“Gaming on the Mac, even after the Intel switch, is often still perceived as a joke. Although id, Epic, and Blizzard have worked diligently on their own titles in the past, gaming on the Mac today is still widely seen to be in the same state as it was 5 to 10 years ago: stale and unmoving, aside from the occasional crossover hit. Graphics cards on anything but Apple’s professional-level (read: very expensive) Macs are still unimpressive and unappealing to anyone who takes gaming seriously. “For people with the high end gaming rigs, Mac hardware can still be a joke,” one reader complained to me recently,” Jacqui Cheng writes for Ars Technica.
“But for those who are able to make do with the Mac’s limited selection of supported graphics cards, it’s the state of the ports that seems to really be holding things back. Ports of games to the Mac just plain suck; they are usually slow, buggy, and ‘half-assed’ compared to their PC counterparts,” Cheng writes. “This is due in part to the fact that that many games are now DirectX-based, Microsoft’s Windows-centric gaming API. Porting a game to OpenGL is difficult, and the number of game developers working natively in OpenGL seem to be getting smaller every day. The end result is that developers throw together Mac-compatible versions as an afterthought, and are also constantly playing catch-up to release those versions after their superior DirectX counterparts.”
Cheng writes, “The good news is that where EA goes, others may follow.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Michael” for the heads up.]
I’m content with Bootcamp for gaming. R U?
Gaming on the MAC is never gonna be as good as it is on Windows. MACs are toys which is another reason why Windows rules and MAC users drool.
Who wants to play Battlefield 2 over the ‘net with me? Oh that’s right, Battlefield 2 isn’t on a MAC. Losers.
Your potential. Our passion.™
ZT. Back and better than ever.
I’ve never been much of a gamer on computers, I have had a PC up until I switched last year and the only game I play on either machine is football manager, which works just as well on both machines (not a very demanding game though)
I just think it’s better to play games on a ps3 or something, they last about 6-7 years before becoming obsolete and everything on the system is optimized for game playing, not like a computer
Zune Tang …. your humor has gotten old and stale …
Bootcamp is adequate for gaming. But I would love to get rid of that stupid partition, get back that space on my hard drive, and never have to be connected to the internet with Windows again.
Jimy,
I thought ZT made an excellent joke! Calling Macs toys because they can’t play as many games as Windows PCs is incredibly ironic.
Zune Tang is the worse Microsoft fanboi I have ever encountered!If there is anyone’s nose who’s so brown up Microsoft’s arse , its Zune Tang. The kid lives it, breaths it, swears by it. He will even get a hard on so big if Microsoft decided to have a new design for the Blue Screen of Death. :p In fact if MS decided to add the BSOD right on the Zune Player!
@chris …. just tired of ZT’s same ole same ole on every posting …. not funny, not creative, not interesting …
@ ZT:
Macs are toys, but yet you have so many more games on your PC?
LOL – which is the toy, you idiot!??
BTW: I am actually at work right now, typing in my office, on my computer which is a Mac, making alot of money… True story.
“another reason why Windows rules”
And a taco is still a taco even if you eat the shell.
Makes as much sense.
MDN – Is the necessity to re-submit multiple times some sort of test in patience? Not a real good idea for retaining viewers, IMNSHO.
I would love to know why Apple doesn’t offer a few more graphics options on the iMac. Is the enclosure too hot? Are the good gaming cards too big?
I’m not even talking about the ability to swap out video cards myself (although I would love that option), just let me buy a high-powered video card up front (as a build-to-order option) which can run the latest games at respectable frame rates.
Seems like a way for Apple to “upsell” their computers just like a bigger hard drive and more memory. Even if tons of people don’t go for it, you still gets fat profit margins on the ones that do.
I was reading in Wired (9/07 issue) last night that “Halo” was originally written for the Mac but Microsoft saw a demo of it at MacWorld Expo ’99 and bought out Bungie so they’d develop it for the XBox instead.
How different would the gaming world be now if “Halo” had been Mac only?
Yep…to the creator of Zune Tang: it’s time to retire that character. Like the “flat tire” joke I think it’s run it’s course.
You could bring back Sputnik.
I’ll second that, bring back Sputnik.
@Synthmeister
I would love to know why Apple doesn’t offer a few more graphics options on the iMac.
I would say it is because most people don’t care; they don’t use their computers for serious gaming, they buy consoles for that. Most mainstream Windows based desktops you see in retail stores use integrated graphics anyway. I am glad that the iMacs come with dedicated cards, even if they aren’t the latest and greatest for gaming.
