It depends where you get the parts from. In Toronto there's College Street where there are quite a few computer stores that are good value - cheaper than say, Best Buy or Future Shop etc. Then there's the cheap mail order / online stores such as Tiger Direct.
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Why Valve games are not coming to Macs..
- Thread starter makku
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It depends where you get the parts from. In Toronto there's College Street where there are quite a few computer stores that are good value - cheaper than say, Best Buy or Future Shop etc. Then there's the cheap mail order / online stores such as Tiger Direct.
I was looking online. Not at Best Buy. Not retail. Hell I gave the benefit of an openbox motherboard. I'm sorry, you can't build a better a gaming machine for 800. For 1600(What my new rig cost) you can build a beast that utterly demolishes the iMac in everything, not just gaming. But not 800. You have to skimp on too much. And that's not even including a monitor.
Well, if thats what you think, then OK. But I'm still convinced its possible.
Man, if this isn't one of the largest, collective displays of cognitive dissonance there's ever been, then I don't know what would top it.
iBots circa 1999: "Oh hell yeah, Halo's coming! Quake 3 is coming! Take that you PC losers! The Mac is now going to be a gaming titan, your days are numbered! Games are important, it's all about the games!"
iBots circa 2007: "Halo? More like Lame-o amirite? Micro$oft and Bungi€ suck! Valv€ sucks! Games are for little kiddies and not serious Mac users!"
Sheesh.
iBots circa 1999: "Oh hell yeah, Halo's coming! Quake 3 is coming! Take that you PC losers! The Mac is now going to be a gaming titan, your days are numbered! Games are important, it's all about the games!"
iBots circa 2007: "Halo? More like Lame-o amirite? Micro$oft and Bungi€ suck! Valv€ sucks! Games are for little kiddies and not serious Mac users!"
Sheesh.
Apple to a great calls the shots on even 3rd party hardware which is why, for example, there isn't a great assortment of video cards for the Mac, and the ones you can buy off the shelf are in the mega $ range.
Valve's got the gall to complain about Apple!LOL
You do know it was Valve that finished the port of Half-Life for the Mac and then decided not to release it because they would have to support it (as in they didn't want to support it).
Valve can go screw themselves!! Us Mac Gamersdon't need them!!
I wouldn't buy a Valve product if it was the last game on Earth.
ur such a fanboi it's freakin' sad..
a lot of people just think macs are stupid. I bring over my macbook to my friend's house and they think it's stupid.
Unfortunately you need to have your settings on low/medium. Using those settings i am getting 60 fps on the Radeon X1600.
The image is smoother but far from being what Blizzard had in mind when developing the game.
I know. It's just that I love how they make the music come out differently from the two speakers. It's like they're right there playing in the room.
Oh, so I have to pay $2500 for the OPPORTUNITY to upgrade? Yeah, no.
Most macs sold are iMacs and Macbooks, which have crap video cards. I'll repeat this again for those who don't know: Apple DOWNGRADED the video cards in the glass + aluminum iMac Vs the previous model. The ATI 2600Pro isn't as good as the NVidia 7600GT (at most games), even though it is newer and is DX10 compatible. The 2400 (in the bottom iMac today) isn't even worth mentioning.
I doubt this is the case with the new iMac. It seems to be a modified laptop GPU. Not that it matters because even the 'desktop class' 2400/2600 is crap.
Uh the cards can have new firmwares written for them and it'll work fine.
The Firmware + Driver combined bridge the barrier between the OS and the video card. Oh, and it's all software. You could just as well have almost no firmware and make up for it with a driver.
In fact, there's a driver out there for many 'BIOS-compatible' PC NVidia cards that lets them run in OSX! Look it up, it's called 'titan'. It's written by some dude in his mom's basement.
The point is, if Apple had ANY desire to put better cards in, all they would have to do is write or pay someone to write new SOFTWARE. There IS NO HARDWARE BARRIER between Mac and PC video cards.
I'd say 90% of Apple computers sold today are NOT Mac Pros, which means these 3rd party graphics card vendors have NO REASON to write a Mac Firmware & Driver unless they are BUNDLED with the computer.
Apple has shown us, with the crap video cards it chooses, that they have no interest in paying a higher per-unit cost to include a better video card.
To be fair, their sales have shown us that they really don't have any reason to care
Yes, for the reason I mentioned above: Most Macs are not upgradeable, so the upgrade market is non-existent.
Moreover, the driver is equally important to the firmware. In fact, the firmware is really just part of the driver that happens to be on the card itself.
This whole EFI vs BIOS is really built up. The real reason we have no cards is because of software.
Just to explain, I'm a Mac fan but also a PC gamer, and also a console gamer.
