s right now WONT be able to run games in a YEAR!? That's insane....

I am still playing several current games on my 3-4 year old 800mhz G4 iMac with a 32mb GeForce2mx.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Those 'current' games are probably non-intensive games (considering they're running fine with a GeForce 2MX) that'll run fine using Rosetta.

I don't know the details of what Rosetta can or cannot translate but apparently Altivec can't be translated (which rules out the Altivec-enhanced Quake 3 and the NASCARs) and apps that use system extensions (dunno what that means exactly...does it mean OpenGL games won't work? I dunno).

If Rosetta can make old OpenGL games work. You should be fine.

edit: lol...look no further than Brian Greenstone and Ryan Gordon with their latest 'Rosetta will be useless for games because it can't translate Altivec'. AFAIK, there are next to no games that make use of Altivec. The 2 that came to my mind are Quake 3 and the NASCAR games. But I'd like to see Gordon and Greenstone come into this forum and tell me if they actually vectorized any part of their games.

I'd be pleasantly surprised since the first things most developers tell me is that there's almost nothing that will benefit from Altivec code in most games.

[The iMac Man]

Wow, now you are down-talking Ryan Gordon's comments... you really are crazy.

Dude, if you know so much, why aren't YOU in Ryan's shoes!?

[Arkham_c]

I suspect that Wine will be ported to OSX and you'll be able to play all Windows games on the Mac.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by The iMac Man

Wow, now you are down-talking Ryan Gordon's comments... you really are crazy.

Dude, if you know so much, why aren't YOU in Ryan's shoes!?

Because Ryan has athlete's foot...and you know, I don't want to get his foot fungus.

At least Ryan has to balls to admit that his code isn't always perfect. And that some implementations of, say, OpenAL, make a bit more sense than his. Ryan knows his stuff...but no developer is perfect and no developer is always right.

Ryan is at the moment confused and backpedaling on his comments. He first said something in an interview with IMG, then he went back on what he 'realized' Macintels would be able to boot to Windows. I wouldn't really take anything he says as 'developer knowledge and wisdom' until he thinks things over for the next week or so.

[Hydra]

Originally Posted by The iMac Man

So, you think the top of the line G5s right now WONT be able to run games in a YEAR!? That's insane....

I am still playing several current games on my 3-4 year old 800mhz G4 iMac with a 32mb GeForce2mx.

Well when it currently takes a dual 2.0+ G5 to run Doom 3 at anywhere near HQ settings and get decent, not great, frame rates what kind of PPC Mac is gonna be around in a year to play UT2k7 or any eye candy intensive game that is even harder on the hardware a year from now. The current PPC Mac offerings right now are about as good as it is gonna get. Maybe a little bump here and there but even if IBM decides to improve the PPC970 a bit more I wouldn't expect it to top much more than 3GHz in the next year or so. A 2.7 dual G5 with an x800/6800U gets destroyed by Windows boxen running AMD and Intel chips right now in games and as more and more cpu intensive games come out their lead is only gonna get bigger and bigger. You may hate Doom 3 but more and more games will be based on its engine and engines equivalent to it. I take solace in looking at benches of Linux for Doom 3. Even though they aren't running Windows they still beat OSX running on PPC. As it is now OpenGL on OSX is a bit sluggish compared to DirectX and paired with an alien CPU architecture all Mac ports have 2 strikes against them right from the start. At least running Intel CPU's we start with only 1 strike against us As everything from AMD and Intel gets more and more powerful games are only gonna get more and more hard on the hardware. Nature abhors a vacuum and games will suck up this new found power as fast as it comes.

People need to look at the big picture. When Intel releases dual core Pentium M's in a year that are more powerful and less heat producing, by far, than even a mighty dual 2.7 G5 we need not be envious of our Wintel brethren. We can go down to our local Apple store and pick up a shiny new Powerbook with an even better OS using the same chips Dual CPU's have been keeping Apple's PPC wares competitive but as Intel and AMD have come to realize it really is the way to go THAT advantage is vaporizing. By the end of this year almost all AMD and Intel based PC's are going to have dual cores and a dual G5 isn't gonna cut it anymore. I am sad to leave PPC behind but Apple needs to worry less about being the cheerleader for the PPC on the desktop and worry more about improving the Mac and its OS.

