Macintosh Forums

[monolith94]

"I have played them before. Good games, but they got old pretty fast. "

Aha! You obviously didn't reach the depths, the 'nirvana' of escape velocity! I have literally had friends who wanted to convert after playing it after a few hours straight. . . But regardless.

"And you, d_dudy, are the reason why most people can't stand Mac users. "

Yeah, and Bill Gates is the reason why I hate all rich people. . . Nice generalization. Most people seem to stand me pretty well.

I, for one, have a clue as to how computers work. I've used dos ever since I was a wee lad, windows, experienced linux, but I keep falling back to mac. Why do I choose mac over windows? Oses are like pants, different people have different comforts. Macs are like jeans, while pcs are like overalls. The tan courdoury kind. That you find in the thrift shop.

As far as mac power is concerned, we don't seem to have any trouble playing quake 3, or unreal tournament at awesome framerates with great graphics. I will remind you that Quake 3 was a simultaneous release. . . (And I suspect UT was too).

Played through half life. Twice. It's no big loss.

[Asher]

The best part of Half-Life was multiplayer and its mods (CS, TFC, etc.).

Single player wasn't too thrilling.

And I'm sure Escape Velocity is a very deep game.
In fact I'll go spend $3500 on a brand new PowerMac so I can go play shareware games.

[monolith94]

Actually, if you really want to play the great mac shareware games, I can probably hook you up with a cheap used computer. E-mail me with how much you're willing to spend. . .

You can only play so much counter-strike. I liked single player better then multi-player in half life.

And unreal tournament is much better then half life in terms of multiplayer. MUCH better.

[Asher]

Check out the www.gamespy.com numbers.

Obviously the vast majority of people disagree.

Half Life 44465
Unreal Tournament 4439
Quake 3: Arena 4264
Tribes 2 3260
Wolfenstein MP Test 3156

[monolith94]

Obviously there is a much greater pool of computers that can play half life then can play unreal tournament.

I stand by my statement that ut has better multiplayer then half life.

What do those numbers mean? People currently playing half life? Voting on what the best game is? Where were these people polled from?

Frankly, there is so much mystique surronding 'the glory of half life' that it is hard to remember that underneath it it is code, just like any other game. People seem to treat it like the Jesus of games.

Frankly, I'd rather be playing avernum. www.spidweb.com

Last post for the night, I've got to work on my essay!

[Asher]

Those numbers are players currently playing those games, yes.

And it's not that people can't play UT (although they do have a wonderfully silly engine), it's that HL's is better.
I know far more people who play HL multiplayer than UT's, and most of them have >800MHz systems.

[d_dudy]

Originally posted by Asher


And you, d_dudy, are the reason why most people can't stand Mac users.
You don't have any clue what you're talking about so you fall behind marketing rhetoric or make stupid remarks like the above which in no way relate to the debate.

I AM THE MAC TROLL!!!!!




*is cumfy in his pants-his designer pants *

[Wiglaf]

ash -

PCs are generally made of cheap parts. my friend has a gateway that crashes four times a day on ME and 3 a day on 98 and has constant errors for reasons even tech support cannot figure out. move over to apple, and the OS and hardware are both nearly spotless in terms of reboots (modern versions anyway) - there's your stability.

so, whats that good for? essays, internet browsing, mild game playing, art programs, you name it. actually, for around $1400 you get one of the coolest, most stable computers available that does all you need it to do.

not such a bad choice after all. those $900 PCs are cheap and probably won't last the two year warranty (yes, there's some experiance backing that up). the more expensive PCs overshoot the good apples in terms of price by quite a bit.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
PCs are generally made of cheap parts. my friend has a gateway that crashes four times a day on ME and 3 a day on 98 and has constant errors for reasons even tech support cannot figure out. move over to apple, and the OS and hardware are both nearly spotless in terms of reboots (modern versions anyway) - there's your stability.

Yeah, that's fair.
Compare old Windows to new BSD-based Mac. Hmm.
Compare Windows 2000 or XP to OS X and you'll find them very similar in stability.

so, whats that good for? essays, internet browsing, mild game playing, art programs, you name it. actually, for around $1400 you get one of the coolest, most stable computers available that does all you need it to do.

You can get a $200 computer to do essays, internet browsing, and mild game playing.