On the Mac, I'm a big fan of Ambrosia and Freeverse games..... on the PC I'm a fan of team-based FPS's and strategy games and MMORPG's, and on consoles I like a pretty wide variety of genres.
One thing I think that is an issue worth considering is that PC gaming isn't necessarily completely healthy right now.
To be sure, there are bright spots (I'm currently really enjoying TF2, and looking forward to Portal, as well at ET:QW), but as a whole, the PC gaming industry seems to be sort of struggling.
There's very little right now that is still PC exclusive - there definitely are enough games that warrant having a game-playing PC, but I don't think it's so overwhelming as it has been. Valve's Orange Box, for example, is on the Xbox as well.
Walking into a GameStop I think really tells the larger story though - PC games are relegated to a couple of wire shelves. The current PC games section of a typical GameStop reminds me of what the Mac games section used to look like in these types of stores years ago, when they were largely computer game stores.
The vast majority of the blockbusters and hyped up games seem to be on consoles now.
Having said that, I'd certainly love to see Apple do more with gaming - and frankly, the limited number of high profile PC games would seemingly make it easier to focus on at least getting the major stuff out.
But I'm not totally convinced it is such a necessity.
-Zadillo
On the Mac, I'm a big fan of Ambrosia and Freeverse games..... on the PC I'm a fan of team-based FPS's and strategy games and MMORPG's, and on consoles I like a pretty wide variety of genres.
One thing I think that is an issue worth considering is that PC gaming isn't necessarily completely healthy right now.
To be sure, there are bright spots (I'm currently really enjoying TF2, and looking forward to Portal, as well at ET:QW), but as a whole, the PC gaming industry seems to be sort of struggling.
There's very little right now that is still PC exclusive - there definitely are enough games that warrant having a game-playing PC, but I don't think it's so overwhelming as it has been. Valve's Orange Box, for example, is on the Xbox as well.
Walking into a GameStop I think really tells the larger story though - PC games are relegated to a couple of wire shelves. The current PC games section of a typical GameStop reminds me of what the Mac games section used to look like in these types of stores years ago, when they were largely computer game stores.
The vast majority of the blockbusters and hyped up games seem to be on consoles now.
Having said that, I'd certainly love to see Apple do more with gaming - and frankly, the limited number of high profile PC games would seemingly make it easier to focus on at least getting the major stuff out.
But I'm not totally convinced it is such a necessity.
-Zadillo
The puzzling thing is, on the MBP at least, Apple did choose essentially the best video card possible for a 15" laptop, the 8600M GT. Not only that, they actually went with GDDR3 video ram instead of DDR2, as others (i.e. Dell) have done.
-Zadillo
Bottomline...
I remember when that doom something was released. Gamers just had to upgrade their video cards and even get the "special edition card for doom"
I just don't see myself tearing my mac apart changing components and searching the world for drivers...
Oh well.
I remember when that doom something was released. Gamers just had to upgrade their video cards and even get the "special edition card for doom"
I just don't see myself tearing my mac apart changing components and searching the world for drivers...
Oh well.
She's in Canada. In the States, you can buy a ready out-of-the-box powerful PC, add a top-tier video card, and you'll come in under building your own. But Canadians often pay a significant premium for technology, making DIY PCs still cheaper than even reasonably price ready-made gaming PCs.
He doesn't. However it might surprise you that a CEO does have a little say over what his company produces.
Do you expect MS to release Office, Exchange and their other desktop and server apps for Linux just because MS shouldn't dictate what you can and can not run on your computer?
Yep, but compare the MBP to any other mac. The Mac Pro's video card options are all 20 months old, for instance.
The rest are integrated graphics or the (already mentioned) crappy 2400/2600.
The point is: most Macs sold can't even run some these graphically intense games Valve makes. Macs are already a small market, it makes it that much smaller when only a fraction of them are capable of running the games.
Also, there's the issue with lack of an upgradeable card in 90%+ of macs limiting supply.
Look at this from valves perspective
- smaller platform
- most of the platform has unsatisfactory hardware
- only a small fraction of the population are PC gamers to begin with, possibly smaller on mac
After all that, they can't really expect much at all for their investment into porting their games.
I don't get it.
How are people so serious about gaming?
Do you not have lives? Unless you are still in highschool or don't have a girlfriend or responsibilites, how?
A $400 360 is more than enough, it can keep up with PC's graphically and has Halo 3, Oblivion, Gears of War, and various sports + other games.
I just really don't get how so many people can devote their lives and money to an artificial world. Honestly, get a life. Do something productive with your lives. Go on a date or do some kind of physical activity.
Games don't change that Macs still do what they always have done, compute.
☮
How are people so serious about gaming?
Do you not have lives? Unless you are still in highschool or don't have a girlfriend or responsibilites, how?
