Games for the Mac!

Son of Blam

Does anybody play games on their Mac? Where do you buy them from? Aren't they expensive? I've been looking for some kind of "play.com for Mac games" but haven't found anything good so far.

I've got a 700Mhz iBook with 640 megs of ram (woo woo!) I'm mostly using for music making stuff, but I was thinking of trying out the odd game or two.

Gordon

I buy mine from the Mac centre off Stephens Green, yes they are expensive.

I have Alice osx, crappy old SIM city for OS9, Starcraft os9 (crap) and Quake for osx/9

You can get some good ones apparently, try the place off Stephens Green.

(What music software do you use?)

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by Son of Blam
I've got a 700Mhz iBook with 640 megs of ram

How much did 640 cost you? Where did you get the ibook from?

Dustaz

Nearly all blizzard games are dual platform now.

Its still not really a gaming machine tho

RicardoSmith

The big problem with gaming on mac's (even the new ones) is that they all have relatively low end graphics cards. Most of the newest titles will struggle on a GF4MX. You really need a GF3 or GF4ti4200 to do them justice. You can only add these cards to the higher end machines which have an AGP slot. Something which most mac home users don't have. One of the last reviews I read was of someone running a Dual 1Ghz G4 with a GF4MX card and wondering why the games they tried were sluggish. Whereas something like a single 700mhz G4 with a Ti4200 would run the game at twice the speed. I know you can buy some of these cards but the point is they only come in AGP, something all the lower end Mac's don't have. Most Mac users and reviews completely fail to pick up this. Drives me nuts. Also the fact that the Mac version of the game is usually 20% more expensive than the PC version is a bit much too.

Son of Blam

I got the iBook in the Apple shop on Kildare Street (it's owned by Compustore, but the prices of their computers are the same as on the Irish section of the Apple website).

I bought the extra 512mb of memory from www.crucial.com/uk where currently it says it costs £89 sterling, although I presume they'll add UK VAT to that and shipping. I forget how much it ended up for me in Euro, I'll check it out though.

As for music software, all the music software I have only runs in OS9, which is kind of crappy but better than nothing. Here's what I have: Reaktor 3, Logic 4, Cubase (4.5 I think), Metasynth, Pro Tools Free (available free from their website), and some other bits and pieces.

Hey Gordon, you finished with Alice on OSX? Wanna sell it?

Gordon

Sure borrow it if you like

RicardoSmith

I was just curious thats all. if I was going to buy any mac these days I'd get an ibook. Neatest handiest laptop around I reckon! I have a stock 9500 which I don't use, but its handy to have if I ever need any mac stuff. I use PC's mainly though. I was thinking of adding a few bits to the 9500 to get it running OSX and on the net, but haven't had the spare cash as of yet to do it.

Gordon

Originally posted by Son of Blam
As for music software, all the music software I have only runs in OS9...

If you are wanting to pay for something very cool for OSX - try Reason (by proppelerheads). It really does rock.

Dustaz

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
The big problem with gaming on mac's (even the new ones) is that they all have relatively low end graphics cards. Most of the newest titles will struggle on a GF4MXB]

Not sure how trues this is actually. From a PC point of view ive run new games quite happily on a gf2mx. UT2k3, Warcraft 3 and a few others have all run perfectly happily at 800x600. Mind you, its an agp gf2mx so maybe that makes a diff.

RicardoSmith

A GF2MX is quite a slow card and a few years old now. I've a PCI version myself. AGP one is bit faster alright. But still not a speed demon. You must have to turn down quite a bit of detail to play the latest games on that even at 800x600. Even a GF2ti would be significantly faster than that. Most games these days are really designed for 1024x768. You can obviously run it at lower than this but you are not really running the game as intended. Of course thats just my opinion. I try where possible to have my games at full detail at 1024x768. If I can do that I'm happy. The other side of this coin is the size and type of the monitor you are using. Generally for 15" 800x600 is optimal and at 17" 1024x768 then at larger sizes 1280x768 etc. Of course on TFT's the best resolution is the native res of the TFT. As I have yet to see a TFT that runs at 800x600 natively, you are best running the game at 1024x768. But if you have something like a GF2MX you can't do this. Even a GF4MX struggles with some games at this res.

So if you then look at the macs that are out there particularly the imacs they are coming with ATI rage, GF2MX and GF4MX cards on monitors that look best at 1024x768. Apple aren't alone in doing this, Dell and other big PC builders do the same thing and it really is a bit much. Imagine all the people out there that buy a 2ghz PC or 800 G4 only to find that it can't run the latest title at the ideal res. When they do try it they get a slide show.

