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Splinter Cell now Steamplay

I really want a game I can play on OS X, but with with a laptop I'm not so sure about the performance. I guess the DRM is why it's not on the app store, too.
 
Good lord!

PC CPU: 1.8ghz C2D,
Mac CPU: Core i7 recommended!

Always a shame when developers don't put effort into porting their games.
 
Dagless said:
Good lord!

PC CPU: 1.8ghz C2D,
Mac CPU: Core i7 recommended!

Always a shame when developers don't put effort into porting their games.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's really frustrating that my new iMac can't even comfortably run Mac ports of games that play fine on 4-year-old PCs. The persistent Internet connection DRM makes it doubly worse.
 
Minimum is still a Core 2 Duo – but it's easy to skip over reading the requirements when outrage and whining are so much more satisfying, no?

Besides, even under Windows a Core iX processor or better is very much appreciated for the game. Either way I comfortably exceed the system requirements, so I'll enjoy this as I enjoyed Assassin's Creed II while other people choose to complain.
 
Mackilroy said:
Minimum is still a Core 2 Duo – but it's easy to skip over reading the requirements when outrage and whining are so much more satisfying, no?
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Maybe it'll run well under recommended specs, maybe it won't. But I'm not willing to bet $30 or whatever just to be disappointed like these people who bought Assassin's Creed II at the Mac App Store:

I was really excited to see this on the Mac, but the performance is horrible. I have the unibody MBP 17 with 8 GB of ram and I had to play it on the minimum resolution and it still so slow I couldn't play it. I really hate that I wasted $40.
---
I have a new high end mac book pro and a brand new imac tried it on both and the graphics are seriously jacked up. Dont bother with this game until they release a bunch of updates for it. just getting out of the first room thanks to the refresh rate and mouse reaction was a nightmare. not to mention the epic video at the begging you a forced to watch of child birth, got to love that while the frame rate is all messed up. Big hopes for this game but if you dont see a bunch of patches applied to the game dont buy and ill usually play anything.
---
I have a brand new Macbook Pro with an i7 CPU. The screen flashes like strobe lights from the beginning. Unplayable.
 
Cougarcat said:
Is the game any good?
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Pretty good if you like stealth action games. In this type of game it's easier if you go stealth (kill without being detected), but there are also some parts where you have to shoot it out.
 
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bluebomberman said:
Maybe it'll run well under recommended specs, maybe it won't. But I'm not willing to bet $30 or whatever just to be disappointed like these people who bought Assassin's Creed II at the Mac App Store:
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I've read all of those reviews. As I've already bought (and beaten) the game, it really doesn't matter to me if performance under OS X is perfect or poor. I got excellent results with AC2 (because I have a desktop GPU, unlike those people on laptops) and faster RAM. If I enjoy the game and get good performance, great. If not, it isn't much of a loss.

I'm just speaking for myself here.
 
lol just subscribe for playpack on live free for first month. Splinter cell is in it. took 4 days and im done with it. saved my money
 
So my bootcamp gaming buddy downloaded the Steamplay version. It's not a pretty sight. Under Windows he would get 45-50fps, dipping to 35 during heavy action scenes. OSX? Half that. Also dropping to 15fps during heavy scenes.

Wouldn't even run on his 2008 iMac under OSX (works on Windows).

Terribly lazy port.
 
bluebomberman said:
You can speak for yourself all you want, but you should watch where you point your finger.
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I have a problem with people who purposefully ignore parts of what they read to make their argument. You're more than welcome to play or not play the game – I don't care either way. But if you're going to ignore what the system requirements actually say I'm not obligated to nod and agree with you.

Plus, gaming under OS X isn't nearly as optimized as it is for Windows machines. That's going to give you a performance hit over porting the game – and for people who complain about lazy porting, I'd be happy to see them port the game and do a better job.
 
Mackilroy said:
I have a problem with people who purposefully ignore parts of what they read to make their argument. You're more than welcome to play or not play the game – I don't care either way. But if you're going to ignore what the system requirements actually say I'm not obligated to nod and agree with you.

Plus, gaming under OS X isn't nearly as optimized as it is for Windows machines. That's going to give you a performance hit over porting the game – and for people who complain about lazy porting, I'd be happy to see them port the game and do a better job.
Click to expand...

Given how sloppy this port is I imagine it's Cider. Which is regarded as a bad way to go about things.
Case in point, the most recent Steamplay title I beta tested had a parity between Windows and OSX performance (I know another user on this forum is also involved in the beta). The devs I spoke to said they put performance as their priority in the port as to avoid the problems with other Steamplay titles. And they're only an independent studio, albeit one of the biggest in the world.

If they can manage a good port, just like Valve's own titles, then why not the almighty Ubisoft?

