Wolfire Games Forums

I second the notion.

I have no preference.

Thing is, I simply prefer macs; If I had both, I'd use both, but I only have a five to seven year old cube running OSX. I have to say though, a 5-7 year old windows is nearly unuseable (at least to me) due to eyesoreness/other such things. I use my computer for day to day things that don't require huge amounts of processing; I want my computer to look like it's been polished, not like it's just fallen off of a conveyor belt somewhere. Windows=games mac=day to day use. Mac-only games are better, anyway, for the most part, though it would be nice to play something without having to wait a few days/years. BUT the intel macs can run windows, so that's what I'll stick with. I have nothing against windows; I don't really trust bill gates, but hey, whatever.

Jeff wrote: Macs are faster? No. Right now I can buy a Core Duo 2 laptop PC. Apple is still stuck with a patently obsolete cheap. Plus, OS X has never looked worse due to the recent PPC -> Intel switch. There is still no native Office, Matlab, Photoshop, and many other critical programs for Mac yet, so OS X is SLOW for many users. How can you tout Macs as the artists choice when Photoshop runs like it does on a 5 year old PC?

Apart from the laptops (which are still pretty fast, the core 2 duo is only about 10% faster), the macs are plenty fast. Quad Core Xeon anyone? Not to mention they run Os X...

As for the apps that aren't universal, im sure they'll be released before Micro$oft releases Bloatware Vista! Man, the requirements to Run Vista are ridiculous. Os X on the other hand gets FASTER not slower on computers of the same specs. Its also priced far better - $199.00 Au compared to over 700 Au for Vista Ultimate...

Photoshop aint that slow on the intel macs anyway, i've tested it myself and it runs fine on macbook... sure its slower, but its not as if its unusable. On the 3Ghz Quad Core Xeons tests show photoshop to run about 5% slower than on the 2.5Ghz Quad G5's... Thats pretty impressive for a non UB app.

Jeff wrote: PCs overheat? This is the worst point you could have made. Apple's MacBooks are notorious for overheating. In fact, Apple has famously stated that you should not use your MacBook on your lap. Hopefully this will be resolved when Apple gets their hands on the Core Duo 2 chip, but Apple is playing catch up with the PC world.

Laptops in general are notorious for overheating...

Jeff wrote: Windows is crappy? Again, very poor timing on your point. Windows Vista (RC2 is available for free download now) has all of the features of Leopard and more. In fact, Microsoft is going to be shipping Vista this month, beating Leopard. At this point, both Microsoft and Apple have next generation operating systems, so stability, etc. is not really a concern any more.

All the features and more.... yeah like viruses, and bloatware, and bugs... (they plan on releasing it when the number of bugs gets below 501 - source "The Age" (Australian Paper).... so in effect they already plan on releasing a buggy OS.

Jeff wrote: PCs are much cheaper, more customizable, and more upgradeable.

Much cheaper my ass!

http://www.macworld.com/2006/08/feature ... /index.php

The Mac Pro is also way more damn stylish looking than a dell box. Oh, and it can run Os X & Winblows legally... \

The Mac Pro is also extremely customizable and upgradeable.

Oh and one last thing, Macs can run Redline and winblows can't! (AmbrosiaSW's latest
game) Macs are a pleasure to use. period. I aint heard anyone say that about a PC.

Redline makes me feel embarrassed for Ambrosia. I remember back when they regularly released brilliant and innovative games like Escape Velocity, Maelstrom, Swoop, Apeiron, and Avara. Even their oddball titles like Slithereens and Harry the Handsome Executive are very polished and well-designed, and have sound effects forever stuck in my brain. It is a bit sad to see them release something of Redline's quality now: a racing game with nothing new to offer but broken physics and the unusual combination of ugly graphics AND slow framerates.

I am not sure what happened exactly; if you look at Ambrosia game history, they are uniformly innovative and excellent until right after Ferazel's Wand, when they start developing only sequels, and publishing a seemingly random assortment of third-party games of varying levels of quality. I really hope that they can get their act together and regain their former glory as mac game development pioneers. If they hadn't released such amazing games ten years ago, I might never have become interested in game development myself.

