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Posted Sep 1, 2007 12:43 by Charles D. Listed in: Interviews, Gaming Tags: Microsoft, Star Wars, Intel
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Apple, the company responsible for the Mac - Image 1Fighting a war on a different front, two factions have always been at each other's necks. On one side, we have the superpower called Microsoft, and across the border we have the alliance called Apple. Whichever side you root for doesn't change the fact that they've been delivering top quality games and gadgets for everyone throughout the years.

The Wire has had a chance to talk to Glenda Adams, director of development for Aspyr Games, a company responsible for bringing PC games such as The Sims 2 and Star Wars: Empire at War to the Mac. She talks about the perks and quirks of porting games from one system to another.

While the most difficult thing for making games for the Mac has always been the smaller market, her love and background with the Mac has always prompted her to go for this line compared to any alternatives.

Adams states that the difficulty in converting a PC game to the Mac isn't as hard as people think. The bulk of the work really relies on optimizing, debugging and finishing all the small details to make it compatible for the Mac is what takes up the most time. Especially now that the integration of Intel chips for the Mac has resolved more compatibility issues when converting games.

When asked about the pros of the Mac over the PC gaming-wise, she had this to say:

Installing games on the Mac is always easier than Windows, I think. And because Apple has tighter control over hardware, we have a much better chance to test and optimize our Mac games for all the hardware we support than on the PC. There are so many combinations of motherboards, sound cards, video cards, and peripherals on the PC that it can be a mess for a developer to make sure their game works on most configs.


Well, PC or Mac, it doesn't really matter in the end just as long as they deliver to us more goods to keep the gamer in us happy.

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   by Oraichu - 2007-09-01
 » Windows better for gaming.

I'm on a MacBook Pro 2.4ghz, and can easily say that windows is alot better for gaming(Windows XP, in my case).

Not only is the game libary ALOOOOT better, but the games also run better. I downloaded and tried Doom 3 demo on Mac, just as a test to compare with my Doom 3 on Windows. With EVERYTHING on full, in ran at 60+ FPS in Windows, and on Mac is was acctually lagging alot... I was dissapointed and had made up my mind about it.

I guess this is caused by Windows using Directx and Mac using OpenGL.

But who cares if Windows is better for gaming anymore(of the Mac users), Mac got bootcamp to make Windows work anyways. ;) I can see gaming as an arguement towards Mac-computers before, but not anymore.

... Even BioShock is running smooth at full graphics on my MBP ;)

   Re: lol (Unregistered) - 2007-09-01
 » windows rulez for gamez

people need to realise that computers are computer there is no difference hardware wise between mac and pc in fact i have a dual raid scsi amd 64 x2 5000+ processor and i never seen a mac as fast as my pc and i spent way less
now the one thing that makes macs and pc different is operating system sure the mac os is secure and so wonderfull so wonderfull you get stuck with lame games like star wars and sims2 and not to mention sonic foundry acid doesnt work with mac nuendo doesnt work on mac my m-audio soundcard(firewire solo) has better support on windows and mac cant play gta3 gta vice city, gta san andreas bioshock etc. . . .which to me are some of the best games ever madewhen you put all that together i have to reason to buy a mac unless one day i get stupid and decide to spend more on a inferior machine no matter what apple does Bill Gates (not even the whole of microsoft just him alone) is the thorn in steve jobs eye




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