-Jerry C.

[The iMac Man]

Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!!

...he 'realized' Macintels would be able to boot to Windows.

We don't know that for sure.

[Scooterboy]

It will be easier than any of this really. You will be able to install Windows on your Intel Mac, so when you want to game, just boot up Windows and run any PC game, which will be the best optimized game. No more need for porting houses, long waits for release, and high prices. Any PC game should be playable on your Mac. As for Mac games like EV Nova, Darwinia, etc . who knows. They'll always run on my PPC Mac.

Ask Phil Schiller, who said that they won't sell or support Windows for the Mac, but they won't preclude someone from installing and booting into Windows on the Mac.

Brad Oliver, Aspyr Media: I'm in total shock right now. It sure sounds like this new Mac is going to be x86-based rather than a different Intel chip. If so, it's hard for me to see that porting companies will have much to offer once the inevitable Win32 virtual machines get released.

It seems so inevitable that a decent Win32 virtual box will come along, and that will surely spell doom for any Mac-specific ports of not only games but major products. I think Apple bought time with Adobe and Microsoft committing to OSX-on-intel, but once that time is up, there's not going to be anything keeping them around on OSX, IMHO.

Running windows on a Mac pretty much eliminates the need for Mac ports of PC software.

[Steve's Sanity]

Soon there won't be a need for porting games. The developers will tell us "Just boot up Windoze to run (Game Title Here)." Because since Apple is switching to Intel there is no longer a purpose for making software for the Mac OS X operating system .

[VValdo]

Originally Posted by Arkham_c

I suspect that Wine will be ported to OSX and you'll be able to play all Windows games on the Mac.

It already is and you already can.

But yeah, I know what you mean I think people who bought dual g5s are screwed-- what incentive will there be to port to a doomed architecture? At least you know work on an x86, which will probably be an easier port in the first place, will have a life past '07...

Short term-- I think this sucks for mac gaming. I think projects will be put on hold, mac gaming companies will have to take a serious look at their business model, etc.

Long term-- I bet more games come out for mac, and sooner. This may also boost OpenGL's popularity.

Who knows... the future is so wide open now... MacCedega may be around the corner and may play a role in this. And when someone writes a virtual x86 mac that runs in Windows or Linux.. who knows.

Then again, OS X may end up being run as a trusted OS in the new macs, a la XBox...

Maybe someone will write a better Rosetta than Apple will provide-- like Connectix did back in the day with Speed Doubler.. Maybe someone will write a reverse-Rosetta (based in QEMU or BOCHS?) so that PPCs will be able to run the new x86 software...

It's all speculation.. we shall see.

W

[DrBoar]

Having Intel in the Mac will not change the fact that the Mac does not have DirectX nor use a sound card to offload the CPU.

Perhaps Apple/IBM let the G5 go out with a bang and soon will sell dual core dual CPU 3GHz and some, and PCIexpress ATI X850 hyper exteme edition

But IBM and Apple both may have lost interest in the G5 tower so that we get a final speed boost to 2.9 GHz in the summer of 2006 and ATI 9800 as standard

[Horsepoo!!!]

I'm always led to believe by Glenda and co. that they've developed tools to make the DirectX -> OpenGL call conversions much easier.

Maybe I'm not understanding what they mean by this but they sure as hell make is sound like it's a non-issue now. Or do they flip-flop from one point-of-vue to another to better suit their arguments?

Next thing I'll hear is that the tools make the conversion easy, but it's still pretty hard and takes a significant amount of time. Yeah, that'll do, sounds vague enough and is between both extremes.

[The iMac Man]

Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!!

I'm always led to believe by Glenda and co. that they've developed tools to make the DirectX -> OpenGL call conversions much easier.

Maybe I'm not understanding what they mean by this but they sure as hell make is sound like it's a non-issue now. Or do they flip-flop from one point-of-vue to another to better suit their arguments?

Next thing I'll hear is that the tools make the conversion easy, but it's still pretty hard and takes a significant amount of time. Yeah, that'll do, sounds vague enough and is between both extremes.

Just because something is "easy" to do doesn't mean that it doesn't take time, or need to be thoroughly tested....