David wrote:Redline makes me feel embarrassed for Ambrosia. I remember back when they regularly released brilliant and innovative games like Escape Velocity, Maelstrom, Swoop, Apeiron, and Avara. Even their oddball titles like Slithereens and Harry the Handsome Executive are very polished and well-designed, and have sound effects forever stuck in my brain. It is a bit sad to see them release something of Redline's quality now: a racing game with nothing new to offer but broken physics and the unusual combination of ugly graphics AND slow framerates.

I am not sure what happened exactly; if you look at Ambrosia game history, they are uniformly innovative and excellent until right after Ferazel's Wand, when they start developing only sequels, and publishing a seemingly random assortment of third-party games of varying levels of quality. I really hope that they can get their act together and regain their former glory as mac game development pioneers. If they hadn't released such amazing games ten years ago, I might never have become interested in game development myself.

Well, it seems your in the minority with that view. Redline runs for me on 500mhz mac and is fine in 6 player mutiplayer, so I dunno what your complaining about framerate wise. Its about the only racing game I've played that I've really liked...

I guess it just comes down to personal preference, but I've really enjoyed there games like EV Nova & Uplink etc... Sketchfighter looks quite promising to.

@James M- Ambrosia has a solid name and fan base. It's almost part of the problem. And it's almost a shame for the Mac platform that that game gets so many good reviews

Ambrosia is only publishing games nowadays. There are still good mac game designers, but apparently Ambrosia isn't good at reeling them in (see what happened with Lugaru).

Redline is almost entirely Jonas Echterhoff's work (and I have solid reasons to say that, although he may be a very fine person, he's not a brilliant programmer technical-wise). Matt Burch (EV) is not into games anymore.

I propose the following test:
What do you non-ambrosians think of Redline?
For comparison, see Rally Shift - an older mac racing game shareware (in my opinion, vastly superior in every aspect minus multiplayer).

Basically you just won't see anyone switching to Mac to play Redline like they did to play EV For a game that was in development for at least four years, it is not an impressive effort. It shows many technical issues that almost everyone else has solved, such as a sharp far clip plane, temporal aliasing, jittering and clipping errors in the physics simulation, sharp spotlight edges, decal z-fighting (flickering on signs etc.) and so on. Even the racing physics are broken; you go faster if you take turns by slamming into the wall than by slowing and turning properly. It is missing features that are standard in most racing games such as destroyable cars and objects, background music, scaling opponent AI, and some kind of campaign/career mode.

It runs smoothly (20-30 fps) in broad daylight, but on rain or night levels, it drops to more like 10-20 fps on my Powerbook G4 1.5 ghz laptop. Despite its problems, it is still pretty fun online, because the community is friendly, and when a game is broken you can still have fun messing around with it with other people.

I don't usually judge games so harshly, but I don't like when bad games get good reviews just by association with a strong label; usually this is obvious by comparing press scores with user review scores, for example on InsideMacGames the press score is 8/10, and average user score is 5.55.

James M, your arguments are also very tenuous and are very indicative of someone who doesn't actually use PCs.

Apart from the laptops (which are still pretty fast, the core 2 duo is only about 10% faster), the macs are plenty fast. Quad Core Xeon anyone? Not to mention they run Os X...

The Core 2 Duo is about 20% faster according to PC Perspective. It also runs longer and cooler with larger cache. Bad start to your argument.

As for the apps that aren't universal, im sure they'll be released before Micro$oft releases Bloatware Vista! Man, the requirements to Run Vista are ridiculous. Os X on the other hand gets FASTER not slower on computers of the same specs. Its also priced far better - $199.00 Au compared to over 700 Au for Vista Ultimate...

Vista RC2 is available for download NOW and is shipping this month. Making fun of Vista's release date would have been valid a couple of years ago, but it's a little awkward now, considering that I am actually running RC2 in Parallels right now.

Given that Photoshop, Matlab, and Office are not scheduled until 2007, your point is patently false.

Comparing Vista Ultimate's price to OS X's is also ridiculous for obvious reasons. The cost to upgrade to Windows Vista Home Edition is $99. For Apple? $129. In fact, expect to pay that every year for Shareware features like Dashboard and Expose which can be obtained for free on Windows. Again, your argument falls apart.

