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Does anyone review these articles before they are published? There are at least 2 major grammatical mistakes in this article that my college english instructor would have failed me for!
"...The company takes the game, optimizes Cider to work with it and does its then returns the enhanced game to the publisher for further quality assurance (QA)." ???
"...Were confident well be apprised of major changes when they happen. But with our without Apples help, we can make changes quickly and get updates out to our users.
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'Cider' makes Windows games run on Intel Macs
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#16
Peter Cohen 
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Posted 03 August 2006 - 04:48 PM
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Does anyone review these articles before they are published? There are at least 2 major grammatical mistakes in this article that my college english instructor would have failed me for!
Does anyone review these articles before they are published? There are at least 2 major grammatical mistakes in this article that my college english instructor would have failed me for!
Hooray for your college English instructor. I bet he didn't write and/or edit upwards of a dozen articles today.
#18
NeoX
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Posted 03 August 2006 - 06:39 PM
Quote:
Does anyone review these articles before they are published? There are at least 2 major grammatical mistakes in this article that my college english instructor would have failed me for!
Does anyone review these articles before they are published? There are at least 2 major grammatical mistakes in this article that my college english instructor would have failed me for!
I didn't realize we had so many members of the Grammar Police on these forums. I would rather read the grammar errors then the complaints about them. PM the editor and spare us the complaints...
/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
#20
Drewstre
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Posted 03 August 2006 - 10:13 PM
Hiya-
Well, I for one think that Apple is missing a major opportunity. I'm an avid gamer, and I follow the gaming scene pretty closely. It amazes me sometimes how far people will go to get a few more FPS in their favorite FPS. Water cooling, 500 dollar video cards, gaming-tailored mobos. Liquid fricking nitrogen. Heck, games arguably drove the entire LCD panel industry to reduce their response times from the 40~50ms range to the 4~5ms range. I myself am contemplating dropping a grand or so on a PC, solely for gaming.
Gaming is a huge industry, and wouldn't cost Apple jack diddly to embrace gamers. Not a sole focus like say Alienware, obviously. And I realize Apple has gaming pages showcasing all the Mac games available (of which, by the way, there are far more of than most people are willing to admit), and that's a good start. But there is a lot of money to be made from gamers. I think the biggest ways Apple could woo gamers include:
dual PCI-E 16x on the new Macs with support for SLI and/or Crossfire
create a new initiative for developers to make games for the Mac
a massive PR blitz telling gamers that Apple does care about you
The dual PCI-E would benefit folks other than gamers; multiple display cards, high-end RAID cards, etc. would benefit. And nVidia's latest top-flight chipset, the 590 SLI, has more features and goodies than you can shake a stick at. I'm sure Apple's chipset designers have at least as much savvy as nVidia's.
Nudging Apple's oh-so-faithful core developers to put some more emphasis on games would be an easy sell, I think, especially with, say, an incentive from Apple's currently satisfyingly full coffers. Try to get a few more major games developed simultaneously for the Mac and Windows. I think the payoff would be very nice for all concerned: Apple, the developers and the gamers. And please, for the love of GOD can we do something about DirectX?
Top all that off with a major PR campaign from Apple, courting the entire gaming audience. From the weekend WOWer to the hardcore Oblivion/Spore/DukeNukem fanatics. This would be the biggest expense for Apple, but I think it would come back in spades. I can see the tagline: "Sure, you can boot into Windows and play the latest games. Fortunately, now you don't have to." Games sell hardware. Apple is a hardware company. Am I right?
And with the new Core chips from Intel sweeping the charts, there is no better time for the Mac to at least make a play (pun intended) for the market.
My name is Drewstre, and I am a Mac gamer.
Well, I for one think that Apple is missing a major opportunity. I'm an avid gamer, and I follow the gaming scene pretty closely. It amazes me sometimes how far people will go to get a few more FPS in their favorite FPS. Water cooling, 500 dollar video cards, gaming-tailored mobos. Liquid fricking nitrogen. Heck, games arguably drove the entire LCD panel industry to reduce their response times from the 40~50ms range to the 4~5ms range. I myself am contemplating dropping a grand or so on a PC, solely for gaming.
