i feel cheated...

[MarsUltor]

Why are you so angry over an ibook? Did you buy it because you think you are going to play the latest game on it? Well, when you got it during April 2006, it couldn't even handle WoW. How can it even play SC2?

That's not true, i had been playing WoW on my 1.42 GHz iBook, and i usually played it with moderate to high graphics settings, with minimal to no graphical issues... in fact i had been playing WoW on my Quicksilver (867 MHz G4 tower) before I got my ibook, and it still ran fine (although graphics were turned all the way down)...

also, this is to the topic creator, why would you buy the iBook, when it iwas fairly obvious (at the point you decided to purchase a laptop) that apple was about to release new computers with the intel chips? everybody new it, you should have grown some pateience and waited the month, its not like it was a surprise release...

and, how can you accuse delevopers of laziness? it is not laziness that prevents them from coding for a G4 or G5, it is $$... it is extremely costly to develop games, and now you want the developers to consume more time, money and resources to a chipset that has essentially gone the way of the Dodo? even though i still have only G4's in my computers, i am realistic enough to know that my computers can only really play older stuff; i would rather they concentrate on developing solely for the intel chips, and make great games, instead of waste time on the G4/5 chips and make a mediocre game that is universal...

 

[marcelo002]

I also bought an ibook shortly before the macbooks came out. Why did I buy it? Mostly because of the really nice price, I ended up getting it for $700 bucks plus an ipod and a printer (I had a gift certificate, and I was in college at the time). Then the macbooks came out. Do I now feel cheated? Of course not, I knew, as I'm sure you did, about the intel transition. I figured my ibook would last me a few years, which so far it has. I have no illusions about running starcraft 2 on it, any more than being able to run starcraft 3 (which apparently will come out in 2017, can't wait).

Do I feel cheated? No. The intel transition announcement came early, so unlike most cases, I knew my computer would be obsolete in the near future, which is more warning than we usually have with Apple's products (my friend bought a MBP a month ago, he's not happy about the recent upgrade).

Also, developers arent using the intel transition as an excuse, but rather the intel transition enables developers to bring code that they couldnt possibly convert into PPC architecture to the Mac. Apparently it's working with the EA and iD announcement, I just hope it continues.

 

[socamx]

In otis123's defence, you guys are really downplaying the power left in these old PPC Macs. My iBook G4 is reaching 4 years old now, and at 1 Ghz with 640 MB of ram and a Mobility Radeon 9200 with 32MB ram it runs UT2004 decently (and UT2004 is still somewhat of a beast of a game, HEAVY on CPU). It is in no ways a slouch and I think PPC users are deserving of a bit more effort from the game developers.

UT2004 runs BEAUTIFULLY on an Intel iMac and my older G5 desktop, I don't see why this can't be the case for newer games? My G5 basically matches the performance of an iMac Core 2 in games so I'd expect game devs to be more than capable of getting them to run just as well on it as they can the iMac.

PPC isn't a dead horse, it's alive and kicking but game developers are treating it like crap for nonsense reasons.

If you ask me, EA using Cider to do their games is just lame. Take the effort to port fully functional OS X native games with OpenGL support and not some stupid Windows API/DirectX API wrapper. If you ask me, that isn't a native game, that's a game running in the equal of WINE on linux. They're probably going to expect Mac users to pay $50-$60 for a game running in a API wrapper. I can justify paying more for a Mac game when the dev puts the effort into porting it properly, not like this though.

I guess I shouldn't be complaining though, at least Cider brings new games to the Mac, even if they're crappy EA games.

 

[gco212]

In otis123's defence, you guys are really downplaying the power left in these old PPC Macs. My iBook G4 is reaching 4 years old now, and at 1 Ghz with 640 MB of ram and a Mobility Radeon 9200 with 32MB ram it runs UT2004 decently (and UT2004 is still somewhat of a beast of a game, HEAVY on CPU). It is in no ways a slouch and I think PPC users are deserving of a bit more effort from the game developers.

UT2004 runs BEAUTIFULLY on an Intel iMac and my older G5 desktop, I don't see why this can't be the case for newer games? My G5 basically matches the performance of an iMac Core 2 in games so I'd expect game devs to be more than capable of getting them to run just as well on it as they can the iMac.

PPC isn't a dead horse, it's alive and kicking but game developers are treating it like crap for nonsense reasons.

