Haha. Macs. You get what you pay for. Except not.

lol mac gaming.

I have seen a Macintosh in a house only one time and it must have cost at least $2100. It was one of those huge 21" units with all of the internals contained in the monitor itself. I think it was running Leopard but what do I know.

MetalHaze: this is NOTHING like running Crysis on a 95 Gateway. It's like running Spore on a 2007 Macbook.

Spore is several times less intensive than Crysis and a 2007 macbook is several times more powerful than a 95 Gateway.

Furthermore, as noted above, the PC version will run on the SAME COMPUTER under Windows. So yes, this IS a Mac problem.

Actually.. to be more specific it's developer laziness.. the article asks why they bother to develop for the Mac.. the truth is that they aren't developing for the Mac at all.. these titles use third party virtualization software to get these games running, which increases the resources needed dramatically.

@Android8675: didn't you see the smiley?
It's just a recurrent joke(macfags)

You aren't really missing out on much. Have you played The Sims? Sim Ant? Sim City? Then you've pretty much played Spore.

If you bought a Mac for gaming, you ought to have been expecting a hassle.

Sheesh. Run it in windows, or get a new mac. Gaming on shared VRAM is rarely an optimum situation.

In other news, Macs make you nuke cats. WHAAAT?!

Anyone who is a mac fan and is really wanting to get into gaming, ought to be buying a cheap PC. It just costs too much to keep up to date as much on a mac.

@brainderailment:

Or, why not just Boot Camp into Windows? Then you only need one computer.

what the---

my Macbook Pro was made in 2006 and spore runs just peachy on it, thankyouverymuch, i even have it running on my boot camp partition splendidly:

2.16Ghz, 2G RAM, Radeon X1600, 256 VRAM. native 1440x900

the only problem with the default setting, which was documented in the README, was that if Spore was jerky in OSX to lower shadow effects, which i did, and everything else is on high with no problems... but then i can also crossover the Orange Box with great success, so maybe my machine is supercharged with win?

meanwhile, on the XP-bootcamp side, it's business as usual for PC gaming.. Mass Effect and Crysis notwithstanding.

@geekjutsu

word. i've been the Mistress of Whine when it comes to Cider ports, and have found that Transgaming has come a long way from when i used to support it as a debian-er... back when i salivated at the TG American McGee's Alice.. *sigh* i used to love you, Transgaming, but you were a different company then.

although when it comes to EA "allowing" mac ports, Cider's new on the field of suck. it used to be Aspyr, so i can't complain too much now. either way, it's laziness on the developer's part to require intel hardware and then skimp out on a native release. it was understandable when it was for PPCmac architecture, but now there's even less excuse... in fact, they could go the route of Vendetta Online and make win/*nix/mac, if only they knew the deep dark secret about OSX being bsd core OOPSISAIDTOOMUCH.

As a Mac owner of many years, this is exactly why I am a console & portable gamer. So I don't ever have to rely on my Mac for any of it.

Mac is a fail of computing. All they can do is whine and bitch to their marketing department that more people should adopt Apples. Then, when the rubber meets the road, you have to deal with computing in the real world.

Face it. Microsoft owns the computing world. Want to compete? Make something better, instead of churing out vacant, apostolic zombies.

"should I be upgrading my Mac every sixteen seconds so I can get the coolest Will Wright games?"

Isn't that what Apple wants you to do? Swap your Apple products for the latest model every year?

"Isn't that what Apple wants you to do? Swap your Apple products for the latest model every year?"

Isn't that what *every* manufacturer of systems and components wants you to do?

But no, really, that sucks Brad.
All these people are whining that you use macs, but the article is about how a relatively new computer can't run a new, not particularly graphically demanding game, at ALL.

Yeah, buying Apple products, you're expected to upgrade every time a new model is out. It's an expectation, not an option.

You bought a computer with an Intel graphics chip and then are surprised when it can't play a new game!? JESUS THE SHOCK

When I was shopping for laptops the Macbook definitely met all of my needs, the one downside was that it didn't have a dedicated video card and instead used fairly crappy on-board graphics. I considered a Mac Pro, which had a decent video card, but didn't really need most of its features for anything other than games. I was disappointed when the creature creator was released and didn't run on my Macbook, but not surprised.

I don't think the system specs are unreasonable, and I don't feel I'm being forced to upgrade my laptop. I chose this computer knowing it's great for a lot of things, but not games.

Goddamn it, I knew this would start a fucking war.

Listen, you elitist, high horse eclectic twats, there is nothing wrong with OS X. Nothing. Just like there's nothing wrong with Windows. For fucks sake, a computer being different does not mean it's of a fucking lesser caliber. And he never said he bought the computer to play games. Have you cunts ever considered that MAYBE, he bought a computer with more than games in mind? No? Oh, sur-fucking-prise.

And no, not every Mac user is a art grad student with a soul patch and a set of acid washed jeans in a fucking beatnik hat. We're not ALL assholes, though the way you guys act in this thread alone, I'm sure you're fitting the connotation you've just set forth. I hate those "Get a Mac" and "it just works." commercials as much as you do, and I wish they'd stop pushing that bullshit, but for a group of 'higher-thinking' people who say they won't get swayed by the media (when it comes to gaming anyway) you sure as fuck love to complain about a standard that is set forth by the media anyway.

And yeah, late 2007 computers and on are the ones that can play Spore. Don't act like this is a Mac only problem too, you twats- technology progresses with age, and that's the same reason people have to upgrade their PCs once every few years. You're bitching about the same thing you have to do eventually to run newer games, just because you're looking for more justification of that one beatnik you saw sitting in Starbucks writing his novel on how to fucking change the world.


It's shit like this that still makes even racial epithets socially acceptable. Grow the fuck up.


In conclusion, OS X is great. Windows is great. They're both great, and you focusing on games alone as a way to judge a computer is just as shallow and ignorant as it is fucking insane.

@ TheStripe

Chill the fuck out, fanboy.

My first reaction was to blame Apple's drivers, because Apple does a really terrible job of supporting older hardware.

However, every game developer needs to keep in mind what kind of hardware is available in the real world, and adjust accordingly. If too many Macs have older graphics hardware, game developers need to take that into account.

Really, everybody is at fault for this.

* TheStripe: "If you hate macs, you've never owned one."

I've owned several, and I've hated every one of them. I have to own a Mac, because too many of my clients use them.

Ever try to make a "write once, run everywhere" Java programs that doesn't give a blank screen, or write a web app that uses simple DOM calls that doesn't completely CRASH Safari? It's painful and frustrating.