Another reason why macs suck for gaming

[YT300000]

If I turn hiding off, then all the colors in Quake go to shit, and I have the dock at the bottom of the screen. However, since I can't see the cursor, I don't know how close I am to clicking on it either. So it actually makes it worse.

Then you've got a buggy build of Quake. Try searching for a new version.

Sadly, the school doesn't give enough access priveledges to students for us to install things.

Halo is on the mac. Here's a little thing I came up with when I first heard about it:

Bungie spokesperson: To get Halo on the mac, we used an advanced process known as "retardation." We removed all 3D, bump-mapping, and most of the textures.

Hardy-har-har. Halo was originally debuted on a G3 with a Rage 128, and Bungie, prior to selling out to Microsoft, was a Mac-only company for many years. Get your fucking facts straight. Christ you're a moron.

I know that Halo was originally made for the mac. That's why it debuted at Mac Expo '99. But when it was moved to the X-Box, it's requirements expanded to the point that practically no mac in 2001 could run it, while most PC's could (assuming that the X-Box disk would magically run outside the X-Box). Sure, macs are getting better, but the legacy of trailing PC's by a wide margin for the second half of the 90's won't die easily.

[The Kernel]

Hardy-har-har. Halo was originally debuted on a G3 with a Rage 128, and Bungie, prior to selling out to Microsoft, was a Mac-only company for many years. Get your fucking facts straight. Christ you're a moron.

Durandal, the version of Halo that debued for the Mac had virtually nothing in common with the Halo that was released for the Xbox/PC. Have you seen the original screenshots?

[Durandal]

I know that Halo was originally made for the mac.

No, it originally debuted on a Mac, and was originally in development for both Mac and Windows.

That's why it debuted at Mac Expo '99. But when it was moved to the X-Box, it's requirements expanded to the point that practically no mac in 2001 could run it, while most PC's could (assuming that the X-Box disk would magically run outside the X-Box).

The reason no Mac could run it was because it moved to DirectX. The XBox is very heavily optimized for DirectX, and you're delusional if you think that a white box PC with a 700 MHz Pentium III Celeron, a 133 MHz bus and a GeForce 3 could possibly run Halo as well as the XBox does. There's a giant disparity between the XBox's hardware configuration and the PC version's requirements for a reason. No PC in 2001 could run the current Windows version of Halo acceptably with the detail and resolution that the XBox can pump out. And even the XBox occasionally stutters while playing it.

Sure, macs are getting better, but the legacy of trailing PC's by a wide margin for the second half of the 90's won't die easily.

The G5 has already met and/or exceeded the current top-of-the-line PC's, and it has a very good roadmap with a solid commitment from IBM. The coming years in the CPU industry will be very interesting, especially from Intel's front. With AMD and IBM going 64-bit on the desktop, Intel is the odd-man-out.

I'll handily agree that, prior to the G5, Macs were pathetically weak compared to their PC counterparts in terms of framerates in games (although the dual G4's weren't as bad as I expected them to be), but the G5 has pretty much bridged the gap.

[Durandal]

Durandal, the version of Halo that debued for the Mac had virtually nothing in common with the Halo that was released for the Xbox/PC. Have you seen the original screenshots?

Of course I have. I was watching the stream of MWNY when it was debuted. From what I remember, the terrain looked very similar, as did Master Chief. But my memory could be off.

[The Kernel]

Durandal, the version of Halo that debued for the Mac had virtually nothing in common with the Halo that was released for the Xbox/PC. Have you seen the original screenshots?

Of course I have. I was watching the stream of MWNY when it was debuted. From what I remember, the terrain looked very similar, as did Master Chief. But my memory could be off.

Take a look for yourself:



As you can see, none of the textures carry over, nor are any of the effects like bump mapping implemented. It seems that Halo was almost totally overhauled when it made the transition.