If you ask me, EA using Cider to do their games is just lame. Take the effort to port fully functional OS X native games with OpenGL support and not some stupid Windows API/DirectX API wrapper. If you ask me, that isn't a native game, that's a game running in the equal of WINE on linux. They're probably going to expect Mac users to pay $50-$60 for a game running in a API wrapper. I can justify paying more for a Mac game when the dev puts the effort into porting it properly, not like this though.

I guess I shouldn't be complaining though, at least Cider brings new games to the Mac, even if they're crappy EA games.

What are you talking about? Unreal 2004 has fairly low requirements. It only requires a Pentium 3 and 128 mb of RAM on the Windows side (and even if they're hugely underestimating, it should be fine at 256 and a low grade P4). The PPC hardware in the iBooks was outdated when it was still being released. Those iBooks don't meet the minimum requirements for Doom 3, which came out what, 3 years ago. Sure, it was very very demanding for any system 3 years ago, but today, do you really expect many games to be any less demanding?

Basically, most games wouldn't play on the iBooks or Powerbooks very well. And from there, when you consider how hard it is to port these games for PPC and the cost of it, it simply isn't worth putting in the investment for such a small audience. It's not laziness, it's cost. PPC Macs are mostly dead to major gaming studios.

 

[Gelfin]

Let me see if I can explain this:

Say you run an ice cream business for a community of a thousand people. Of those thousand people, 950 of them like vanilla ice cream. Fifty like orange sorbet.

As a business owner, you have to decide whether to serve orange sorbet or not. You have to do an analysis of the cost of providing that product versus the amount of money it will bring you in new business.

Now imagine that in your analysis you discover that, for whatever reason, due to the complex differences between vanilla ice cream and orange sorbet (use your imagination), where you can run your vanilla-only ice cream business with ten people, additionally making orange sorbet would require hiring another eight people along with new equipment and training. In fact, offering orange sorbet to those fifty people turns out to be almost as expensive as offering vanilla to 950.

The orange sorbet people would certainly love for you to do this out of the goodness of your heart, but it would require you to have an especially good heart, as this would in no way be a wise investment of your resources. If the sorbet-lovers didn't realize the complications involved, they might even be presumptuous and self-centered enough to call you lazy for not sacrificing your own interests in order to cater to theirs.

Now, imagine further that later on some company comes along and offers you a relatively inexpensive machine that can produce either vanilla ice cream or orange sorbet with the flip of a switch, which could be run by hiring only one additional person and required almost no additional training. With this innovation the cost of orange sorbet goes from practically doubling your costs to a mere marginal extra expense. And imagine this new machine comes at a time when market research suggests a minor upswing in the popularity of orange sorbet. Suddenly it is more in your interests to give this a shot.

Of course, somebody who doesn't understand how the machine works would come along and say it's not "real" orange sorbet because it comes out of a machine that can also produce vanilla ice cream, but you can't please everybody.

 

[Felldownthewell]

you people act like its a hunk of ****, i have a 1.5 GB of ram and as i recall the gpu can barrow memory from the ram, at least i have a real gpu unlike some new macs, but whatever you people take this way to seriously i am just sad the ppc is dead

You don't have a hunk of **** you have an excellent machine. However the machine is excellent for things like internet browsing, iTunes, iLife applications, and maybe some older games like the original Starcraft or Diablo II, possibly even CoD or WoW if you can deal with the extremely low FPS and low graphics settings. The point is that your computer dosen't suck, it just sucks for games, and you should have known that when you bought it, especially as you bought it after the MBP went intel and it was announced that every mac was going to be intel. If you should be complaining about anything it is how you spent a good chunk of cash on an obsolete machine for what you want to do with it.

I for one, am not sad about PPC being dead. Yes it is unfortunate for those with PPC machines, but frankly, what percentage of PPC machines are going to be able to run BF 2142 or SC2? G5s and that is about it. What is the purpose of spending an extra 6 months coding a game in UB when 95% of your potential market is going to be on intel? The lack of PPC means that us 95% get the games quicker, and yes it is selfish, but that sounds pretty good to me.

 

[irishgrizzly]

Let me see if I can explain this:

Say you run an ice cream business for a community of a thousand people. Of those thousand people, 950 of them like vanilla ice cream. Fifty like orange sorbet.

As a business owner, you have to decide whether to serve orange sorbet or not. You have to do an analysis of the cost of providing that product versus the amount of money it will bring you in new business.

Now imagine that in your analysis you discover that, for whatever reason, due to the complex differences between vanilla ice cream and orange sorbet (use your imagination), where you can run your vanilla-only ice cream business with ten people, additionally making orange sorbet would require hiring another eight people along with new equipment and training. In fact, offering orange sorbet to those fifty people turns out to be almost as expensive as offering vanilla to 950.