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by The iMac Man

Just because something is "easy" to do doesn't mean that it doesn't take time, or need to be thoroughly tested....

True. So since DirectX -> OpenGL has always been a factor and will always be a factor, the time spent on it is exactly the same whether you're porting to PPC, Intel or making a Universal Binary.

Lets look at other factors...games that make use of SSE or x86-specific optimizations or even x86 assembly will almost instantly reduce port times since some game portions won't have to be rewritten and optimized. And games like these almost instantly sound the "I am a hardware-hungry game...feed me"-alarm. I don't think these games will be worth porting to G5 or G4s since, like I said earlier, they will run at glacial speeds.

There will be sacrifices to be made by people buying new machines in the next year. Do you want to be able to run all the old and current games and games released in the next year to run between super-fast to acceptable on your computer? Or do you want to run the old games (via Rosetta) and the games released in 2006+ at fast speeds but ditch all the current games (since they will likely choke under Rosetta and assuming the game porter is unwilling to 'tweak+recompile' their PPC games).

My sacrifice will be money. I'm actually going to buy a used G5 in 6 months to assure that I'll be able to run all my old and current games. And then eventually buy a Macintell once the transition is over in 2 years.

I don't think it'll be too hard to find a low priced G5 from people with the twitch "gotta sell my G5 because it's obsolete" reaction.

[Homer S.]

hey guys, i just have read this and i have a doubt.. does this means that a new and mucho more faster virtual pc will be on mactel and will support directx and all that stuff???

[FONT=Comic Sans MS]There be Windows apps here![/FONT]

One thing that hit me today (unjustifiably hard, too) was the concept of Windows apps running decently in Mac OS X.

The one major factor that currently prevents Windows apps from running bearably on the Mac is that whole different-processor-architecture thing. Windows apps run on x86- (Intel-)based processors. Macs currently run on PowerPCs. To run a Windows app on a Mac, you need to translate the instructions so the PPC can understand what the application wants. That takes time, and the best program right now for the job -- namely, Microsoft's VirtualPC -- is excruciatingly slow. Which is understandable, considering its task is not an easy one -- one could probably have better luck starting fire with two sticks in the midsts of a downpour.

But since OS X will soon run on Intel's chips, that instruction-translation thing becomes a non-issue. All of a sudden, running Windows apps seems a lot more feasible. As a friend of mine put it: Instead of emulation, all that would really be needed is a sort of Virtual Machine -- just enough to convince the app it can -- and by-God, will -- work. (Think Wine for OS X.)

Heck, Apple could incorporate such technology into OS X itself. (A nice new feature of Leopard, perhaps?) Sure, there's a lot that needs to be taken into consideration -- virus protection, et al -- but a secure environment could be created and those who need to run Windows apps -- whether for business or, um, pleasure (?) -- will now be able to without the insufferable speed lag inherent in solutions like Virtual PC.

[The iMac Man]

Originally Posted by Homer S.

hey guys, i just have read this and i have a doubt.. does this means that a new and mucho more faster virtual pc will be on mactel and will support directx and all that stuff???

Theorhetically, that is exactly the case.

Windows will run MUCH better on Intel Macs, either through "emulation" or through actual installation. There is still a possibility that we can actually install Windows on a seperate partition, and have a dual boot situation where we can actually boot into Windows and run it natively.

WINE and VPC will have much better results, but could still possibly have a hard time with the newer games.

And, it's not in Apple's best interest to encourage Windows running on the Mac, because the easier it is for us to run Windows apps, the less likely people are to actually program for the Mac. Why make a Mac version when Mac users could just use the Windows version?

[FurionStormrage]

Don't forget that Intel and AMD are both working on Hardware Virtualisation on the chip level so that you won't/don't need a separate piece of software to slice up resources. Who needs emulation when the chip itself will encapsulate for you on the fly?

[karx11erx]

I don't think that the migration to Intel chips will cause more game developers to create Mac games. First of all, the main problem of writing/porting software is to make it work with the target OS, not with the CPU. Second, Macs will still use hardware not available or popular for WinXP machines. My $0.02.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by The iMac Man

Why make a Mac version when Mac users could just use the Windows version?

Yeah but then why run a Mac at all?