[The Kernel]

The reason no Mac could run it was because it moved to DirectX. The XBox is very heavily optimized for DirectX, and you're delusional if you think that a white box PC with a 700 MHz Pentium III Celeron, a 133 MHz bus and a GeForce 3 could possibly run Halo as well as the XBox does. There's a giant disparity between the XBox's hardware configuration and the PC version's requirements for a reason. No PC in 2001 could run the current Windows version of Halo acceptably with the detail and resolution that the XBox can pump out. And even the XBox occasionally stutters while playing it.

1) The CPU inside the Xbox is a 733MHz processor that is not a Celeron. It has the faster bus, and 8-way cache lines. It is a PIII with half the cache cut off, not a Celeron.

2) The NV2A chip inside the Xbox is not a GeForce 3. It has more in common with the GeForce 4 with the second set of shader units giving it twice the throughput for shader effects over the GeForce 3.

3) As for the huge disparity between PC's and the Xbox, the fact that it runs at a lower resolution combined with the closer ability to program directly for the hardware gives the Xbox the ability to run any PC game today nearly untouched. Carmack has said that aside from load breakups, the Xbox will run DOOM III just fine.

[Durandal]

http://nikon.bungie.org/screenshots/halo1.jpg

As you can see, none of the textures carry over, nor are any of the effects like bump mapping implemented. It seems that Halo was almost totally overhauled when it made the transition.

Actually, I think it was overhauled even before that. It underwent a lot of ground-up rewrites, especially to the physics engine.

[The Kernel]

Actually, I think it was overhauled even before that. It underwent a lot of ground-up rewrites, especially to the physics engine.

Indeed, it was originally an RTS.

[Durandal]

Actually, I think it was overhauled even before that. It underwent a lot of ground-up rewrites, especially to the physics engine.

Indeed, it was originally an RTS.

Not from what I recall. I remember it originally being a third-person shooter, much like Tomb Raider. After much lamenting by die-hard Marathoners, like me, they switched to first-person.

[The Kernel]

Not from what I recall. I remember it originally being a third-person shooter, much like Tomb Raider. After much lamenting by die-hard Marathoners, like me, they switched to first-person.

There was a documentary on the making of Halo a few months ago on the Discovery Channel where they showed some of the original designs for Halo, and one of them was an RTS design with a hundred or so Master Chiefs running around.

[Durandal]

Not from what I recall. I remember it originally being a third-person shooter, much like Tomb Raider. After much lamenting by die-hard Marathoners, like me, they switched to first-person.

There was a documentary on the making of Halo a few months ago on the Discovery Channel where they showed some of the original designs for Halo, and one of them was an RTS design with a hundred or so Master Chiefs running around.

Really? On the Discovery Channel? Interesting. Anyway, was that an initial concept, or was it actually implemented at one time?

[The Kernel]

Really? On the Discovery Channel? Interesting. Anyway, was that an initial concept, or was it actually implemented at one time?

It appeared to be a concept, although they said they had much of the story and the setting nailed down by then. They knew what the wanted to make, they just weren't sure what kind of gameplay they were going to implement.

The RTS demo they had assembled seemed functional (somewhat similar to Warcraft 3) although it wasn't a full game and it was obvious that none of the assets were carried over.

[Vertigo1]

Matrox cards have difficulty with OpenGL, many dont work at all. My old Matrox G450 never worked with OpenGL games. nVidia Riva TNT cards do work with OpenGL but have a lot of difficulty.

Matrox hasn't made a single 3D gaming card since the G450, and last I checked the games it did work in OpenGL with had stunning graphics for its time. And for the Record, I don't know where you got the idea that TNT cards had issues with OpenGL because I never had any problems with it. Hell, I even rendered stuff in 3dsmax R2.5 using OpenGL and it rendered images faster than both software mode and Direct3D combined...and that was back when I ran a K6-2 350 and later a Duron 700. That same card is running in my dad's system right now. (Duron 1GHz)

But they are optimized for DirectX. All card makers today give more importance to DirectX. Many built in acceleration functions can only be used by DirectX.