The orange sorbet people would certainly love for you to do this out of the goodness of your heart, but it would require you to have an especially good heart, as this would in no way be a wise investment of your resources. If the sorbet-lovers didn't realize the complications involved, they might even be presumptuous and self-centered enough to call you lazy for not sacrificing your own interests in order to cater to theirs.

Now, imagine further that later on some company comes along and offers you a relatively inexpensive machine that can produce either vanilla ice cream or orange sorbet with the flip of a switch, which could be run by hiring only one additional person and required almost no additional training. With this innovation the cost of orange sorbet goes from practically doubling your costs to a mere marginal extra expense. And imagine this new machine comes at a time when market research suggests a minor upswing in the popularity of orange sorbet. Suddenly it is more in your interests to give this a shot.

Of course, somebody who doesn't understand how the machine works would come along and say it's not "real" orange sorbet because it comes out of a machine that can also produce vanilla ice cream, but you can't please everybody.

Ha ha! post of the day!

 

[socamx]

What are you talking about? Unreal 2004 has fairly low requirements. It only requires a Pentium 3 and 128 mb of RAM on the Windows side (and even if they're hugely underestimating, it should be fine at 256 and a low grade P4).

Those min requirements are always a joke, a p3 with 128 mb of ram isn't gonna run UT2004 anywhere near good.

My point is that PPC is far from being a slouch. My iBook doesn't really even meet the requirements (Mac requirements always seem to be more realistic than Windows ones for some reason.) for UT2004 and it still runs good.

What I'm saying, My G5 which is 2 years old, runs games as well as the current high end iMac. So that means any games that run okay on this iMac should run fine on my G5 as well. They are about equal in performance from my experience thus far. So why claim my G5 is dead now when it is still a contender and possible money maker for them?

Either way, Cider is still a lame cop-out, at least make the games fully OS X-Intel native, then we're at least getting effort and quality.

Edit: Also my G5 is only a 1.8 dual with a Radeon X800 XT, surely a Quad-Core 2.5 with X1900 is a serious contender for gaming, yet EA (and other possible devs) is leaving these behind as if they are dirt.

 

[gco212]

Those min requirements are always a joke, a p3 with 128 mb of ram isn't gonna run UT2004 anywhere near good.

My point is that PPC is far from being a slouch. My iBook doesn't really even meet the requirements (Mac requirements always seem to be more realistic than Windows ones for some reason.) for UT2004 and it still runs good.

What I'm saying, My G5 which is 2 years old, runs games as well as the current high end iMac. So that means any games that run okay on this iMac should run fine on my G5 as well. They are about equal in performance from my experience thus far. So why claim my G5 is dead now when it is still a contender and possible money maker for them?

Either way, Cider is still a lame cop-out, at least make the games fully OS X-Intel native, then we're at least getting effort and quality.

Edit: Also my G5 is only a 1.8 dual with a Radeon X800 XT, surely a Quad-Core 2.5 with X1900 is a serious contender for gaming, yet EA (and other possible devs) is leaving these behind as if they are dirt.

Which, I said in my post, is probably an underestimate, but that any Pentium 4 with 256 RAM can run Unreal 2004. Its not that consuming. And, if you continued to read, I then stated that you should consider a game like Doom 3, which is much more demanding and somewhat similar to what is available in the gaming world now. And since no G4s can run that (at least not well), it excludes all laptops from the gaming market. So, the ports would be limited to a customer base consisting of G5 iMacs and PowerMacs. And, with that small audience, there's simply not enough money for it to be worth it to port to PPC. And while you may feel abandoned, they don't care because why should they lose money in order to port a game for you. So, once again, PPC is mostly dead to gaming companies.

And as for the game not being native to Intel because Cider is used, once again, it's about money. The best bang for their buck is to use a cheap solution like Cider which will hurt the games to some extent, but considering the audience they're losing and the cost that would be incurred in order to port the game so they can use it, Cider is simply their best option.

 

[samh004]

Say you run an ice cream business for a community of a thousand people. Of those thousand people, 950 of them like vanilla ice cream. Fifty like orange sorbet.

Loved your post

Thanks for taking the time.

 

[applekid]

Welcome to the world of technology. Things go fast pace and your hardware goes outdated quickly. And if you're using a laptop, don't expect your upgrades to do much!

The iBook is a consumer laptop. I can't believe you were expecting this to be a gaming machine, unless we're talking about some games that were released well before your iBook. An ATI Radeon 9550 with only 32 MB of VRAM... What did you realistically think you were going to be able to play in the future?

