Quake=LAME, check out UNREAL
Michael M. Eilers
the flames, but hey--this is usenet. You want a class act, get on the
WELL.
Anyway, if any of you Quakeaholics haven't seen UNREAL yet then prepare to
drown the drool-o-meter--this game is *sick.* It's just not right. It just
wasn't meant for human trespass. It makes Quake look like (insert lame 2-D
black-and-white early 80's game here). I'm really not kidding.
www.epicgames.com is the place to see.
Check out the screenshots. Check out of the eyeball clinic afterwards,
becuase yours are gonna jump out and smack the screen--mine did.
--there's just one catch: No mention of a Macintosh version.
That's where you come in.
Check out the page, cruise to Dr. Sleep's page
<http://www.pennet.com/drsleep/unreal.htm> and then hit that "mailto" link
as hard as you can. Tell Epic MegaGames in the strongest possible terms
that you want UNREAL for the Macintosh. But be polite--And begging is
definitely a Windows 95 thing to do.
michael
Bruce Burkhalter
eil...@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu (Michael M. Eilers) wrote:
> Anyway, if any of you Quakeaholics haven't seen UNREAL yet then prepare to
> drown the drool-o-meter--this game is *sick.* It's just not right. It just
> wasn't meant for human trespass. It makes Quake look like (insert lame 2-D
> black-and-white early 80's game here). I'm really not kidding.
Yeah but gameplay is the issue. I think most people like the way Quake
looks but they are dissappointed that the gameplay is very similar to
Doom. Is UNREAL just a prettier Quake with Doom gameplay? We will have
to wait for the demo which I am looking forward to.
BTW, nice subject line. :)
Bruce Burkhalter
Lion Entertainment
che...@eden.com
Rishi Gupta
Michael M. Eilers (eil...@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu) writes:
> --there's just one catch: No mention of a Macintosh version.
>
> That's where you come in.
Post this message on Evangelist. Epic will most likely notice the tens of
thousands of e-mails they get.
--
Rishi Gupta: risg...@cyberus.ca http://www.cyberus.ca/~risgupta/
Visit my Mac Wing Commander IV Page:
http://www.cyberus.ca/~risgupta/macwciv
Tom Summerall
In article <eilersm-2806...@192.0.2.1> Michael M. Eilers,
eil...@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu writes:
>Check out the screenshots. Check out of the eyeball clinic afterwards,
>becuase yours are gonna jump out and smack the screen--mine did.
>
>
I wrote them asking about a Mac version about a month ago and received
the following reply:
>>There are no plans at this time for porting any of our games to
>>Macintosh format. The decision for the format that we use is made by
>>the administration, and I don't see it being changed anytime in the
>>near future. Sorry.
>>
>>=========================================================
>>David Turner http://www/epicgames.com/
>>Epic MegaGames ftp://ftp.epicgames.com/
>>Technical Support Phone (301)983-9771
>>=========================================================
Maybe they need to get deluged with requests. I don't know, but I do know
that unreal looks awesome.
Edouard Poor
che...@eden.com (Bruce Burkhalter) writes:
>In article <eilersm-2806...@192.0.2.1>,
>eil...@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu (Michael M. Eilers) wrote:
>> Anyway, if any of you Quakeaholics haven't seen UNREAL yet then prepare to
>> drown the drool-o-meter--this game is *sick.* It's just not right. It just
>> wasn't meant for human trespass. It makes Quake look like (insert lame 2-D
>> black-and-white early 80's game here). I'm really not kidding.
>
>Yeah but gameplay is the issue. I think most people like the way Quake
>looks but they are dissappointed that the gameplay is very similar to
>Doom. Is UNREAL just a prettier Quake with Doom gameplay? We will have
>to wait for the demo which I am looking forward to.
Hmmm, the UNREAL screenshots on Epic's web site do look nice, but not
that much different from Quake IMHO. It was hard to tell, but perhaps
they weren't 256 colour one like Quake? I seem to remeber reading that
Dark Forces II will be thousands of colours (anyone confirm that?), and
I think it will make a big difference. Hell, Marathon looks great in
millions of colours, it's just that it's a little slow at times :-)
Very nice artwork - great, great textures from those limited screenshots.