I agree with both of you though, encouraging Windows on Mac via virtualization or by dual booting is a bad thing.

If enough people have the will power to not buy the PC apps or games right away to run on their Mac through virtualization or dual booting, I don't see the whole thing being a problem.

[The iMac Man]

Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!!

Yeah but then why run a Mac at all?

Because I want to do my computing on OS X.


But, when I'm playing a game, I don't see the OS, so honestly, I don't really care what OS is running in the background, even if it is Windows. I'll only see Windows for a minute until I launch the game, and then for another minute as I reboot back to OS X.

To tell ya the truth, if dual booting or good emulation allows us to run PC games well, I will not feel bad about buying Windows and its games. I want to support Mac porters, but it's just too inticing of an offer to pass up. I'd still buy Mac ports, if they keep making them and they are comparable to the PC version. But, I definitely wont feel bad about picking up several of those $9.99 bargin bin PC games that will never get ported.

[khufuu]

Originally Posted by The iMac Man

Porting will be easier, but will take even longer now because they are still going to have to support PPC Macs, which means they will basically have two versions of the game to test before they can ship it.

Not really no.

Aspyr, a traditional Mac developer, may do something like that but other developers won't care about the PPC and won't bother making the attempt.

[Helmling]

There's still an inconvenience factor of running multiple OS's. I, for one, would never want to sully a Mac with Windows. Hell, I'm trying to purge all Microsoft programs from my machine. And most users/gamers won't want to mess with a dual boot, either...since it's not going to be a supported feature, I doubt many will at all. Think about those old PC boards for the PowerPC's back in the early 90's. How many people really wanted 'em?

But it seems to me that "porting" in the sense we're used to for most games isn't the issue. I think with the x86 architecture in common, we'll see a lot more boxes that just have both versions from the get-go...if you have an InteliMac, that is.

I do not, and I doubt I will anytime soon. My G4 is already useless as a game rig. But really, that's not why we bought Mac, is it? I used to be a gamer, but that's something I had to give up to come Mac, and boy-howdy was it worth it. Frankly, there's no great loss for owners of G5 systems. There weren't going to be many great games coming anyway. Those of you sitting on Dual G5's, I envy you...and not because you can play Doom3.

[Millennium]

In and of itself, no; porting won't be any easier. You may get a slight boost because stuff written in (shudder) x86 assembler won't have to be rewritten, but the real difficulty in porting games from Windows to Mac has always been the Windows world's reliance on DirectX, a set of proprietary Microsoft technologies, and particularly Direct3D, their proprietary answer to OpenGL.

As far as I know, DirectX is not being ported to Mac OS X (Microsoft would never allow it, though they did promise it once, many years ago). As long as that doesn't happen, and as long as developers insist on using these Microsoft lock-in technologies, ports will remain difficult.

[Helmling]

he he..."(shudder) x86." That's rich.

That's how I feel too. The PowerPC architecture was one reason I was convinced to switch a few years ago...now this.

I really wish I could afford to buy a new G4 laptop and a dual G5 tower before it's too late, but the Mrs. (wisely) won't go for it.

[calumr]

Originally Posted by Millennium

In and of itself, no; porting won't be any easier. You may get a slight boost because stuff written in (shudder) x86 assembler won't have to be rewritten, but the real difficulty in porting games from Windows to Mac has always been the Windows world's reliance on DirectX, a set of proprietary Microsoft technologies, and particularly Direct3D, their proprietary answer to OpenGL.

Implementing Windows APIs has always been non-trivial, but it's not the hardest part for most games. New games can reuse the coded written for old game ports, and games tend to use only a very small number of functions in the Windows API.

Byte swapping can (and often does) take up most of the time when porting a game.

Think about it - Windows APIs are documented on MSDN, but data formats internal to games are completely undocumented in most cases.

As far as I know, DirectX is not being ported to Mac OS X (Microsoft would never allow it, though they did promise it once, many years ago). As long as that doesn't happen, and as long as developers insist on using these Microsoft lock-in technologies, ports will remain difficult.

Aspyr , Westlake & Feral/Zonic all have their own internal versions of DirectX that they have built up over the years. Whilst it's nice when the game doesn't use D3D, it's not a huge problem.