But it really annoys me when I read some mag review playing something like Medal of honor on 700mhz imac or (in the latest mag I saw) a dual 1Ghz G4 and then complains about it being very slow. I mean what do they expect on GF4MX? They really haven't a clue.

I should get out more I know...

Dustaz

Most games these days are really designed for 1024x768. You can obviously run it at lower than this but you are not really running the game as intended.

Me arse.


They might be intended to run at full detail, but they arent intended for a certain res.

I now have a gf4 ti4200 and i still run most games in 800x600. CS for example is not accurate at a res above 1024.

There is no appreciable speed difference in wc3 or ut3 between the two cards that ive seen (obviously, i can have more graphical detail with the gf4, i had it all turned down on the gf2)

RicardoSmith

Nothing like a good debate eh? and this is nothing like a ....:D

Anyway, CS is hardly a new title is it? Based on the HL engine? My old TNT 3/4years ago could play that at 1024x768. The reason most people play it at low res is to reduce the lag and response time in online play. However doing stuff like this a completely different thing from normal gaming. Its like removing the shadows from games which sure speeds it up but also removes a whole element from the game. No point lurking in the shadows if there aren't any. If you turn down the detail you make it easier to see other players that would be much harder to spot if they were camoflagued against the high detail texures in the game. I remeber when one card manufacturer released driver that allowed you to play online in wireframe mode. There was uproar. Its not really in the spirit of the game IMO. But online its a different ball game anyway. People will do anything for an edge.

Thats a whole different thing. I'm talking about buying a brand new computer and not being able to play a recent title at a resonable speed because the manufacture has just a low end card in their otherwise fast PC. Mac suffer from this a lot as most of them don't have AGP slots and even when they do they stick low end ATI and GF cards in them.

Incidentally in simulations like IL2 and OFP your accuracy is greatly improved by using high resolutions. Its actually much easier to play these kind of games at 1024 and higher than at lower resolutions. In these kind of games, and even in something like wc3 I want to see all the graphical whizz bags I can. I didn't spend €40 on a game to turn half the features off!

Playing in lower res and with the detail turned down is like buying a christmas tree and only decorating half of it and turning half the fairy lights off.

Dustaz

Ugh, this comes down to the age old Graphics Vs Gameplay argument

Personally, i couldnt give a toss what graphics look like in any game. Its a game not a movie. Sure, if it looks pretty thats a bonus, but gameplay is the reason that ill shell out €40 for a game.

As i said, i played a lot of recent games with the grax turned down just fine on a gf2mx and it didnt spoil my enjoyment of any of them (apart from ut2k3 cos its only selling point is its graphics, gameplay didnt appeal to me at all.)

[bait]
Oh yeh, and Multiplayer is the only gametype worth playing. You have fun with your AI buddies, ill be taking the real challenge of skilled players
[/bait]

RicardoSmith

I'm all with you there for gameplay > graphics. But in some games especially single player, the graphics help enormously with immersion into the game. Particularly with flight sims for example. Though I still play a lot of older titles that have dire graphics purely for their gameplay, I still say good graphics are very important for immersion. They don't have to be photorealsitic but they have to be well executed. Sloppy graphics are a real turn off in my books. Also don't discount the single player game. A lot of great titles have no multiplayer at all. So don't knock them just for that.

The fact that I have such a poor net connection means that online games aren't much of an options. I spent a lot of years playing Lan games in a big company that I'm no longer with. That was excellent for sure. 32 people in DF or HL was excellent. Actually Duke Nukem 3D and Descent 1&2 are still my alltime fav lan games. Descent 3 was rubbish though. However playing on bad 56k diaup line like I have to now is a pale imitation of that experience and IMO not worth the effort to see players warping around the battlefield. Though GPL plays really well for some reason. Basically it would wreck my head to play on 56k.

Anyway people turn down the graphics details because they have to. Not because they want to. To suggest otherwise (not that you are) would be nuts.

I've knocked this thread way off topic, so apologies. Theres lots of great shareware and freeware mac games particularly 2D ones. I still play prince of persia and hellcats on my older macs. My sister has loads of platform and other 2d games too. I suggest that you find some mac shareware sites and et downloading. Some of the Mac magazine cover CD's are a great source for this games also. Heres some links of the top of my head.

http://www.pure-mac.com/
http://www.applelinks.com/

spongebob

used ta play a great Mac network game called Spaceward Ho back in the 030 040 and system 7.1 days. Great crack!

graphics didnt matter...gameplay was good.

