PC Games Go To Boot Camp 90
1up has taken several of the more popular recent PC titles to Apple Boot Camp, and report back on how they handle the MacBook Pro hardware. From the article: "With all settings on medium, F.E.A.R. is absolutely playable. Again, none of the silky-smooth 60 fps that hardware freaks clamor for, but it looks good and plays well even with tons of characters onscreen. Annoyingly, F.E.A.R. offers a really pitiful selection of resolutions, all of which are constrained to the old-fashioned 4:3 aspect ratio -- meaning that play on the MacBook's widescreen is stretched, and kind of ugly. That's not a hardware issue so much as limited programming, and presumably anyone with a widescreen PC is in the same pickle."
Hand? (Score:1)
Awww... (Score:1)
Alas.
obligatory reference (Score:2)
And one time, at boot camp...
Hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
1 degree = 0.0174532925 radians [google.com]
Are we using Round-towards even, truncate, or floor?
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
Re:Hmm (Score:2, Interesting)
It's greating being able to pop open a laptop in the airport, on the plane, etc, and have a nice relaxing game of whatever. Especially when you are stuck in some hick town with no social scene at all. If I have to take my laptop anyway, I might as well get some use out of it other than doing a presentation or whatever.
[My biggest complaint are the games that require the CD/DVD to be present when they don't actually pull anything off of the media or require it for the audio
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Informative)
Nice article but I dont know why any one would want to game on a laptop.
LAN party. You know, a dozen guys and gals go to someone's house. We usually have about three desktops and about nine laptops for a typical night. Who wants to lug a desktop and a monitor over to a friend's house? Just buy a USB keyboard (maybe a gaming keyboard), plug into your laptop and go.
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
And there are also those folks who can't afford or don't have access to high-speed Internet in their area, so taking it on the road is the only way they can do it via high-speed at all.
Sucky Resolution Support (Score:2)
All console games these days have widescreen support. It is not hard to do.
In this HDTV age, why don't games support the standard HDTV resolutions, too? 720x480, 720x576, 1280x720, 1920x1080 - it's not hard is it? How hard is it to populate an array with some other options?
Re:Half-Life 2 supports it (Score:2)
Re:Sucky Resolution Support (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, even beyond that, why would you possibly use a hard-coded list of specific resolutions, however long?
As soon as you support more than one resolution, you (or your libraries) already need to handle scaling and talking about your polygons in portion-of-display units rather than number-of-pixels units. That work is already done, so why limit yourself to any number of specific resolutions, rather than just scaling to whatever pixel count and aspect ratio the display happens to have?
Do you really think that you can predict now the specs of every display that any person is ever going to use to run your game at any time in the future? This is nearly as absurd as people who chain their website design to absolute numbers of pixels.
Re:Sucky Resolution Support (Score:2)
Re:Sucky Resolution Support (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sucky Resolution Support (Score:3, Insightful)
If that were the case, then they would leave the resolution set to what it is (preferably native, but that is the user's choice) and just use a 4:3 chunk in the middle. Instead, they change resolution to their 4:3, non-native one and leave the screen looking like crap. If they cared about the quality of the experience, they've just ruined it far more than allowing a widescreen v
Re:Sucky Resolution Support (Score:2)
In most games you just render off to the side a little more. You space out your HUD. Since the viewport in 3D games is set out by 2 or 3 procedural functions, this is very very very trivial coding.
Why use a fixed list of resolu
Re:Sucky Resolution Support (Score:2)
I find it sickening that modern games do not support what should be standard screen resolutions.
It will probably upset Mac gamers even more than most. Since such a large percentage of Macs are widescreen, I don't think I've ever seen a Mac game that did not support them. Also, many Mac users love to bitch about the Windows platform, in general :)
Re:Sucky Resolution Support (Score:2)
There are plenty of OS X native games that don't support widescreen. The last one that I personally played was Tropico 2: Pirate Cove to give some idea of how recent a game can be, yet plagued with this issue out of the box.
Re:Sucky Resolution Support (Score:2)
The last one that I personally played was Tropico 2: Pirate Cove to give some idea of how recent a game can be, yet plagued with this issue out of the box.