[The iMac Man]

Originally Posted by khufuu

Aspyr, a traditional Mac developer, may do something like that but other developers won't care about the PPC and won't bother making the attempt.

What makes you think that!?!? That's definitely NOT the case. No developer would drop PPC support right off the bat... it would be suicide.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by The iMac Man

What makes you think that!?!? That's definitely NOT the case. No developer would drop PPC support right off the bat... it would be suicide.

You're right...they probably won't. I'm guessing they might just do a small market study and realize the non-CPU/graphics intensive game mostly appeal to the non-hardcore gamers and only release their game on PPC (and if it runs on Rosetta, good, if not, too bad)...and that the CPU/graphics intensive game really only appeal to those that are probably going to get a Macintel because they want a fast computer to run the latest games...and the developers will probably just release the x86 version.

[a2daj]

The market will be too small for x86 only games from the current Mac publishers for a couple of years after the PowerMacs switch. New developers, shareware developers, or PC only publishers curious about the Mac market may be the first to release x86-only apps.

[Horsepoo!!!]

That may be true...

I'm surprised Doom 3 was ported. I'd hate to see the Doom 3 sales figures because I doubt very many had the specs for it considering you pretty much need a G5 to run it at all and the top of the line G5 to run it acceptably.

Unfortunately, if the x86 market is too small, we may not see very many of the games released between now and 2007 on our Macs. The successors to Doom 3 and other games coming out soon will simply not run on anything but the 2.7 G5 with the fastest card out.

I doubt IBM will be able or want to get the G5 up to 3.0GHz so I dunno...the choice will be to support the very small high-end G5 market or the very small Macintel market.

I'm gonna go check out the Sims 2 specs but I doubt anything but the high-end G4s and the G5s can handle that 'average' game for 'non-hardcore gamers'.

edit: 1.2GHz...not bad...some of the 'for everyone' games may still have a place in the PPC market but not the first-person shooters coming out soon. Either they support PPC and tweak the hell out of their games and sell to a select few Dual 2.7 G5 owners. Or support x86 with less tweak and sell to a select few Macintel owners. Or they take a vacation.

[FurionStormrage]

Well, I built a PC just to play games because I do everything else on my Mac. If new Intel-based Macs will work with Windows in through dual-boot or through virtualization, I'd buy a new Mac in a heartbeat. I'd still purchase Windows-based games, though.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by FurionStormrage

Well, I built a PC just to play games because I do everything else on my Mac. If new Intel-based Macs will work with Windows in through dual-boot or through virtualization, I'd buy a new Mac in a heartbeat. I'd still purchase Windows-based games, though.

You're 'a different' crowd. You actually went out to buy or build a PC for gaming. Mac game developers wouldn't really be losing money since you'd either buy a PC to complement your Mac or would buy one that would dual boot just to play the latest games.

There is a completely other and different crowd that would rather sit out and not play the latest games and wait for a Mac version. I am part of that crowd and I know there are a lot of people that are part of that crowd.

[Dair Grant]

There is a completely other and different crowd that would rather sit out and not play the latest games and wait for a Mac version. I am part of that crowd and I know there are a lot of people that are part of that crowd.

I suspect that crowd is smaller than you think, and certainly goes for the lower-profile titles. Being able to play things like Half Life 2/CounterStrike/etc on the day of their release - just by rebooting - is going to tempt Mac users the same way it has tempted Linux users.

Given that most high-selling games are full-screen experiences, the "Mac version" is not going to be fundamentally different from the Windows version (we put a nice startup screen in the games we port, and try and fix bugs missed in the PC version, however changes to the game itself are rare due to the need to get approval from the PC developer+publisher).

If you could get these games 6 months earlier than today, and never have problems playing online with PC users, I suspect a lot of people would be happy to buy a copy of Windows and reboot (this applies more widely than games of course, but games are the most visible type of software the x86 move will affect).


-dair
Zonic

[Helmling]

I think what's he's saying is that the Mac user base is not that game-hungry. If games were a priority, then they'd probably never have gone Mac anyway.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by Helmling

I think what's he's saying is that the Mac user base is not that game-hungry. If games were a priority, then they'd probably never have gone Mac anyway.