Gaming is a huge industry, and wouldn't cost Apple jack diddly to embrace gamers. Not a sole focus like say Alienware, obviously. And I realize Apple has gaming pages showcasing all the Mac games available (of which, by the way, there are far more of than most people are willing to admit), and that's a good start. But there is a lot of money to be made from gamers. I think the biggest ways Apple could woo gamers include:
dual PCI-E 16x on the new Macs with support for SLI and/or Crossfire
create a new initiative for developers to make games for the Mac
a massive PR blitz telling gamers that Apple does care about you
The dual PCI-E would benefit folks other than gamers; multiple display cards, high-end RAID cards, etc. would benefit. And nVidia's latest top-flight chipset, the 590 SLI, has more features and goodies than you can shake a stick at. I'm sure Apple's chipset designers have at least as much savvy as nVidia's.
Nudging Apple's oh-so-faithful core developers to put some more emphasis on games would be an easy sell, I think, especially with, say, an incentive from Apple's currently satisfyingly full coffers. Try to get a few more major games developed simultaneously for the Mac and Windows. I think the payoff would be very nice for all concerned: Apple, the developers and the gamers. And please, for the love of GOD can we do something about DirectX?
Top all that off with a major PR campaign from Apple, courting the entire gaming audience. From the weekend WOWer to the hardcore Oblivion/Spore/DukeNukem fanatics. This would be the biggest expense for Apple, but I think it would come back in spades. I can see the tagline: "Sure, you can boot into Windows and play the latest games. Fortunately, now you don't have to." Games sell hardware. Apple is a hardware company. Am I right?
And with the new Core chips from Intel sweeping the charts, there is no better time for the Mac to at least make a play (pun intended) for the market.
My name is Drewstre, and I am a Mac gamer.
#22
Nobody
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Posted 03 August 2006 - 11:09 PM
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Apple is infamous among game developers for significantly changing OpenGL and other APIs needed for games during maintenance upgrades to operating systems
Apple is infamous among game developers for significantly changing OpenGL and other APIs needed for games during maintenance upgrades to operating systems
How refreshing to have someone with some authority say this out in public in a Mac publication!
As to Apple finally supporting gaming on the Mac, after decades of confounding nearly all efforts by developers, I agree the time is right.
Now that Apple hardware can finally keep up and both OSX and Macs are drawing more interest from PC users, let them have their cake and eat it. If nothing else some of the most interesting developments happen in gaming and are translatable to other technology.
#23
Drewstre
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Posted 03 August 2006 - 11:23 PM
Hiya-
MacTel: "why a console machine wouldn't suffice?"
That's a good question. I guess it's a personal thing. None of the current or imminently available consoles have really appealed to me. Consoles are one trick ponies. I like the tinkerability of a computer, rather than the closed nature of a console. I think a Mac decent rig capable of excellent gaming is better than a Mac decent console that does nothing but games, even if said rig is more expensive than said console. If I buy a console, and I'm using my Mac for various everyday things, the console sits there doing nothing. If I buy a Windows box instead of a console, it can be, say, recording and encoding video while I use my Mac.
I guess it boils down to versatility; if a rig can play games as well as a console, yet is still able to do other heavy lifting when called upon, that's worth the price of admission. To me, anyways.
On Edit: So I guess saying "solely for gaming" was a bit of a misstatement... "primarily for gaming, and occasionally doing other menial tasks while I'm using my Mac" would've been more accurate.
:^Drewstre
MacTel: "why a console machine wouldn't suffice?"
That's a good question. I guess it's a personal thing. None of the current or imminently available consoles have really appealed to me. Consoles are one trick ponies. I like the tinkerability of a computer, rather than the closed nature of a console. I think a Mac decent rig capable of excellent gaming is better than a Mac decent console that does nothing but games, even if said rig is more expensive than said console. If I buy a console, and I'm using my Mac for various everyday things, the console sits there doing nothing. If I buy a Windows box instead of a console, it can be, say, recording and encoding video while I use my Mac.
I guess it boils down to versatility; if a rig can play games as well as a console, yet is still able to do other heavy lifting when called upon, that's worth the price of admission. To me, anyways.
On Edit: So I guess saying "solely for gaming" was a bit of a misstatement... "primarily for gaming, and occasionally doing other menial tasks while I'm using my Mac" would've been more accurate.
:^Drewstre
#24
PecosBill
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Posted 04 August 2006 - 01:48 AM
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Gupta said that Cider doesnt increase the risk of being infected by Windows viruses or malware, either. Its a closed environment, thoroughly protected on our end as well, he said. Were giving Mac users the experience theyve always had. We understand Mac users and the Apple look and feel.
