06/13/2007, 1:50am, EDT
Wednesday, June 13th
EA games will use Cider, not be OS X native
Steve Jobs made a big deal during his WWDC keynote address this week of an announcement that various Electronic Arts games -- including Need for Speed Carbon, Battlefield 2142 and Command and Conquer 3 -- would be making their way to Mac OS X later this year. What wasn't mentioned, however, was that these games will not be native Mac OS X ports. Instead, they will be made to run under Mac OS X with the aid of Cider from TransGaming (like X3: Reunion, Myst Online and other titles). This means they may not run at full native speed, and may exhibit other issues; they also will only run on Intel-based Macs--leaving many long-time Mac users out in the cold.
Cider is a portability engine that allows Windows games to be run on Intel Macs "without any modifcations to the original game source code." The tool loads Windows programs into memory on Intel-based Macs using an optimized version of the Win32 APIs. A statement on the TransGaming site states "Cider powered games use the same copy protection, lobbies, game matching and connectivity as the original Windows game. All this means less effort and lower costs. Cider is targeted to game developers and publishers."
Meanwhile, an ExtremeTech piece offers heavy skepticism regarding whether or not many of the games demonstrated during Jobs' keynote will actually be able to run at acceptable speeds using the graphics cards currently included with Macs. "If you consider that the most powerful graphics accelerator on Apple hardware is the aging AMD X1900 XT—only available on the $2,500-plus Mac Pro—then it's likely that most Mac users will never see the full glory of id's new engine on a Mac. The iMac line offers the anemic 7300GT, one even begins to question how well EA's games will run on Mac hardware. Cider is all well and good, but Command and Conquer 3 or Battlefield 2142 running on the 7300GT is pretty pathetic."
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John Carmack would not have agreed to demo his new engine at a Mac conference unless he had been briefed about the 3D roadmap for forthcoming Mac products. I believe the next refresh of Mac products at or before the launch of Leopard will do away with the lackluster video cards.
The problem is Microsoft, though, as they can prevent developers of portability tools from implementing optimal solutions, either legally or by not pubslishing certain implementation details. Still, in the end there will just be more Mac games. And bear in mind that Vista is a resource hog, too... :-)
Anyone tested the demo on a PC?
As for the aging X1900XT card, it may be last generation, but it's still a good card and will certainly run those games extremely well.
And that's the main reason Apple always stay away from cutting edge GPUs. They only really work in tower config machines, unless you REALLY like fans.
Seeing as most of the consumer (as opposed to gamer) market is moving over to low end laptops, EA will be losing customers if they don't make their games work well on low-end Windows machines. They will also lose customers if they don't make them look better on high end machines.
That out of the way, I forsee a dedicated "gaming system" line from Apple, akin to Alienware's old status as THE gamer's PC. A larger, game-oriented laptop with lots of speed and storage, and a desktop that's not overly huge with limited expandability (but some will exist, PCI Express graphics card for example instead of the typical integrated graphics card) to fill the need.
I think more folks want more speed and less space, that often negates the graphics chip. 8MB of VRAM was always enough to crunch an iMovie with back in the day, I don't see what it's not good enough anymore. I mean we're the country where our domestic cars that have legacy like the iMac does are STILL getting the same economy in 2007 as they did in 1957, so I just don't see why we NEED so much video memory. For that matter, I'd also like an OS X American, one that is English-only w/out support for other languages (imagine how small and fast THAT would be).
If you didn't already know that Apple's GPU policy over the last decade or so has been underwhelming and nearly insulting, you weren't paying attention.
Macista's typical retorts: Mac people aren't gamers, Get a console, blah blah blah.
Very well. But there are millions of gamers out there who would never consider a switch unless and until they could run their favorite games at the resolutions and framerates they expect.
Frankly, I was converted to consoling by XBox, _Knights of the Old Republic_ and _Halo 2_, and all I really play on Macs these days are games that don't need good GPUs such as OpenTTD.
Meh.