Finally, Vista's requirements are flexible. Do you want a resolution independent user interface (a feature not availabe in OS X)? If so, you will need a decent graphics card. Otherwise turn down the graphics to an OS X level. Vista allows you to turn down the graphics significantly, a feature sorely missing in OS X.

Photoshop aint that slow on the intel macs anyway, i've tested it myself and it runs fine on macbook... sure its slower, but its not as if its unusable. On the 3Ghz Quad Core Xeons tests show photoshop to run about 5% slower than on the 2.5Ghz Quad G5's... Thats pretty impressive for a non UB app.

Photoshop wasn't "unusable" on 7 year old computers. I don't care if it "works" the point is that it is much, much slower than running it on native hardware. At least Photoshop works. Software like Matlab flat out is not compatible with Rosetta.

Much cheaper my ass!

http://www.macworld.com/2006/08/feature ... /index.php

Um, you've shown an article that demonstrates that Dell's Xeon towers are more expensive than Apple's. Dell is one of literally a thousand different PC makers. Good job.

Tell me when you can get a Mac that competes with this machine: http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/sys ... 0608.ars/3 for $1600.

That is a more fair comparison. If you can some how make a $1600 Mac that competes with that, I will concede the point. Until then all you have shown is that Dell has Xeon towers just as expensive as Apple's, which means nothing in this debate.

All the features and more.... yeah like viruses, and bloatware, and bugs... (they plan on releasing it when the number of bugs gets below 501 - source "The Age" (Australian Paper).... so in effect they already plan on releasing a buggy OS.

This is standard practice in the software business. I am sure Apple does the exact same thing.

While Apple computers are still somewhat more expensive and slower than equivalent Windows machines, Apple is very good at providing a very smooth end-user experience. They make it a very high priority to ensure that all Mac applications follow standard Apple human interface guidelines, and sell care plans to make sure you never have to worry about what goes on with the hardware.

For audiovisual professionals who are more interested in using the computer for design than thinking about hardware, or for casual users who would be unable to avoid the viruses and malware that are usually targeted at Windows, the extra few hundred dollars for a Mac can easily be justified.

I use a Mac laptop because OS X's streamlined design is especially suited to working with relatively imprecise input such as a touchpad, and for viewing under less than ideal lighting; I would probably have a lot of trouble using Windows on a laptop. However, for game programming it is essential that I can try out the latest games and technology demos, use the latest hardware and have access to all useful programs, and for that I need to use a home-assembled Windows machine; otherwise I could not afford to regularly upgrade to cutting-edge hardware.

Let's see if I can warp this into my own little perspective here...
PC:
Pros:
-inexpensive
-easy to customize
-tons of software
-fairly stable operating system
-processor speed increasees by leaps and bounds...
Cons:
-Not entirely user-intuitive
-sometimes unstable
-have a tendency to have major slow-down when they don't get cleaned up after a couple years (defragging the HD, etc...)
-because PC's are a major "bit" player in the computer world, PC's get attacked with viruses the most
-Microsoft's tech support sometimes sucks
-Sometimes harder for a PC person to switch to Apple because of system differences
-Many PC companies under-estimate your intelligence
Overall:
More of a "power-user's" computer.

Apple:
Pros:
-machines are easy to use and setup
-pretty to look at
-some Apple machines are becoming more customizable than before
-Apple has a tendency to jump at new technology and introduce it to their consumers
-very stable operating system
-can use almost any brand of peripheral (PC-brands included...) without installing special software
-great tech support and hardware support-Easier to switch back and forth between PC and Apple interfaces if you first owned an Apple (or so I've found...some Apple users I've talked to don't complain about the PC interface and how hard it is to use while PC users who've had to use Apple's end up hating it...)
Cons:
-expensive hardware/peripherals
-Apple has a tendency to shun older technology and force its consumers to use newer technology
-laptops and some of the desktops can be hard to upgrade
-some of their computers don't come with manuals...but "picturebook" style pamphlets on how to setup the computer...Example: the original iMac (which I still have...somewhere...) came with this large fold out pamphlet with nice colored images that said: 1) unpack computer 2) plug computer into wall and into internet connection 3) startup computer...and that's it.
-OS can be hard to customize unless you know what you're doing
-Apple sometimes over-estimates it's consumers intelligence
Overall:
An eaiser (if more expensive...) computer to start on (assuming you've never owned a computer before...but can be just as capable as a PC...

