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Print 117 comment(s) - last by MrPoletski.. on Mar 12 at 5:30 AM
The worst kept secret in Mac gaming is officially announced

The rumors and teasers surrounding a Steam release for OS X have been swirling for the past few weeks. Today, however, Valve made the official announcement that Steam and the Source engine are coming to Macs. Starting in April, games like Left 4 Dead 2 and Team Fortress 2 will be available for gamers of the Mac persuasion.

"As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients," explained Gabe Newell, President of Valve. "The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services."

"Our Steam partners, who are delivering over a thousand games to 25 million Steam clients, are very excited about adding support for the Mac," added Jason Holtman, Valve's Director of Business Development.

An interesting development out of the announcement is that a new feature called Steam Play will allow gamers to purchase one copy of a game and play it on either a Mac or a PC. In addition, it would allow a gamer to play a game like Half-Life 2 on his or her home PC, then visit a friend who has a Mac and pick up in the game for where he or she left off.

Valve also announced that Portal 2 will be simultaneously released on the PC and Mac platforms. "We're always playing a native version on the Mac right alongside the PC. This makes it very easy for us and for anyone using Source to do game development for the Mac," said Portal 2 Project Lead Josh Weier.

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so lucky
By Souka on 3/8/2010 4:23:50 PM , Rating: 3
Mac users are so lucky.. they get to play all the latest games like:

Half-Life 2
CounterStrike Source
Portal
Left4Dead

...unlike us PC users...




RE: so lucky
By Camikazi on 3/8/2010 4:30:21 PM , Rating: 5
You did read the post right? I saw Left4Dead 2 and Portal 2 listed there for Mac...


RE: so lucky
By MonkeyPaw on 3/8/2010 5:54:23 PM , Rating: 5
I am eagerly awaiting the inevitable performance comparisons of the exact same games, windows vs OSX. For years we've heard the same rhetoric that one is better than the other, and now we get to see it. It's like the days of DirectX vs OpenGl vs Glide--which software environment is best for games? I have doubts that OSX will be as fast, simply because there has never been incentive to improve drivers. This begs another question, how well will the games be supported when the inevitable glitches appear? Valve might just make Apple look worse BY supporting them!


RE: so lucky
By afkrotch on 3/8/2010 6:57:54 PM , Rating: 3
Is there even a need to compare? I mean, the Macs are so going to be behind on the tech. Soon, the next generation of gpus will be out and Apple will get them in like...a year.


RE: so lucky
By Gul Westfale on 3/8/2010 8:13:53 PM , Rating: 1
i don't think HL2-engined games would even install on integrated intel non-graphics.


RE: so lucky
By afkrotch on 3/8/2010 9:25:40 PM , Rating: 2
Nah, Steam doesn't seem to check crap, when you install games.


RE: so lucky
By MonkeyPaw on 3/8/2010 10:12:14 PM , Rating: 2
Steam does check driver versions, as Ep1 used to warn me about outdated drivers for my FX5900.


RE: so lucky
By afkrotch on 3/8/2010 11:28:26 PM , Rating: 2
Ya, but I don't think it cares what you do after that. I mean, I have it installed on my old laptop, just to see if games would run on it.

Needless to say, the games run, but at 10 fps.


RE: so lucky
By B3an on 3/9/2010 2:45:52 AM , Rating: 2
Speaking of drivers, i'm sure the drivers from nvidia and ATI wont be anywhere near the standards of PC drivers.
How often are graphics drivers even released for the Mac? i've never even heard ATI or NV once mention Mac drivers...


RE: so lucky
By karielash on 3/9/2010 3:01:13 AM , Rating: 1

NVidia has some great Linux/Unix drivers, ATI not so great but the refresh cycle is about the same as the DX drivers.


RE: so lucky
By MamiyaOtaru on 3/8/2010 10:18:58 PM , Rating: 3
test the windows version in bootcamp. Whoa hey same hardware and we can actually compare Windows vs OSX performance imagine that


RE: so lucky
By MrPoletski on 3/9/2010 4:27:35 AM , Rating: 1
quote:
It's like the days of DirectX vs OpenGl vs Glide--which software environment is best for games?


Easy, easy question. The answer always has and always will be OpenGL.

People are whooping about the new displacement mapping in directx 11, yeow! revolutionary! so realistic looking! yay microsoft for coming out wiht this feature! yay!

Well it's been supported in opengl for 3 years already. We need Carmack to hurry up and get his next OpenGL game out to piss on M$'s fire.


RE: so lucky
By afkrotch on 3/9/2010 8:10:15 PM , Rating: 2
When exactly has Carmack put out a good game engine recently? idTech 4? Ya, no one really bothered with that trash engine.

