Valve Hopes for Thriving Mac Game Community

[Erana]

I've been running steam through Wine for months- its been working beautifully for me, save wanting to chat while in-game.
What I'm hoping for is that they'll bring out controller compatibility- yes, I want to game on a macbook using a 360 controller.
I'm a freak, but I'm fine as I am.

There are free 360 drivers out there... Makes a lot of games easier to play, in my opinion. Mac has some great freeware out there, so if you just google "free mac 360 controller driver" you'll find what you're looking for.

Its more the key assignment software that I'm having trouble with, really- any suggestions on that?

I am saving up for a laptop. On hearing the initial announcement I went and looked at the prices of MacBooks. And I was quite shocked that they were selling a £800 laptop with a 2.26 Ghz Core 2 Duo processor, 2 Gb of RAM and an integrated Nvidia 9400M graphics card. Want a dedicated graphics card? Not available: you'll have to buy a £1500 MacBook Pro.

You can get a better spec'd laptop for £600 these days. Perhaps even £500. I fail to see why I should pay £200 extra for OSX, but that's just me.

What, exactly, are you trying to play? I got the standard laptop right before Snow Leopard came out, and its handled beautifully every valve game I've thrown at it. I'm not sure if the new OS can use Wine, now that I think about it, so you'd have to wait for Valve to make their Mac Steam version.
I don't know about you, but I switched to mac because with *every* PC I've had, I wind up with several inexplicable software and hardware errors, which just make them too unreliable. But I have very bad luck with electronics in general. I'm just suprised that my macbook has never errored on me in over half a year. Apple makes good products- expensive, but you know that what you're getting isn't going to flip the screen, turn blue, make creepy sounds, and die. At least, not wihtout a warranty because the people who sold you your computer go out of business right when your computer breaks for the third time!
OK, that was agian my personal horror story. Most PCs are delightful, I'm sure.

 

[vede]

Maybe next they'll show some love for the Linux fans out there.

It'd be nice to see some of that Valve sheen on my computer without having to use Wine.

And hey, maybe it'd shut a few of the "Linux cannot play any games at all ever" retards up for a while.

 

[Delusibeta]

@Erana: If the next gen MacBooks are better spec'd (e.g. Core I5s and Nvidia 230s all round), then I wouldn't be waving my arms around, but right now Apple's missing a trick here.

That said, I don't think I own any game that's *too* demanding. (i.e. most demanding game would be TF2)

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Oh boy. I sure do love it when people try to justify paying so much for grossly inferior hardware. Maybe if you buy another iPedo you'll feel better about it.

As for Valve, I think they're being too optimistic. OR they're reaching into an untapped market and will be very successful because there's no competition. Depends entirely upon how much of the Steam library will be made compatible with Macs.

How exactly does it hurt you in any way that I choose to buy Apple products? Do I make the claim that they are 'better' than others? No, as I've stated many times I buy them because they suit me personally, and I'm familiar with their interface after years of use. I've no idea why this ridiculous fanboyism has spread from consoles to computers all of a sudden. Why can't we just accept that we're each allowed to choose what best works for us and not have to violently attack other people's choices. /end rant

In all fairness, Apple totally started it with the "I'm a Mac" ad campaign. That's what cemented the irreparable rift. Now it's "them" versus "us". Different people simply cannot just get along. Nothing against you personally.

Newsflash: not everyone who buys a Mac cares about Apple's stupid marketing campaigns. Of course they're jerks, but then so is just about any big corporation these days. At the end of a day, I still need a computer to run.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

A lot of Mac users, myself included, don't buy our computers based on specs. We buy them because they run OSX, which is integrated with the hardware. Granted, you pay more than you would for a PC of comparative specs, but everything works without needing to screw around with complex stuff like BIOS. PCs are great if you know your components and how to get the best deal on a bunch that work together, but I don't have the time to put up with that. I've had one PC and within two years it was obsolete as a gaming platform and the monitor, motherboard and video card all needed replacing. My Mac on the other hand has been completely fine aside from a minor crack in the casing, and it's just so much easier to navigate than Windows' clunky interface.

(underlined section): That's a pretty damning indictment about mac users, or at least for Mac becoming a potent gaming platform. There really are just so few Macs that can play modern games, at each machine's native resolution with adequate frame-rate.