My only (very slight) disappointment with Quake was the "look'n'feel"
was too much like DOOM. I think they should have hired in some new
artists to freshen up the decor a little bit. Dark Forces had a good
visual identity, but then it was able to leverage off Lucas's existing
intellectual property works. Nothing like a film budget to give you
some well done set design you can re-use 15 years later in your
computer games. George certainly was looking ahead :-)
As for gameplay, yes, Quake definately had that DOOM feel to it, but
that's OK by me - I think the gameplay in DOOM was very well tuned.
Plus ID is hardly going to change a hugely succsessful winning formula.
The shotgun is fun, and blowing things into little peices with the
grenade launcher thing is a hoot.
What are the alternatives though? Hexen style combat? System Shock was
quite nice-- A Quake-like game that allows all the running, jumping,
leaning, crawling, etc movement of the SS engine would be nice.
My personal favourite would be the sort of combat you get it the
Kung-Fu action games on the consoles - you control where the
character goes in a Quake environment, and for "interaction" with
the bad guys, or other players, you have a series of flashy moves,
both hand-to-hand, as well as gunplay. I'd love to dive roll though a
door in one of those games and spring back up firing two-handed
"John Woo" style... These games simply *must* have an external view
(cinematic-style, or maybe just even chase plane style).
My 2 cents, which according to the latest exchange rate is probably worth
about 1.5 cents to you.
Cheers,
Edouard.
Mark Rein (Epic)
Edouard,
>Hmmm, the UNREAL screenshots on Epic's web site do look nice, but not
>that much different from Quake IMHO. It was hard to tell, but perhaps
>they weren't 256 colour one like Quake?
Unreal is designed for Pentium. The screen shots on the first Unreal
web page are all 8 bit - the screen shots on the second page are all
24bit. To get 24bit you need a Pentium Processor with MMX technology
which are coming out this fall.
A Mac version of Unreal is possible but there are no specific plans
for doing one at this point in time. A lot will depend on who is the
retail publisher for Unreal which hasn't been finalized yet.
Mark Rein,
Epic MegaGames.
Check out the Epic Web Site at http://www.epicgames.com or
GO EPIC on CompuServe to visit our forum or download our latest
shareware games via FTP at ftp.uwp.edu in /pub/games/epic
James Walter
>A Mac version of Unreal is possible but there are no specific plans
>for doing one at this point in time. A lot will depend on who is the
>retail publisher for Unreal which hasn't been finalized yet.
Mark, is there ANY chance at all that UNREAL will come to mac?
Eric Kornblum
In article <AE12E7A...@195.60.5.25>, "Spammer"
<spa...@agnew.powernet.co.uk> wrote:
> Hire Lion for the port.
>
> Use Quickdraw 3D RAVE so that 3D cards will accelerate the game
> automagically.
>
> Port soon.
I agree. Despite what somebody else posted, I thought Lion did a great job
with the port of Doom. It's still my favorite game and performs
beautifully.
DEFINITELY USE QD3D! We need more games to support this so that more
people will buy the boards. It makes a huge difference with Havoc, and
I'ld love to see some more games using it.
The sooner the better :)
Nathaniel Scheckler
In article <4sggqk$d...@news.inforamp.net> Mark Rein, mr...@inforamp.net
writes:
>A Mac version of Unreal is possible but there are no specific plans
>for doing one at this point in time.
Holy shit! Does this mean that Epic is finally considering doing Mac
ports? Damn, that would be great! One of my favorite games on my old
486SX25 is Jazz Jackrabbit (Jazz is one of the main reasons that pile of
junk is still wasting space on my desk). If anybody from Epic is reading
this, I can tell you right now that if you did good quality ports of
games like Jazz, Jazz 2, Unreal, etc., they would sell like hotcakes!!
Also, since Jazz 2 and Unreal are for Win95, wouldn't that make them
easier to port to Mac than a DOS game? Please, Epic, just port Jazz and
Jazz 2 and you will be like unto gods in my eyes!! Heh, so maybe I'm
getting a little carried away, but I think you understand my sentiments.