If you were talking a PowerMac G5, I might have some sympathy. Even then, although I'd agree (or at least I assume this is what you mean by games going Intel-only; the only recent Intel-only game was Star Wars Empires at War) that EA is taking the easy route by using Cider instead of rewriting their games, EA isn't exactly the only game company on the Mac. We have yet to see what the porting houses like Aspyr and Feral will be doing in the future.

I find this to be a pretty silly thread. I don't see where you're trying to go with this.

 

[cubist]

Your G4 can do many things an Intel Mac can't!

You can run Classic apps. No Intel Mac can. In fact, none of the software which originally defined what a Mac was, will run on an Intel Mac. (It's our fault for letting the definition of "Mac" be owned by a corporation. It should have belonged to the community.)

Remember HyperCard? The end-user programming capability that made the Mac "the computer for the rest of us"? You can run it. Intel Macs can't. (Yes, I've looked at SuperCard. No novice need bother.) Really, there is no end-user programming capability on an Intel Mac at all. (AppleScript Studio? Put it in front of your grandmother and see how far she gets.)

As for games, Macs have never been a good games platform, and they still aren't. Other than Blizzard, nobody ever made more than a half-hearted attempt to support the Mac. If it's gaming you want, you bought the wrong machine.

 

[Jay42]

i bought a ibook G4 in april last year, boy did i get screwed because all the game developers are returning to the mac, but are too lazy to code for PPC, i am so irate by this i might actually buy a windows system again, because when ever i try something new i get screw over, and starcraft II wont run on my mac ether cause of intel, and now I'm being treated like a have a five year old machine because of the stupid IBM chip in my computer, We are not second class computer users developers, just remember that.... (sorry for the rant but this is ridiculous)

Welcome to the computer industry. Anything you buy is almost always obsolete within six months, never mind more than a year. Even if the MacBooks had not been released yet, the MacBook Pro's were certainly out. and it was clear the iBooks were on the chopping block.

Don't feel too bad, though. The later iBooks are still great machines. I'm still on a Powerbook G4 1.5ghz and it runs just fine. When you bought the machine, you had to know it was not a gaming machine, so why were you cheated?

EDIT: Wow, didn't see the above poster, it's almost word for word...I guess great minds think alike.

 

[MarsUltor]

As for games, Macs have never been a good games platform, and they still aren't. Other than Blizzard, nobody ever made more than a half-hearted attempt to support the Mac. If it's gaming you want, you bought the wrong machine.

Don't forget Bungie before they were bought out by M$... the Marathon series was incredible, and pathways was pretty decent too... also, Macsoft did a good job back in the day...

 

[iSee]

i bought a ibook G4 in april last year, boy did i get screwed...

Don't feel cheated. Your iBook is just as good as it was when you bought it. It is a nice little machine, too, and can do pretty much everything the latest Macs can do except for real heavy lifting.

OK, so next year's games won't run on it, but

Edit: HEY. Safari 3.0 (Win) just ate half my message! Where's the rest?

Anyway, the rest of my message was something about how you probably weren't looking for a game machine when you bought it, so don't sweat it--don't worry about software that hasn't even been released yet and instead enjoy your awesome Mac.

 

[statikcat]

1. so my processor is even crapper than i though before
2. no they came out on may 16 2006, i got my ibook on april 28
3.laziness
4. blizzard guy on the forums said the G5 was even questionable.

Of course.. it doesnt matter if they tried as hard as possible.. a G4 Ibook with NO graphics card isnt going to run anything well reguardless. Blizzard is smart enough not to waste their time.

 

[progx]

you people act like its a hunk of ****, i have a 1.5 GB of ram and as i recall the gpu can barrow memory from the ram, at least i have a real gpu unlike some new macs, but whatever you people take this way to seriously i am just sad the ppc is dead

Otis, in all honesty, Apple hasn't made a REAL Macintosh since the last Power Mac update. These are Apple PCs with Mac branded on it. This is coming from a former "crazy one."

And to boot, Macs aren't gaming machines anyhow. Do what I do, I have a Powerbook G4 (Love it) and a 2.2 Ghz Pentium 4 box for gaming; plus a PS2 and Gamecube.

Use your Mac for what it is intended for, that is, productivity. Plus, listening to tunes and watching movies.

 

[zap2]

Otis, in all honesty, Apple hasn't made a REAL Macintosh since the last Power Mac update. These are Apple PCs with Mac branded on it. This is coming from a former "crazy one."

