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doolally · Sep 13, 2005, 02:06 PM

Can anyone tell me how Intel-driven Macs will affect gaming on the Mac?

Chuckit · Sep 13, 2005, 02:08 PM

Nobody can tell you anything about computers that have no released specs whatsoever. Anything they do tell you is speculation.

Horsepoo!!! · Sep 13, 2005, 02:21 PM

Please...let's not have this discussion AGAIN.

doolally, search this forum for Intel and you'll get all the speculations you want.

The iMac Man · Sep 13, 2005, 02:55 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Nobody can tell you anything about computers that have no released specs whatsoever. Anything they do tell you is speculation.

Well, that's not entirely true, in this case at least. We can very easily say how the Macintels will effect Mac gaming without speculating.

However, like Horsepoo said, it's already been discussed, so this guy needs to do a search in order to find the info he's looking for.

Chuckit · Sep 13, 2005, 03:02 PM

Originally Posted by The iMac Man

Well, that's not entirely true, in this case at least. We can very easily say how the Macintels will effect Mac gaming without speculating.

No, you can't, because Macintels themselves are currently speculative. They do not yet exist, nor do we have any hard facts as to what they'll be like. We know only what Apple has told us, which is basically this:

1. They will run on Intel processors.

2. They will provide a compatibility environment for PowerPC software.

3. They will use a different byte order than current Macs.

None of these are enough to say anything significant.

The iMac Man · Sep 13, 2005, 05:31 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

No, you can't, because Macintels themselves are currently speculative. They do not yet exist...

That is not correct. Developers already have Macintels, and have already began porting their games over to the new Macintel hardware.

Even with speculation, we can be sure that Windows emulation will work better, and likely give a boost in playing games through emulation, at the very least.

Chuckit · Sep 13, 2005, 05:49 PM

Originally Posted by The iMac Man

That is not correct. Developers already have Macintels, and have already began porting their games over to the new Macintel hardware.

No, they are using developer kits with generic PC components running a preview version of the Intel version of Mac OS X. Those are not the final system; nobody will ever buy that hardware at an Apple Store. Would you say people with Power Mac G5s are using the Xbox 360, since those were used as developer kits for that system?

The iMac Man · 07:31 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

No, they are using developer kits with generic PC components running a preview version of the Intel version of Mac OS X. Those are not the final system; nobody will ever buy that hardware at an Apple Store.

Whatever. Okay, so yeah, Aspyr is reprogramming their games on a computer that will be nothing like what we buy in the store. That sounds about right.

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Would you say people with Power Mac G5s are using the Xbox 360, since those were used as developer kits for that system?

No, you have it backwards. When we were programming on the Xenon here, I always referred to them as G5's.... cause, that's what they were.

11011001 · Sep 14, 2005, 03:57 AM

Personally, I am curious how Rosetta will handle older games (such as Unreal Tournament), or other such games that are never going to be ported. Any developers with Dev Kits able to respond, or is this in violation of your NDA?

Chuckit · Sep 14, 2005, 04:08 AM

Originally Posted by The iMac Man

Whatever. Okay, so yeah, Aspyr is reprogramming their games on a computer that will be nothing like what we buy in the store. That sounds about right.

That isn't what I said. I said that we can't make any definite comments because we don't really know what the shipping product will have in common with the dev kits. There have been hints from people with close ties to Apple that the final product may not use BIOS, for instance, which the dev kits do. Any statements about the final machines are speculation, because I'm not sure even Apple knows exactly what they will be.

Originally Posted by The iMac Man

No, you have it backwards. When we were programming on the Xenon here, I always referred to them as G5's.... cause, that's what they were.

That's what I'm saying. I assume you wouldn't comment (at least not with any surety) on the state of the Xbox 360 by looking at a Power Mac G5 just because that was the development kit, so why would you comment on the state of the Macintel by looking at the development kit?

mhuie · Sep 14, 2005, 05:35 PM

Originally Posted by The iMac Man

That is not correct. Developers already have Macintels, and have already began porting their games over to the new Macintel hardware.

Even with speculation, we can be sure that Windows emulation will work better, and likely give a boost in playing games through emulation, at the very least.

I'm sure you know that Windows emulation (VPC) does NOT play any 3D accelerated games as there is no DirectX emulation.

You are probably correct that Windows emulation will work better, but not for any games.

The iMac Man · Sep 14, 2005, 05:52 PM

Originally Posted by mhuie

I'm sure you know that Windows emulation (VPC) does NOT play any 3D accelerated games as there is no DirectX emulation.

You are probably correct that Windows emulation will work better, but not for any games.

What?

VPC is a Windows emulation app for the current Macs. VPC has to emulate an Intel processor.... so, obviously, when Macs are actually running on Intel processors, that removes the need to emulate the processor, which will allow us to actually use the processor, thus adding a ton of speed to Windows emulation.

VPC and current Macs has nothing to do with how Windows emulation will run on Macintels.

mhuie · Sep 14, 2005, 07:28 PM

Originally Posted by The iMac Man

What?

VPC is a Windows emulation app for the current Macs. VPC has to emulate an Intel processor.... so, obviously, when Macs are actually running on Intel processors, that removes the need to emulate the processor, which will allow us to actually use the processor, thus adding a ton of speed to Windows emulation.

VPC and current Macs has nothing to do with how Windows emulation will run on Macintels.