Nathaniel Scheckler
Spammer
Hire Lion for the port.
Use Quickdraw 3D RAVE so that 3D cards will accelerate the game
automagically.
Port soon.
Sam
---
Roadkill has its seasons, just like anything
It's possums in the autum, and it's farm cats in the spring.
- Tom Waits "Murder in the Red Barn"
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Rishi Gupta
Nathaniel Scheckler wrote:
> Ahhhh!! No! I realize I'll probably get a lot of nasty comments for
> saying this, but not Lion! No offense intended to anyone, but I
> personally think that Lion did a shitty half-ass job porting Doom. I
> kind of like Doom on my PC, but when I tried it on my Mac, it sucked
> _hard_. Don't go with Presage either, their port of Hexen was pretty bad
> as well. If Epic ports, they should do it themselves. I _hate_ it when
> companies license someone else to do a port, ones that are done in-house
> are usually much better quality. I realize there are some exceptions to
> this, so everyone save your flames, please.
Doom II wasn't a bad port. The only problem I found was that the game
didn't run as fast as it could have but it still ran fast enough.
Lion has done progressively better ports. Look at Wing Commander IV,
probably the best port I've ever seen (along with Dark Forces).
--
Rishi Gupta: risg...@cyberus.ca
Visit my Mac Wing Commander IV Page at
http://www.cyberus.ca/~risgupta/macwciv
(last updated July 17)
Nathaniel Scheckler
In article <AE12E7A...@195.60.5.25> Spammer,
Ahhhh!! No! I realize I'll probably get a lot of nasty comments for
saying this, but not Lion! No offense intended to anyone, but I
personally think that Lion did a shitty half-ass job porting Doom. I
kind of like Doom on my PC, but when I tried it on my Mac, it sucked
_hard_. Don't go with Presage either, their port of Hexen was pretty bad
as well. If Epic ports, they should do it themselves. I _hate_ it when
companies license someone else to do a port, ones that are done in-house
are usually much better quality. I realize there are some exceptions to
this, so everyone save your flames, please.
Nathaniel Scheckler
Douglas Nonast
Bruce Burkhalter (che...@eden.com) wrote:
: In article <4sk6fv$k...@solaris.cc.vt.edu>, Nathaniel Scheckler
: <nsc...@vt.edu> wrote:
: > Ahhhh!! No! I realize I'll probably get a lot of nasty comments for
: > saying this, but not Lion! No offense intended to anyone, but I
[snip]
: Sorry you didn't like the Doom port. I think we did a pretty good job. I
: don't think it was "half assed" in any respect. Here is the quick mea
[snip]
You know, I usually don't get into these kind of discussions, but I
really have to stick up for Lion on this one. Their port of Doom was
very good considering the difficulties involved in porting from the
Wintel architecture to the 68k/powerpc, and it was obvious that they
learned from their mistakes on that one in their conversion of Doom2.
THAT port was as close to the original as you could ask, and in fact
had some nice improvements (like the aforementioned hi-res mode).
No, I don't work for Lion, but I don't see how anyone could be unhappy
with the quality of their ports. I haven't yet seen their WC games, but
after hearing the positive reports about them I'll definately pick them
up.
-Doug
--
Doug Nonast
dno...@netcom.com
"All the nightmares came today
And it looks as though they're here to stay." -David Bowie
Bruce Burkhalter
> In article <AE12E7A...@195.60.5.25> Spammer,
> spa...@agnew.powernet.co.uk writes:
> >Hire Lion for the port.
>
> Ahhhh!! No! I realize I'll probably get a lot of nasty comments for
> saying this, but not Lion! No offense intended to anyone, but I
> personally think that Lion did a shitty half-ass job porting Doom. I
> kind of like Doom on my PC, but when I tried it on my Mac, it sucked
> _hard_. Don't go with Presage either, their port of Hexen was pretty bad
> as well. If Epic ports, they should do it themselves. I _hate_ it when
> companies license someone else to do a port, ones that are done in-house
> are usually much better quality. I realize there are some exceptions to
> this, so everyone save your flames, please.