Gee, and it's made by Microsoft too, what a surprise. I stopped buying MacSoft's crappy games long ago. They are always unstable and poorly done.
Re:Sucky Resolution Support (Score:2)
Technically, no, but artistically, it is, in order to do it right.
It's about providing a UI that looks good any at resolution.
It's much easier to make a UI look good at 4:3, then to do "double" the work to support 16:9 or some other "oddball" configuration.
Yeah it sucks, but as a programmer I can appreciate the amount of work an artist has to do.
Cheers
Re:Sucky Resolution Support (Score:2)
Kind of offtopic... (Score:1)
Having the widescreen stretch the view out seems like less of a programming issue and more of a gamer-fairness issue.
Re:Kind of offtopic... (Score:3, Informative)
Blame the industry for lack of foresight, meanwhile, me and my widescreens will enjoy the extra peripheral viewspace.
To note
EAX and Multi-Channel Audio (Score:1)
Re:EAX and Multi-Channel Audio (Score:2)
This worked well to your advantage until people started bringing surround sound systems and could target you based on the 3D positioning information afforded them. Sure you know that they heard you jumping, but now they know which direction you're in, and you don't.
Of course, all that stopped once we s
Re:EAX and Multi-Channel Audio (Score:1)
Re:Kind of offtopic... (Score:1)
Re:Kind of offtopic... (Score:2)
It's a matter of properly programming the video code to compensate for strange resolutions.
Re:Kind of offtopic... (Score:4, Insightful)
So his 'character' has a better peripheral vision because he has a widescreen monitor?
Imagine a gamer with a great video card and monitor. With the better resolution and size he can make out objects that are further away. Shouldn't all games be restricted to 640x480 and at a certain size on the screen, otherwise some characters can see further and in better detail than others. Some people might have two monitors allowing them to reference a map, IM with other players, or view cheats at the same time as the game. Games need to detect and turn off multiple monitors. Also, some gamers use joysticks and trackball setups that allow them to click buttons faster. Games should only support standard keyboards and mice; lest some characters have better reaction times than others.
You could argue this for all sorts of hardware, but it does not really matter. People who spend more on the best hardware and connection will gain some slight advantage. That's life. In any case failing to deal with widescreen monitors and distorting the picture is pathetic. I thought all games checked for this and at worst put some black bars on the right and left, like the ones at the top and bottom for widescreen movies on a standard TV.
Re:Kind of offtopic... (Score:1)
Re:Kind of offtopic... (Score:2)
But widescreen monitors just aren't the majority of monitors being bought.
You're right and at the same time, not quite right. You see this article is for/by people running Macs and most Macs have widescreen displays. Aside from ibooks, I'm not even sure Apple sells any non-widescreen systems. So current Mac users (the most likely users of bootcamp) Are used to everything, including games dealing with widescreen. I've never run a game under OS X that did not handle widescreen, that I recall. It seems lik
Re:Kind of offtopic... (Score:1)
Re:Kind of offtopic... (Score:2)
Re:Kind of offtopic... (Score:2)
If it's about fairness, then everyone should be given free top-of-the-line PCs and high-speed internet connections. That, or you force everyone down to the lowest common denominator framerate, resolution and bandwidth. Because frames per second is an advantage in first-person shooters and people have varying qualities of hardware and network connections, they're unfair to begin with.
Worryin
Re:Kind of offtopic... (Score:2)
One simple solution that solves the whole thing. Server side settings.
The server can determine the max resolution, the resolution types and pretty much every other setting anyone is linking up with. As long as you program that in to the interface for online gaming there should be no limits on how great you can make things look.
Re:Its unfair since the dawn of internet gaming... (Score:2)
Having a laser mouse vs the old style mouses is unfair.
Having a computer that can run the game at 60fps vs a pos machine that runs it at 12fps is unfair.
Having a 21" monitor playing against a kid with a 15" is unfair. (Mostly because the 21" guy can see better with his eyes whil ethe 15" is having to look at less detail and may not see the other person move).
So computer gaming is all unfair like this... Otherwise I suggest a console. Or maybe
Re:Kind of offtopic... (Score:1)
Basically the field of view angle determines how much you see, not the size of your screen.