Yeah, that's somewhat what I meant. FurionStormrage is part of the game-hungry crowd that just can't wait to get the games and would even go as far as to build another computer just for gaming. Anyone who names himself after a computer character is game-hungry, no?

Heh, kidding aside...I understand that dual-booting takes away from the 'going as far as to build another computer' since you'd only need to install a new OS onto the Mac and not go through the trouble of buying a whole new computer...but this is under the assumption people want to dual boot at all. If your answer is 'yes' to 'are you assuming people will dual boot', then stop making Mac games right now, 'cuz apparently everyone will run out to get the latest Windows, go through the partitioning process, download the drivers to go with their slightly Mac-ified hardware, and install the games right away.

I'm part of a crowd that NEVER GOT TO FINISH Escape from Monkey Island simply because I absolutely hated dual booting into OS 9. Maybe one day I'll go back and finish it but it seems more and more unlikely considering how long OS X has been out.

I predict a small select crowd will not wait for their games and go through the trouble I mentioned above.

I predict a much bigger crowd absolutely hates dual booting and prefer to suffer to use the Classic environment or not use the software at all just to avoid the suckiness of booting into another OS.

I predict the biggest crowd just won't even know they can install Windows on their Mac and nothing will have changed.

The two first crowds are computer geeks: one crowd is the 0-warez crowd that will do everything in their power to play the game *before* it's even released (heh, kidding again): the other crowd, geeky enough to know they *could* install Windows and start playing right away but will wait if they know a Mac version is on the way (of course, if there are absolutely no plans to port the game, it's a different story.)

The last crowd just doesn't know and will simply buy games with the Mac OS smiley face on the box.

[The iMac Man]

Originally Posted by Helmling

I think what's he's saying is that the Mac user base is not that game-hungry. If games were a priority, then they'd probably never have gone Mac anyway.

I disagree completely.

I use a Mac for computing.... I play whatever games I can on it too.

But, computing is what I have it for, and therefore I want a Mac. I don't want two computers, so I can't have a PC just for gaming, so I'm stuck with whatever comes to the Mac.

Now, give me the option to reboot into Windows and play any game I want... I'm all over it!

[FurionStormrage]

Most of the games I buy are multi-player games. Because I am the only Mac user in my circle of friends, I play against PC players. It's not really an option to wait for the Mac version of the game because 1) it's rare that a Mac game (that I would buy) comes out when the PC game does, and 2) not all Mac games network correctly, or not at all, with the PC games. The third minor reason why I prefer PC games is that they hit the bargain basement much sooner than the Mac versions, and they're usually in the bargain bin (or at least a reduced cost) before the Mac version comes out.

Horsepoo, if your logic is to be followed to its logical conclusion, if people don't want to go through the shenanigans of dual-booting or partitioning, they're going to get a PC. With that said, I will be the first to tell you that my PC is multi-boot. It's got at least two flavors of Linux on it along with FreeBSD. It's got three versions of Windows installed (Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional MSDN, and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition). On my Mac, I will boot into OS 9 to avoid using Classic (no, I don't have a G5 ).

As iMac Man said, if I were given an opportunity to buy a Mac and be able to install Windows to play my games, I would buy one in a heartbeat. IMO, it's the best of both worlds in one desktop unit.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by FurionStormrage

Most of the games I buy are multi-player games. Because I am the only Mac user in my circle of friends, I play against PC players. It's not really an option to wait for the Mac version of the game because 1) it's rare that a Mac game (that I would buy) comes out when the PC game does, and 2) not all Mac games network correctly, or not at all, with the PC games. The third minor reason why I prefer PC games is that they hit the bargain basement much sooner than the Mac versions, and they're usually in the bargain bin (or at least a reduced cost) before the Mac version comes out.

Horsepoo, if your logic is to be followed to its logical conclusion, if people don't want to go through the shenanigans of dual-booting or partitioning, they're going to get a PC. With that said, I will be the first to tell you that my PC is multi-boot. It's got at least two flavors of Linux on it along with FreeBSD. It's got three versions of Windows installed (Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional MSDN, and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition). On my Mac, I will boot into OS 9 to avoid using Classic (no, I don't have a G5 ).

As iMac Man said, if I were given an opportunity to buy a Mac and be able to install Windows to play my games, I would buy one in a heartbeat. IMO, it's the best of both worlds in one desktop unit.

