Early intel/PPC gaming videos

[Hoddy]

I've started making short youtube videos showing both Windows, Mac and emulated games running on my mid 2009 macbook geforce 9400m. I'll show my g4 powerbook running some rarer titles also. I'm actually surprised at how the little 9400m goes. Its definitely a dramatic jump over the previous intel graphics.

The powerbook I'll be featuring is a higher end 1.33ghz Ati Radeon 9700. Look forward to showing off some basic gameplay on a few classic and rare titles!

 

[Amethyst1]

I'm actually surprised at how the little 9400m goes. Its definitely a dramatic jump over the previous intel graphics.

And the GeForce 320M is quite an improvement over the 9400M.

 

[Hoddy]

Yeah 320m was a good little thing

 

[MultiFinder17]

The 9400M is certainly a massive step up from the old intel integrated graphics, and indeed the 320M is an even bigger jump! That said I still use several 9400M machines on a daily basis and they hold up well enough today for general usage.

 

[theMarble]

And the GeForce 320M is quite an improvement over the 9400M.

The 320M was actually an amazing iGPU for its time. It was significantly faster at gaming, and was a decent jump over the 9400M in other GPU-intensive loads.

Even the HD 3000 couldn't outpace it in a few apps/games! Though, I think most eyes that year were on the HD 6000M chips. Little did they know that it had a major design flaw, leading to its demise.

 

[iModFrenzy]

The 9400M is certainly a massive step up from the old intel integrated graphics, and indeed the 320M is an even bigger jump! That said I still use several 9400M machines on a daily basis and they hold up well enough today for general usage.

Love my 320m 13” MBP. Super reliable. Honestly I would still use it today if I had more screen real estate, 1280x800 is difficult to multitask/use. Surprised no one ever discovered a way to retrofit a higher display into them.

 

[Hoddy]

I might have to grab a 2010 unibody for the collection one day. Oh and make sure to follow my youtube for ****** mac gaming experiences. I've got about 100 games between both my laptops to test

 

[Hoddy]

Yes screen real estate is limited when you have game window, hierarchy and assets open in unity haha!

 

[theMarble]

Oh and make sure to follow my youtube for ****** mac gaming experiences. I've got about 100 games between both my laptops to test

Just a suggestion for your future videos, film them in landscape rather than portrait. Most people watch videos on a device where landscape is better suited.

Will you ever get around to playing any of the old Valve titles (eg: Half-Life 2, Portal...)? There were Mac versions of the games released in 2010. HL2 runs suprisingly well on my X1600-equipped MBP.

 

[MultiFinder17]

Love my 320m 13” MBP. Super reliable. Honestly I would still use it today if I had more screen real estate, 1280x800 is difficult to multitask/use. Surprised no one ever discovered a way to retrofit a higher display into them.

Same, I adore my 2010 Poly MacBook, it’s a fantastic machine. Probably the most dead reliable machine I’ve had other than my 2009 mini.

 

[Hoddy]

I've never played half life or portal 2. Maybe one day. I had a MBP with the x1600 and a core duo early 06 Imac they are also a decent card. There's a video on youtube of a guy running Skyrim on an x1600. I won't do anymore in portrait mode then. I'm more just showing people what's out there. Break the stigma against mac games haha

 

[Hoddy]

https://youtube.com/@hodslate2582

 

[MultiFinder17]

I've never played half life or portal 2. Maybe one day. I had a MBP with the x1600 and a core duo early 06 Imac they are also a decent card. There's a video on youtube of a guy running Skyrim on an x1600. I won't do anymore in portrait mode then. I'm more just showing people what's out there. Break the stigma against mac games haha

I was initially thinking "Man, playing Portal 2 on such an old machine might be... Oh right, Portal 2 came out in 2011. Damn, I'm old."

 

[theMarble]

I was initially thinking "Man, playing Portal 2 on such an old machine might be... Oh right, Portal 2 came out in 2011. Damn, I'm old."