5 games on that stupid engine and they all sucked. Maybe they'll learn from their mistakes when they throw out idTech 5 and the new Rage game.

Really don't care. Rather see how the Unreal Engine 4 will be, although the Unreal Engine 3 is still awesome.


RE: so lucky
By MrPoletski on 3/10/2010 6:54:00 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
When exactly has Carmack put out a good game engine recently? idTech 4? Ya, no one really bothered with that trash engine.


Doom 3 (2004) – id Software
Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil (2005) – Nerve Software
Quake 4 (2005) – Raven Software
Prey (2006) – Human Head Studios
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (2007) – Splash Damage
Wolfenstein (2009) – Raven Software
Brink (2010) – Splash Damage

but you're talking about a SIX YEAR OLD ENGINE.

quote:
5 games on that stupid engine and they all sucked. Maybe they'll learn from their mistakes when they throw out idTech 5 and the new Rage game.


How much YOu enjoyed the games doesn't mean anything about how good the renderer being used was (OGL).

Id tech 5 is still in development btw. Don't insult the God of modern PC game engines, Karma will come and pistol whip you with a railgun in the backside.


RE: so lucky
By piroroadkill on 3/10/2010 6:10:02 AM , Rating: 2
Haha, no. DirectX is streets ahead, and all developments related to it are quickly supported in hardware, unlike OpenGL


RE: so lucky
By MrPoletski on 3/10/2010 7:13:46 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Haha, no. DirectX is streets ahead, and all developments related to it are quickly supported in hardware, unlike OpenGL


No it isn't, For a start its taken all the way until direct 11 for it to come even close to issuing draw calls as efficiently. Also, did you miss the part where I said displacement mapping has been supported in it for THREE YEARS unlike directx that has only just started supporting it (but tesselation has been in hardware for a long time already, thanks ATi).

No, the way it works is that microsoft demands these features be in directx next and then GPU manufacturers make sure they support it. OpenGL is an open standard, people have been adding their own hardware extensions if it's not currently supported for years. But more to the point, it's multi platform. good luck running a direct3d game under OSX, or on a PS3, or under linux.

Khronos have been slack in getting an exact equivelant to DX11 out the door, but OGL 3.2 is pretty close.

don't forget that up until Directx 8.1 direct3d was just a poorly executed copy of OpenGL. It was only then that pixel shaders turned up on D3D first, only becomeing really useful in DX9.


RE: so lucky
By Sunday Ironfoot on 3/9/2010 4:31:57 AM , Rating: 2
I'd imagine its more of a comparison between DirectX vs OpenGL, and the ability of Valve software engineers to port it and make it run as efficiently as possible.


RE: so lucky
By EasyC on 3/9/2010 12:00:42 PM , Rating: 2
That's going to be a tough comparison, since Apple limits their hardware. Doesn't the 27" iMac come with a 4850???

Actually it does -

27-inch model with dual-core processor, one of the following:
ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics processor with 256MB of GDDR3 memory
ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR3 memory

Woo 4850!!! Running at 2560x1440. That's gonna be a screaming machine *yawn*

Info here - http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html


RE: so lucky
By MrPoletski on 3/10/2010 7:16:58 AM , Rating: 3
It'll run at 1280x720 then wont it.


RE: so lucky
By Jcfili on 3/10/2010 5:37:56 PM , Rating: 2
and then my computer ..

i7 920
x2 5870
Asus Rampage II Extreme
1 Tb HDD
a decent case Haf-932
xfx 850 Power supply

apple will sell it to 5000 dollars or more .... when i spent less than 3000


RE: so lucky
By MrPoletski on 3/12/2010 5:30:56 AM , Rating: 2
How is that 5870 xfire anwyay? noisy? hot?

I have 4870x2 and was wondering whether to hit the 5970 or wait for Fermi (well I'll wait anyway as prices will drop after fermi is out).


RE: so lucky
By Souka on 3/9/2010 11:18:34 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
You did read the post right? I saw Left4Dead 2 and Portal 2 listed there for Mac...


Yep... those are coming in April

My point was with Steam, you can download such games as HL2, L4D, and Portal... something PCs have been able to do since the games were released.

I'm glad it's being released....more players on-line the better


RE: so lucky
By Ryanman on 3/8/2010 4:38:50 PM , Rating: 2
You know, it's irrational, but I feel kind of betrayed that Valve would release these games for the Mac. They've always been a PC mainstay.

I shouldn't in all honesty. The macs have better video than the damn Intel chipsets, and I've already convinced everyone with a laptop in my dorm to buy TF2. It'll mean more players to frag with - and that's always a good thing.