> Nathaniel Scheckler
Sorry you didn't like the Doom port. I think we did a pretty good job. I
don't think it was "half assed" in any respect. Here is the quick mea
culpa:
1. We should have done a better keyboard config dialog.
2. The multiplayer and single-player dialogs were done that way because
the publisher wanted it that way. We didn't.
3. We fixed the jerky motion with version 1.0.3.
Good things:
1. Hi-res graphics.
2. Can network with the PC version.
That said, I am very happy with our job on Wing Commander III and IV
(especially IV).
I don't agree with your statement that outside companies do a worse job
than the original developer. Unless it is Lucas or MacPlay (and probably
somebody else I am forgetting), most companies have an outside company do
the port. The main problem is that the original developer usually doesn't
have the talent or knowledge of the Mac to do a good job. It is far
easier to find a company that specializes in porting to the Mac and have
them do it. To do a good port you have to know the Mac and know what
people like and expect in a Mac game. You can't just hire a Mac
programmer and assume that you will get a good port. I would say the same
goes for id.
What games that have been done inhouse do you like (other than ones by
Lucas or MacPlay)?
Thunderbolt
Nathaniel Scheckler wrote:
>
> In article <AE12E7A...@195.60.5.25> Spammer,
> spa...@agnew.powernet.co.uk writes:
> >Hire Lion for the port.
>
> Ahhhh!! No! I realize I'll probably get a lot of nasty comments for
> saying this, but not Lion! No offense intended to anyone, but I
> personally think that Lion did a shitty half-ass job porting Doom.
Well, although the Doom II port may not have been up to par, Lion has
made a LOT of progress since then. Namely, Wing Commander IV. If they
can make this game run just like the PC (ALMOST) on a Mac, they caould
certainly do it for Unreal.
Personally, If I was working at Lion, I'd be bugging the makers to let
me do the port instead of waiting for them to contact me =)
-Thunderbolt
Rishi Gupta
Nathaniel Scheckler wrote:
>
> In article <cheese-1807...@net-3-106.austin.eden.com> Bruce
> Burkhalter, che...@eden.com writes:
> >What games that have been done inhouse do you like (other than ones by
> >Lucas or MacPlay)?
>
Hehe...guess my reputation has been established. :-)
> Anyway, I was in fact mostly thinking of LucasArts and MacPlay, since
> those are two of the biggest Mac companies, and the only port from either
> of those two that I hated was Wolf3D. These companies are prime examples
> of in-house quality, as they managed to port some great PC games
> (Descent, DF, X-Wing, etc.) to Mac, retaining speed while adding
> higher-res graphics.
Actually, Parallax did the port of Descent (in house). MacPlay was only
the distrubutor (just as well, don't think Parallax knows how to market
Mac stuff). I'd have to say that Descent (2 especially) was a good
port, especially for a company doing their first game. I can't think of
any other in-house ports that I liked.
Warcraft 1 and 2 (judging from the demo) stand out as good ports but
they weren't inhouse. I'd have to say that if a company has little or
no experience with the Mac market, get an outside company to do the
port and the distributing. IMHO Origin getting Lion to do the port was
good, but distributing it themselves was no good. Bungie is itching to
distribute some more games and I don't think MacPlay would mind. At
least their games would sell better and we'd have a better chance of
getting future Wing Commander games like, say, Privateer the Darkening
(hint hint).
Although here are some ports I *didn't* like:
Hexen by Presage (dog slow)
Flight Unlimited by Looking Glass Technologies (dog slow)
System Shock by Looking Glass Technologies (dog slow, do I see a trend?)
StarTrek 25th Anniversary by MacPlay (blocky graphics)
Super Wing Commander by Lion (why did this run slowly on a PowerMac?)