Isn't that what I said? VPC emulating apps will be faster. I'd imagine it to perform similar to how VPC for Windows does. However emulation of games will be essentially nil as VPC only emulates the S3 trio, which won't play any 3d games.

brokenjago · Sep 17, 2005, 10:13 PM

There will be no need for VPC. It has already been shown that Windows installs just fine on the MacIntel dev kits...

budster101 · Sep 17, 2005, 10:42 PM

Why is it every newbie in the house has the answers...?

Sorry, but there are no answers yet. Look up Trusted Computing.

Lata'

mhuie · Sep 17, 2005, 11:27 PM

Originally Posted by brokenjago

There will be no need for VPC. It has already been shown that Windows installs just fine on the MacIntel dev kits...

And this has to do with gaming on Mac OS how?

budster101 · Sep 17, 2005, 11:36 PM

He thinks he'll be able to go and buy a Dell, run games... on OS X.

I just threw up in my mouth a little...

Tesseract · Sep 18, 2005, 01:20 AM

http://darwine.opendarwin.org

goMac · Sep 18, 2005, 03:01 AM

Originally Posted by Tesseract

http://darwine.opendarwin.org

...which emulates Win32, but not DirectX, DirectSound, or anything else complicated for games. If anything the DirectX emulation is very basic.

Tesseract · Sep 18, 2005, 12:22 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

...which emulates Win32, but not DirectX, DirectSound, or anything else complicated for games. If anything the DirectX emulation is very basic.

WINE doesn't have full support for the media APIs, but it has enough so that people are able to run some reasonably modern 3D games under Linux.
http://appdb.winehq.org/appbrowse.php?catId=2

The iMac Man · Sep 18, 2005, 08:00 PM

Originally Posted by mhuie

And this has to do with gaming on Mac OS how?

Who said anything about gaming on the Mac OS? This topic is about gaming on an Intel-based Mac. So, in that case, using that Intel-based Mac to boot into Windows and run whatever games we want is completely related to the topic, and perfectly valid.

And, I hope that newbie comment wasn't about me, because I'm no newbie, thanks.

Chuckit · Sep 18, 2005, 08:37 PM

Cry more, n00b.

Horsepoo!!! · Sep 18, 2005, 08:39 PM

I like horsies.

goMac · Sep 19, 2005, 12:44 AM

Originally Posted by Tesseract

WINE doesn't have full support for the media APIs, but it has enough so that people are able to run some reasonably modern 3D games under Linux.
http://appdb.winehq.org/appbrowse.php?catId=2

You are aware that is not only a list of working programs, but also a list of programs that do not work with WINE? For example, under Battlefield 2:

What works:
- nothing

What doesn't work:

- Freezes during install, InstallShield

#Fontconfig error: "conf.d", line 1: no element found
err:ole:TLB_ReadTypeLib Loading of typelib L"C

Program Files\Common Files\InstallShield\Professional\RunTime\IsP40c1.t mp" failed with error 12

Or under Half Life 2:

What works:
Installation through Steam should work on Wine-CVS as of May 4, 2005.
The game should start up on Wine-CVS as of Jul 13, 2005.

However, there are three Steam bugs that you may run into - Steam does not have keyboard focus, Steam may deadlock on update, and Steam dies on startup. Steam may also deadlock on clicking the Update News button. To address the first bug, you can try this patch. The author has noted that the patch is incorrect, and may break other apps, but he will look into fixing it. To address the second and third bugs, retry a few times until it works. Alternatively you can try downloading steam from Valve's site, and see if that improves things. Do not click on Update News.

What doesn't work:

The game will not install due to unimplemented msi features.
It will start up once installed, but is extremely slow, and not yet playable.

Brad Oliver · Sep 19, 2005, 03:09 PM

Originally Posted by The iMac Man

Whatever. Okay, so yeah, Aspyr is reprogramming their games on a computer that will be nothing like what we buy in the store.

Actually, that's not completely unrealistic. These DTKs have no audio and have crappy onboard video which is just as likely as not to be on something Apple ships. We won't know if there are endian bugs in our audio code until an Intel Mac ships, and we also won't know what kind of 3D hardware they'll really support either. There's also repeated speculation that the CPUs will be low-power Pentiums rather than the P4s in the DTKs. So aside from the CPU, audio and video, we've got a pretty good idea.

goMac · Sep 19, 2005, 04:00 PM

Originally Posted by Brad Oliver

Actually, that's not completely unrealistic. These DTKs have no audio and have crappy onboard video which is just as likely as not to be on something Apple ships. We won't know if there are endian bugs in our audio code until an Intel Mac ships, and we also won't know what kind of 3D hardware they'll really support either. There's also repeated speculation that the CPUs will be low-power Pentiums rather than the P4s in the DTKs. So aside from the CPU, audio and video, we've got a pretty good idea.

Mac OS X x86 does support audio according to reports but sadly you can't modify the DTK's hardware.

brokenjago · 03:21 AM

He thinks he'll be able to go and buy a Dell, run games... on OS X.

I just threw up in my mouth a little...

What, me? You've got to be ****ing joking me.

budster101 · Sep 24, 2005, 07:23 AM

I wrote that on the 17th, and it is now the 24th... you just responding to that?
7 DAYS AGO.
BTW: It was in response to Doolally.. not you.

brokenjago · Sep 24, 2005, 03:42 PM

Well, I've been away. So Sue Me.

And Oh, Ok.

doolally · 05:54 PM

>>I wrote that on the 17th, and it is now the 24th... you just responding to that?
7 DAYS AGO.
BTW: It was in response to Doolally.. not you.<<

What an amazingly prescient person you must be to read all of that into one inquiry. Pass me another Kreskin, this one's cold.