Being able to play your software on both platforms is HUGE too. Kudos to Valve. I wish they'd focused on Episode 3 before this stuff though >:(


RE: so lucky
By Reclaimer77 on 3/8/10, Rating: 0
RE: so lucky
By Cygni on 3/8/2010 5:05:33 PM , Rating: 2
You mean besides the iMac's that come with a Radeon 4850... the same 4850 thats still the mainstay of budget gamer builds to this day.

Look how dumb you are.


RE: so lucky
By Reclaimer77 on 3/8/2010 5:16:25 PM , Rating: 2
lol ok so for thousands of dollars they throw in a 2 year old GPU.

How dumb indeed...


RE: so lucky
By KoolAidMan1 on 3/9/2010 4:24:39 AM , Rating: 3
Most of the cost of the iMacs that carry that specific GPU is in the 27" IPS LCD that they use, the same one you can get for $1100 from Dell, or somewhere around $1400-$1500 whenever NEC can get theirs out the door.

You have to look at the whole picture when making statements like that.


RE: so lucky
By Pirks on 3/8/2010 5:17:15 PM , Rating: 3
yeah reclaimer is dumb 'cause he can't explain why would anyone reboot to windows to play a native mac game like halflife2 or tf2

typical reclaimer way of saying and only then thinking (the latter - not always tho :P)


RE: so lucky
By Reclaimer77 on 3/8/10, Rating: 0
RE: so lucky
By Pirks on 3/8/2010 5:24:44 PM , Rating: 1
how do you know osx opengl drivers are shitty? elaborate


RE: so lucky
By afkrotch on 3/8/2010 7:00:23 PM , Rating: 2
Probably cause they aren't constantly being updated/optimized for the latest games.


RE: so lucky
By Reclaimer77 on 3/8/2010 7:13:58 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah. Nobody uses opengl lol. At least, nobody that matters.


RE: so lucky
By Pirks on 3/8/2010 8:23:46 PM , Rating: 1
Yeah, id Software, Epic and Valve don't matter. Right. Pass the KoolAid.

P.S. and I don't even want to start about Naughty Dog 'cause you don't even know what it is :P hehe


RE: so lucky
By Hieyeck on 3/9/2010 10:41:00 AM , Rating: 5
Question of the day: Reclaimer77 arguing with Pirks... who DO you rate down?


RE: so lucky
By kalak on 3/10/2010 3:23:16 PM , Rating: 2
^^^^ 6 please !!!!


RE: so lucky
By karielash on 3/9/2010 12:33:18 AM , Rating: 2
Every single game platform with the exception of the XBox360 has support for OpenGL.


RE: so lucky
By Reclaimer77 on 3/9/2010 12:48:05 AM , Rating: 2
OpenGL support is nice. But ummm have you heard of something called DirectX ?? Might want to look it up.


RE: so lucky
By karielash on 3/9/2010 1:26:05 AM , Rating: 2

DirectX has native support on two platforms, PC (Windows) and XBox 360. your point is somewhat vague.


RE: so lucky
By MrPoletski on 3/9/2010 4:30:21 AM , Rating: 2
OpenGL is and always has been better than DirectX.

the only reason people have ever thought otherwise is microsoft FUD.


RE: so lucky
By Reclaimer77 on 3/9/2010 10:17:50 AM , Rating: 1
quote:
OpenGL is and always has been better than DirectX.


Riiight. Cause nothing gets people flocking to those new OpenGL video cards with amazing new features every year or so...

Please. Define "better" and post some benchmarks to back it up.


RE: so lucky
By MrPoletski on 3/10/2010 7:21:19 AM , Rating: 2
"Riiight. Cause nothing gets people flocking to those new OpenGL video cards with amazing new features every year or so..."

You clearly have no clue what you're talking about. yeah, you don't have a opengl video card, you have a directx one.

Dork.

"Please. Define "better" and post some benchmarks to back it up."

directx platform support:
Windows based PC's (vista and above now only)
Xbox 360.

OpenGL platform support:

EVERYTHING

That's the only benchmark you'll ever need.


RE: so lucky
By Pirks on 3/8/10, Rating: 0
RE: so lucky
By afkrotch on 3/8/2010 9:04:41 PM , Rating: 2
And when Valve throws out a lot of games on the Mac, do you think Nvidia/AMD are going to bother optimizing their drivers for those games?

I doubt they'll put out the effort for less than 8% of the market. Not when the gamers from that 8% probably already bootcamp and will continue to do so.


RE: so lucky
By damianrobertjones on 3/9/2010 4:19:52 AM , Rating: 2
They will as apple will MAKE them do it via very nice payments


RE: so lucky
By Pirks on 3/9/10, Rating: -1
RE: so lucky
By Ryanman on 3/9/2010 7:30:23 PM , Rating: 1
wow Pirks. Valve's making macs a viable gaming platform, carrying over almost their entire modern games library, something NOBODY else has ever done, and you're calling them lightweights? They're also probably the highest rated Dev of all time, in terms of critical acclaim.

