Macintosh support for SoW?

[Blackdog_kt]

A friend has an iMac (the i5, Ati 4850, 27" screen model) and since he has configured it for dual booting (he uses MacOS and windows 7) we ran some tests using a game that has both windows and MacOS support.

We were part of the starcraft 2 multplayer beta (it's a space/sci-fi real time strategy game if you're unfamiliar with it), which for all intents and purposes is nowhere near as intensive on CPU/GPU as a flight sim. It has 3D graphics and certain AI routines, along with pretty textures and effects but it's nothing close to the amount of data that needs to be shuffled back and forth in a flight sim. In fact, a modded IL-2 with all bells and whistles turned on could be more demanding than SC2 which was only recently released.

The findings were somewhat disappointing. It was the exact same PC, exact same hardware and running the exact same game, which had native support for both operating systems, yet the game was almost unplayable with frequent stutters and freezes under MacOS as soon as we cranked up the details to the levels we used under Win7. Booting under Win7, the game run at almost maxed details without hiccups and that 27" screen boasts a somewhat massive resolution as well.

After a few weeks i heard from him that new drivers had been released and performance was improved under MacOS, but it still was inferior to running the game under Win7.

So, my suggestion is to get an external HD drive if you like Macs, load up all your documents and important stuff there and keep enough space on the primary HDD for a dual-boot configuration. Then, you can use MacOS for work and as a secure OS, while you run your games under Win7.

I was not expecting to say this, but i'm actually quite impressed with the way my PC performs under win7. I am dual-booting with WinXP Pro and Win7 64bits on my i7 920,3GB Ram, Ati 4890 1GB and there are some recent titles that cause stutters under winXP and yet, they run flawlessly under win7 64bit. The only reason i haven't made a complete migration yet is that i'm too bored to make a list of which programs and games to run under win7 and which to keep under XP and relegate it to my "legacy" configuration.

[Ernst]

Originally Posted by hfc_dolphin

linux support would be cool

+1000

[ZaltysZ]

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManage...estingId=52375

[Flying Pencil]

Originally Posted by HFC_Dolphin

Linux support would be cool

If SoW can be made to run in Linux, then it could round in Mac under the terminal. I do not think the interface has to use the Mac OS API's.

[Ailantd]

No SOW on mac. SOW runs in DX 9 / 10 / 11. So don't expect it.
Mac is not a game platform... not a work platform... in fact is only a snob plattform.

[Azimech]

If I was a games/sim developer I would never port something to that platform.

Instead of porting SOW to any other platform, resources can be used for improving the game, which is far more important.

And yes, Apple platform is a snob platform. Plus elitist and arrogant.

[Qpassa]

first you have to be able to use track ir , freetrack , hotas and joysticks

[T}{OR]

Originally Posted by Flying Pencil

While I did build my own PC's in past, I prefer to use Mac 10.x for various reasons.

One big reason is MS Vista.
The quality of MS OS'es are questionable to me.

So, will it be?

S!

Here are several reasons why this wouldn't be a good idea:

1. What Azimech said

2. What Qpassa said

3. Switch to Win7 and avoid Vista altogether

[Fafnir_6]

Originally Posted by T.}{.O.R.

Here are several reasons why this wouldn't be a good idea:

1. What Azimech said

2. What Qpassa said

3. Switch to Win7 and avoid Vista altogether

+1

I skipped Vista as well (I went from WinXP Pro (which was a decent OS) to Win7 Pro (which is also a decent OS)). Win 7 has all the positives of Vista with a fraction of the overhead. It also gets past the limitations of XP: greater than 3GB Ram, DirectX 11, better support for multicores and solid state hard drives.

Cheers,

Fafnir_6

P.S. Is there any DirectX support under LinuxÉ

[AKA_Tenn]

Originally Posted by Flying Pencil

While I did build my own PC's in past, I prefer to use Mac 10.x for various reasons.

One big reason is MS Vista.
The quality of MS OS'es are questionable to me.

So, will it be?

S!

its not the software, its the hardware thats the limiting factor when it comes to computer games... Apple has only proprietary stuff, if it doesn't have the Mac approved seal, the hardware just doesn't work, PC's on the other hand, if your smart enough you could make your own hardware, PC's don't give a shit what u put in them, if it works at all, and it fits in the machine, it will work.

if you wanna know why they don't make as many games for mac as they do for PC, its because PC is about total freedom of hardware and software (sometimes, but not usually, at the cost of reliability), where as mac is about total control of every aspect of software/hardware, therefore its simpler to use, more reliable, but you have extremely limited variety and options in both the software and hardware