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Will the Mac become a gaming machine again?

J

josedawg

Senior member
OK, now I'm no expert in computer architecture, but this thought came across to me the other day.

People have said the upcoming Xbox 360 will be great for gaming and PCs as well, because games will most likely be multithreaded from the ground up, making all games that are ported, as well as all future games for Windows, multithreaded as well.

Then it hit me. The Xbox 360 will be a 3 dual core PPC machine, the same CPU's that power Macs (and future Macs). So wouldnt it be more likely that ports of Xbox 360 games will be easier to port over to a Mac machine than a PC-based Windows box? If this is true, isnt Microsoft shooting itself in the foot by making the Mac a viable gaming platform again?


Off topic:
What was the last game you played on the Mac?
For me, it was Oregon Trail II back in the heyday.
 
Originally posted by: josedawg
Then it hit me. The Xbox 360 will be a 3 dual core PPC machine, the same CPU's that power Macs (and future Macs).
Click to expand...

Eug keeps saying that it isn't based on the G5s. There are a lot of different PPC type chips...
 
Yeah, I wasnt 100% on if the PPC's in the Xbox 360 were the same as the ones on the current Macs, but I thought I read somewhere that they were gonna be powering the future dual-core Macs.
 
you know if macintosh would build pc for us gamers i dont see why macs cant compete with PC's my friend has a MAC and i love it mac os rules !
 
Originally posted by: jdogg707
Originally posted by: Cheesetogo
I still play oregon trail somtimes.
Click to expand...

Me too, found an awesome Mac emulator that lets me run it...nothing like going back to the day
Click to expand...

huh? i thought oregon trail was a windows game. the version i have is windows 95.
 
Originally posted by: josedawg
OK, now I'm no expert in computer architecture, but this thought came across to me the other day.

People have said the upcoming Xbox 360 will be great for gaming and PCs as well, because games will most likely be multithreaded from the ground up, making all games that are ported, as well as all future games for Windows, multithreaded as well.

Then it hit me. The Xbox 360 will be a 3 dual core PPC machine, the same CPU's that power Macs (and future Macs). So wouldnt it be more likely that ports of Xbox 360 games will be easier to port over to a Mac machine than a PC-based Windows box? If this is true, isnt Microsoft shooting itself in the foot by making the Mac a viable gaming platform again
Click to expand...

By this logic, because Linux is based on the x86 architecture, it should be a great gaming machine too.

 
Trouble is, nearly all games on the Mac are ports from their PC equivalents. Thus, optimizing the code can be damn near impossible. Games written from the ground-up for the Mac will do fine, but alas, most big titles are either PC ports or cross-platform-but-PC-centric.

The Mac's hardware, the G5 towers at least, should otherwise be fine when it comes to performance - and it is for Mac-optimized code. But again, most games are written/optimized for the PC first, with Mac ports being a secondary consideration.
 
Originally posted by: mwmorph
Originally posted by: jdogg707
Originally posted by: Cheesetogo
I still play oregon trail somtimes.
Click to expand...

Me too, found an awesome Mac emulator that lets me run it...nothing like going back to the day
Click to expand...

huh? i thought oregon trail was a windows game. the version i have is windows 95.
Click to expand...

It was released for both.
 
Originally posted by: josedawg
OK, now I'm no expert in computer architecture, but this thought came across to me the other day.

People have said the upcoming Xbox 360 will be great for gaming and PCs as well, because games will most likely be multithreaded from the ground up, making all games that are ported, as well as all future games for Windows, multithreaded as well.

Then it hit me. The Xbox 360 will be a 3 dual core PPC machine, the same CPU's that power Macs (and future Macs). So wouldnt it be more likely that ports of Xbox 360 games will be easier to port over to a Mac machine than a PC-based Windows box? If this is true, isnt Microsoft shooting itself in the foot by making the Mac a viable gaming platform again?
Click to expand...

Nope. Look at history. The Mac and Amiga used the same 68k series of processors back in the 80s/early 90s. The Amiga was an incredible gaming machine, with tons of games being produced right up until its death. The Mac, however, had very few games developed for it. Therefore, just having the same processor means very little.

Same thing with the Apple II and C64. Essentially same processor (6502/6510), but otherwise very very different systems.

The Nintendo SNES also used the same processor as the Apple IIGS -- you can count on your fingers how many games were ported over. So the idea of using the same processor on a gaming systems and computer is not a new idea at all.

 
Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I miss oregon trail. 🙁
Click to expand...


yeah..I miss playing Oregon Trail on an Apple computer too.
I was in 5th Grade
I turn 30 in October
EDIT: YES I GRADUATED ON TIME
 
Don't miss Oregon trail, go get it. They have a windows version. You can get Oregon Trail 5 for less than $7+ S&H.
 
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