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Mac Game Devs Speak on Intel Move 133

Posted by Zonk from the pack-your-bags dept.
An Anonymous Reader wrote "InsideMacGames has posted a response to the news of Apple using Intel processors from both original Mac game developers as well as people who work on porting Windows games to OS X. Some negative and positive feedback is expressed, though it seems there's more uncertainty than anything else at this point. Can the fear of a Wine-like VM solution gutting the biz be balanced by faster CPU speeds?" From the article: "We think Apple's move to Intel is great. For one thing, it demonstrates that Apple is really serious about giving Windows-based computing head-to-head competition. For another, it lays the groundwork for the future of personal computing in a digitally connected home. And, for another, it's going to narrow the gap between the release of a game on Windows and the release on Mac -- maybe to zero."
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Mac Game Devs Speak on Intel Move More

Mac Game Devs Speak on Intel Move

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  • DirectX (Score:5, Informative)

    by jtshaw ( 398319 ) * on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @03:50PM (#12750748) Homepage
    "And, for another, it's going to narrow the gap between the release of a game on Windows and the release on Mac -- maybe to zero."

    What about those games tooled towards DirectX... it isn't the architecture screwing us here...it is the lack of DirectX for OSX that is screwing us.

    • Re:DirectX (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by FLAGGR ( 800770 )
      It's not that hard to port from DirectX -> OpenGL. What he's saying is it removes things like endian issues and can only make porting easier.

      • Re:DirectX (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Cthefuture ( 665326 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @04:01PM (#12750883)
        Endian issues are minor though (usually not a problem at all) compared to the API differences.

        I don't see the difference between porting between Windows/Linux, and Windows/OS X (Intel). The same problems will still be there.

        I don't see Linux ports all over the place dispite the fact that my CPU and even my hardware is the same as I use in Windows. I don't see why OS X would be any different (other than industry support, but that doesn't make it easier).

        • Re:DirectX (Score:3, Insightful)

          by FLAGGR ( 800770 )
          First off, disclaimer: I'm running a mac mini that dual boots gentoo and osx, I'm not a linux hater and not trying to start a flame war or anything. Anyways, reasons why they would port to osx and not *nix:
          1. Apple has more desktop market share (Probably more total market share, but if not then definantly for marketshare) If they switch to Intel I can only assume their market share will increase even more (as it has been lately)
          2. Most linux users are badly spoiled by free software. Sorry but its true, not
          • I can see a large sum of the *nix users I know bitching about how the game wasn't free

            I'm a Linux user. I only use Microsoft systems for games. I buy games for Microsoft systems only because that's what's available. I would certainly buy games for Linux if they were in the same quality/playability level as the games I buy for MS-windows. However, I do bitch about games not being free. Not free as in beer, but they aren't free as in speech.

            Case in point: I like racing games. But, unfortunately, most rac

          • 1. So what?
            2. If you make a game we want bad enough, we will buy it.
            3. That's not exactly a coding issue. If you require a certain version of a library, ship it with the game.
            4. libSDL; games use custom GUIs.
            5. So what?
            • 1 makes macs a bit more attractive to write/port games for

              2)true, he even says so. Problem is convincing the game companies enough will be sold to be worth while and the 'it should be $free and FREE' crowd not to yell and create negative press for them.

              3) and what about all the things that break when the new lib displaces the old that half the distro requires. Not to mention all the wories about exactly when using/relying on glp libs and such cause a program to fall under the gpl or even lgpl. If they're
          • 1)probably right on desktop, but total is much more iffy, esp if you allow one to group bsd with linux, considering servers. However as we're talking games here it's the desktop that matters.

            2) Yes, the number that would complain about it not being open source, or at least having fully exposed api, ect. for mods and adding thier own stuff in would be to large relative to the market, this would be bad publicity wise and make sales past initial realease to much of a gamble. And this is all for the cluefull
        • Except for that a lot of games use quite a bit of inline ASM and other x86-specific stuff in their code, so this will help a bit. It's not always the API(Doom3 was openGL and look at how long it took). I doubt this will hurt porting, it pretty much can only help.