A $400 360 is more than enough, it can keep up with PC's graphically and has Halo 3, Oblivion, Gears of War, and various sports + other games.
I just really don't get how so many people can devote their lives and money to an artificial world. Honestly, get a life. Do something productive with your lives. Go on a date or do some kind of physical activity.Games don't change that Macs still do what they always have done, compute.
☮
How are people so serious about gaming?
Do you not have lives? Unless you are still in highschool or don't have a girlfriend or responsibilites, how?
A $400 360 is more than enough, it can keep up with PC's graphically and has Halo 3, Oblivion, Gears of War, and various sports + other games.
Games don't change that Macs still do what they always have done, compute.
☮
This is one of the silliest arguments out there, and can be applied to almosto any past time.
Games are entertainment, and humans have been playing games for thousands of years.
Just because someone plays and enjoys games doesn't mean they "devote their lives and money to them".
You're painting with a really broad brush to assume that everyone interested in games must be someone who never goes out and does anything productive, never goes on dates, etc.
Well, I've always thought of my mac as a "tool" and my Xbox as "fun"
However, with Apple becoming more of an entertainment co. (iPod, iTV, iTunes...) I would think that they would want as much software as possable to run on the Mac OS.
I'm from the non profit theater world (everything done by committee) and I can see how Apple's group could have given Valve lip service at a meeting until word came in from management that it was a bad idea... Maybe the changes they needed didn't make sense for apple on the profit side...
I'm expecting a change in apple in 2008/2009, we have iLife, iWork...
...how about "iGames" a software that reconfigures the OS to be the ultimate gaming platform...
Or maybe apple will release the iMac "Gaming edition" with a 32" High Def screen, 10 gig ram and a 4 x 2 core 2 duo (meaning 16 core system) running at 4.5 ghz, and a new 2 gig vid card, with the option of up to 32 terabytes of hard drive storage... all priced at a moderate $5000.00
You just have to get a 30" box fan to keep the system cool!!!
However, with Apple becoming more of an entertainment co. (iPod, iTV, iTunes...) I would think that they would want as much software as possable to run on the Mac OS.
I'm from the non profit theater world (everything done by committee) and I can see how Apple's group could have given Valve lip service at a meeting until word came in from management that it was a bad idea... Maybe the changes they needed didn't make sense for apple on the profit side...
I'm expecting a change in apple in 2008/2009, we have iLife, iWork...
...how about "iGames" a software that reconfigures the OS to be the ultimate gaming platform...
Or maybe apple will release the iMac "Gaming edition" with a 32" High Def screen, 10 gig ram and a 4 x 2 core 2 duo (meaning 16 core system) running at 4.5 ghz, and a new 2 gig vid card, with the option of up to 32 terabytes of hard drive storage... all priced at a moderate $5000.00
You just have to get a 30" box fan to keep the system cool!!!
Crossover Answers ....
just got this in my in box this morning:
Hi Folks,
I am very happy to announce that we have shipped version 6.2
of CrossOver Mac and CrossOver Linux.
Version 6.2 supports the upcoming Team Fortress 2 release
from Valve software, right out of the Orange Box, as it were.
This adds to our growing list of games that work well in
CrossOver. We feel that CrossOver is now a viable way to
play popular games on Linux and on the Mac.
It also includes some major work on Outlook, particularly
for use in corporate environments, along with a range
of bug fixes for many other applications.
For Mac users, the most exciting benefit comes from the work
Apple has done on Leopard; they have fixed a bug that allows CrossOver
to run closer to its natural speed; users should notice a substantial
speedup when as they shift to Leopard.
There are many other improvements; many of which are listed
below, in our change log.
...
just got this in my in box this morning:
Hi Folks,
I am very happy to announce that we have shipped version 6.2
of CrossOver Mac and CrossOver Linux.
Version 6.2 supports the upcoming Team Fortress 2 release
from Valve software, right out of the Orange Box, as it were.
This adds to our growing list of games that work well in
CrossOver. We feel that CrossOver is now a viable way to
play popular games on Linux and on the Mac.
It also includes some major work on Outlook, particularly
for use in corporate environments, along with a range
of bug fixes for many other applications.
For Mac users, the most exciting benefit comes from the work
Apple has done on Leopard; they have fixed a bug that allows CrossOver
to run closer to its natural speed; users should notice a substantial
speedup when as they shift to Leopard.
There are many other improvements; many of which are listed
below, in our change log.
...
Interesting, would be very curious to hear how well TF2 plays on a MBP with Crossover.
How are people so serious about gaming?
Do you not have lives? Unless you are still in highschool or don't have a girlfriend or responsibilites, how?
A $400 360 is more than enough, it can keep up with PC's graphically and has Halo 3, Oblivion, Gears of War, and various sports + other games.