I'm in the process of making a proper OSX port at the moment. I don't have £millions to throw at development like Ubisoft has either.
*shrugs*
 
Mackilroy said:
But if you're going to ignore what the system requirements actually say I'm not obligated to nod and agree with you.
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System requirements are not always accurate; companies are sometimes more concerned with shipping copies than releasing precise requirements. I value real-world results more; I've been that way ever since I started gaming on DOS and struggling with performance on a 486/33MHz machine. (Recommended: 486/66MHz!)

Do you really want to blame the user for being a sucker when they see requirements like this from the Steam store listing:

Processor: Intel® Core™2 Duo (Intel Core i7 recommended)
Graphics: 512 MB video card (see supported list*)
*Supported Video Cards at Time of Release:
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 8800 series or higher
ATI® Radeon® HD 2600 series or higher
Notebook versions of these cards may work but are NOT supported. These chipsets are the only ones that will run this game

There's a huge gulf between Core 2 Duo and Core i7 that rings alarm bells; there's also a bit of bait-and-switch that AMD, NVidia and Apple engages in by passing mobile graphics chips as desktop-class, or comparable in performance to desktop-class. (There's plenty of threads here on Macrumors alone where people try to figure out if their iMac graphics chip is desktop or mobile, for instance. I still have no idea if my ATI Radeon HD 4670 is desktop or mobile-in-disguise.)

I think you're being overly scornful of your fellow gamers, who just want to play the game and are disappointed when they can't (or think they can't) for whatever reason. Snarking at them for not reading the system requirements and challenging them to see if they can do a better job porting PC games to Mac is a bit too much.

EDIT: Splinter Cell: Conviction looks to be a native port the way Assassin's Creed II was a native port. (See here. A few posts down, someone notes that AS2 has multichannel sound support, which can't be replicated by WINE and its brethren.)
 
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Dagless said:
Given how sloppy this port is I imagine it's Cider. Which is regarded as a bad way to go about things.
Case in point, the most recent Steamplay title I beta tested had a parity between Windows and OSX performance (I know another user on this forum is also involved in the beta). The devs I spoke to said they put performance as their priority in the port as to avoid the problems with other Steamplay titles. And they're only an independent studio, albeit one of the biggest in the world.

If they can manage a good port, just like Valve's own titles, then why not the almighty Ubisoft?

I'm in the process of making a proper OSX port at the moment. I don't have £millions to throw at development like Ubisoft has either.
*shrugs*
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I don't think it's Cider - AC2 wasn't.

How do you know they can't? Your buddy's 2008 iMac doesn't have the best GPU in the world. Obviously there are games that run very well under OS X as well - you mentioned Valve's titles. But Valve's titles are generally less technically demanding anyway, which is a smart decision on their part as they can reach more users with that strategy.

bluebomberman said:
I think you're being overly scornful of your fellow gamers, who just want to play the game and are disappointed when they can't (or think they can't) for whatever reason. Snarking at them for not reading the system requirements and challenging them to see if they can do a better job porting PC games to Mac is a bit too much.

EDIT: Splinter Cell: Conviction looks to be a native port the way Assassin's Creed II was a native port. (See here. A few posts down, someone notes that AS2 has multichannel sound support, which can't be replicated by WINE and its brethren.)
Click to expand...
I have no problem with people being disappointed that they can't run something. What I have a problem with is when people are disingenuous and respond with emotion over logic. They both have their place, but far too many times people go for the former and never even bother with the latter. This happened a great deal with Ubisoft's DRM scheme - which I dislike, but was far less annoying and aggravating than a good many forum posts made it out to be.

And technically speaking, you can play the game - you just might not be able to do it at your maximum resolution and with all of the bells and whistles. Sometimes lowering your expectations can work wonders. If I were on a MacBook or an iMac I would accept lower quality because I know that my hardware isn't absolutely top of the line (disclosure: I'm on a hackintosh, but my hardware still isn't the best). Would it be nice if Apple would change that? Sure, but that's another discussion.
 
Mackilroy said:
I don't think it's Cider - AC2 wasn't.

How do you know they can't? Your buddy's 2008 iMac doesn't have the best GPU in the world. Obviously there are games that run very well under OS X as well - you mentioned Valve's titles. But Valve's titles are generally less technically demanding anyway, which is a smart decision on their part as they can reach more users with that strategy.
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Course it isn't the best machine in the world, I never said it was. However it SC runs just perfectly on Bootcamp (medium settings, native res), whilst it won't run at all on OSX.
 
It runs nice on the 6570M

I played it at 1440*900 with shadows at medium, detail at medium and ambient occlusion off. Looks very nice too.

For $16 I did not mind taking a chance on it.
 
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