Open letter to Apple about gaming

[Gasu E.]

Sure, the Mac's share does suffer from the relative dearth of native gaming titles. However, I'd like to see some evidence that the gaming market is driven by hard-core gamers who need the ultimate performance. Even integrated graphics are good enough for the vast majority of consumers to enjoy the vast majority of games. I think it's the Mac's small share, the cost of porting, and the cost of stocking dual inventory that really matter, by making the economics look unattractive to game developers. What Apple really needs to do is come up with tools that make it a no-brainer for the original developer to deliver a dual-platform kit in the first place.

 

[KurtangleTN]

I think Apple is really losing out on some marketshare by ignoring gamers. I have so many friends who want to make the switch, but look at how you can spend $1300 for a horrible integrated graphics card on a Macbook, and the MBP is out of their budget.

I wish they made another class that was geared to gamers, in-between the iMac and Mac Pro. It could be a real nice card thats not outdated in a year in an AIO or a mid-range tower.

gMacs baby.

Or at least just allow a bit more options when buying a Mac in terms of video. 17 inch screen and the rest of the specs on the starter iMac are really fine for me, but if I really want a good card I have to go to the 24 inch, which is very overkill for me, and out of my range.

 

[Freyqq]

i don't get it...if you want to game so badly on a mac install windows on it..

 

[diamond.g]

While it would be nice for Apple to get into the gaming scene I don't think they will.

1. Mac Pro uses Xeon Chipset. Show me a Xeon that supports Crossfire or SLI. Go ahead, I'll wait...

2. OpenGL currently lacks the ability to report what features are supported in hardware. That means if you have a card that doesn't support say Instancing you CPU does all the work. DX tells the game what features your card supports so things that are ran are actually being ran on the card not the CPU. That makes the lives of devs far easier when trying to track down what feature is slowing the game down too much and has to be looked at.

3. PC games aren't dying. They just aren't getting the same level of press like console games. Which is understandable. Console games does rake in more dough. But that hasn't stopped MS from trying to get game development suites cross platform (XNA anyone??).

4. IMHO, Apple probably couldn't afford to keep up with the pace of hardware in the PC gaming world. I notice ppl here are super excited about the HD2600XT, why? How come you guys aren't petitioning for the 8800GTX? Shoot the iMac could be using a Go 7900GTX, but it isn't, why? From my understanding it runs in Linux just fine, why not OS X?

Aside from that I love how everyone is all like get a console to game on. Not realizing currently the only console worth getting thus far is either the PS2 or the 360. You guys here seem the dislike MS enough, so why would you buy their console. Currently the PS3 isn't much of an option (not a lot of games) and the Wii is pretty freaking hard to get a hold of.

 

[applekid]

While it would be nice for Apple to get into the gaming scene I don't think they will.

1. Mac Pro uses Xeon Chipset. Show me a Xeon that supports Crossfire or SLI. Go ahead, I'll wait...

Google search and I found an Xeon SLI workstation, to my own surprise, too: http://www.avadirect.com/product_details_configurator.asp?PRID=4384

Not so much luck on finding a Xeon-Crossfire system

3. PC games aren't dying. They just aren't getting the same level of press like console games. Which is understandable. Console games does rake in more dough. But that hasn't stopped MS from trying to get game development suites cross platform (XNA anyone??).

You may be right, but things have certainly died down since Doom III and Half Life 2 being hailed as next-gen engines. There's also a lot of ports from consoles to PCs, which hasn't worked out well (namely Capcom ports). Not to mention a game like World of WarCraft occupies most people's time now. I won't be surprised if Microsoft or someone else comes back to the PC gaming scene, guns blazing, but there certainly are a few hurdles to get back to PC gaming.

4. IMHO, Apple probably couldn't afford to keep up with the pace of hardware in the PC gaming world. I notice ppl here are super excited about the HD2600XT, why? How come you guys aren't petitioning for the 8800GTX? Shoot the iMac could be using a Go 7900GTX, but it isn't, why? From my understanding it runs in Linux just fine, why not OS X?

Apple has proven it can and can't keep up pace. The nVidia GeForce 3 was a Mac-exclusive for a short time, and we've had our share of Quake 3 and Halo demos at MacWorld. Apple on the other hand cannot keep its graphics card drivers up to date, unless there is more of a push from developers. Blizzard basically forced Apple into getting SMP OpenGL, and when UT2K3 was released, MacSoft forced Apple to update drivers.

I agree the 8800GTX should come our way, but I somehow don't see a mobile chip having staying power in the iMac. The X1600 arguably might be the mobile chipset in the iMac, but the 7300 or 7600 in the iMac might be an indication of things to come. Not to mention, new GPUs mean Apple needs to have new products in the pipeline. The iMac hasn't been updated recently, so no new chip.