Beyond everything you've ever said on DT, this is by far the most trollish and idiotic.


RE: so lucky
By afkrotch on 3/9/2010 8:23:47 PM , Rating: 1
Yes, because every Mac out there is going to have the best graphics options to get 100 fps.

With L4D2 set to the max, even PC gamers don't get 100 fps. Unless they decide to go with a dual gpu solution.


RE: so lucky
By Samus on 3/8/2010 7:29:48 PM , Rating: 2
Not only is the Mac Radeon 4850 outrageously expensive, the drivers suck. Across the board, nVidia and ATI GPU's have around half the FPS of their PC counterpart simply because the drivers (and perhaps videogames) are not optimized.

Mac as a gaming machine makes about as much sense to vendors as Mac as a business machine. Until they have more than 3% marketshare, why the hell would someone make a better (or even equal) product for Mac over PC.

Unless your Adobe. As the Flash empire that subsidizes their Mac products inevitably collapses with the HTML5 threat, we'll see how healthy their overall software portfolio profitability is.

Adobe' ignorance to not release Flash for x64 and blindness to Apple backstabing them with lacking Flash support for iPhone (and in part, iPad) I just feel like they'll eventually become another SCO and just start suing people.


RE: so lucky
By Ryanman on 3/9/2010 7:26:46 PM , Rating: 2
Not what I meant Cygni. I was actually referring to the 9400 in their laptops, that can run these source games at laptop resolutions. They're not very good but they're lightyears past Intel's offerings. If you buy a Mac Pro with a 4850, for something like $3k, that's absolutely retarded.


RE: so lucky
By melgross on 3/8/2010 5:14:39 PM , Rating: 2
Also the Nvidia 9400


RE: so lucky
By Boze on 3/8/2010 8:27:30 PM , Rating: 2
I've never understood why someone would buy an Apple computer only to ditch the operating system and use a Microsoft-based one.

Why not just save the <insert dollar value of $500 to $1500 here> and build a ridiculously powerful PC, or if you're terrible at putting together a higher end Lego set, just buy a higher end PC, and still save money?

It boggles my mind.


RE: so lucky
By afkrotch on 3/8/2010 9:06:39 PM , Rating: 2
I have a coworker who uses a Mac. He does his video editing/film creation on it. He bootcamped Win7 on it, cause he also likes to game.

He doesn't bootcamp anymore, as he got his PC in for his gaming.


RE: so lucky
By Reclaimer77 on 3/9/2010 11:24:31 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
I've never understood why someone would buy an Apple computer only to ditch the operating system and use a Microsoft-based one.


Because they have notebooks that fit in an envelope dude !!! Do you know how awesome that is !?? Haven't you even been using your laptop and said to yourself "damn, if only this could fit in an envelope it would be perfect" ?? I know I sure as hell have !

Get with the times man. Mac is the KHOOLEST !!111!!


RE: so lucky
By MrPoletski on 3/10/2010 7:23:00 AM , Rating: 1
"Haven't you even been using your laptop and said to yourself "damn, if only this could fit in an envelope it would be perfect"

hmm, no, I've never said that. You want small then go buy a fucking netbook.


RE: so lucky
By Reclaimer77 on 3/10/2010 7:39:38 AM , Rating: 2
sigh.....

wow dude lol. Way over your head I guess...


RE: so lucky
By MrPoletski on 3/11/2010 8:51:47 AM , Rating: 2
I know you were /sarcasm given your previous comments on Apple, but perhaps you don't realise that some people actually think like that..


RE: so lucky
By Spivonious on 3/9/2010 9:51:10 AM , Rating: 2
My 3850 still handles most games today at 1024x768. My high-end CRT doesn't care what resolution you give it.

I've thought about upgrading my computer (C2D E6600, HD 3850) but I have yet to run into anything that it has trouble running.

That coupled with the scaleable nature of the Source engine makes me think the Macs will have no problems playing Source-based games.


RE: so lucky
By cmdrdredd on 3/8/2010 5:21:24 PM , Rating: 2
No Episode 3? Common Valve what's your problem?


RE: so lucky
By LordanSS on 3/8/2010 6:59:50 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah, to hell with this crap... Where the fug is my Episode 3? Been waiting for years now.

Episodic content my behind.....


RE: so lucky
By MrPoletski on 3/9/2010 4:31:52 AM , Rating: 2
Three years? =)


RE: so lucky
By Samus on 3/8/2010 7:32:22 PM , Rating: 2
I've been pondering lately that Episode 3 is turning into Duke Nukem Forever :(

It'll either be epic, or vaporware.