You can do all of that and more on a PC, except you can also play a helluva lot more games with more speed and less money (in general).

not such a bad choice after all. those $900 PCs are cheap and probably won't last the two year warranty (yes, there's some experiance backing that up). the more expensive PCs overshoot the good apples in terms of price by quite a bit.

Most computers don't die after 2 years (I've never had a PC die that was younger than 6 -- and that 6 was a Gateway )
If you know what you're doing when you buy a PC, you can get a fast, stable, cheap, and reliable machine for quite a bit less than you could get out of a Mac.
As a bonus, you can upgrade more things, save money in the longrun.

[bradman]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Asher

I said the advanced features are ripped out. IE: preemptive multitasking, protected memory.[/QUOTE}

Good, I was starting to think you were losing your mind when you denied that.

I believe my comment was I don't care about isolated incidents regarding a specific software title, considering some of the best games don't even RUN on the Mac platform.

You're obviously not too caring about the "specific" Civ-series of games then, but it's good to see you here anyway. Are you aware that this is a Civ3 forum?

Don't you care about resource usage at all?
I mean, you've got some pretty weak hardware under the hood for most things, spare what you can.

I assume you're referring to the CPU? The classic environment isn't a CPU hog. You can use "top" next time you find yourself forced to use OSX to see for yourself - it's listed as "TruBlueEnvironment". I know you're no doubt aware of how the blue box works, but I'll state the obvious in case anyone else reading is ignorant. The native MacOS 9 environment runs using a nanokernel dispatcher using preemptive tasks. The cooperative "classic" MacOS runs as a preemptive thread. What this means is that under 10, the OSX kernel can switch it out and keep it switched out with much less CPU overhead since every classic app is essentially a preemptive task anyway. That is, the 10 blue box takes over the role that the classic MacOS 9 preemptive nanokernel held. What's more, it can put the entire classic environment to a form of sleep when a classic app is not forefront, and offload it to a separate processor in a DP setup.

This reminds me of a new question though: do you have a game that brings your PC to its knees?

You're saying basically "more choice means more support costs which is evil".

I don't recall using or even implying the word "evil". I was talking about opportunity cost - an intangible measure of what you give up when making a choice. With PCs, you get a myriad of hardware choices, additional support costs to go along and a supbar gaming experience in SMAC and Civ3. For some people, they'd rather play an inferior game of SMAC or Civ3 and enjoy that wide range of hardware. For others, they'd rather have something else. Not everyone would make the same choice as you as they might place more weight on SMAC than Half-Life. Shocking, I know.

We don't live under a communist rule where Steve Jobs tells us what hardware to use and when.

Not to state the obvious, but the CEO of a given company controls what products that company releases. A consumer buys what hardware he feels meets his needs. If I want the hardware Jobs is offering, I buy it. If I want the hardware Michael Dell is offering, I buy that instead. You seem to think that Mac users choose the Mac because they're so completely ignorant of PCs that they don't know better. Some Mac users prefer to keep their distance from Microsoft, some prefer the style and design of the Mac, others prefer the way the Finder works vs. Explorer, etc. These are by no means invalid reasons, and can't be measured in dollar amounts.

Along similar lines, compare a Jaguar XK8 with a Ford Mustang. You can successfully argue that the Mustang is cheaper, has a wider variety of add-ons, a better service record in Consumer Reports, has a better-performing Cobra edition, and is more "standard" than the XK8 when it comes to mechanics. That doesn't mean that all Jag buyers are so completely ignorant of the Mustang that they'd buy one instead if they only knew.

Pray tell, what will the Mac version have that the PC won't?

I suspect it'll be along the same lines as SMAC. I'll start with an obvious one - multiple monitor support. That's a cheap shot, I know - what good is that on the PC with the barely-functional GDI support and non-existent DirectX fullscreen support? With all those video cards to choose from, you'd think Win32 would be able to run a game on a secondary monitor much better than the Mac...

Brad

[bradman]

Originally posted by Asher

Compare Windows 2000 or XP to OS X and you'll find them very similar in stability.

Aaaah! You're confusing me. You said in an earlier post:

""And it's based on BSD", as in, it should be far more stable than that.
Apple took the Mach microkernel and made it significantly less stable. "

Your posts continue to entertain and amuse.

Brad

[Asher]

Originally posted by bradman
You're obviously not too caring about the "specific" Civ-series of games then, but it's good to see you here anyway. Are you aware that this is a Civ3 forum?