This is why hardware upgradability is an important factor for Mac gaming, but it's too expensive since that's requiers Mac Pro. The other is just the sheer lack of developers. Those are the two main factors, as I see it.

 

[diamond.g]

Google search and I found an Xeon SLI workstation, to my own surprise, too: http://www.avadirect.com/product_details_configurator.asp?PRID=4384

Not so much luck on finding a Xeon-Crossfire system

Hmm, interesting. I believe that the MacPro uses LGA771 socket. The board linked is for the 604 pin variant (not C2D tech). Nvidia does have SLI, but it seems to be for AMD systems (looking at their website). But now I am interested in looking. Still pretty sure Intel doesn't have a SLI chipset and I am pretty sure Apple wont go with anyones chipset/logicboard but Intels.

Apple has proven it can and can't keep up pace. The nVidia GeForce 3 was a Mac-exclusive for a short time, and we've had our share of Quake 3 and Halo demos at MacWorld. Apple on the other hand cannot keep its graphics card drivers up to date, unless there is more of a push from developers. Blizzard basically forced Apple into getting SMP OpenGL, and when UT2K3 was released, MacSoft forced Apple to update drivers.

Which I think is sad on Apples part. Apple doesn't support OGL 2.0 yet do they?

I agree the 8800GTX should come our way, but I somehow don't see a mobile chip having staying power in the iMac. The X1600 arguably might be the mobile chipset in the iMac, but the 7300 or 7600 in the iMac might be an indication of things to come. Not to mention, new GPUs mean Apple needs to have new products in the pipeline. The iMac hasn't been updated recently, so no new chip.

AFAIK the Go 7900GTX has been around for a while. But I can understand Apples reluctance to make the iMac faster than the Mac Pro in graphics related items. Coupled with the higher power draw (thus higher heat envelope) the 7600GT is a probably good choice.

This is why hardware upgradability is an important factor for Mac gaming, but it's too expensive since that's requiers Mac Pro. The other is just the sheer lack of developers. Those are the two main factors, as I see it.

Well publishers would stand up and notice the Mac community if every Mac owner purchased a specific game (say every Mac owner has WoW). Publishers like having a consistent userbase. We Mac ppl may complain about having no games but if we don't buy the existing games in droves publishers wont be interested in catering to us (in terms of the most popular franchises).
Developers really only push games on platforms that the publishers feel there will be a godd return in (hence lots of PC games getting console counterparts).

 

[Roderick Usher]

i don't get it...if you want to game so badly on a mac install windows on it..

This does not help the Mac platform in any way. The usefulness of an OS is defined mainly by what software is natively available for it, and this includes games. Switching to another OS to play games does nothing to encourage game development for the OS that you'd rather stay in 100% of the time.

 

[diamond.g]

This does not help the Mac platform in any way. The usefulness of an OS is defined mainly by what software is natively available for it, and this includes games. Switching to another OS to play games does nothing to encourage game development for the OS that you'd rather stay in 100% of the time.

Agreed.

 

[sikkinixx]

Is gaming on a Mac worth it to develop since Apple holds ~4% of the computer market?

 

[72930]

Is gaming on a Mac worth it to develop since Apple holds ~4% of the computer market?

Yes, but a higher percentage of macs are decent gaming machines than windows machines.

Also, if you get an unopened market, you could easily capture most of the mac-gamers, while the PC market is oversaturated in almost every genre.

 

[Eric5h5]

Also, if you get an unopened market, you could easily capture most of the mac-gamers, while the PC market is oversaturated in almost every genre.

This is true. There are cases of shareware games that have both PC and Mac versions, and the Mac version will actually sell more (that's probably not common, but it has happened). Some cross-platform online games have much more than 4% of the player base on Macs.

--Eric

 

[MacsRgr8]

What about sound...?

Ofcourse grfx are of immense importance, but one of the other reasons why gaming on a PC is better than on a Mac, is the use of sound cards.
Not only can they support decoding of Dolby 5.1 surround sound (which can be VERY cool in games!), but also helps the performance.

Because the Mac Pro only has PCI-E slots, no Soundblaster X-Fi orso card can be installed.

 

[diamond.g]

What about sound...?

Ofcourse grfx are of immense importance, but one of the other reasons why gaming on a PC is better than on a Mac, is the use of sound cards.
Not only can they support decoding of Dolby 5.1 surround sound (which can be VERY cool in games!), but also helps the performance.

Because the Mac Pro only has PCI-E slots, no Soundblaster X-Fi orso card can be installed.

Well thanks to Vista OpenAL has more of a fighting chance now. As long as Apple supports OpenAL they should be fine.