        • Endian issues are minor though (usually not a problem at all) compared to the API differences.

          No. It was said today at a certain conference by someone knowledgeable that the two main problems facing Windows to Mac game ports are DirectX and endian-ness, and the majority of the lingering Mac-specific bugs are due to endian issues.

          While the rewrites for DirectX etc. are a lot of work, they seem to be more easy to do the more you do it as you build your toolset for porting code using those APIs. Endianne

        • I don't see the difference between porting between Windows/Linux, and Windows/OS X (Intel). The same problems will still be there.

          How about Macs only having a few known hardware configurations?

          It's not quite as simple as targetting a console, but it's got to be much better than the zillions of driver/hardware combinations in Linux and Windows.
      • I wish I had mod points so I could mod you down. OpenGL is a graphics API. It replaces Direct3D (a subset of DirectX). Keyboard input, sound, etc. aren't handled in OpenGL.
    • It's not lack of DirectX that's screwing us, it's the simple fact that there are multiple APIs that a developer has to contend with. I seriously, seriously doubt that the problem with developing games on both Mac and Windows has to do with the small parts of assembly code. From what I understand, endianess issues are easily taken care of as well.

      It's simply the lack of time, possibly talent and most likely desire to get the games done simultaneously. Cross-platform development is not hard, just time consu
    • it is the lack of DirectX for OSX that is screwing us.
      Granted, but the fact that the assembly target will now be (supposedly?) x86, these guys [macdx.com] might be able to develop a far more robust and complete tool in the near future.
    • Why would people emulate (oh its not emulator, api) directx while "the original" on "original kernel" exists?

      I don't give a F to Intels, as well as "new" Mactel, I just try to build a strategy for buying games for this year and 2006

      Just a concerned customer here...

    • Perhaps this will push game engine creators more in the direction of open standards like OpenGL that can exist on both operating systems.
    • You are absolutely correct. The article makes no sense at all.
    • This is precisely why I wish more pc developers would take open-source engines more seriously. A key goal of many open source libraries is to maintain cross-platform portability. Just take OGRE [ogre3d.org] for instance. This 3D Rendering engine is fully cross-platform and supports the latest wizbang features (it even implemented parallax mapping before Unreal3 Demoed that technology). There are libraries for every area: Sound? OpenAL. Physics? ODE. Networking? RakNet.

      There are already numerous projects that are tryin

  • Phew! (Score:1, Redundant)

    by ndansmith ( 582590 )
    Well, it couldn't make the gaming situation for Mac any worse because, well, you get the idea.
  • The first Intel Mac, or Duke Nukem Forever?

    Place your bets now...

    Crow T. Trollbot

  • Hmmm (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Auckerman ( 223266 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @04:02PM (#12750902)
    Games are only relevent when you start thinking about APIs. With DirectX being Windows only, I really don't see how it's going to be that much easier to port.

    The one issue it might solve is byte order problems (big/little endian) on the graphics cards. Though, theres going to be no guarantee that drivers for OS X for any off the shelf card is actually going to be any good.

    It may be some time before Apple gets around to even caring that the Half Life 2 market exists, much less builds machines to compete in that market.
    • AFAIK, Apple writes all the drivers for OS X in the video department. How they do this, I'm not exactly sure, whether they get the specs from the manufacturers or what.

      That being said, OpenGL on OS X is still blazing fast. Porting a game engine that's OpenGL-friendly shouldn't take very long at all.

      • Re:Hmmm (Score:3, Informative)

        by Auckerman ( 223266 )
        "Apple writes all the drivers for OS X in the video department."

        I doubt that. Even given that, my point went right over your head. You see, Mac users can't just buy off the shelf PC video cards put them in their macs, even if the mac had drivers for it. The ROM on the card is set for little endian, when macs use big endian. Making Mac cards more expensive (only difference being the rom and the box it came in). IIRC, there are ways of working around this, but they require a lot more patience than I've
      • Look for any recent benchmark. A top of the line G5 with the best video card (say ATI x800 series) runs at about 50% of the framerate of a comparable PC.