RE: so lucky
By pequin06 on 3/8/2010 5:22:30 PM , Rating: 2
A real betrayal would be if they stopped supporting the PC and only work on the macs for now on.
Man, we would never hear the end of it from apple fans.


RE: so lucky
By cmdrdredd on 3/8/10, Rating: -1
RE: so lucky
By Boze on 3/8/2010 8:29:23 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah... has-been alright... that's why Left For Dead was ridiculously popular, as was Team Fortress 2.

This just in from the desk of cmdrdredd, Blizzard Entertainment is going downhill, sell your Activision stock.


RE: so lucky
By KoolAidMan1 on 3/9/2010 4:47:31 AM , Rating: 2
Blizzard games look ancient, clearly they have had their day in the sun and are has-beens.

/end sarcasm


RE: so lucky
By KoolAidMan1 on 3/9/2010 4:46:42 AM , Rating: 2
Just when I thought I'd read stupid replies on DT, I see this.

Wow, I'll stop taking downvoted posts and idiotic replies so seriously when people like cmdrdredd are running loose.


RE: so lucky
By KoolAidMan1 on 3/9/2010 4:22:03 AM , Rating: 2
Do you hold it against Blizzard that they've supported the Mac since Warcraft Orcs & Humans? How about id?

I dunno, I think its cool, the more people playing with a mouse and keyboard the better. Who says that games have to only be played on OSes that came out of Redmond? Bit crazy IMO


RE: so lucky
By piroroadkill on 3/10/2010 6:12:05 AM , Rating: 2
Betrayed? Shut up, you're starting to sound like some kind of fanboy


RE: so lucky
By Dribble on 3/9/2010 4:21:13 AM , Rating: 2
It's probably more about steam then anything. With steam on the mac, valve has made it's solution the way of getting games by download for the mac. Valve is getting in now before jobs introduces his overpriced iGames store, locks out steam, and then talks about his solution like no one else has ever had that idea lol


Congratulations!
By Goty on 3/8/2010 4:24:36 PM , Rating: 3
You're only six years behind the curve! You're catching up, slowly but surely!




RE: Congratulations!
By SandmanWN on 3/8/2010 4:59:56 PM , Rating: 5
To be honest, even though I don't care much for mac, I think this is overall a good thing for PC gaming. Larger community equals more support.

As a PC gamer I think we need this to stave off the crappy console game ports we are constantly dealt. A whole new group of PC gamers out of the MAC community might actually help drive better game development to the PC platform in general as we all know that under the hood the equipment is all PC.


RE: Congratulations!
By Reclaimer77 on 3/8/2010 5:05:25 PM , Rating: 2
Come on, do you really want your games filled with noobs who can't play because they only have a 2 button mouse ???


RE: Congratulations!
By melgross on 3/8/2010 5:18:50 PM , Rating: 1
You're the one who's nooby. I'm suing a Microsoft trackball with 4 buttons. I also use a Shuttle Pro2 with 15 buttons. I've also got several sticks. Maybe you should learn something before posting.


RE: Congratulations!
By yxalitis on 3/8/2010 7:27:04 PM , Rating: 5
1...he was joking...you know...humour?

" I'm suing a Microsoft trackball"
2... I hope your case against the trackball goes well...!


RE: Congratulations!
By HotFoot on 3/8/2010 5:07:27 PM , Rating: 2
Agree with you, except what Mac comes with 5870-class graphics, or even close? Perhaps that's another argument though - I totally agree with you that console ports suck. The PC brings a lot to the human interface and games designed for something completely different just, well, suck - on the PC anyway.


RE: Congratulations!
By nilepez on 3/8/2010 7:36:04 PM , Rating: 2
Only stupid developers (read Crytek) write games for $400.00 GPUs. Most people have GPUs that cost under $200 (often well under that price). I generally consider $200.00 the upper end of what I'm willing to pay for a graphics card.

I have friends that buy lots of stuff from Steam that are operating on mid level laptops.

Macs have roughly 10% of the U.S. market and that's clearly reason enough for Valve to jump in. My guess is that they believe that that market will grow. What's more, they probably believe that if they have an engine for the Mac, more companies will license their engines.

Maybe they'll fail....perhaps all the mac users are interested in games already dual boot.....but I suspect they did some market research before they put the effort into the mac.

As for those who ask, "Why not the PS3?" Perhaps it's because PS3 games are harder to develop, never mind that the PS3 still hasn't taken off as many expected. And I suspect OS X will be used on Macs for years to come. I can't say the same for the PS3's OS, which won't be used on the PS4 (more than likely).