I didn't come here like most people.
First of all, when I posted in this thread it was in the 'Apolyton' section, not Civ3.
Second of all, I got involved in this site because I was an administrator at another large site in a semi-related way.
Third of all, I got involved in the other site through a completely different non-Sid game.
I usually only post in the Off-Topic/Community forums.

I assume you're referring to the CPU? The classic environment isn't a CPU hog.

So why does OS X (And X.1 in particular) see such a speed increase in comparison? Obviously the entire approach to OS 9 and below was so horribly off that even Apple decided to ditch it and try again, using someone else's kernel. A wise move.

You can use "top" next time you find yourself forced to use OSX to see for yourself - it's listed as "TruBlueEnvironment". I know you're no doubt aware of how the blue box works, but I'll state the obvious in case anyone else reading is ignorant. The native MacOS 9 environment runs using a nanokernel dispatcher using preemptive tasks. The cooperative "classic" MacOS runs as a preemptive thread. What this means is that under 10, the OSX kernel can switch it out and keep it switched out with much less CPU overhead since every classic app is essentially a preemptive task anyway. That is, the 10 blue box takes over the role that the classic MacOS 9 preemptive nanokernel held. What's more, it can put the entire classic environment to a form of sleep when a classic app is not forefront, and offload it to a separate processor in a DP setup.

That's all well and good.
But when you run your older 'classic' programs, my understanding is they still do not use protective memory, rather they all use the same hunk of memory as the other OS9 programs, ala OS9?

This reminds me of a new question though: do you have a game that brings your PC to its knees?

Anarchy Online and Max Payne (one very sweet game, btw -- Too bad it uses DirectX 8 ).
I then upgraded my GeForce 2 MX (which I got for free since I do hardware reviews online) a GeForce 3 and run in the high frame rates once again.
I plan to replace my motherboard, CPU, and RAM with Northwood Pentium 4s (with 533MHz FSB, PC1066 RDRAM) when they become available in the second half of next year.

I don't recall using or even implying the word "evil". I was talking about opportunity cost - an intangible measure of what you give up when making a choice. With PCs, you get a myriad of hardware choices, additional support costs to go along and a supbar gaming experience in SMAC and Civ3. For some people, they'd rather play an inferior game of SMAC or Civ3 and enjoy that wide range of hardware. For others, they'd rather have something else. Not everyone would make the same choice as you as they might place more weight on SMAC than Half-Life. Shocking, I know.

So you already think the Civ3 version on the PC will be inferior to the Mac version?
It's a little early for that, isn't it?

Not to state the obvious, but the CEO of a given company controls what products that company releases. A consumer buys what hardware he feels meets his needs. If I want the hardware Jobs is offering, I buy it. If I want the hardware Michael Dell is offering, I buy that instead. You seem to think that Mac users choose the Mac because they're so completely ignorant of PCs that they don't know better. Some Mac users prefer to keep their distance from Microsoft, some prefer the style and design of the Mac, others prefer the way the Finder works vs. Explorer, etc. These are by no means invalid reasons, and can't be measured in dollar amounts.

The major difference being one company controls your software and your hardware.
You're way too restricted in that platform.
On the PC end, one company essentially controls your software while no one controls your hardware.

Along similar lines, compare a Jaguar XK8 with a Ford Mustang. You can successfully argue that the Mustang is cheaper, has a wider variety of add-ons, a better service record in Consumer Reports, has a better-performing Cobra edition, and is more "standard" than the XK8 when it comes to mechanics. That doesn't mean that all Jag buyers are so completely ignorant of the Mustang that they'd buy one instead if they only knew.

Not a good example, the Mustang's handle as well as a Dodge Neon.
And the quality is just horrible.

I suspect it'll be along the same lines as SMAC. I'll start with an obvious one - multiple monitor support. That's a cheap shot, I know - what good is that on the PC with the barely-functional GDI support and non-existent DirectX fullscreen support? With all those video cards to choose from, you'd think Win32 would be able to run a game on a secondary monitor much better than the Mac...

I'm not sure what you mean.
I've personally run programs spread across both monitors. You can force it in the OS.
You can also run each as a virtual desktop, which is also built into the OS (2K and above).

And I think Windows' DirectX fullscreen support is a bit better than Mac's.
The Mac is really going to be burned w.r.t. 3D gaming as soon as more DirectX 8/9 games are coming out.
OpenGL is becoming far less attractive with each new Direct3D version.

