Unless game was originally written in GL, I doubt they port it to native GL on mac. That would include rewriting 1) game code 2) render engine. Even with recoding 1), doing that for 2) is huge work, since all game companies usually use third-party render engines (such as Unreal, which is DX-based), and doing all that from scratch and still have same look & feel of the game and still have enough profit.... I don't believe that. They may claim it is not Cider, but it is some other v.machine, maybe their own, but still not gonna work as fast as mac & GL can push.... until games are developed in GL for both platforms (actually 3 platforms, since having it running on mac is 90% work done for Linux, same core, same API), mac gaming will still be behind windows.
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COD4 - Not impressed
- Thread starter costabunny
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Unless game was originally written in GL, I doubt they port it to native GL on mac. That would include rewriting 1) game code 2) render engine. Even with recoding 1), doing that for 2) is huge work, since all game companies usually use third-party render engines (such as Unreal, which is DX-based), and doing all that from scratch and still have same look & feel of the game and still have enough profit.... I don't believe that. They may claim it is not Cider, but it is some other v.machine, maybe their own, but still not gonna work as fast as mac & GL can push.... until games are developed in GL for both platforms (actually 3 platforms, since having it running on mac is 90% work done for Linux, same core, same API), mac gaming will still be behind windows.
My experiences with CoD4 Mac:
C2D 3,02Ghz + 8800GT = same quality and FPS like playing under XP.
Finally i don't have to boot windose anymore.
C2D 3,02Ghz + 8800GT = same quality and FPS like playing under XP.
Finally i don't have to boot windose anymore.
It's great with the 8800 GT
I just upgraded my 3ghz 8 core MacPro to the 8800 GT vid card today.
It's like night and day difference compared to the 7300.
I still haven't tried some tweaks, but when I launched COD for the first time with the new card, it 'optimized' the settings. It looks great to me.
I highly recommend getting this card if you don't have one.
Lucien.
I just upgraded my 3ghz 8 core MacPro to the 8800 GT vid card today.
It's like night and day difference compared to the 7300.
I still haven't tried some tweaks, but when I launched COD for the first time with the new card, it 'optimized' the settings. It looks great to me.
I highly recommend getting this card if you don't have one.
Lucien.
Speaking of GLSL and lag, all blame goes to Apple. Blizzard, Crossover, and WINE developers have all begged Apple for years now to fix their awful GLSL implementation and as usual apple ignores them citing no reason. There have been bug reports open for this for years - I talked to one developer who said hes given up after a year of them saying "we'll get around to it". Its a shame they are so hostile towards gamers at Apple and dont allocate their many resources to atleast minor development on some good drivers 
We should start a "wake the @@#*# up, Apple" campaign to get better GL drivers with GLSL support that can atleast turn dx9 calls into glsl ones. I think right now any GLSL stuff gets tripled in the buffer if it is translated from DX9 due to shoddy/sloppy coding on apple's part (but I am no programmer so don't quote me on that)
We should start a "wake the @@#*# up, Apple" campaign to get better GL drivers with GLSL support that can atleast turn dx9 calls into glsl ones. I think right now any GLSL stuff gets tripled in the buffer if it is translated from DX9 due to shoddy/sloppy coding on apple's part (but I am no programmer so don't quote me on that)
Here's video of COD4 running on a new Macbook under Boot Camp.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drItRaF0iEU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drItRaF0iEU&feature=related
Hmmm... well, with maxed settings, my CoD4 runs perfectly in multiplayer (30-40 FPS Constant at a resolution of 1440x900, even when I hook into my 23 inch ACD it still runs at around 30 FPS) on my MacBook Pro in Mac OS X. It's interesting, however, that the single player gets MUCH worse framerates at the same specs as the multiplayer, leading me to believe that aspyr spent more time optimizing the multiplayer aspect than the single play aspect. This difference is hugely noticeable (a difference of, literally, around 20 FPS on my system.) Is anyone else experiancing these symptoms?
PS: I feel like I should have gotten the windows version... oh well
PS: I feel like I should have gotten the windows version... oh well
Hmmm... well, with maxed settings, my CoD4 runs perfectly in multiplayer (30-40 FPS Constant at a resolution of 1440x900, even when I hook into my 23 inch ACD it still runs at around 30 FPS) on my MacBook Pro in Mac OS X. It's interesting, however, that the single player gets MUCH worse framerates at the same specs as the multiplayer, leading me to believe that aspyr spent more time optimizing the multiplayer aspect than the single play aspect. This difference is hugely noticeable (a difference of, literally, around 20 FPS on my system.) Is anyone else experiancing these symptoms?