I don't think you quite understand what I said. I'm saying you and iMacMan are part of a different crowd.

You in particular with your 3 version of Windows, 2 Linux, FreeBSD. I've never seen *anyone* with that many OSes on one computer. But if you're trying to convince me everyone does that or even does that to a fraction of the extent you just bestowed upon us, you're sadly mistaken.

I won't invent statistics but the majority of computer users are on a single-boot computers and have no idea how to partition their drive or install another OS.

iMacMan, I dare you to install Windows XP on your Mac without using or looking at any of the tutorials that will be floating around on the net once the Macintels are out. I double dare you.

I guarantee you most people that even want to try to play games under Windows on their Mac and have never partitioned their drive to install different OSs, will weep as they read the tutorial or hacks to get XP running on them. Only a small amount of people out of the millions of Mac users will go through the effort and risks.

[FurionStormrage]

I am definately in a minority crowd, but I don't think this crowd is any less than 5% of the computer users out there. Considering that this is 3% larger than the questimated statistic of how many people own Macs, I would say that the amount of people who dual-boot their computer is at least as large as the entire Mac computing group.

Throw in the ability to buy a computer with the best OS in the world (OS X in my opinion) and the capability of running native Windows games on either an emulated PC/Windows environment or dual-booted, I can see a lot of defections from the PC to Mac camp. Just brave the HardOCP forums and you would see that a lot of PC people would love to run OS X but they just don't want to buy a new computer to run OS X and they don't want to give up their PCs for games. Now, throw in someone who needs to replace their existing computer and they have the ability to buy one that not only boots into OS X but would allow them to have speedy access to the environment that they are familiar with, well, who wouldn't want to try the new Macs! Just look how popular PearPC is and it doesn't even do a good job running OS X on the PC side.

Now, if Virtual PC runs a lot better on a new Intel-based Mac, I can see a LOT of people playing games in a Virtual PC environment. I even play some older games in Virtual PC and in some cases they run better than on my regular PC. And I didn't need any tutorials, 'net or otherwise, to walk me through the process of creating a Virtual PC environment.

[FurionStormrage]

Sorry for the double-post, but I just thought of something else:

This thread seems to assume that new Macs are going to be purchased by people upgrading their current Macs. I disagree somewhat with this assessment. I believe that the capability of the new Macs being able to run Windows, no matter how unofficially, will pick up customers from the PC side who will purchase Macs now that they really have nothing to lose by purchasing a new Mac. These same people are almost definitely going to be dual-booting or running an emulated Windows environment to run their current crop of games and other programs unless and until they can find the appropriate Mac equivalent. These same people are almost certainly going to be playing games against other PC users.

Current theory (as espoused on these boards) is that the average Mac game buyer does not care for cross-platform compatibility. Once you throw in the average PC gamer who may have been enticed to buy a new Mac, there is no reason to believe that these customers are going to find the current state of cross-platform compatibility to be acceptable. I think that my own feelings in this regard represent what the majority of PC gamers feel.

I also don't believe that the entire current Mac community is going to upgrade en mass to the new Macs. There are going to be the traditional die-hard Mac people who will consider the move to Intel/AMD to be a betrayal of sorts to the Mac community. Betrayal works two ways. If Steve can betray the community by going Intel, why buy a Mac when a standard generic PC has the same (basic) chip inside? Why run an application or a game in a virtual or emulated environment when you can just run it natively on a relatively unrestricted PC (though this is changing).

So, I guess that my speculation is this: For the short term (1 to 3 years) the Mac gaming PPC community will be served by the game porting houses that exist at present. Once Intel-based Macs reach critical mass, unless something happens anytime soon to address the cross-platform issues and simultaneous releases happen on the generic PC and the Intel-based Macs, there would be no reason why someone would buy a Mac version of a game when the PC version already exists.

All my 0.02 USD, IMO, YMMV, etc.

[Helmling]

Let me clarify...I'm sure there are people who are game for multiple OS'ing and what not. Obviously, some of you guys are those people. But I was attempting to speculate on the nature of the Mac market, as a whole. That's what will affect development, the average users behavior. And I don't think the average user wants a dual boot.