Wow...I have a super idea, GET OVER YOURSELF. Macs aren't the hardware, they aren't the software. They are both, working together. The flawlessness of the OS with the hardware. I'm pretty sure my Mac Mini is REAL, and running a x86 chip. Intel makes fast+cool chips, which meet Apple needs. IBM and Freescale couldn't/wouldn't make them. G4 was OLD, and slow. G5 was HOT, and IBM wouldn't cool it down. What was Apple going to do? Imagine if we were still running G4 chip in PowerBook, how fast would Apple market share shrink?

 

[zap2]

you people act like its a hunk of ****, i have a 1.5 GB of ram d

Would you like a cookie? My Mac Mini with its lowly 1.25GBs of RAM can eat your all powerfull iBook with its might 1.5GBs of RAM. RAM is only as good as the CPU it being used with.

i recall the gpu can barrow memory from the ram, at least i have a real gpu unlike some new macs, d

Lol...first say how you can borrow RAM for the VRAM, but then take a shot at computer that do that. Pick one, either borrow RAM rocks, or it makes a "fake" GPU.

 

[otis123]

Would you like a cookie? My Mac Mini with its lowly 1.25GBs of RAM can eat your all powerfull iBook with its might 1.5GBs of RAM. RAM is only as good as the CPU it being used with.


Lol...first say how you can borrow RAM for the VRAM, but then take a shot at computer that do that. Pick one, either borrow RAM rocks, or it makes a "fake" GPU.

wow this thread is still on top of the board?! i never intended it to be a gaming machine what did you people think that i was thinking "ZOMG ibook is teh best gAmeing Ever!" no, i got it for school, i just wanted some decent games on the side, and i knew what i was getting into i just didn't think PPC would die off this quickly, after all his jobsness did say at WWDC 05 after he dropped the x86 bomb, they still had great PPC on the way, but that was likely the last G5 imac

 

[progx]

Wow...I have a super idea, GET OVER YOURSELF. Macs aren't the hardware, they aren't the software. They are both, working together. The flawlessness of the OS with the hardware. I'm pretty sure my Mac Mini is REAL, and running a x86 chip. Intel makes fast+cool chips, which meet Apple needs. IBM and Freescale couldn't/wouldn't make them. G4 was OLD, and slow. G5 was HOT, and IBM wouldn't cool it down. What was Apple going to do? Imagine if we were still running G4 chip in PowerBook, how fast would Apple market share shrink?

I have another super idea, it's a freakin' computer! The Apple PCs are just the same as any Dell or HP you buy on the market, minus the Mac OS X. Otherwise, the same exact thing. Computers are like TVs now, they're a dime a dozen. It's saying you bought a Sony TV when it uses the same technology found in Samsung.

Otis, if you want cream of the crop gaming, buy a PS2, PS3, Wii, XB360, DS or PSP. Macs aren't gaming machines.

 

[otis123]

I have another super idea, it's a freakin' computer! The Apple PCs are just the same as any Dell or HP you buy on the market, minus the Mac OS X. Otherwise, the same exact thing. Computers are like TVs now, they're a dime a dozen. It's saying you bought a Sony TV when it uses the same technology found in Samsung.

Otis, if you want cream of the crop gaming, buy a PS2, PS3, Wii, XB360, DS or PSP. Macs aren't gaming machines.

i aready have ALL of those, it be nice to have something that does ALL of that +OS X

 

[EvryDayImShufln]

i aready have ALL of those, it be nice to have something that does ALL of that +OS X

No offense but a macbook would no better run starcraft 2 than your laptop will. Macbooks, like ibooks, are not gaming machines. Like many people have previously said, a powerbook might have been expected to meet certain gaming requirements but you have no right to complain with apples "budget" laptop. Well, ok, you do have the right, but expect what's coming.

Play warcraft 3 instead, you'll easily run it and you'll have alot of fun I'm sure, it's a great game.

 

[progx]

i aready have ALL of those, it be nice to have something that does ALL of that +OS X

Then OS X you have. Don't expect to be able to play games on an iBook. My Powerbook did alright for its time, but it wasn't made to be a gaming machine either.

 

[lewdvig]

The iBook was crappy at playing games when it was new. Why would it be better now. What's your beef? PC game makers optimize their stuff for newer platforms too - DX 10 for example.

My PowerBook 1.67 with RADEON 9700 is crappy at playing games. It was when it was brand new and it has not magically gotten any better (but it plays games like Fallout and Baldur's Gate just fine and that's all that matters to me).