Bruce Burkhalter
In article <4smn0v$k...@solaris.cc.vt.edu>, Nathaniel Scheckler
<nsc...@vt.edu> wrote:
> Heh. I just _knew_ this would draw comments from both you and Rishi. :-)
Don't yank my chain. :)
> Anyway, I was in fact mostly thinking of LucasArts and MacPlay, since
> those are two of the biggest Mac companies, and the only port from either
> of those two that I hated was Wolf3D. These companies are prime examples
> of in-house quality, as they managed to port some great PC games
> (Descent, DF, X-Wing, etc.) to Mac, retaining speed while adding
> higher-res graphics. IMO, in-house porting is better, because there is
> tighter control over the product and it is easier for them to know what
> they're aiming for. Don't get me wrong, I think Lion did a good job on
> WC3 and WC4, but I still hate MacDoom (it was a lot better than MacHexen,
I still disagree that in-house porting is inherently better. It certainly
*can* be but it just depends on the company. Look at Sierra Online. They
are a good game company but their Mac ports haven't been that great. How
much does the company care about the Mac product? Do they have a so-so
Mac programmer or a committed team that really cares about the Mac?
> though). Besides, Epic is one of the best game companies around. Why
> shouldn't they do their own ports, if they decide to port at all?
Because they probably don't have any Mac people or programmers. I think
that is the key to doing a good port. People who know the Mac and love
it. It would be far easier for them to hire a company like Lion or
Presage to do it for them. They don't hire a bunch of people to start a
Mac group (who may not have anything to do once the port is finished).
If Epic has no Mac programmers and everyone there is a PC person (I'm not
saying they are, just "what if") why do you think they could do a better
job than Lion, Presage, etc.? Unless they have a Mac person, how do they
know what they are aiming for?
There are several companies that do their own ports and do a good job.
There are several companies that do their own ports and haven't a good job.
There are several companies that do ports for other companies that do a
good job.
There are several companies that do ports for other companies that haven't
done a good job.
Nathaniel Scheckler
In article <cheese-1807...@net-3-106.austin.eden.com> Bruce
Burkhalter, che...@eden.com writes:
>What games that have been done inhouse do you like (other than ones by
>Lucas or MacPlay)?
Heh. I just _knew_ this would draw comments from both you and Rishi. :-)
Anyway, I was in fact mostly thinking of LucasArts and MacPlay, since
those are two of the biggest Mac companies, and the only port from either
of those two that I hated was Wolf3D. These companies are prime examples
of in-house quality, as they managed to port some great PC games
(Descent, DF, X-Wing, etc.) to Mac, retaining speed while adding
higher-res graphics. IMO, in-house porting is better, because there is
tighter control over the product and it is easier for them to know what
they're aiming for. Don't get me wrong, I think Lion did a good job on
WC3 and WC4, but I still hate MacDoom (it was a lot better than MacHexen,
though). Besides, Epic is one of the best game companies around. Why
shouldn't they do their own ports, if they decide to port at all?
Nathaniel Scheckler
Chris Butcher (452 453 455 470)
In article <4sk6fv$k...@solaris.cc.vt.edu> Nathaniel Scheckler
> In article <AE12E7A...@195.60.5.25> Spammer,
> spa...@agnew.powernet.co.uk writes:
> >Hire Lion for the port.
>
> Ahhhh!! No! I realize I'll probably get a lot of nasty comments for
> saying this, but not Lion! No offense intended to anyone, but I
> kind of like Doom on my PC, but when I tried it on my Mac, it sucked
> _hard_. Don't go with Presage either, their port of Hexen was pretty
bad
> as well. If Epic ports, they should do it themselves. I _hate_ it when
> companies license someone else to do a port, ones that are done in-house
> are usually much better quality. I realize there are some exceptions to
> this, so everyone save your flames, please.
> Nathaniel Scheckler
Lion's and Presage's are good ports. The trouble that you have is that
they tried to make a normal, nice Mac application. Unlike Marathon, which
trashes the MacOS (much like AmigaDOS used to be, often) in order to go
faster.
As we've seen, a *lot* in Mac games programming depends on your attitude
to the OS.