Aaaah! You're confusing me. You said in an earlier post:

""And it's based on BSD", as in, it should be far more stable than that.
Apple took the Mach microkernel and made it significantly less stable. "

Buddy, you can have a less stable OS that's still pretty stable.
BSD is rock solid, OS X is not.
Desktop 2K/XP is not rock solid either.

Your posts continue to entertain and amuse.

Believe me, the feeling is mutual.
I find it funny how somebody who clearly knows what they're talking about can support the platform.
Or do you just do it because that's where your money comes from?

[Drake Tungsten]

I've had OS X since May and it hasn't crashed once.... but I guess that isn't "rock solid" stability....

On another note, it's good to be unbanned. I thought I was going to miss out on this argument just because I "circumvented the censor". Oh well, I've learned my lesson.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
I've had OS X since May and it hasn't crashed once.... but I guess that isn't "rock " solid stability....

And I've been using Windows XP for about a year, and only once did it crash (way back with Beta 1) and that was due to incompatable drivers.

[bradman]

Originally posted by Asher

So why does OS X (And X.1 in particular) see such a speed increase in comparison? Obviously the entire approach to OS 9 and below was so horribly off that even Apple decided to ditch it and try again, using someone else's kernel.

When you talk about speed increase, are you referring to the act of running classic apps in the blue box in 10 or native Carbon/Cocoa app speed? One reason that applies to both is the filesystem. Under native MacOS 9 (not the blue box), all file calls go through the 68k emulator because they're still written in 68k code. You can conceivably get higher performance out of a classic app running in the blue box under 10 if it's disk-intensive. Ditto for native Carbon apps. The blue box also uses the OSX vm scheme instead of it's own, which makes a difference in performance as well.

But when you run your older 'classic' programs, my understanding is they still do not use protective memory, rather they all use the same hunk of memory as the other OS9 programs, ala OS9?

Yes, but in practical use this isn't a big deal. I use classic for Entourage (a Microsoft product) and stability isn't really an issue there. Even so, you just restart the blue box if it tanks and continue working in X-native apps while the blue box reboots.

I then upgraded my GeForce 2 MX (which I got for free since I do hardware reviews online) a GeForce 3 and run in the high frame rates once again.

So what you are saying is that there aren't any PC games that bring your CPU to its knees? The funny thing about that is that I don't have that problem either on my DP 800 with a GeForce 3.

So you already think the Civ3 version on the PC will be inferior to the Mac version? It's a little early for that, isn't it?

No, every game I've ported has had stuff that is Mac-only. For example: MacMAME has the OpenGL/Glide blitters, SMAC had all that stuff listed before, Centipede had 6 additional levels, particle effects and a real arcade emulator, etc. There is always added value.

Not a good example, the Mustang's handle as well as a Dodge Neon.
And the quality is just horrible.

What you say indicates to me that it was a perfect example!

I'm not sure what you mean...snip...And I think Windows' DirectX fullscreen support is a bit better than Mac's.

What I mean is that DirectX's fullscreen _multiple monitor_ support is a joke. Try running a game on your second monitor sometime.

However, I'll bite. What makes DX fullscreen better on the PC than the Mac? One thing I've noticed is that most PC games never gamma fade before the res switch so you get a little video noise. The Mac fullscreen APIs let you do this easily. It's one of those small aesthetic details that I like.

[QUOITE]
The Mac is really going to be burned w.r.t. 3D gaming as soon as more DirectX 8/9 games are coming out.
OpenGL is becoming far less attractive with each new Direct3D version.[/QUOTE]

I'm not sure I understand. When we port a D3D game, we use our own D3D library that we've written. It's not an issue for us as long as the card supports it. And ATi and NVidia cards use the same hardware on Mac and PC now. We're professional game developers, not a bunch of high school hackers in a garage.

Buddy, you can have a less stable OS that's still pretty stable.
BSD is rock solid, OS X is not.
Desktop 2K/XP is not rock solid either.

Ah, good. For a moment there I thought your comments about stability were intended to prove a point about XP vs OSX.

I find it funny how somebody who clearly knows what they're talking about can support the platform.
Or do you just do it because that's where your money comes from?

I also find it funny that someone can be so intolerant of other people's choices. I'm not advocating that everyone use a Mac, only that there are valid reasons why someone would. You seem to think that only a fool would buy a Mac simply because you would not. This is a textbook definition of intolerance. I hope for your sake that it only extends as far as computer preferences.

Brad