PS: I feel like I should have gotten the windows version... oh well
No actually singleplayer generally has lower framerates since the graphics are actually improved because of the lack of network connectivity. Also some singleplayer maps are much more vast in scope than the mp counterparts. The same hit is evident on the PC version - except its generally more than 30 fps for me in both sp and mp.
If not the API itself then perhaps the philosophy behind it. OpenGL is harder to develop for.
I agree almost entirely, but for the bit about Boot Camp. I got a new 20" iMac (HD2600) about 5 months back. Since then I've bought 8 Mac-native games & intend to buy at least a couple more before the year's end. I'm not a hardcore gamer, but much more so than casual.
I'd love to continue to support Mac game developers uniquely, but I don't see myself holding out & continuing to miss out on excellent computer games like, for eg., the "Total War" series (not to mention cheaper PC versions), when Apple themselves don't give a hoot. So despite my (expected) 10 Mac-native titles in a relatively short time, & with more Mac-game buys intended, I strongly expect that like a lot of other Mac gamers, my only option later on will be to install a copy of Windows & Boot Camp it (probably when "Empire: Total War" comes out in February). After that, frankly, I'll probably buy mostly PC games & fewer Mac titles. So good luck to those who can stay "committed" indefinitely, but it seems that more & more Mac gamers are finding this increasingly difficult to do, for obvious reasons. Until Apple are prepared to enter into constructive discussions with game developers & start investing serious money in gaming, little can change.
Ahhh ok, so Aspyr didn't "optimize" the multiplayer, the multiplayer just has worse graphics. Ok, that makes sense now.
I don't know the story on what they did, but what it sounds like to me from what Eric said, though I don't know where he got his information, is that they take the base code, and run it through a translator, that outputs that code to an identical file in an identical project, but instead of directx code, it is written in openGL code. This is not at all hard to do if you know all the directx libraries and all the openGL libraries, though it would have taken a long time to write the translators, unless they wrote a translator to turn the libraries into translators, which could very well be the way they did it. When the translators were done, there is still sure to be plenty of errors that need to be fixed, this would explain the 7 month delay of the release. I don't think porting in natively in openGL is as ridiculous as you make it sound. But that is just my .02¢. I have never developed in either, so I don't know for sure what troubles arise when porting from one to the other. If they ported in Cider though, I sure hope it didn't take them 7 months, if that is the case, than Cider, or whatever virtualization software they did use, is not worth the money.
Speaking of GLSL and lag, all blame goes to Apple. Blizzard, Crossover, and WINE developers have all begged Apple for years now to fix their awful GLSL implementation and as usual apple ignores them citing no reason. There have been bug reports open for this for years - I talked to one developer who said hes given up after a year of them saying "we'll get around to it". Its a shame they are so hostile towards gamers at Apple and dont allocate their many resources to atleast minor development on some good drivers
We should start a "wake the @@#*# up, Apple" campaign to get better GL drivers with GLSL support that can atleast turn dx9 calls into glsl ones. I think right now any GLSL stuff gets tripled in the buffer if it is translated from DX9 due to shoddy/sloppy coding on apple's part (but I am no programmer so don't quote me on that)
There's actually been quite a bit of progress on the GLSL front as of 10.5.5, many GLSL shaders which formerly could not run in hardware on an X1600 (or ran incorrectly) now do. Though the 7300/7600 driver still needs some work, and we look forward to seeing that side improve as well.
In the ongoing development of Diablo III and StarCraft II we have certainly encountered our share of driver bugs, the important thing is that we are actively documenting them and providing standalone test cases for almost all of them - it behooves us to do so since that accelerates the process of getting them fixed. This is a process which has been going on for a couple years now - there are times when we would like it to happen faster, but overall there has been significant progress.
Internally we have developed set of tools for rapidly characterizing and reporting rendering issues, to save valuable time when we find a glitch in a game that isn't in a public-available form yet. For example we can now capture a frame of game drawing and save it in a standalone application for a driver engineer to dissect/debug as needed.
So, considering the amount of discussion we have participated in (and the amount of change going on behind the scenes to address issues) - I really couldn't agree with the use of the phrase "ignored for no reason".
That is really good to hear
I was more talking about the cries of WINE/Crossover devs, maybe Apple just listens to them less or something? The main issue that has been on the record for like 1 year now is a fbo shader issue in which the buffer overloads and reverts to software under GLSL (I probably misquoted that as I am not a dev). Apple has multiple bug reports on file and hasn't done anything to fix it yet. I know they work towards making better drivers but with the amount of money I pay for my MBP (and everyone else who owns an Apple product) you would think they could allocate a few more dollars to driver development.
I read a running theory out there that this is why Valve refused to port to Apple and said that Apple was hostile towards gaming (although the other theory says that Steam wanted a 1 mil investment up front). Either way we gamers seem to be the losers.
Thank god for you all at Blizz, your the only shining light in this sea of darkness!