Re:Kind of offtopic... (Score:1)
Ummm...no. (Score:1)
Setting aside the hardware envy, game creators do need to take into account that not all screens are created equal anymore. Even without extending field of view to give an "unfair" adva
I understand that running Windows on a Mac ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I understand that running Windows on a Mac ... (Score:2)
Yeah, they look cooler, but why would anyone expect that they would bench/perform differently from a generic white box with the same specs?
The debate about whether Apple or typical PC laptop has raged for a decade. The debate about OS X versus Windows for speed has not slacked either. Now, we can actually benchmark them. They seem to be benchmarking about the same as the top of the line PCs. This is good news for Apple customers, since it means they are functional using both systems, especially for game
Re:I understand that running Windows on a Mac ... (Score:1)
Re:I understand that running Windows on a Mac ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I understand that running Windows on a Mac ... (Score:2)
Re:I understand that running Windows on a Mac ... (Score:1)
Oblivion on iMac (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not a hardware issue? (Score:3, Insightful)
Notebooks don't have on screen displays for LCD settings.
But ignoring that, Apple's hardware and OS properly support their displays, making the OSD controls you mention unnecessary.
In other words, you're asking why Apple doesn't have kludgey workarounds for a problem that doesn't exist on the Mac. It's not Apple's fault for not inclu
Re:Not a hardware issue? (Score:2)
You may not be familiar with how Window's works. You see third party companies make the hardware - not Microsoft. ATI in this case makes the video chip in the MacBook Pro. So first stop for blame should be ATI for not implementing this. Although as the other poster noted, it is in fact implemented in the ATI video driver. Now if the game manufacturer for whatever reason decides not to support wid
Re:Not a hardware issue? (Score:2)
How is that different with Mac OS? ATI still makes the card, either way.
So first stop for blame should be ATI for not implementing this.
No, first stop for blame is Windows for not taking care of this sort of thing. This is exactly what OS's are supposed to do.
So you've clearly missed my point. It's this sort of thing that make Macs "just work". If MS doesn't take the initiative to make W
Re:Not a hardware issue? (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple supports a small subsection of hardware. Windows runs on a vast selection of hardware. I don't see this as being particularly comparable.
And I really wish you would tell the Mac users at my office that I support that it "just works" because they call me for support when it "just isn't working".
I use and work with OS X. It's a decent OS but it has it's problems and this bullshit "it just works" crap is getting seriously tired. It's
Re:Not a hardware issue? (Score:2)
Because you aren't paying attention. It has nothing to do with the video driver, and everything to do with what services the OS provides.
It's not the driver's job to decide whether or not to scale the video. It's the OS's job to tell the driver what to do (and, optionally, the application's job to ask the OS to scale or not). Windows, apparently, doesn't do that. But
Re:Not a hardware issue? (Score:3, Interesting)
So let me get this straight - it's the OS's responsibility to tell the underlying hardware what features it has? Even though the hardware may or may not support the feature? I be to differ. The driver on Windows exposes the hardware capabilities of the device to the operating system. So you don't have a situation where
Re:Not a hardware issue? (Score:2)
So let me get this straight - it's the OS's responsibility to tell the underlying hardware what features it has?
No. You even quoted me and got it wrong. I didn't say the OS should tell the hardware what it can do, but what to do.
You keep ignoring this video card issue as a perfect example. The card supports scaling. Mac OS can tell it to scale. Whether or not Windows can tell it to, it cl
Re:Not a hardware issue? (Score:2)
Re:Not a hardware issue? (Score:2)
You adding conditions to the phrase are attempting to reinvent the language.
No, I'm not. There is no requirement in the English language that all phrases must be absolutely and unqualifiedly true.
OK, your initial reaction is to take the phrase as an absolute and unqualified statement. You're not omniscient, and the language isn't perfect, so we'r
Re:Not a hardware issue? (Score:2)
Just like calling the Mac "insanely great" when some aspects were "insanely stupid" (the extension debacle in OS 9 and lower comes to mind).