RE: Congratulations!
By Reclaimer77 on 3/8/2010 7:49:44 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
Only stupid developers (read Crytek) write games for $400.00 GPUs


Only stupid posters think there is a difference in how you write games based on video card price.

Cards are more expensive because they are faster, generally. Not because games are "written better" for them.


RE: Congratulations!
By KoolAidMan1 on 3/9/2010 4:34:01 AM , Rating: 2
No, smart developers like Valve and Blizzard (who have supported the Mac since Warcraft 1, BTW) write software that will look good while running on as broad a range as hardware as possible.

The potential for mass adoption opens with good scaling and low hardware requirements with settings turned down, then the challenge of making a good game comes. You do that and you have the massive audiences that both companies have built up. Have you even looked at the Steam hardware survey?

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

Most surveyed systems are much slower than Macs that are being sold these days. My own gaming rig, an i7 860 with GTX 285 is in the top percentile of systems polled, and IMHO my machine is far from being an uber-beast rig.

So yes, Crytek were stupid for creating a game that would run well on an insignificant percentage of PCs out there. When I first saw it at E3 several years ago it chugged on what was bleeding edge hardware at the time. Over two years later and it finally runs well with all settings cranked at 1920x1200, and that's on very expensive hardware.

So yeah, dumb if you're trying to make a game with mass appeal. Its an uphill climb to get people to embrace a game, and its even harder to do so when you block out all but the very top percentage of existing hardware with insane system requirements.


RE: Congratulations!
By omnicronx on 3/9/2010 11:51:30 AM , Rating: 2
CPU only means so much, pretty much any CD2+ can play any game that will be available on Steam for Mac. That being said, look at the GPU share for Steam, 50% of users have DX10 cards, and almost all users have at least a DX9 card. 37% of these users also have 512MB video card memory.

So while I agree that there are Mac machines that can easily match up to the average on Steam, only a very small percentage of Mac users compare to the Steam average.

Taking this further, at this time many of the machines that match or exceed these average stats by far (i.e Mac Pro etc) do not exactly curtail to the average user. While there are many exeptions, a large amount of Mac Pros I see in use are business machines. (Whether it be graphic design, autocad, etc etc)

Lastly as others have noted, if OSX performance does not match PC performance, users will just use bootcamp.


RE: Congratulations!
By TheEinstein on 3/9/2010 1:43:32 PM , Rating: 2
I got an ASUS gaming laptop for $1000... it runs Crytek games pretty well, to the poster who said a $400 video card, then the processor, ram, built-in monitor, etc all combined is $600? I think the video card is not quite that much if bought right...

Heck Windows alone is $100...

But to the poster who commented on pure numbers of people able to play.

You are so dead on. I would rather have 10% of 300 million players than 100% of 1 million players. This is the difference with 'top of the line gear needed' and 'this game is cool, and does not need a top of the line PC.

Game manufacturers need to understand this, and as soon as is possible. If I owned a company I would try to make games for 2gigabyte PC's still... I think that would be the perfect gamut of number of players and of quality available in the game.


RE: Congratulations!
By afkrotch on 3/9/2010 8:31:02 PM , Rating: 2
What does this mean?

"2gigabyte PC's"


RE: Congratulations!
By afkrotch on 3/8/2010 9:22:35 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
As for those who ask, "Why not the PS3?" Perhaps it's because PS3 games are harder to develop, never mind that the PS3 still hasn't taken off as many expected. And I suspect OS X will be used on Macs for years to come. I can't say the same for the PS3's OS, which won't be used on the PS4 (more than likely).


Both the PS3 and OSX probably have the same amount of users. Also, what Playstation hasn't had BC when it released (aside from the original)?

I bet, if the PS3 wasn't so expensive to build, it'd still have BC now. It'll also still be around for years to come.

Also, console games aren't all that dependent on the console's OS.


RE: Congratulations!
By rudy on 3/8/2010 9:36:39 PM , Rating: 2
It is not that they have 10% but they are the way up if you go to a university area you see a much larger % of people with macs. Personally I do not get it but apple hit a homerun with being cool. Having a mac is a status statement in those areas like a pair of name brand jeans. Once something sells that much it has momentum that slows down very slowly so most companies are looking at it and saying I really need in this market.

Also now days companies write code and port it to PC, and 3 different consoles like nothing because alot of software is available and the same is true if not already will be true for macs. Basically it is not that hard to port new games.


Gabe?
By pequin06 on 3/8/2010 4:22:06 PM , Rating: 4
How about supporting the PS3 now?




RE: Gabe?
By cplusplus on 3/8/2010 5:02:40 PM , Rating: 2
I was just about to say that. They're willing to spend time and money porting the Source engine over to Macs, but working on the flawed PS3 port? Nooooooooo.