M

po0k

In fairness, the core hardware (Motorola) of the mac has been draggin at it for a while now.
Motorola has stopped giving APple the new tech, meaning Apple are forced to pretty much overclock the existing chips to get a sellable performance boost, but it seems to be affected by the law of diminishing returns.
I read in a mac mag a while back that in a Photoshop bench mark a single G4 400Mhz got half the marks of a dual 800Mhz G4 system. That just doesn't add up no matter what way you cut it.
Prehaps the northbridge was shoddily designed or something but you'd expect a triple increase in speed at least from a dual system with chips at twice the clock speed of the basline.
Ram is another area macs are fúcked in.
From what I saw lately they are still being sold with SDRAM.
Apple really needs to ge it's skates on in the hardware department if it's to make any headway against the likes of Sun, SGi or even x86 (Intel/AMD) in the workstation market.

Prehaps a transmeta chip might be one pathway for the mobile machines at least?
They're being put into blade servers atm

Return To Castle Wolfenstein is out on the mac.
Runs perfectly on my P3 800, GF2Pro 64Meg DDR, 640meg PC100. at full detail at 800x600@32bit

To see OSX running on Alphas or Sparcs would be sweet

RicardoSmith

Actually twice the cpu speed will not give you double the performance as theres so many other variables, like ram speed, bus speed, hd, chipset speed that all play a big part in benchmarking.

Having dual cpus only accelerate some processes not all of them(even in photoshop) so many things are not improved by the additional cpu's at all. So you would never see an inprovement of 50% in real life. 30-40% is the best you could hope for and then only in some apps and then only in certain processes in those apps. That said most benchmarking I've ever seen always turns out to be weighted to favour one technology or another so you have to lookt at the results with that in mind

The latest mac's use DDR ram. They were a bit slow at using new memory technologies thats for sure. Thats said you are only looking at a 10% increase in performance which you might not see if other parts of the PC, graphics, cpu or HD are also holding it back.

gokgok

i've just "got" return to castle wolfenstein, but it's OSX so ican't play it. has any one played it yet?

po0k

yeah, months ago.
On my PC.

Actually twice the cpu speed will not give you double the performance as theres so many other variables, like ram speed, bus speed, hd, chipset speed that all play a big part in benchmarking.

Having dual cpus only accelerate some processes not all of them(even in photoshop) so many things are not improved by the additional cpu's at all. So you would never see an inprovement of 50% in real life. 30-40% is the best you could hope for and then only in some apps and then only in certain processes in those apps. That said most benchmarking I've ever seen always turns out to be weighted to favour one technology or another so you have to lookt at the results with that in mind

I know.

Not flaming or anything, but Ricardo, you're talking a bit of rubbish regarding games.

Anyway, CS is hardly a new title is it? Based on the HL engine? My old TNT 3/4years ago could play that at 1024x768. The reason most people play it at low res is to reduce the lag and response time in online play.

CS's reccomended minimum spec has increased as the game has been updated.
The maps have much more detail textures and many mnay more polys now, not to mention particle effects etc. in 1.6.
reducing your graphics load will only affect your ping if you have a pure software (host DSP and controller) or a hybrid software/hardware modem (hardware DSP, host controller - eg Rockwell HCF, Lucnet 1646 chips) where the modem requiers a few cpu cycles to process stuff.
Anyone with a modern machine plays in at least 800x600.
I myself would only drop to that if I was in dire need of fps (UT2k3 for example).

Anyways, b.o.t., with M$'s appropriation of bungie i'd say the amount of Mac games will dry up a fair bit, though what with WINE and stuff it might be possible to port stuff scross/emulate a windows environment.
Is there an equivalent of VMWare available for OSX? I know there was plenty of software, hardware and soft/hardware hybrid solutions available for earlier macs to run x86/wintel software.
That'd open up a fair amount of DOS games.
There's always the unix amiga emulator + amiga roms
68k cpu too....should feel right at home...

Celt

I suggest you try Escape Velocity Override / Nova http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/
2d space ship trading action type stuff (but it's damn good fun)

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by SyxPak
Not flaming or anything, but Ricardo, you're talking a bit of rubbish regarding games.

How much bandwidth is affected by increased graphic complexity in a game is surely dependent on the coding of the mutliplayer engine and how well it is optimised and coded. If players didn't find an advantage in playing in lower resolutions why do they do it. Surely extra fps is enough of a reason no? Certainly in my own experience (in many games) is that reducing the resolution and graphic detail has greated reduced any lag I was experiencing in a lan game and to a lesser extent in a net game.

Try playing return to castle wolfenstein at the native screen res on an imac with GF2MX and full detail and then tell me the graphics hardware is up to the job. Its like turning on bullet time in Max Payne only you can't turn it off.

Gyck

...or you could just play Shuttle Puck Cafe instead...
?