Only the very latest and most expensive iMacs are any where near powerful enough for games from 3 years ago and most Macs out there are not the latest model but models from 3-5 years ago.

" but everything works without needing to screw around with complex stuff like BIOS."

Que? You don't need to touch the bios AT ALL in upgrading a PC, everything from changing out the GPU, RAM and hard drive. BIOS fiddling is only necessary for overclockers which is really unnecessary to get great gaming performance on a budget. Hell I flunked computing and I was able to build my own gaming PC and BIOS fiddlign consisted of inserting the OS-disc and letting it run

"I've had one PC and within two years it was obsolete as a gaming platform"

Wut? Obsolete? More obsolete for gaming than most Macs are when they come out of the box new?

Give me specs, man. I'll show where you went wrong.

Are you really serious about "2 years and obsolete" as in it could play games of 2006 but couldn't handle anything that came out in 2008? Even if you had gotten a 7800GT from 2005 that should be at least be able to match the performance of this generation of consoles for games like Call of Duty 4. I guarantee a Mac from 2005 wouldn't have been able to do anything.

I'm dead serious about how quickly it became obsolete; and that is my exact video card. I was fine with everything until Age of Conan in 2008, which obviously had a ton of issues with memory leaks, but even with everything turned to the absolute minimum I barely averaged 10fps. Again, this is all just down to my personal breaking point: an experienced person would have been able to replace a couple of components and get it rolling again, but I got heavily into university at this point and just gave up.

By the way, I'm not arguing that buying a Mac makes for a better gaming computer; I just gave up altogether on running games on the comp after my PC bit the dust. If I were to buy anymore games, they'd only likely be Blizzard games because of their lower hardware reqs and dual support. Certainly I agree that Macs are underpowered for games, but in regards to this topic, there are plenty of people who don't know enough about computers to care about the specs when they buy a new one. Regardless of whether or not you like to sneer at those people for buying inferior hardware, some of them will still want to run games, and companies like Blizzard and now Valve cater specifically for them.

 

[Treblaine]

I'm dead serious about how quickly it became obsolete; and that is my exact video card. I was fine with everything until Age of Conan in 2008, which obviously had a ton of issues with memory leaks, but even with everything turned to the absolute minimum I barely averaged 10fps. Again, this is all just down to my personal breaking point: an experienced person would have been able to replace a couple of components and get it rolling again, but I got heavily into university at this point and just gave up.

By the way, I'm not arguing that buying a Mac makes for a better gaming computer; I just gave up altogether on running games on the comp after my PC bit the dust. If I were to buy anymore games, they'd only likely be Blizzard games because of their lower hardware reqs and dual support. Certainly I agree that Macs are underpowered for games, but in regards to this topic, there are plenty of people who don't know enough about computers to care about the specs when they buy a new one. Regardless of whether or not you like to sneer at those people for buying inferior hardware, some of them will still want to run games, and companies like Blizzard and now Valve cater specifically for them.

So you're saying you had a 7800 GT? From 2006? But why did you give up with Age of Conan? Left 4 Dead would have played FINE on 7800GT.

The interesting thing is the 7800GT is pretty similar to the GPU used in the PS3 so going down to 720p or 1024x768 resolution and low-to-no AA (as most console games are) should give playable frame-rates for most games even up to 2008.

Going as low a 1024x768 may sound drastic but Halo 3 was only 1152x640 with no anti-aliasing and every single Call Of Duty game (including Modern Warfare 2) on the PS3 and 360 have been in only 1024x600 resolution so it's hardly unprecedented.

Age of Conan was a notoriously resource hungry game and considering how everyone has forgotten about it it wasn't all that good anyway.

You also don't HAVE to buy every single generation of Graphics hardware, I normally jump ahead 2-3 years at a time in terms of GPU and remember we are only talking the replacement of A Single component here, that can be as cheap as the $110/£75 GTS 250 which is very potent. An option back in 2008 would have been the 8800 GT, it was great back then, it's still good now able to play MW2 at 1440x900 at 60 frames/sec.

Due to how just so many great games come out for PC (at least 12 "must-buys" per year in my book) if a game comes out that is just too much for my hardware then I'll likely have so many games to play it can easily wait till new cheaper + more powerful hardware is available.