I've tried to take an objective look at both types of computers here, although I may be a bit biased because I'm mainly an Apple user. And yes, many of the things I've wrote can be countered, warped, and taken out of context so they fit your own views. So go ahead...people are idiots anyway...yes, everyone is an idiot.
...Sorry, I've been reading The Dilbert Principle recently.

Available software is a significant factor left out of that list: there is a lot of software for Windows that is not available for Mac (unless you also buy Windows for your Mac). There is much less Mac software, but it usually has more coherent design, and is therefore easier to use.

Grayswandir, I agree with some fundamentals of your list, but I would make a couple of changes:

Apple has a tendency to jump at new technology and introduce it to their consumers

This is pretty much false. Apple is always behind the curve pretty much down the line. From graphics cards to processors, Apple is always playing catch up. If you want the cutting edge, you have to have go PC.

some Apple machines are becoming more customizable than before

Apples are slightly customizable... You can choose how much RAM you want Apple to rape you for and you get a choice from two or three graphics cards, for instance. However, when people say that a PC is customizable, they mean that you can literally choose every single component down to the speed of the DVD burner, color of the case, and features of the motherboard.

-can use almost any brand of peripheral (PC-brands included...) without installing special software

This is a myth. Windows is compatible with every MP3 player, every camera, every scanner, every printer, etc. Literally everything. The vast majority will work without any software as of 6 years ago. There are plenty examples of said devices that just won't work on Macs.


Also I have no idea what you mean by Apple over-estimates your intelligence and PC companies under-estimate you...

With that said, here is my list:

Mac:

Pros:
- Only computer to legally run Mac OS X
- Can also run Windows, natively or via virtual machine
- Great design
- Good resale value

Cons:
- Windows support is kind of sketchy at the moment
- Upgrading is very limited
- Customizability is very limited
- Relatively expensive
- Limited compatibility

PC:

Pros:
- Very cheap
- Unlimited upgrade options
- Completely customizable
- Extremely good compatibility
- Cutting edge hardware

Cons:
- Can not run Mac OS X


So, basically, the only concrete advantage that Apple has is that it has Mac OS X and Apple has very stylish computers. For many people, myself included, that is enough to make it their choice. However, I wish people would like Apple for what it is (stylish + Mac OS X) and not fool themselves into believing it's something that it's not.

Okay...let me see if I can clarify a couple things then :

Apple has a tendency to jump at new technology and introduce it to their consumers

I was thinking more of their immediate ditching of the floppy disk, their damn insitence on using their own special ports for their monitors, their introduction of the Ultra ATA in 2004...although the Ultra ATA didn't sell that well because they were smaller and more expensive even though they were faster...it was an unadvertised jump...you'd only see it if you were buying a computer from their site in '04...

some Apple machines are becoming more customizable than before

When I said this I meant not buying parts from Apple...yeah, Apple rapes you up the ass repeatedly with their prices...a couple years ago...it was friggin' HARD to even get into the machines and replaces things like graphics cards because they were hard-wired into the motherboard. If you take the base MacPro and then buy your own stuff for it, you'll spend a lot less than if you bought everything from Apple...I was trying to say that they've finally given you the ability to do just that.
...You meant as you buy it customizability (is that even a word?) right?

Also I have no idea what you mean by Apple over-estimates your intelligence and PC companies under-estimate you...

This was more of a joke/sarcasm than anything else...and I think I screwed that one up...I got their roles reversed...
For example...when you get a PC you usually get this huge-ass manual that explains everything in really easy, but rather long steps, using sometimes complicated terminology...people who've never used a computer before, may have no IDEA wtf the manual is talking about...
Apple on the other hand...will put in this 3 page manual with pretty pictures saying plugin in the computer, plug it into your internet, and turn it on...and that's it. Then they'll have all these helpful tips and crap that keep popping up during installation explaining what everything is and that you have to plug it in a certain way and...well yeah, sometimes Apple treats you like you're a retard.