Rob Berkowitz
In article <dnonastD...@netcom.com>, dno...@netcom.com (Douglas
Nonast) wrote:
> Bruce Burkhalter (che...@eden.com) wrote:
> : In article <4sk6fv$k...@solaris.cc.vt.edu>, Nathaniel Scheckler
> : <nsc...@vt.edu> wrote:
>
> : > Ahhhh!! No! I realize I'll probably get a lot of nasty comments for
> : > saying this, but not Lion! No offense intended to anyone, but I
> [snip]
>
> : Sorry you didn't like the Doom port. I think we did a pretty good job. I
> : don't think it was "half assed" in any respect. Here is the quick mea
> [snip]
>
> You know, I usually don't get into these kind of discussions, but I
> really have to stick up for Lion on this one. Their port of Doom was
> very good considering the difficulties involved in porting from the
> Wintel architecture to the 68k/powerpc, and it was obvious that they
> learned from their mistakes on that one in their conversion of Doom2.
> THAT port was as close to the original as you could ask, and in fact
> had some nice improvements (like the aforementioned hi-res mode).
I thought the Doom and Doom2 ports were excellent, and hope Lion gets the
port. The Hexen port was pretty good, but the (lack of) speed is a bummer.
I hope Presage gets another chance down the line; it was really nice of
Gary Arnold to keep us updated on his progress with the port.
And unless I'm mistaken, Lion ported Doom2 and then Ultimate Doom.
--
Rob Berkowitz
doc...@itsa.ucsf.edu
"D'OH!!!"
Bruce Burkhalter
In article <4srkqt$l...@solaris.cc.vt.edu>, Nathaniel Scheckler
<nsc...@vt.edu> wrote:
> In article <cheese-1907...@net-1-047.austin.eden.com> Bruce
> Burkhalter, che...@eden.com writes:
> >I still disagree that in-house porting is inherently better. It certainly
> >*can* be but it just depends on the company. Look at Sierra Online. They
> >are a good game company but their Mac ports haven't been that great.
>
> *choke* Sierra? A good game company? I guess you're entitled to your
> own opinion, but I've hated Sierra ever since KQ4 and SQ4. You are
> definitely a master of understatement, Bruce. I would personally
> describe most of Sierra's Mac ports as "pieces of shit."
I think Sierra does some good PC games. Especially their Dynamix division
(Front Page Sports, EarthSiege, Incredible Machine). Regardless if you
personally like their games, they are one of the biggest game companies.
I would rather be understated given my position. :) It is a small
industry and you never know what is going to happen next. I have to
remind myself, "If you can't say something nice..."
> >Because they probably don't have any Mac people or programmers. I think
> >that is the key to doing a good port.
>
> Yeah, that's definitely true. However, LucasArts is a great example of a
> company that originally hired just one or two Mac programmers, who then
> proceeded to put out ports that are in most cases superior to the PC
> versions. Epic _could_ do the same (althought they probably won't).
I am very impressed by Lucas. They decided to really support the Mac and
that is not a trivial decision. If you look at the difference between a
Sierra port and a Lucas port, the difference is amazing. The reason (in
my opinion) is the *company's* commitment to the Mac. I'm not convinced
that Sierra's ports would be as good as Lucas' if the Lucas programmers
worked at Sierra.
> Whatever. My original dig at Lion was mostly just a knee-jerk (with the
> emphasis on "jerk") response to my intense dislike of MacDoom. Anyway, I
> guess it still remains to be established whether in-house or outside
> contracts produce a better port, since there really aren't enough ports
> yet to settle the issue. Like you said, some in-house are great, some
> not, and the same for outside contracts. You guys at Lion had better
> work your butts off to make sure your side wins. :-)
It is ok to not like MacDoom. It is silly for us to expect everyone to
like everything we do. The main thing is to figure out what people don't
like and fix it in the next thing we do. Hopefully Unreal will be a
really cool game and Epic will do a Mac version. If we do it, I'll make
sure we do everything according to your wishes. ;)
Nathaniel Scheckler
In article <4sp1f1$k...@celebrian.otago.ac.nz> Chris Butcher, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I have to strongly disagree with you on this one. MacHexen was _not_ a
good port, by any stretch of the imagination. First, it was extremely
slow, even on the 120 Mhz 604 I once tried it on. I have seen it run
_way_ faster on a P75 than on the aforementioned PPC, at comparable
resolutions and screen sizes. Second, the graphic quality was quite low.