So rather than saying "Aww, Age of Conan doesn't work, I'm giving up on PC gaming" how about you take a look at games from 2007 you haven't played. What about other games from 2008 that are not so hideously coded for PC like Grid, Devil May Cry 4 and Mass Effect?

 

[Bluelaser]

Wait, so valve wants a bunch 10 year olds running around on TF2 saying "IM COOL BEACAUSE I GOT A MAC, IT R PRETTY!!!!"?

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

So you're saying you had a 7800 GT? From 2006? But why did you give up with Age of Conan? Left 4 Dead would have played FINE on 7800GT.

The interesting thing is the 7800GT is pretty similar to the GPU used in the PS3 so going down to 720p or 1024x768 resolution and low-to-no AA (as most console games are) should give playable frame-rates for most games even up to 2008.

Going as low a 1024x768 may sound drastic but Halo 3 was only 1152x640 with no anti-aliasing and every single Call Of Duty game (including Modern Warfare 2) on the PS3 and 360 have been in only 1024x600 resolution so it's hardly unprecedented.

Age of Conan was a notoriously resource hungry game and considering how everyone has forgotten about it it wasn't all that good anyway.

You also don't HAVE to buy every single generation of Graphics hardware, I normally jump ahead 2-3 years at a time in terms of GPU and remember we are only talking the replacement of A Single component here, that can be as cheap as the $110/£75 GTS 250 which is very potent. An option back in 2008 would have been the 8800 GT, it was great back then, it's still good now able to play MW2 at 1440x900 at 60 frames/sec.

Due to how just so many great games come out for PC (at least 12 "must-buys" per year in my book) if a game comes out that is just too much for my hardware then I'll likely have so many games to play it can easily wait till new cheaper + more powerful hardware is available.

So rather than saying "Aww, Age of Conan doesn't work, I'm giving up on PC gaming" how about you take a look at games from 2007 you haven't played. What about other games from 2008 that are not so hideously coded for PC like Grid, Devil May Cry 4 and Mass Effect?

Mass Effect ran, but I had to turn everything down to a minimum, and the lag was horrendous. And please don't put words in my mouth. Age of Conan was just timed with my generally growing apart from intense gaming: I spent money that I could have used to upgrade my PC on a guitar instead. These days I mostly just play casually on my brother's Xbox.
Point is, I didn't buy my Mac with the intention of playing games on it, but I wouldn't be against trying to see if it can run Starcraft 2 or Diablo III. I'm not getting my hopes up, of course

 

[GamingAwesome1]

Bah. Pointless Mac-bashing is not cool or clever.

As least my Mac owning friend will be able to jump into the fun now...

 

[Steve the Pocket]

I am saving up for a laptop. On hearing the initial announcement I went and looked at the prices of MacBooks. And I was quite shocked that they were selling a £800 laptop with a 2.26 Ghz Core 2 Duo processor, 2 Gb of RAM and an integrated Nvidia 9400M graphics card. Want a dedicated graphics card? Not available: you'll have to buy a £1500 MacBook Pro.

That's pretty insane. Those same models are $1000 and $1700 over here (closer to £500 and £850, I believe). Apple, and a lot of other U.S. electronics companies as well, seem to be completely ignorant when it comes to exchange rates (which might explain why their market share in Europe is like half of what it is in the U.S.). Or maybe it's a shipping and/or customs thing?

 

[Aeshi]

I don't suppose there's a reason you necroed this?

 

[Kuhkren]

I have a regular Macbook that I purchased last year. I have dual booted it with windows 7 and am capable of playing Team Fortress 2, Bioshock, Left 4 Dead 2, and pretty much any title on steam. Yes, you can game with Macs quite effectively.

Right, so you paid for two operating systems. Isn't that a bit redundant, if you can use Windows for games with all the installation and so on, why go back to Mac OS?

And what kind of frame-rate did you get for said games and at what kind of resolution/settings?

I go to a college right now that allowed me to purchase Windows 7 for around $20, so no it wasn't redundant . I would like to have team fortress 2 for arena, counterstrike, and portal on Mac partition so I can play a few rounds during work breaks since I prefer to use the Mac side for work.

I don't know much about frame rate and resolution, but the games I play look really good graphically. I guess a good way to put it is I can't see the rain in left 4 dead 2, however if I raise the effects to see it the extra stress doesn't really bother the computer much at all. I mean the card is an NVIDIA 9600 something, so it works quite well. I love gaming so much .