chicken-royal Posted March 4, 2010 Share Posted March 4, 2010 This is pretty awesome news, mostly because I'm looking at getting a MBP when they're refreshed. I think I'd still Valve added the achievements for HL2/Ep1 than this, though. Guess they could do at the same time if they're presumably porting their own games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pablo2008jedi Posted March 4, 2010 Share Posted March 4, 2010 ..and people think the PS3 cost too much for gaming :shiftyninja: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George P Global Moderator Posted March 4, 2010 Global Moderator Share Posted March 4, 2010 This is all well and good for any Mac owners out there, but mac hardware always tends to be behind PC's specially when it comes to the speed we get newer graphics cards. And all those who bring up the idea of a open gaming platform or w/e, there's always been one, it's what OpenGL is, yet that hasn't helped it keep up with DirectX. If you want bleeding edge gfx/lighting and just visuals in general then DX is where you go, OpenGL is still playing catch up, and adding more games to the Mac isn't going to speed that up. MS, and Windows doesn't have anything to fear now or in the future imo. Valve will make some extra pocket change ofc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minifig Posted March 4, 2010 Share Posted March 4, 2010 ..and people think the PS3 cost too much for gaming :shiftyninja: Obvious Troll is obvious. Mac's aren't just used for gaming.. :unsure: (See World of Warcraft and now this).. they're used for much more... Applications, movies, etc. As the PS3 has .. perhaps.. 2 functions: Gaming and Blurays.. The Mac beats the PS3 in the functionality department by leagues. That alone, means it's worth the expense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Decryptor Veteran Posted March 4, 2010 Veteran Share Posted March 4, 2010 ... And all those who bring up the idea of a open gaming platform or w/e, there's always been one, it's what OpenGL is, yet that hasn't helped it keep up with DirectX. If you want bleeding edge gfx/lighting and just visuals in general then DX is where you go, OpenGL is still playing catch up, and adding more games to the Mac isn't going to speed that up. ... What features are those exactly? Since I keep hearing it but nobody ever says what it doesn't have. The only guy I actually got an answer out of, claimed OpenGL didn't support shaders. The latest version of OpenGL specifies support for Pixel, Vertex and Geometry shaders, so he was wrong about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon Posted March 4, 2010 Share Posted March 4, 2010 Not sure I follow the entire aspect of it should be free for existing owners of the title. It's going to be on a new platform. Just because you own the game for one platform, that doesn't mean you should own it at no additional charge for another platform. If that were the case, my Orange Box for the Xbox 360 should have given me the PC and PS3 version of each game as well at no charge. Valve charges additional for all those, so I don't see why they wouldn't charge additional for the Mac version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pablo2008jedi Posted March 4, 2010 Share Posted March 4, 2010 Obvious Troll is obvious. Yes iut was a troll, that's what the smiley was for :p Ofcourse Macs have their place, but they'll never compete with aPC in my case until their pricing was similar. I;d love a Mac, I'd like to try developing for my iPhone. But you can only do that on a Mac and the cheapest is a ?899 for a Macbook! Spec wise the Mac is not that much more than a PC but the price's are and that puts me off :p Anyway sorry to go off-topic, its good to see a developer supporting the platform and I hope more do follow. The iPhone has quite a few great games, albiet mostly flash conversions :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Razorwing Posted March 4, 2010 Share Posted March 4, 2010 Cool. I'm looking forward to what's to come! Although I'm still stickin' with Windows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Massiveterra Posted March 4, 2010 Share Posted March 4, 2010 Not sure I follow the entire aspect of it should be free for existing owners of the title. It's going to be on a new platform. Just because you own the game for one platform, that doesn't mean you should own it at no additional charge for another platform. If that were the case, my Orange Box for the Xbox 360 should have given me the PC and PS3 version of each game as well at no charge. Valve charges additional for all those, so I don't see why they wouldn't charge additional for the Mac version. This was my thoughts exactly. I don't think Valve's plan is for everyone to go "OMG Valve is coming to Mac! I should go out and get one and forget about Windows forever!!! OMGOMG!" It's more like..."I've been a mac user for several years, and I only have one computer and don't want to get a secondary PC just for gaming. Steam is coming to Mac? Sweet!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George P Global Moderator Posted March 4, 2010 Global Moderator Share Posted March 4, 2010 What features are those exactly? Since I keep hearing it but nobody ever says what it doesn't have. The only guy I actually got an answer out of, claimed OpenGL didn't support shaders. The latest version of OpenGL specifies support for Pixel, Vertex and Geometry shaders, so he was wrong about that. I'm sure you can find the differences between OpenGL 3.1 and DX11, I also don't admit to being a 3D game dev, but from talking with one off the top of my head I can say programmable tesselation. Opengl does have a tesselation extension, but its fixed function, you can't make it adaptive, you can't do displacement mapping, all it can do is smooth meshes, plus it doesn't perform well. And there's other stuff like the fact that directx abstracts away all chipset differences while in opengl you basically need one render path for nvidia, and one for ati using their own proprietary extensions. Also directx is an object oriented multithreaded api while opengl is straight c and stuck