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Big Mac · Sep 7, 2008, 01:28 AM

So I heard that Half Life 2 running on Cider is now circulating around the net, and supposedly a lone hacker got it up and running. So the question is, if a hacker outside of Valve can do this, why aren't all PC games now Intel Mac compatible?

moep · Sep 7, 2008, 01:49 AM

Probably because of licensing/pricing issues. Most publishers seem to outsource their mac ports and there sure is a lot of money to be made with them.

Still, this is quite interesting — thanks for the heads-up. I hope TF2 is soon to follow, with steam support of course.

Big Mac · Sep 7, 2008, 01:59 AM

My brother said that's coming. Is it a good game?

moep · Sep 7, 2008, 08:51 AM

It’s the most entertaining and casual FPS I’ve ever played. You don’t have to play the game for hours to get some fun out of it. TF for Half-Life was my favorite game mode and the new version takes it to a whole new level.

What worries me though is that TF2 definitely requires Steam to be ported.
That includes convincing Valves (more or less) sophisticated anti-cheat process that the underlying OS is really Windows and “trustable”. I imagine that isn’t exactly an easy thing to do, then again maybe it’s no problem at all.

mduell · Sep 7, 2008, 12:35 PM

"Some hacker got it running" (barely/how often does it crash/yada yada) and full vendor support are very different things.

TF2 is awesome, I play too much:

Chuckit · Sep 7, 2008, 01:51 PM

I refused to play it for a long time, but TF2 actually is really fun. Portal is great too. Half-Life 2 is actually my least favorite thing in The Orange Box.

And yeah, I don't expect to see TF2 ported to the Mac without Valve's help. Then again, maybe this will encourage them to get on with it.

Nerdism · Sep 12, 2008, 03:45 PM

Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 are quite playable in OS X under CrossOver Games (Link). In fact, I play Team Fortress 2 in OS X all the time. Of course, it's running without DirectX 9 effects, so it's not as pretty. But still very playable with great frame rates.

olePigeon · Sep 12, 2008, 04:10 PM

You won't see anything from Valve ported to the Mac so long as Gabe Newell is CEO. He's probably 2nd only to Paul Thurrott as far as Windows Fanbois are concerned.

Gabe Newell hates Macs, probably to an unhealthy level; well, at least enough to give up millions of dollars in sales.

redJag · Sep 15, 2008, 11:52 AM

I've played the Cidered version of Portal. On my Macbook Pro, it's fairly good. Occasionally, the energy balls that bounce around will stop getting rendered (very dangerous!) and the elevator between levels is almost always missing most or all the pieces. Other than that, very playable. It is much MORE glitchy on the Mac Pro, with the energy balls never being rendered and half the time the energy ball launchers aren't, either.

Anyway, it seems with a little devoted attention they could make it completely playable.

Peter · Sep 16, 2008, 08:11 AM

Originally Posted by Nerdism

Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 are quite playable in OS X under CrossOver Games (Link). In fact, I play Team Fortress 2 in OS X all the time. Of course, it's running without DirectX 9 effects, so it's not as pretty. But still very playable with great frame rates.

what machine do you run it on?

Peter · Sep 16, 2008, 08:13 AM

Originally Posted by olePigeon

You won't see anything from Valve ported to the Mac so long as Gabe Newell is CEO. He's probably 2nd only to Paul Thurrott as far as Windows Fanbois are concerned.

Gabe Newell hates Macs, probably to an unhealthy level; well, at least enough to give up millions of dollars in sales.

sure about that?
http://kotaku.com/gaming/player-hate...mac-304730.php

lenox · Sep 16, 2008, 10:55 AM

Wasn't Valve founded by ex-Microsoft employees?

Gabe's arguments about Apple...I wonder if Blizzard shares those sentiments?

Nerdism · Sep 17, 2008, 02:12 AM

Originally Posted by Peter

what machine do you run it on?

I usually run it on my Mac Pro w/ GeForce 8800GT GPU, but I've also run it on my two and a half year old Core Duo 2GHz Mac Pro with much success. It's not perfect, but it's really making headway. With the 10.5.5 update, Apple fixed some Graphics issues in OS X, and now Direct X 9 effects are working (just needs a bit of work to get it playable):

- - e r i k - - · Sep 17, 2008, 03:31 AM

Originally Posted by Peter

sure about that?
http://kotaku.com/gaming/player-hate...mac-304730.php

That article serves only to confirm it, not deny it.

Big Mac · Sep 17, 2008, 05:45 AM

Originally Posted by lenox

Gabe's arguments about Apple...I wonder if Blizzard shares those sentiments?

I would assume not - Blizzard isn't a mentally retarded company.

His claims may have had some validity prior to the Intel defection, but I don't think it's very defensible at this point. Nonetheless, Apple should try to placate that blob for the sake of the platform.