RE: Gabe?
By steven975 on 3/8/2010 5:41:19 PM , Rating: 3
It is a really different animal. The Mac has symmetric multiprocessing just like the PC. It's probably easier than you'd think to port it.

PS3, though, would require a lot of new code to manage the stuff that is done automatically on every other platform, such as managing which task is sent to which SPE, etc.


RE: Gabe?
By someguy123 on 3/8/2010 5:09:23 PM , Rating: 2
Seriously. Complain about a console being overly complex and instead use resources for an OS with a tiny amount of gamers their games target (compared to PC/ps3)? Sounds like they're just being lazy now that mac uses PC parts.

Almost as lazy as releasing an expansion pack as a full game.


RE: Gabe?
By Breathless on 3/8/2010 5:22:40 PM , Rating: 2
I hope you aren't referring to L4D2, because that would be pure silliness. Its different enough from L4D1 that it can and should be considered a sequel.


RE: Gabe?
By HrilL on 3/8/2010 5:49:51 PM , Rating: 3
Yes but some of those features were promised for L4D1 and never showed up. So they still let us down quite a bit.


RE: Gabe?
By MrPoletski on 3/9/2010 4:38:12 AM , Rating: 2
yeah and how much new DLC has been released for L4D1 since L4D2 came out?

zeerrroooo

There is nothing in L4D2 that couldn't have been implimented in L4D1. I like both games but I must say the first feels much more 'solid', but the second suffers less from unfair directorship. I still have to swap out and back again to get my framerates above 30 fps in L4D2 on each level change (back up to 100+). FFS FIX THAT ALREADY.


RE: Gabe?
By HrilL on 3/9/2010 7:17:37 PM , Rating: 2
I agree and they also split the community up into 2 groups and I don't like that either.


RE: Gabe?
By afkrotch on 3/8/2010 7:04:25 PM , Rating: 2
I don't think it's different enough. Some new weaps, new chars, new lvls. Sounds like an expansion pack to me.

The $10 expansion for Borderlands that came out recently offered more than L4D2 offered over L4D1.


RE: Gabe?
By Runiteshark on 3/8/2010 7:24:37 PM , Rating: 2
Whats that? Valve resting on their laurels instead of making games?

Where have I heard this before....


RE: Gabe?
By omnicronx on 3/8/2010 5:29:41 PM , Rating: 2
Its a leap in the right direction, a move to OSX means that the rendering engine must support OpenGL. As the PS3 uses an OpenGLES variant, this would be the first big step to bringing the source engine to the PS3.


RE: Gabe?
By KoolAidMan1 on 3/9/2010 4:51:21 AM , Rating: 2
Who cares? I love my consoles but for first person shooters, meh, mouse and keyboard on Windows and OS X all the way.

Me playing a multiplayer FPS or RTS on my 360 or PS3 is like asking me to play Super Mario Bros with a steering wheel and foot pedal. Not for me, sorry. :/


steam play?
By rudy on 3/8/2010 9:28:26 PM , Rating: 2
lol I do not get the steam play feature, would we expect anything different? Is that a feature seems like it is just making up a new word for what amounts to just logging into your steam account on OSX. Would we honestly expect we have to buy the games separately?




RE: steam play?
By LumbergTech on 3/8/2010 11:33:17 PM , Rating: 2
do you have to rebuy games if you want to play on your 360 AND ps3? yes

its a decent feature


RE: steam play?
By KoolAidMan1 on 3/9/2010 4:40:38 AM , Rating: 2
Some publishers pack Windows and OS X games separately. PopCap sells their games as separate packages. Blizzard doesn't, you buy a game and it grants you licenses for both OS X and Windows versions (I have Diablo 2 and Starcraft on my PC and Mac from one purchase). TellTale Games also does this. EA is half and half, Dragon Age was a separate download for OS X while Spore and Sims 3 had both versions in the same package. Other companies like Activision license their games out to other companies like Aspyr to port, COD4 for example, and those companies are responsible for development costs and whatever profits they make. So someone who has a Windows copy of COD4 would have to pay Aspyr again if they wanted to play it on OS X.

It all depends. Its great that Valve did this, but also understand that it isn't a given. Hopefully their example will inspire companies like PopCap to do the same.


RE: steam play?
By MrPoletski on 3/11/2010 8:55:01 AM , Rating: 2
Lets not forget that the original Starcraft had the fantastic 'seed' option, where you could go around a mates house for a LAN party and install seeds of the game on other machines. The seed being multiplayer only, not needing the CD and each MP game required one full game for every 3 or so seeds.