Despite being from 2011, it still holds up better in terms of both graphics, and pure enjoyment than a lot of more modern games.

 

[Hoddy]

Plenty of games still hold up. Age doesn't matter and at least back then they worked. I fond most games are half finished these days and they just patch them as they go.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

I’m still hung up on the white elephant in the room

“I haven’t played HL or …”

The HL franchise could be an entire video series to itself. Hands down one of my fav game series/story to play through

 

[theMarble]

The HL franchise could be an entire video series to itself. Hands down one of my fav game series/story to play through

In the franchise (including the Portal series as they reference each other in the storyline), my personal favourite has to be Portal 2. The storyline is the best part! (especially when you fall down into old Aperture)

I recall they were planning to make a movie set in the HL universe but I don't think that it came to anything.

Anyway, back on topic, Steam hasn't had a release for Snow Leopard in 6-7 years, so I'm not sure if you could getting it running or not. It may be possible to copy the executable and game files from a modern install as they still contain the 32-bit OS X executable file.

 

[retta283]

Anyway, back on topic, Steam hasn't had a release for Snow Leopard in 6-7 years, so I'm not sure if you could getting it running or not. It may be possible to copy the executable and game files from a modern install as they still contain the 32-bit OS X executable file.

Steam does still work on Snow Leopard (at least it did 5 months ago when I lasted fired it up) but it has become highly unstable. This is with the app patched to disable updates. As far as I have been able to test, it would be impossible to log in again if it ever kicked me out and I cannot install any new games.

Some of the Valve Mac ports are available on Macintosh Garden now and work great on Snow Leopard, luckily.

Edit: I just recalled some further details on this matter, if you are able to copy the games from a newer Mac and launch them there first, it should show the game when you click on the Steam dock icon which gives you a recent games list that syncs with your account, not the local library. It worked for me on Mavericks a few years back, no clue if it would on SL. Of course in a few years when Steam drops Mojave a majority of Mac games will be lost forever.

 

[Hoddy]

Yes I've never played half life. Never had the desire to as of yet. As for steam I despise it. Too many DRMs and over time games become useless. I'd prefer to be able to install of a disk or at least mount a virtual one. I guess this way of doing things is long dead now. Hopefully we can continue to enjoy these games on mac garden. It's a shame to see things fall by the wayside like that.

 

[retta283]

Yes I've never played half life. Never had the desire to as of yet. As for steam I despise it. Too many DRMs and over time games become useless. I'd prefer to be able to install of a disk or at least mount a virtual one. I guess this way of doing things is long dead now. Hopefully we can continue to enjoy these games on mac garden. It's a shame to see things fall by the wayside like that.

Yeah, and unfortunately the entire catalog of 32-bit Mac games on Steam will likely not exist in a years' time, Chrome is dropping support for High Sierra and Mojave in September which will lead Steam to drop it as well a few months later. Approximately a year at most. They're already dropping support for 10.11 and 10.12 in September.

It is probably wise to begin to get in contact with the Garden about what we can to remedy this, but I fear with the way some Steam games are wired to the client much of it will be lost forever in very short order. It seems a futile effort to me to get invested in newer games as this digital age is not very friendly to preservation of content.

 

[Hoddy]

Correct indeed. Such a shame Mojave only came out in what 2018? The clients are annoying. I've purchased physical releases. Dragon age II and Might and Magic X come to mind. Never got past the menu screen as both clients have moved on since these physical releases and it kept running into errors. I pretty much draw the line at 2010 PC wise unless it's an indie game.

 

[Hoddy]

 

[chaosbunny]

I second the preference of old school physical media and instalations without a patch every couple of days. At least with steam you can still play the Windows versions of the 32bit Mac games. If you bought them on the Mac App Store you're out of luck, as far as I know.

As was mentioned before, I'd also suggest filming in landscape. The laptop is landscape, the game is landscape. Portrait videos are a pain to watch for more than 10 seconds. They just exist because people were too lazy to rotate their phones and social app creators were too lazy to implement a propper rotate mechanism.