        In fact it is currently impossible to get good full resolution performance on Doom3 for Macs, on any of the hardware that Apple sells.
    • If anything, maybe Macs getting better gaming hardware will encourage moving away from DirectX ... which will benefit more than just OSX gamers. Provided that MS doesn't play the XBox card too well, that is.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @04:02PM (#12750905)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Death of Mac games (Score:3, Insightful)

      by FLAGGR ( 800770 )
      Do you honestly think someone is going to buy a Apple computer to run Windows? That's why they aren't going to "do anything to preclude that", because no one would honestly do such a thing. Maybe they would dual boot if they were intelligent enough, or maybe just run Windows in VirtualPC like I do now on my macmini.

      p.s. the reason MS isn't looking upset about the switch is a) because it was yesterday, MS hasn't commented yet b) If they were upset do you think they'd show it?
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:Death of Mac games (Score:4, Insightful)

          by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF ( 813746 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @05:02PM (#12751545)

          No. I said that if Apple computers can run Windows, it's more reasonable for a game developer to presume you will dual boot if you want to play their games than to spend the development time porting it. Take a look at the GNU/Linux situation with games.

          How much does a copy of Windows cost, retail? You seem to be making the assumption that all macs will have windows, but unlike pretty much all Linux boxes, Apple will not be paying MS a fee for every box and will not be including Windows. Any game developer who assumes that mac users can "just boot into Windows" is assuming that either all mac users will go out, buy Windows, and install it alongside or replacing OS X (which ain't gonna happen) or they are assuming everyone will pirate Windows and do the same (which is only a little less likely). There are plenty of game makers that develop for the mac because they make money doing so. Those that make stupid assumptions, like you are claiming they will, will lose a good chunk of that money. Those that continue to make mac native versions will make that money. It does not take a genius to figure out that most people are not going to install Windows on their macs (Aside from some geeks).

          That said, a WINE solution is a possibility. I could see a lot of game makers contributing to and writing for WINE implementation to try to sell to the mac market with less dev time/cost.

    • Microsoft really can't do anything to upset this archetectural switch.

      Microsoft recently shot themselves in the foot by putting their money and operating system behind AMD (Athlon XP, Windows XP.. hmm coincidence? I don't think so). So Intel goes shopping for a new OS contender. Linux is free, so that's out of the question. The BSD's are all good candidates, but someone's gotta develop a good GUI system... Bingo, Apple Computers is there and waiting. And since IBM pissed Apple off so much by not producin
    • The difference between people who Linux/Windows dual-boot and people who own Macs and *could* dual-boot is a big one, though.

      Linux users are more technically sophisticated, on average, than either Mac or Windows users, and thus are capable of making their machine dual-boot - or, hell, even knowing what dual-boot MEANS.

      Your average person who buys a Mac or Windows machine has never even heard of dual-booting, and even if they did know that somewhere out there are people who run more than one OS, they wo

      • Your average person who buys a Mac or Windows machine has never even heard of dual-booting, and even if they did know that somewhere out there are people who run more than one OS, they would probably assume it's too complicated for them to do (whether or not that's true).

        I beg to differ. Those of us who have been around since the pre-OS X days know exactly what dual-booting is and how to do it. This is especially true of most Mac gamers, who found that many of their games suffered a significant performance

        • I guess the question becomes, has the average Mac user been around since before OS X? If so, will that still be true five years from now? I know my sister has never booted her eMac into OS 9, although she uses classic occasionally for one or two programs.
    • This is exactly what I'm looking for: the ability to dual boot into Windows so I can play PC games.

      If indeed Apple doesn't lock Windows out of the hardware, then I'll be able to get rid of my Windows box. About the last reason for keeping it has been to play its incomparable library of games.