to that. Directx supports a lot of convenient compression formats, directx also has a much simpler memory management system. I'm not sure of any other finite details, but MS is moving DX ahead faster as well, and it's more controlled and overall better managed. One last thing, since you bring up shaders. Shaders are much better integrated in the directx api, in opengl they are sorta tacked on. You still have to use the same inputs as you would use for fixed function which I guess they did to make it easier to code for both fixed function and shaders at the same time. But everyone uses shaders exclusively now. BajiRav 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon Posted March 4, 2010 Share Posted March 4, 2010 This was my thoughts exactly. I don't think Valve's plan is for everyone to go "OMG Valve is coming to Mac! I should go out and get one and forget about Windows forever!!! OMGOMG!" It's more like..."I've been a mac user for several years, and I only have one computer and don't want to get a secondary PC just for gaming. Steam is coming to Mac? Sweet!" Speaking of which. I am running Bootcamp on my 2.5 year old iMac, with Vista SP2. I installed steam for the first time the other day (never used it). I started with the beta overlay first, and I kept getting errors. So I opted out of the beta and the steam worked fine. I downloaded the ARMA II demo, and it played like pure crap. Slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww as hell. I wonder if Steam would run games faster on Mac when running in Snow Leopard then? I had a bad experience with steam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrunknMunky Veteran Posted March 4, 2010 Veteran Share Posted March 4, 2010 Just in time for my Hackintosh :heart: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurmoth Posted March 4, 2010 Share Posted March 4, 2010 Hmm... wonder if this could be a reason why Valve hasn't really made any mention of Half-Life 2: Episode 3 yet? They've been hard at work on porting their lineup over to Mac. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Remysaus Posted March 4, 2010 Share Posted March 4, 2010 This is awesome news. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ayepecks Posted March 8, 2010 Share Posted March 8, 2010 http://kotaku.com/5488375/left-4-dead-2-team-fortress-2-portal-and-steam-coming-to-mac-in-april "The Mac version of Steam will include all of the features of its PC counterpart, as well as a new feature called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the game on one platform to download and play it for the other at no additional charge." Thank goodness! "We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation," said John Cook, Director of Steam Development. "The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows." Aweeee-some! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob2687 Posted March 8, 2010 Share Posted March 8, 2010 Does that include your current purchases? Or will there be some crap thing like it only applies to purchases from that point on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chasethebase Reporter Posted March 8, 2010 Reporter Share Posted March 8, 2010 Does that include your current purchases? Or will there be some crap thing like it only applies to purchases from that point on. I don't know, it could apply to current purchases, just via updates to the games compatible (IE Source). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sambrentnall Posted March 8, 2010 Share Posted March 8, 2010 Aweeee-some, and then some! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Frank B. Subscriber² Posted March 8, 2010 Author Subscriber² Share Posted March 8, 2010 http://kotaku.com/5488375/left-4-dead-2-team-fortress-2-portal-and-steam-coming-to-mac-in-april "The Mac version of Steam will include all of the features of its PC counterpart, as well as a new feature called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the game on one platform to download and play it for the other at no additional charge." Thank goodness! "We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation," said John Cook, Director of Steam Development. "The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows." Aweeee-some! Hallelujah. Praised be Valve! April can't be here soon enough. Bye bye Boot Camp partition. I have to wonder what the PS3 gamers think about this though. The Mac as tier-1 platform before the PS3? That's a slap in Sony's face. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RadishTM Veteran Posted March 8, 2010 Veteran Share Posted March 8, 2010 I love Valve :heart: The Mac as tier-1 platform before the PS3? That's a slap in Sony's face. Indeed, oh well :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon Posted March 8, 2010 Share Posted March 8, 2010 Hallelujah. Praised be Valve! April can't be here soon enough. Bye bye Boot Camp partition. I have to wonder what the PS3 gamers think about this though. The Mac as tier-1 platform before the PS3? That's a slap in Sony's face. My PS3 cries for attention from Valve But my Macs are getting some Valve and Steam love, so I am all moist! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
protocol7 Posted March 8, 2010 Share Posted March 8, 2010 Great news. Though I wonder how well any of my Steam games will run on a GMA950 :whistle: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techbeck Posted March 8, 2010 Share Posted March 8, 2010 So what, a game or two for Mac? And only Valve? Yea, people who think Macs are going to replace PC gaming anytime soon are POORLY mistaken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy Posted March 8, 2010 Share Posted March 8, 2010 Good one, it's good to hear another publisher is taking OSX seriously :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sambrentnall Posted March 8, 2010 Share Posted March 8, 2010 Great news. Though I wonder how well any of my Steam games will run on a GMA950 :whistle: Im woundering this as well! Im hoping Portal, CS Source and Team Fortress 2! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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