Wow, what a stupid generalization. I've seen people spend $80000 on a car. I've seen people spend $1000 on a single golf club. Games are entertainment. Entertainment costs varying amounts of money. Are you claiming you never spend any money on entertainment?
As a long-time, hardcore PC gamer, the reluctance that Apple exhibits towards gaming seems to be a two part problem.
First, i think SJ discerns that gaming is not and never will be "cool" in the United States. Gaming is not that pretty girl with flowing hair dancing with her eyes closed to Nelly Furtado (whoever that is). Gaming is a pudgy geek pouring over his monitor. It doens't matter that there has never been a time with better designed, creative, artistic, or unbuggy games in the whole history of computing, though, if "gaming isn't cool", and is the target of slanderous and specious generalizations from the media and associated politicians. If Apple computers never get a decent video card, SJ would be a happy clam.
Second, Apple can't provide the hardware because it won't build a "box". The heat, power, and space limitations of their minimalist designs are intentional because it's Apple's design that allows them to markup everything by 50%, not what the box contains. And to be fair, that's what attracts me to Apple products as well. As a small-form factor computer, and considering power use, noise generated, ect., the iMac is probably the preeminent example of the concept. But again, this is Apple preference for style over substance. The market for an "Apple box", a standard form factor PC, running OSX and having a real power supply and video card would be huge - BUT - SJ knows that he would never be able to sell it on it's style. If Apple is so big into creativity, isn't sacrificing substance for style the exact opposite of what they should be doing?
And, like it or not, Apple is a company that sells on style, not substance. Apple survived by being a "creative" company for so long because it had to, there wasn't any other niche it could fill that wasn't dominated by PCs. By catering, however reluctantly, to the "pro" Photoshop market, Apple managed to cling to a tiny bit of marketshare until the iPod allowed it to break out again. But if you look at Apple's recent marketing and design decisions it's clear it is aiming squarely at kids, colleges, and home users. Apple doesn't care about "creativity", or substance, it's a style company like Gap or whatever the kids wear today. Look at the uttery insanity of the new keyboard, flying in the face of 20 years of ergonomic data, and the poor iMac screens, to see an easy example of this mentality taking hold in Apple HQ.
Apple doesn't like Adobe, or Valve, or any third party, because, ultimately, it wants to be the provider of all of your hardware and software, and it grudgingly allows third party software only because it doesn't have the resources to create it all. Look at the iPhone or iTouch to see that Apple, in the goodness of their hearts, wants to be the sole provider of everything on your computing device - and charge you 50% more than anyone else for the privilege.
First, i think SJ discerns that gaming is not and never will be "cool" in the United States. Gaming is not that pretty girl with flowing hair dancing with her eyes closed to Nelly Furtado (whoever that is). Gaming is a pudgy geek pouring over his monitor. It doens't matter that there has never been a time with better designed, creative, artistic, or unbuggy games in the whole history of computing, though, if "gaming isn't cool", and is the target of slanderous and specious generalizations from the media and associated politicians. If Apple computers never get a decent video card, SJ would be a happy clam.
Second, Apple can't provide the hardware because it won't build a "box". The heat, power, and space limitations of their minimalist designs are intentional because it's Apple's design that allows them to markup everything by 50%, not what the box contains. And to be fair, that's what attracts me to Apple products as well. As a small-form factor computer, and considering power use, noise generated, ect., the iMac is probably the preeminent example of the concept. But again, this is Apple preference for style over substance. The market for an "Apple box", a standard form factor PC, running OSX and having a real power supply and video card would be huge - BUT - SJ knows that he would never be able to sell it on it's style. If Apple is so big into creativity, isn't sacrificing substance for style the exact opposite of what they should be doing?
And, like it or not, Apple is a company that sells on style, not substance. Apple survived by being a "creative" company for so long because it had to, there wasn't any other niche it could fill that wasn't dominated by PCs. By catering, however reluctantly, to the "pro" Photoshop market, Apple managed to cling to a tiny bit of marketshare until the iPod allowed it to break out again. But if you look at Apple's recent marketing and design decisions it's clear it is aiming squarely at kids, colleges, and home users. Apple doesn't care about "creativity", or substance, it's a style company like Gap or whatever the kids wear today. Look at the uttery insanity of the new keyboard, flying in the face of 20 years of ergonomic data, and the poor iMac screens, to see an easy example of this mentality taking hold in Apple HQ.
Apple doesn't like Adobe, or Valve, or any third party, because, ultimately, it wants to be the provider of all of your hardware and software, and it grudgingly allows third party software only because it doesn't have the resources to create it all. Look at the iPhone or iTouch to see that Apple, in the goodness of their hearts, wants to be the sole provider of everything on your computing device - and charge you 50% more than anyone else for the privilege.