I finally have time to try Portal on my Mac and their servers are hammered. Oh well!
It's still a great deal for anyone that hasn't bought it. Portal's free right now.
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I finally have time to try Portal on my Mac and their servers are hammered. Oh well!
It's still a great deal for anyone that hasn't bought it. Portal's free right now.
Wow, steam is now supporting mac. If you buy a game on Windows, you also get the mac version and vice versa. Very nice!
I just gave Portal a spin on a new 13" MacBook Pro (NVIDIA 320M integrated chip). It runs pretty damn well. I was incredibly surprised. It's completely playable at mostly high settings and even a little AA and AF. I didn't entirely believe Valve when they said they were going to make the Mac a first rate platform.Quote:
Originally Posted by Timman_24
I'm not sure I understand why unless Valve knows something everyone else doesn't. The Mac audience is so small, and it must be incredibly expensive to maintain an OpenGL branch and a DirectX branch of source and Steam.
I don't know, maybe Mac has something to do with it such as supporting Valve's development or at least offsetting some of the costs. I think for quite a few people, games make them stick to the PC. If Valve starts a trend with this the Mac audience could grow rather fast.
I thought all native Valve properties were native OpenGL?Quote:
Originally Posted by ImaNihilist
Or is that Id? I can never remember.
That's Id. Valve pushed the envelope with DX9 development when they released HL2, placing them at the top of the DirectX heap for years.Quote:
Originally Posted by James
OpenGL is years behind DirectX in features, I can't imagine serious developers selecting it at this time.
Not true. OpenGL is pretty much lock-step with DirectX in terms of features. OpenGL is seriously behind in documentation, particularly with respect to gaming.Quote:
Originally Posted by Geforce255
You can get Crysis-level graphics with OpenGL, no problem. Just look at RAGE. You're just going to have a lot harder time finding the people who can do it.
I think this will be good for the PS3. I'm pretty sure that all the games made for it uses OpenGL, so this will hopefully make more games available to port over.
I did get to try it on the same similar setup. I haven't tried Portal on my 9400m yet, but I played it on my brother's 320m macbook pro and it ran perfectly fine. I'm starting to wish I bought Civ 4 now, that would have been fun to play on a macbook pro while on a road trip or something.
From what I've read, OpenGL remains at the DX9 level.Quote:
Originally Posted by ImaNihilist
Rage is still vapor ware.Quote:
You can get Crysis-level graphics with OpenGL, no problem. Just look at RAGE.
What have you read? The wiki is quite good in explaining the actual differences: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...L_and_Direct3DQuote:
Originally Posted by Geforce255
DirectX is just more programmer friendly for game developers. It's not necessarily "better."
And RAGE isn't vaporware. It's not really supposed to be a game. ID makes both games AND engines. They license the engines, and make buckets of money. The games they make are more demos these days than anything else. Their B2B model is much stronger than their B2C model.
And having just played the OpenGL of Portal on a Mac, I'd have to say that there is really no distinguishable difference at all between the two.
I'm talking about features in DX11 which are not there in OGL.Quote:
Originally Posted by ImaNihilist
Tessellation is one of the more important ones. Per Sample shaders, a whole list of advancements not found in the OpenGL API.
Yes, I know that the upcoming 4.0 is supposed to close the gap some, but the reality is that OGL is sliding more into the CAD only world, a slide that is bound to continue.
Announced in what, 2006? Now they're saying 2011.Quote:
And RAGE isn't vaporware.
Seems like vapor to me. Don't get me wrong, I hope they release it, but I'm not holding my breath.
Do you know of any games based on the engine?Quote:
It's not really supposed to be a game. ID makes both games AND engines. They license the engines, and make buckets of money.
Portal is a DX9 game.Quote:
And having just played the OpenGL of Portal on a Mac, I'd have to say that there is really no distinguishable difference at all between the two.
Thanks for mentioning this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Farmer_BOB
On the new engine? No. But do you have any idea how many games were based on the Quake 3 engine (before it was OSS)? A lot. They still bring in $$ because of that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Geforce255
Wow...seems like the thread has de-railed big time.
I'm pretty sure they've been showing new stuff for it every year since the announcement. I'll bet they even have it playable at QuakeCon this year.Quote:
Originally Posted by Geforce255
Portal is free until May 24th. If you do not have it get it now.
Certainly. Quake 3 was the most versatile engine going. Id is a great company that has made great products. I'm just saying that at this moment, Rage is vaporware, both as a game and an engine.Quote:
Originally Posted by ImaNihilist
I think that Id isn't very motivated, precisely because of their past success. Frankly, they don't need the money. I hope they finish at least the engine, I really do. But Rage has a strangely Duke Nukem feel to it.
Rage is anything but vaporware. It's been demoed at numerous places including Quakecon, and there's a number of previews and media. I even attended a session at Quakecon that showed off their tools and went through some engine features. It's certainly a long development cycle, but it was announced on August 2nd, 2007 so it's not that old.
Agh, forgot to post this weekend:
Tropico 3 for $7.50
Torchlight for $9.99
Been thinking about Torchlight. Is it good?
Yes.Quote:
Originally Posted by ImaNihilist
It is good for a few hours and then it gets very repetitive. I got to the 30's in levels in the dungeons and got bored.
That's how I felt about the game as well. I had fun with it for about one evening, then I never played again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Timman_24
I spent a couple dozen hours with it. It's very fun but it does get repetitive.
Sega Week on Steam this week, which means apart from the Total War games, it will be a regular parade of crap.
In better news, Impulse has Sins of a Solar Empire, Galactic Civilization II Ultimate Edition, and Demigod for $10 each. I cant speak for Demigod, but Sins and GalCivII are amazing.