Most people don’t buy their computers for games, they buy them for the internet, email, pictures, etc…
MW = group…as in Zune Tang would like to have group sex with Ballmer (huh, huh….I said Ball…) and Gates with a Zune and a Dell laptop thrown in for fun…
Which is the toy machine?
At least once a day someone ducks into the office of one of my colleagues and makes some comment about the two Macs on his desk. He teaches computer science at a local university and used to run Windows and Linux but now has a TiBook and an iMac. Once each day he listens as someone derides his choice of a “toy machine.”
I ask him what his answer is, and he shrugs and responds, “What’s the point?”
“What’s the point?” I exclaim. “The point is that your Mac ships with Java, Ruby, Python, and Perl. The point is that you can open up a Terminal window and edit using vi or emacs. You can set up sendmail or use lynx. You can enable the Apache Web server that ships with every Mac by checking a check box. That’s the point.”
“I usually tell them that,” he says, “but then they ask me if they can play the latest version of some game on it like they can on a Windows box.”
“Well then,” I reply, “which one is the toy machine?”
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2002/12/10/osx_java.html
The point is not that everyone who buys a Mac is going to be a hardcore gamer.
The point is that one of the key areas Apple is pursuing is the home/consumer space which includes a lot of young people. To this segment, games matter. Apple cannot fully penetrate this space with the current sorry state of Mac gaming.
Apple frankly has not done enough to encourage game developers to develop on Macs, and has allowed a Windows only technology to take over with DirectX. I blame Apple for this as much as Microsoft.
@Jeff
I understand that, and I’m one of those folks that’s only a casual gamer, I use my computer to make a living. It just seems like a hardcore video game card would be a great upsale option for the iMac with very little downside for Apple. I’m one of those people who would buy the gamer’s video card, “just to cover all the bases” and because I know I wouldn’t be able to upgrade the card later.
Affordable Macs with Expandable graphics unfortunatly isn’t in Steve’s vocabulary.
“For people with the high end gaming rigs, Mac hardware can still be a joke,”
“For people with the high end gaming rigs, Mac hardware can still be a joke,”
“For people with the high end gaming rigs, Mac hardware can still be a joke,”
“For people with the high end gaming rigs, Mac hardware can still be a joke,”
“For people with the high end gaming rigs, Mac hardware can still be a joke,”
“For people with the high end gaming rigs, Mac hardware can still be a joke,”
“For people with the high end gaming rigs, Mac hardware can still be a joke,”
“For people with the high end gaming rigs, Mac hardware can still be a joke,”
“For people with the high end gaming rigs, Mac hardware can still be a joke,”
“For people with the high end gaming rigs, Mac hardware can still be a joke,”
ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION APPLE?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!
mdn magic word: “finally”
make it happen apple, you can do it… just make it freakin happen.. step # make a system that doesnt cost $2500 that can take a STANDARD graphics card.. thats right you heard me.. no custom VGA bios BS.. jsut MAKE IT WORK.. if you cant leverage the VGA market to make compatible cards at good prices.. then you have to do what you have to do.. its either that or open OSX 100% to standard hardwre… thats not a bad ides either.. but for god’s sake throw us a bone!
Winblows users need those super powerful graphics cards because we all know how taxing on the graphics subsystem those brutal games of Solitaire are.
Just build a cheap Winblows box with your standard cards to play your little DirectX crap and be done with it.
Aren’t you supposed to be in school?
TT,
Just don’t post here.. just go out and buy an HP with vista and don’t come complaining how wonderful gaming is on vista when you know you can’t live without a mac and realize there is more to life and a mac then to spend all day playing video games.
ZuneTang = MacDude
‘a ghost from the past’
Unfortunately, Mac gaming IS still a joke. It’s lack of good gaming hardware and software is THE NUMBER ONE reason I run in to when trying to get people to switch to a mac. The tolerate all of Window’s issues and the security problems and reinstalling their OS 3 times a year just to clear the junk out soley so they can run bleeding edge hardware for gaming.
Apple normally picks and chooses their markets very carefully, and maybe gaming isn’t a market they want, but I think that’s a mistake. The profit margins on gaming rigs are the highest in the industry. Gamers are usually highly technical users. Simply working out better deals for more and CURRENT video card choices would go a long way towards making inroads to this profitable segment.
Heck, I’d love to get a Mac Pro for gaming. But a nVidia 7300 is so old news. So I still gotta get a pc for current gaming. Maybe one day I will be able to switch entirely w/o giving up FPS and performance. I anxiously await that day.