Proof? Last I checked, nVidia supported D3D and OGL equally.

The amount of resources available on DirectX is higher. Every function, every constant, every typedef has been documented. Can you show me where I can find similar level of documentation for OpenGL ?

Been to Barnes & Noble recently? I seem to have no problem finding tons of books on OpenGL by comparison.

Many computers come with integrated graphics. Dont ignore them.

Which use either nVidia GF4 MX or ATi chipsets....

[YT300000]

Matrox cards have difficulty with OpenGL, many dont work at all. My old Matrox G450 never worked with OpenGL games. nVidia Riva TNT cards do work with OpenGL but have a lot of difficulty.

Matrox hasn't made a single 3D gaming card since the G450.

THey actually made 1. The Parhelia. Can take three monitors. Pretty good resolution for when it came out (a year ago). 8x AGP, 128 MB, all that.

[phongn]

Parhelia is hardly a gaming card. It's an excellent 2D professional card, yes, but it is far too slow for its price.

The G400's initial miniport driver for OpenGL was full of problems, and it took them a long time to get a full ICD out. (The G450 was actually slower than the G400 MAXX -- it's memory architecture was slower despite using DDR SDRAM). Nor was the TNT's OGL implementation that good -- 3DSMAX is hardly a stellar way to measure it by.

Books on OpenGL do not mean documentation. I believe that evilcat is referring to things like on MSDN.

[Vertigo1]

Matrox cards have difficulty with OpenGL, many dont work at all. My old Matrox G450 never worked with OpenGL games. nVidia Riva TNT cards do work with OpenGL but have a lot of difficulty.

Matrox hasn't made a single 3D gaming card since the G450.

THey actually made 1. The Parhelia. Can take three monitors. Pretty good resolution for when it came out (a year ago). 8x AGP, 128 MB, all that.

Did you actually see the benchmarks on that thing? That thing got BLASTED by every damn major gaming card of the time! The only thing its good for is for the graphic arts companies.

[The Kernel]

Did you actually see the benchmarks on that thing? That thing got BLASTED by every damn major gaming card of the time! The only thing its good for is for the graphic arts companies.

You think that was bad? Check out the benchmarks for the new XGI Volari. I never thought I'd see a $500 videocard that does TNT-level performance!

[Vertigo1]

You think that was bad? Check out the benchmarks for the new XGI Volari. I never thought I'd see a $500 videocard that does TNT-level performance!

Yeah, thats pretty sad. Its a good idea on paper (like the G1000 was) but in actual benchmarks.....it sucked royally. Which really is a shame since both ATi and nVidia need someone to keep them in check. More competition means better products for us. They'll probably turn that thing into just another studio card like the G1000 is now.

[Pu-239]

What about this?
http://www.3dlabs.com/product/wildcat4/index.htm

I've heard that they have none/bad DirectX support (not that it matters on a Linux/CAD/3D modelling workstation (not that I can afford it anyway)).

[phongn]

3DLabs cards are almost wholly intended for CAD, and they excel at it.

[SPOOFE]

The G5 has already met and/or exceeded the current top-of-the-line PC

False. See: http://www.barefeats.com/p4game.html

Care to provide a cite to support your assertion? Apple managed to artificially inflate the G5's score by using tests skewed in their favor.

Further, see: http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_ ... -6451-6410

From the article:

In January 2003, we published a report comparing the processing performance of the Mac and the PC in pro digital photography. At that time, a single processor Pentium 4 PC was shown to be considerably quicker at a variety of tasks than a dual processor G4 Mac.

And:

The PC is still quicker at a variety of batch processing tasks in Photoshop. Nikon users wedded to Capture will find a top-flight PC is not only a lot quicker than a Mac at opening, saving and batch processing NEF files, it also feels more responsive when stepping through basic operations such as changing WB or zooming.