      No, it's not going to be fun for the Mac game porting industry, such as it was. But in this case, that's a Dodo in the path of evolution. Better that future Apple hardware allow us an easy path into the world's

  • I'm just wondering how the marketing of these new intel macs will go. Just not long ago, they were showing bench test results "proving" that the G5 PPC is faster than the Pentium 4. I'm not sure people will switch to Mac because more games are available, I think more games will always available for PCs. Also, with all the new gaming consoles coming out, maybe gamers don't need Mac or PCs to play games.
    • Those benches may still be spot on. Marketing won't have to dramatically reverse their spin, because Apple won't be using Pentium 4's. They're much more likely to use some sort of souped-up Pentium M. Then they can still claim to be the latest and greatest.
      • The dev machines being sent out right now to developers are pentium 4s.
        • Pre-release development platforms aren't something you want to base speculation on. What does this tell us about Apple's new machines? It only tells us that the processor's intruction set is compatible with the P4's. Big deal, we already knew that. You still don't know what processor is going into the final product, nor do you know what kinds of bussing or extending functionality the motherboard is going to have.
        • >The dev machines being sent out right now to developers are pentium 4s.

          Could that have to do with the fact that the next generation Intel CPUs are not available yet?

          I just checked out the Intel roadmap for some future Desktop CPUs with multiple cores and the new single core Yonah for laptops and somehow they are all scheduled for early 2006. How come Apple wants to sell the first Intel-based Mac in June 2006? coincidence? synchronicity? A cry from the chrome plated megaphone of destiny?
      • Yeah, the latest and greatest 32-bit. I can't see going from a 64-bit PPC to a 32-bit Pentium as anything but a downgrade.
        • I don't know why they didn't aim for the AMD64. Seems like that's the future of desktop procs. Won't software have to be recompiled for AMD64? I like Apple, but I don't like this move.
        • Yeah, the latest and greatest 32-bit. I can't see going from a 64-bit PPC to a 32-bit Pentium as anything but a downgrade.

          So what about going from a 32-bit PPC to a 32-bit Pentium? Since that's what's going to happen first.

          -sam

  • This doesn't make porting ANY easier (Score:3, Insightful)

    by WouldIPutMYRealNameO ( 874377 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @04:13PM (#12751040)
    This won't decrease the gap between porting games. Though I am not a professional game developer, I find it hard to imagine that modern games have much (if any) assembler content in them. Any language higher level than assembly was already able to be compiled for other CPUs - so the actual machine instructions have never been a problem.

    Endianness is a small issue, really there are only a few places that you need to fix up for that, so that has never been a real problem.
    The APIs that you use to make your game are the big problems, DirectX for example.

    There are a couple of things that do make this better for Mac gamers. Raw computing power for the Mac user base will generally rise, after all how many people are trying (and failing) to run games on underpowered iBooks?
    Now if Apple supports and promotes OpenGL2.0 and perhaps OpenAL, then maybe game developers will target those APIs. In which case porting between Windows and OS X should be easier.

    The truely interesting thing is that we are going to see how much OS overhead there is between Windows and OS X - a more Apples to Apples comparison :) If OS X is significantly more efficient than WinXP, then people will really start to target Macs as development platforms.
    • Games make heavy use of SSE. While they usually include a non-SSE code path which can be used on a Mac, this is a lot slower. Writing an AltiVec version of this code takes a significant amount of time.

      Additionally, games do have a number of endian issues. It is quite common for games to simply dump data structures into networks streams or save-game files for performance reasons. Trying to open these on a Mac requires byte-swapping - not hard, but you have to make sure you do it everywhere.

      Apple inclu

  • Not so fast (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nigham ( 792777 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @04:15PM (#12751049) Homepage
    And, for another, it's going to narrow the gap between the release of a game on Windows and the release on Mac -- maybe to zero.

    Just because Mac is running on x86 doesn't mean that games will automatically be ported to a Mac more easily. Linux runs on Intel and x86, need I say more?
    • Not to troll, but developers don't want to port to Linux. Well, more the producers decision but still. Why do you think games get ported to OSX when it would be 10x easier to port them to Linux? Hard truth. Go outside onto the street, ask someone if they know what an iMac, macintosh, apple computer, etc is, then ask the same people if they know what linux is, or gnu, or heaven forbid freebsd.
    • Just because Mac is running on x86 doesn't mean that games will automatically be ported to a Mac more easily. Linux runs on Intel and x86, need I say more?