The term is bandied about so much it's just ridiculous. You paint a magical picture of the perfect operating system, when it has plenty of issues. I'm not, nor have I been arguing Windows is better, just that
Re:Not a hardware issue? (Score:2)
That's called a "straw man". It's not an argument I'm making (I've pointed this out many times), yet you keep trotting it out and skewering it, and pretending like you've just defeated my argument. You haven't. How many times do I have to say, "OS X isn't perfect" before you stop saying "aha, but don't you know? OS X isn't perfect! I bet you didn't know that!!"?
you think it's a valid "attribute" of an operating system,
Re:Not a hardware issue? (Score:2)
Re:Not a hardware issue? (Score:2)
An intelligent OS should be able to query the driver to find out if it supports a feature. If it does, it uses it, if it doesn't, and the feature is reasonable to implement in software, it should do that, entirely transparently to the user and the application. Windows clearly did not do this at all."
Oh yeah and one question regarding
Re:Not a hardware issue? (Score:2)
Sometimes, yes, that's exactly what happens. For a game that's hard-coded to 4:3, for whatever reason, it's my experience that OS X will do a sort of "letterboxing", except that the black bars are on the either side of the game, so that the game
Re:Not a hardware issue? (Score:1)
Your RIGHT!!
AFTER Windows has checked the drivers to see what its supposed to be able to support.
If the driver says it can support YxZ rez then windows allows you to select YxZ rez (for games blame the makers), if not then how the hell is windows supposed to know .. magic! .. little pixies!
With a Mac it will do the same thing but as the hardware is so tight with the OS they wil
Re:Not a hardware issue? (Score:2)
No, there are Windows drivers for all the video cards in all the Intel Macs.
The reason why it 'just works' is because the HW is made to Mac standards not the million and 1 different HW setups for windows - this is why windows drivers are important.
Drivers are important for the Mac, as well. Mac OS X currently supports a large number of ATI and Nvid
Re:Not a hardware issue? (Score:3, Interesting)
City of Heroes/Villains on Boot Camp (Score:2)
widescreen gaming (Score:5, Informative)
Re:widescreen gaming (Score:2)
Re:widescreen gaming (Score:2)
In the Control Panel of both Nvidia and ATI drivers, there is a setting that will allow a 1024*768 game to run with the other pixels blocked out. The other 256*256 pixels become a border around the actual game. That way, everything looks OK and not all stretched out.
This is very useful considering most LCDs are 1280*1024 and most games are designed to play at *real* resolutions; i.e. 1280*960.
...and that's with an underclocked GPU (Score:3, Interesting)
Now you just need some blue neon - and maybe a carbon fiber spoiler on top - to give your iMac that Real Ultimate (gaming) Power! (tm)
Re:...and that's with an underclocked GPU (Score:1)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Half-Life 2 (Score:4, Informative)
http://cabel.name/ [cabel.name]
(With apologies to his hosting provider.)
Re:Half-Life 2 (Score:2)
What is a die-hard linux person to think? (Score:3, Funny)
OS X gaming largely unaffected... (Score:3, Insightful)
So the question is, would enough people keep using native OS X apps, thereby maintaining that profitability? I'd say yes, and I'd also say that Boot Camp really won't have much of an overall effect beyond increasing the Mac's market share slightly (and only slightly, because setting up dual-booting is an extra cost in terms of the XP license and the time involved to make it happen); Boot Camp is aimed at people for whom Windows is the exception, not the rule - i.e. people that always use native OS X apps if they're available. I honestly don't see this radically changing anything.
Re:OS X gaming largely unaffected... (Score:1)
Re:OS X gaming largely unaffected... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:OS X gaming largely unaffected... (Score:2)
Not true. If they can make MORE profit by doing something else, they will shut it down in a flash. This happens all the time in software and other things. Just because your 50 developers can make a small profit on Product A, doesn't mean you'll keep them going on that - make Product B and it can make a huge profit with the same 50 developers.
I haven't tried it, but... (Score:2)
The Wide-screen gaming forum [widescreen...gforum.com] has tons of simple fixes for quite a few games.
The benchmark I want to see..... (Score:2, Insightful)
But so far no-one seems to have gotten around to benchmarking the Intel Mac running a cross platform game under both Windows and OSX.
I just don't understand that. Is it possible that OSX would score too highly and the Apple crowd don't want
Widescreen Support? (Score:1)