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Apple underdeveloped

R

rayfieldclement

Senior member
Why is gaming on the Mac secondary to the PC. Apple needs to push gaming more. Yes I know there are consoles out. Heck Halo started as an APPLE game. Why aren't macs being pushed for games? Is casual games on the iPhone and iPad pushing games AWAY from the Mac?
 
It's clear apple has, and never will have any interest in games. Windows is best for that, and Apple knows it. If you're a gamer, get a PC or use bootcamp.
 
gmaster456 said:
It's clear apple has, and never will have any interest in games. Windows is best for that, and Apple knows it. If you're a gamer, get a PC or use bootcamp.
Click to expand...

Exactly. If I were Apple, I wouldn't invest heavily in a dying market (PC gaming). You can either buy a PC, or get a console. Or just play casual games on your iPhone or iPad.
 
It is a strange conundrum... if apple OS is so much better then why wouldnt game developers code for it more often? Apple is actually pretty dumb for not buying a couple top tier first party devs. I remember back in the day when nintendo had rareware, a seriously undervalued company that put out exclusive titles that pretty much carried their console. Apple could easily snag that kind of talent and use it to generate demand for their hardware.
 
The iPhone and iPad is Apple's gaming platforms, not the PC's. It really never has been and never will be.
 
You also have to look at it from a developer's point of view. First, Mac computers still have a very small foothold in the overall computer market. Second, Microsoft has been very aggressive for years in pushing gaming on the Windows platform. Direct X is pretty much the king and it has been for years. Combine Direct X and the largest user base and you are going to get the vast majority of games being developed for Windows. I do see a number of quality Indie titles being made cross platform however and that is a good thing. When it comes to big budget AAA titles however I'm not sure I see things changing too much in the near future.
 
boomhower said:
The iPhone and iPad is Apple's gaming platforms, not the PC's. It really never has been and never will be.
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Apple did have a quite a big gaming following starting with the old Apple II. It continued on the Mac right up unit the mid 90s. Bungee of Halo fame got their big start with a little Mac FPS called Marathon. Almost every single big PC game of the 90s was on MacOS. A few things killed it, at least these are my theories.

In the late 90s, hardware costs for PCs began dropping rapidly. It became possible to build high end gaming PCs for the same or less than middle of the road Macs. At the time, Apple computers were widely considered to expensive compared to their middling performance. An argument that can still be made today. As Apple's install base shrunk, publishers became less inclined to port games over to MacOS. It wasn't profitable. By this time, Mac was more popular with businessmen and creative professionals. People unlikely to be using their computers to game. Then when OSX came out, it just didn't handle games as well as as Windows did. DirectX was rapidly becoming the rendering standard. Just added more variables to the porting process. Games took longer to report.

I think the final nail for Mac gaming was consoles. The fact that the Pippin even existed is strong evidence for this. The PS1 was the first home system that was inexpensive and produced an experience as good as PCs of the time. Really hurt desktop gaming in general. It went from being commonplace in the Commodore and Apple II days to the domain of hardcore geeks with deep pockets. Still is by and large. Those geeks disliked Mac for its underpowered hardware, high cost, and limited expandability. There was no market left, so gaming died on the platform.

In the mid 2000s, some publishers had come back. Mac had grown popular with casual users so causal PC games were ported. The Sims being a notable one. Apple eventually built iOS around gaming. That was probably the smartest thing they ever did gaming wise. They went from being destroyed by the rise of consoles to decimating the portable console market for the teen and adult demo.
 
shadow_k said:
game center is for keeping your achivements. it doesnt offer any games
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I understand that, but what I'm saying is I think they're trying to bring a little bit more of a social aspect to all of their platforms which means they're going to have developers making games for OSX involving Game Center.
 
Boot Camp and be done with it. I play CS:S on my iMac all the time. The mac version just doesn't work properly. Same hardware, can't kill crap in OSX for some reason. Just doesn't flow right. Boot into windows and I'm dominating.
 
dagamer34 said:
Why hasn't gaming taken off on a Mac? Because Apple still thinks this video card is current: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC743ZM/A?

And that's assuming you spend $3000 on a Mac Pro. Yeah...
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Oh don't be so hyperbolic. The Mac Pro hasn't been updated since 2010, so of course it would still ship with an equally old video card. Apple knows it's not current, but they're also not going to update the video card unless they update the rest of the system.

Meanwhile the new MacBook Pros come with the GeForce 650M, about as modern a GPU as you can get.
 
KeypoX said:
Direct X is king and windows gaming performance trumps mac.
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That's a very ignorant thing to say. Look at Valve. They just showed they can get more FPS out of a game in Linux using OpenGL than on Windows using Direct3D.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/...inux-port-of-l4d2-outperform-windows-version/

dave_the_nerd said:
This. You want to game on a Mac? Boot into Windows.
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Another ignorant thing to say. There are plenty of current games on a Mac that run just fine without having to boot into windows.
 
ChAoTiCpInOy said:
That's a very ignorant thing to say. Look at Valve. They just showed they can get more FPS out of a game in Linux using OpenGL than on Windows using Direct3D.
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... Because Linux = OSX...?
Just because they both run on UNIX doesn't mean they are mostly the same.

Really, that's just a very ignorant thing to say.

EDIT: Oh, and if you're saying that it's about OpenGL vs. Direct3D, then listen up:

Linux can run in a <10kb file.
Windows has to run in a >1GB file.

Linux:
- Is designed to be light.
- Is extremely small.
- Does not take up as much RAM.
- Does not have proprietary drivers.

Windows:
- Has over a hundred tasks to deal with at once
- Takes up a fair amount of RAM (512-1024MB)
- Is not made to be specifically small
- Has specially-made proprietary drivers

Overall, I find your argument(?) very ignorant.

~ General Argument. ~
 
Last edited:
GeneralArgument said:
Windows:
- Has over a hundred tasks to deal with at once
- Takes up a fair amount of RAM (512-1024MB)
- Is not made to be specifically small
- Has specially-made proprietary drivers

Overall, I find your argument(?) very ignorant.

~ General Argument. ~
Click to expand...


-Learn how to manage tasks

-Install windows on a machine with 512mb of ram and I guarantee you it wouldn't be using 512mb. The less ram you have the less Windows uses and vice versa. It manages memory much better than linux does.

-Neither are many linux distros. Ever tried ubuntu? And windows doesn't have to be light provided your not running 9 year old hardware.

-I'd rather have proprietary drivers than none at all or outdated ones which is the often case in linux.


Linux does do some stuff well. But in others, windows still beats it.
 
PC gaming is already such a small market in comparison to the console-whores - why would Apple want to compete in an already dead market?

Ok... in fairness to PC gamers - it's not dead per se, just no where near the size of popularity of consoles. Apple DID target that market with iOS.
 
Someday, I hope VMware brings direct hardware utilization to Fusion. I'd love to pop a second video card in my Hackintosh and map it directly to my Windows VM for gaming! 🙂
 
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