      Hrm... Lets see:

      A gazillion varients of Linux OS on infinite combinations of hardware.

      vs

      1 type of Mac OS X on a very narrow band of hardware configurations.

      On would be worthwhile and the other would take some effort (not that more people should make Linux games, because they should... I'm just saying one of these is going to be easier. Heck one of t
    • Part of this is, Linux users--especially hobby or home users--have a reputation (deserved or not) for not wanting to pay for software. Or hardware, if they could get away with it.

      Mac users, on the other hand, seem to be willing to shell out actual hard-earned cash for stuff (not only that, but willing to pay a premium to get the best). Witness iTMS.

      (I'm not trolling, and I'm not talking about the reality, only the perception.)

      To be fair, having WINE or the ability to dual-boot XP seems to be a big part o
  • I personally think this is gonna be the start of a downfall for apple as its always been Intel + Microsoft Apple + IBM or motorola (or whatever) but then again, it may 'improve' gaming on macs if anything, difficult one to call this
  • Maybe WINE will finally be useful to the OSX community, now that's it running on x86 hardware.
    • I'm sure, that some people might find it useful.

      However, it's not likely to affect many people. I, and most people that I know, use macs because the software (both OS and Apps) are so pleasant and reliable to use.

      The thought of being able to run really crappy software again doesn't float many boats.

    • Wine is full of linuxisms. It works on other systems, but only so long as you stay away from a lot of corners, and don't stress it. The lead developer of Wine himself will tell you that linux on x86 is the only platform they target, and it isn't worth their money (Code Weavers - his employer) to make it work on anything else.

      Wine has been completely broken for months at a time on FreeBSD, less popular OSes will have even more problems. They will accept patches to fix Wine on other OSes, but they have

      • Even then, Wine applications will always look wrong on a mac desktop

        This is a good thing. If WINE applications looked right, but felt wrong, then developers would probably think they were good-enough (look at the Qt apps on OS X that are full of Windowsisms). If it looks wrong, then works, then users will view it in the same way they view classic - a stop-gap until a native version is available.

  • If a game is "too hard" to port to x86 linux (as was the case with Tribes Vengeance), then it will also be "too hard" to port it to x86 mac. some companies *coughvivendi* just dont care.

    though in the case of Tribes Vengeance, i think we came out ahead by not getting it...
    • If a game is "too hard" to port to x86 linux (as was the case with Tribes Vengeance), then it will also be "too hard" to port it to x86 mac ...

      That is only one of many factors. There is also the potential market. While people estimate that the Linux market might be about the size as the Mac market there is no real way to separate servers and other non-desktop installs of Linux from the true desktop installs, only the later are part of the potential market. Apple users on the other hand are nearly exclu
    • The funny thing is, it'll become much easier for the game devs to port to mac after they realize that there's actually a customer base.

  • this whole thing is really odd.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Malor ( 3658 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @04:58PM (#12751503) Journal
    It's a very weird idea... it feels a bit like waking up in the Twilight Zone or something.

    I forget the name offhand, but there was an early computer company, possibly Amstrad, that preannounced that they were coming out with this really amazing new machine. Customers loved the idea, and stopped buying all the existing machines. Sales dropped to 0 and they died before they could get the new hotness out the door.

    Apple has always known about this, and has been very aggressive about not preannouncing ANYTHING, so as to not hurt sales of existing products. This violates that precept so badly that I can't help but think it's prompted by panic (or anger, as some have hypothesized). I'm not sure whether or not it's a bad idea. Their existing sales are going to drop, perhaps precipitously, while they try to figure out how to make OSX on Intel work. But if they didn't preannounce, then the developers wouldn't have time to get ready for the transition, which could potentially be worse.

    As an aside, PPC emulation is never going to be very good, and all that specially tuned Altivec code has just been junked. That's a huge investment down the drain.

    They have to know that this is a bet-the-business move. They'll have to execute nearly perfectly, and very quickly, to make this happen without pissing off too many people. And they're going to have to continue to execute flawlessly for a long while. Apple's good at that, but this is asking an awful lot of their engineers. They must really believe their backs are against the wall.