Gupta said that Cider doesnt increase the risk of being infected by Windows viruses or malware, either. Its a closed environment, thoroughly protected on our end as well, he said. Were giving Mac users the experience theyve always had. We understand Mac users and the Apple look and feel.
I would think that statement heavily depends on whether Cider includes any reverse-engineered Microsoft code. If there's an API that Cider provides itself without redirecting (gluing) to an OS X one, there is risk -- especially if they code it bug-for-bug!
#25
Jnanadev
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Posted 04 August 2006 - 02:08 AM
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I didn't realize we had so many members of the Grammar Police on these forums. I would rather read the grammar errors then the complaints about them. PM the editor and spare us the complaints...
/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
Quote:
Does anyone review these articles before they are published? There are at least 2 major grammatical mistakes in this article that my college english instructor would have failed me for!
Does anyone review these articles before they are published? There are at least 2 major grammatical mistakes in this article that my college english instructor would have failed me for!
I didn't realize we had so many members of the Grammar Police on these forums. I would rather read the grammar errors then the complaints about them. PM the editor and spare us the complaints...
/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
You have a point and I didn't mean to derail the topic. I just think that if a publication wants to be respected they should take a little extra time to edit the articles before they go live. Would those errors have made it to print in Macworld magazine? Probably not. So why the sloppiness when it comes to internet articles? Next thing you know we'll all be reading articles that read like a 15 year old's blog site. And to Peter's point, I think unfortunately, yes, standards used to be much higher. Now back to the regularly scheduled discussion...
#26
jelockwood
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Posted 04 August 2006 - 06:41 AM
This is good news in that it may increase the number of games available 'on the Mac'.
However the fact that Cider is a developer product and not an end-user product has both good and bad aspects.
It is good in that it allows TransGaming to provide a more Mac like experience (for installing and running), but it is bad in that this is likely to make make 'conversions' more expensive than the 'PC' original, and it is very VERY bad in that you will not simply be able to get an off-the-shelf copy of say Halo2 and run it on your Mac. This last issue is particularly important because can anyone seriously see Microsoft working with TransGaming to allow Mac users to run their games? Never mind that logically this would increase sales (of games) for Microsoft, they absolutely will not do anything to hep Mac users even if make them more money.
However the fact that Cider is a developer product and not an end-user product has both good and bad aspects.
It is good in that it allows TransGaming to provide a more Mac like experience (for installing and running), but it is bad in that this is likely to make make 'conversions' more expensive than the 'PC' original, and it is very VERY bad in that you will not simply be able to get an off-the-shelf copy of say Halo2 and run it on your Mac. This last issue is particularly important because can anyone seriously see Microsoft working with TransGaming to allow Mac users to run their games? Never mind that logically this would increase sales (of games) for Microsoft, they absolutely will not do anything to hep Mac users even if make them more money.
#27
Peter Cohen
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Posted 04 August 2006 - 07:22 AM
Quote:
It is good in that it allows TransGaming to provide a more Mac like experience (for installing and running), but it is bad in that this is likely to make make 'conversions' more expensive than the 'PC' original, and it is very VERY bad in that you will not simply be able to get an off-the-shelf copy of say Halo2 and run it on your Mac.
It is good in that it allows TransGaming to provide a more Mac like experience (for installing and running), but it is bad in that this is likely to make make 'conversions' more expensive than the 'PC' original, and it is very VERY bad in that you will not simply be able to get an off-the-shelf copy of say Halo2 and run it on your Mac.
The phrase "Jack of all trades, master of none" comes to mind. The reason why Cider is being used to "wrap" games rather than be released as a separate entity is precisely for that reason -- this way, TransGaming can optimize the experience to make the game run as fast and as well as possible. The alternative is to produce a more general software environment that, while it may work, may not work as efficiently as possible.
Looking at the big picture here, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see an approach like Cider used by mainstream Mac game publishers who specialize in conversions going forward. Lord knows a Cider-style environment would cost them a hell of a lot less and take significantly less time than porting a game to Mac OS X from scratch, and would provide roughly the same user experience.
#28
Nobody
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Posted 04 August 2006 - 09:28 AM
Cider IS a game porter. They port the game to WINE on OS X. I think what you mean is that Cider is bad for OTHER Mac game porters, and that remains to be seen. It all depends on whether it's easier to port to an OS X binary or to get the DirectX and other DLLs and APIs to work properly under Cider.