What ever happened to that concept? :(


Linux?
By freethinx on 3/8/2010 11:49:00 PM , Rating: 2
I'm assuming this release means i'll be able to run steam in linux without virtual machines like WINE. Is this correct?




RE: Linux?
By Spivonious on 3/9/2010 9:52:54 AM , Rating: 2
It depends what Valve is using as far as shared libraries. And remember that OSX and Linux use different file systems.


RE: Linux?
By Penti on 3/9/2010 11:02:20 AM , Rating: 2
Nope and WINE isn't a virtual machine environment, it isn't a emulator and has nothing to do with OS X or Mach-O binaries.


RE: Linux?
By MrPoletski on 3/10/2010 7:25:48 AM , Rating: 2
Wine is not an emulator is not an emulator is not an emulator is not an emulator is not an emulator is not an emulator is not an emulator is not an emulator is not an emulator is not an emulator.......


By sapiens74 on 3/8/2010 5:41:26 PM , Rating: 2
Performance will be more consistant among models too.

That's a good thing for casual gamers.




By StevoLincolnite on 3/8/2010 10:24:51 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Performance will be more consistant among models too.Performance will be more consistant among models too.


Not really, there is a massive performance disparity between the ancient Intel Decelerator x3100 (GMA965) GPU's and the Radeon 4850's. - Sorry but it won't be "Consistent".


By Penti on 3/9/2010 10:59:30 AM , Rating: 2
Most dedicated graphics available will run just fine since the Intel switch. And just look at starcraft 2's required specs. You can play that on a macbook pro from early 2006. Plenty of potential buyers. Not great gaming computers, but macs will do fine for millions who game occasionally.


Mac players in my TF2?
By lainofthewired on 3/8/2010 5:31:43 PM , Rating: 3
Fresh meat. Excellent... *rubs hands*

Bring them on!!




RE: Mac players in my TF2?
By HrilL on 3/8/2010 5:54:10 PM , Rating: 2
yeah I can't wait for the noob influx for TF2. Not that I don't rape most of the kids anyway. Those kid will now be able to rape some noobs too and they'll feel better about themselves. And Mac people are already smug so this will help put them into their place bellow us real PC gamers.


Yay Valve
By ralniv on 3/9/2010 3:05:34 AM , Rating: 2
I'm glad to see Valve providing native Mac support. Bootcamp is workable solution, but it is not terribly convenient to reboot just for a game. I'm confident that the 9400M in my MBP will be more than adequate to drive a 15" screen.




RE: Yay Valve
By Goty on 3/9/2010 11:03:19 PM , Rating: 2
You'd be surprised....

My laptop uses a 9400M as well and it is only barely able to run something like Portal at playable framerates, and that's with most IQ settings on low.


Hope they port it to Linux too
By tharik on 3/9/2010 11:24:55 AM , Rating: 1
Because unlike Mac's, Linux can handle any high end GPU out there.

Would love to see a comparison between a doggy OS (Windows) and Linux.




By daveloft on 3/9/2010 8:14:48 PM , Rating: 2
Linux really isn't as good as people make it out to be. Performance tends to be better in Windows because the drivers software and hardware are optimized for it. This not only affects performance but battery life as well. I've scene some comparisons with the same Laptop running Linux and the battery dropped in half the time.


So they ported them to OpenGL
By HrilL on 3/8/2010 5:47:31 PM , Rating: 2
Sure would be nice to get the option of using either openGL or Direct3D like the older Valve games. Seems like it would be much more work to give PC users the options. Nvidia cards always seem to play games better in OpenGL but I haven't used the newest ones so I can't say that is still currently true. Though in the past it was clearly a big difference when playing CS 1.6 in OpenGL and not Direct3D. It would be like 10-20fps difference and even more when in smoke.




Many years from now...
By pequin06 on 3/8/2010 8:12:09 PM , Rating: 2
When Apple starts listing their innovations, will they be claiming they invented Steam and came up with Half-Life?




RE: Many years from now...
By jecs on 3/8/10, Rating: 0
diablo 2 on mac
By LumbergTech on 3/8/2010 11:32:15 PM , Rating: 2
hopefully the performance wont be like diablo 2 on the mac

boy was that funny to laugh at back in the day




Steam Play - the end of Solitaire
By ET on 3/9/2010 1:25:33 AM , Rating: 2
I applaud Valve for letting players pay for the same game once and play on more than one platform. I can only hope others will learn from this. Steam does a lot of things right to make DRM feel less painful.

I'd also like to thank Valve for encouraging "playing on their work PC". I'm sure some managers would object, but IMO playing Portal 2 would be a lot better than spending the time with Solitaire.




"Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?... So why the f*** doesn't it do that?" -- Steve Jobs











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