    I wish them well, but there are soooo many ways they could screw this up.
    • The name of the computer was osborne not amstrad.
      Here explains the osborne effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Osborne [wikipedia.org]

    • Re:this whole thing is really odd.... (Score:4, Informative)

      by mh101 ( 620659 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @05:15PM (#12751710)
      Apple has always known about this, and has been very aggressive about not preannouncing ANYTHING, so as to not hurt sales of existing products. [snip] But if they didn't preannounce, then the developers wouldn't have time to get ready for the transition, which could potentially be worse.

      As you state, unlike a new product like the Mac Mini or iPod Shuffle, they can't wait until the last minute to let the world know about it. They have to tell the developers about this well in advance, and I'm certain it's not feasable to put every single Mac software developer in the world under an NDA.

      But if I can speculate, I would assume that, with technologies such as Rosetta and their Universal Binary system, your average user won't even know, or care, what the underlying architecture is, as the overall user experience would be identical.

      I see this more akin to General Motors stating that next year's Sunfires and Cavaliers would be using chassis x instead of chassis y. As long as the experience is still excellent, the end user won't really care much, and won't hold off on buying their cars. Of course, I'm speaking about average joe users here, not the typical Slashdot crowd who actually understand these under-the-hood things...
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • I see this more akin to General Motors stating that next year's Sunfires and Cavaliers would be using chassis x instead of chassis y.

        Except if you buy car with chassis x now, you won't be able to drive on any of the roads in the future.

        You clearly know nothing of what 68k users went through with the switch to PowerPC. NO MORE optimisations when the 68040 could have been MUCH better supported. Apple burned a lot of users with the switch from 68k to Intel and a lot of them went to Windows.

        Apple ha

    • They have to know that this is a bet-the-business move. They'll have to execute nearly perfectly, and very quickly, to make this happen without pissing off too many people. And they're going to have to continue to execute flawlessly for a long while. Apple's good at that, but this is asking an awful lot of their engineers. They must really believe their backs are against the wall.

      My guess is that this isn't as big of a deal as it seems to be....Apple's already got a couple major cash cows....they're call


      • Apple's already got a couple major cash cows....they're called the iPod and the iTunes music store.

        The music store almost precisely breaks even; its purpose is to entice people into ipods, and thus into macs.

        I've heard conflicting things about how much profit they actually clear on ipods. While they obviously sell lots of units, the margins are very slim indeed. Again, they're not exactly loss leaders, but "lesser profit leaders".

        So no, Apple's profit really is deeply bound to mac sales. But th

    • I don't see what the problem is. They survived a hardware architecture transition like this before, but this time it is supposed to be easier.

      As for the PPC emulation they ran the PPC version of Photoshop CS2 and it ran pretty well on the Mactel box. Not that it is a problem for Photoship, the Adobe CEO spoke at the Keynote commiting to supporting Mactel & Mac PPC in Universal Binary for many years with all their current Mac PPC product lines.

      Apple said they will support PPC for years after they've

    • Their existing sales are going to drop, perhaps precipitously, while they try to figure out how to make OSX on Intel work.

      OS X already works on Intel. Yesterday's demo was delivered using Tiger running on a Mac/Intel machine (3.6 GHz Pentium 4). Jobs even confessed that all previous versions of MacOS X have always been compiled for Intel also. (Of course the existence of project Marklar had always been rumored, he just confirmed it).

      Xcode 2.1 was also released yesterday, providing cross-compilation an

      • It had been well known that Apple was maintaining an Intel version of Darwin. The fact that they had also been maintaining Intel versions of the entire OS and presumably all their other in-house software was the surprise.

        • The fact that they had also been maintaining Intel versions of the entire OS and presumably all their other in-house software was the surprise.

          No, that's the Marklar project I was referring to.

          Back in the days of Rhapsody, Apple showed full versions of the complete OS (or what they had at the time) for both PowerPC and x86. When they announced MacOS X, they (officially) killed the x86 port, leaving only the core OS, Darwin, which you can download and (try to) compile on your PC if you want to (and may

  • emulation is better for games than most things (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Heisenbug ( 122836 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @05:08PM (#12751612)
    If Windows apps can run on Intel-based Macs, at full frame rates, with all the features turned on, the effect on Mac gaming could be devastating. ...

    OK, I can definitely see how the effect on Mac game porting jobs will be devastating, but that quote actually sounds pretty sweet to me as a Mac user. The thing is, running most non-native apps (eg OpenOffice) on a Mac sucks, because the interface isn't Mac-like enough. But 3D games are the one case where that doesn't matter -- they all have their own (crappy) interfaces anyway. If this change means that there are half as many real ports, but twice as many game companies who make sure their title plays on a Mac via emulation, I have trouble seeing the long-term problem. This won't affect normal GUI apps -- any Mac GUI app that isn't friendly enough gets beat down by one that is.

    Short term, of course, it will suck if the shift to emulation happens before you've had a chance to upgrade to a macintel ... but if not being able to play the latest 3D games is a problem for you, I imagine you'll have gotten around to it, somehow.
  • Hopefully this will lead developers to use cross-platform API's for games, so they can run on win lin and mac, more games could be sold bringing in more money and gamers on linux and mac get more games as well.

    I for one disagree with Dvorack on this issue (slightly different article --sorry), it seems like this switch will lead to the development of more cross platform API's, and once that happens itll make the transition off windows even easier.
  • The switch to intel means that a games developer can maintain a common c++ codebase and optimise the same bits for all platforms. Data formats will no longer need endian switches that porting or careful cross-platform development tend to introduce. The small remaining headache is the DirectX OpenGL issue. But that's still significantly less effort. The ease of porting to mac and larger installed user base should offset any worries about the hard-core users using some sort of WINE-style layer translation lay
  • Certainly, the switch to Intel will open the door to dual-booting OSX/Windows Apples. Some users may just get a copy of XP and just buy the Windows version of the games and forego the wait. The original developers may just make a Macintosh version side by side with the Windows one. Then, there is the whole prediction that gamers will move to consoles decreasing the number of PC gamers. This may have an increase effect for Mac Gamers. So, I can understand the dread in mac porting houses about the future.
  • I would like to see a Mac running dual 6800's in SLI mode. Not only for gaming, but you can turn SLI off and then run 4 DVI monitors.

    NVIDIA just released a chipset for Intel, so NForce4 for Mac could be coming?

    I have not yet heard where the chipset for the motherboard will come from, but this would be cool.

    • Re:SLI? (Score:2)

      by Onan ( 25162 )
      Traditionally Apple has done all their own logic boards, and I don't see any reason to expect that to change now.

      Apple's goal here is not to make machines that are interchangeable with Dell/HP/homebuilt systems, it's just to have a cpu architecture that will--definitionally--never fall behind what most competing systems use. But they'll still be "Macs" in all other ways.

  • As other posters have noted, the primary problem in getting games ported to OS X (or Linux, for that matter) is not one of CPU architecture but of operating system APIs. So the Intel deal probably won't effect more games "for OS X", other than as an indirect effect; if using Intel processors allows Apple to ultimately capture a larger market share, than it could result in more (and more up-to-date) OS X ports of video games.

    However, with x86 processors in Macs we should be able to run Virtual PC at nearly

  • One of the big issues with PC games being buggy and having issues is because of the staggering array of hardware people have and strange behaviors and interactions between those various components. I imagine that this kind of thing takes up a marked amount of development time, and probably harms sales - if I read that XYZ game is a bug-ridden piece of shit often enough, I'm not likely to buy it.

    One of the big advantages console game development is a fixed target - the developers know exactly what the specs
  • Why would you continue to develop for DirectX when you can hit almost every single machine on the market with OpenGL/x86? Doom 3 proves that you can make cutting edge graphics with OpenGL. If Apple can throw together some already open APIs and call it OpenX, then let Ubuntoo, Gentoo and FreeBSD et al use it, writing for DirectX will look a lot less attractive.

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