Even on high-res, 640x480, it looked pretty crappy. It was really ugly,
especially compared to games like Mara2, MacDescent, even MacDoom (which
I also disliked, BTW). Third, although I never played it long enough to
find any, I have heard of a lot of bugs, like save-game corruption.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Presage is a bad company for releasing
a bad port, I'm saying that they should have worked on it for at least 3
more months before releasing it, to work out all the kinks and get some
more speed.
Nathaniel Scheckler
David Matiskella
On Wed, 17 Jul 1996, Eric Kornblum wrote:
> In article <AE12E7A...@195.60.5.25>, "Spammer"
> <spa...@agnew.powernet.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > Use Quickdraw 3D RAVE so that 3D cards will accelerate the game
> > automagically.
> >
> > Port soon.
>
> I agree. Despite what somebody else posted, I thought Lion did a great job
> with the port of Doom. It's still my favorite game and performs
> beautifully.
>
> DEFINITELY USE QD3D! We need more games to support this so that more
> people will buy the boards. It makes a huge difference with Havoc, and
> I'ld love to see some more games using it.
>
> The sooner the better :)
Unfortunately I am not aware of any RAVE compatible cards out thier.
Apples card is only QuasiRave compatible. It requires the application to
do a bunch of hacks to get it to work. In addition it's performance is
barely adequate to do 640*480 at 30 fps. Supposedly Diamond and ATI will
be shipping 3d boards soon but I still haven't seen any official
annoucements.
David Matiskella
mati...@aa.washington.edu
Nathaniel Scheckler
In article <cheese-1907...@net-1-047.austin.eden.com> Bruce
Burkhalter, che...@eden.com writes:
>I still disagree that in-house porting is inherently better. It certainly
>*can* be but it just depends on the company. Look at Sierra Online. They
>are a good game company but their Mac ports haven't been that great.
*choke* Sierra? A good game company? I guess you're entitled to your
own opinion, but I've hated Sierra ever since KQ4 and SQ4. You are
definitely a master of understatement, Bruce. I would personally
describe most of Sierra's Mac ports as "pieces of shit."
>Because they probably don't have any Mac people or programmers. I think
>that is the key to doing a good port.
Yeah, that's definitely true. However, LucasArts is a great example of a
company that originally hired just one or two Mac programmers, who then
proceeded to put out ports that are in most cases superior to the PC
versions. Epic _could_ do the same (althought they probably won't).
>snip<
Whatever. My original dig at Lion was mostly just a knee-jerk (with the
emphasis on "jerk") response to my intense dislike of MacDoom. Anyway, I
guess it still remains to be established whether in-house or outside
contracts produce a better port, since there really aren't enough ports
yet to settle the issue. Like you said, some in-house are great, some
not, and the same for outside contracts. You guys at Lion had better
work your butts off to make sure your side wins. :-)
Nathaniel Scheckler
Rob Berkowitz
In article <4srlhj$l...@solaris.cc.vt.edu>, Nathaniel Scheckler
<nsc...@vt.edu> wrote:
> Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Presage is a bad company for releasing
> a bad port, I'm saying that they should have worked on it for at least 3
> more months before releasing it, to work out all the kinks and get some
> more speed.
Gotta disagree with you once again. I waited for what seemed an eternity
for the MacHexen release, reading the updates from Gary almost daily. If I
heard that they were going to work on it ANOTHER 3 months to optimize the
speed I would've been bummed. I love the game, and I'm glad I'm playing it
now. Sure, it's usually too slow for smooth hi-res action on my powermac
7100/80, but I'm getting used to the lower frame-rates, and just switch
back to medium- or lo-res occasionally when the frame-rates bother me.
It's still a great game, and thus, a great port.
Sean E. Trowbridge
>>>>> On Thu, 18 Jul 1996 01:40:09 -0500, che...@eden.com (Bruce Burkhalter) said:
> 3. We fixed the jerky motion with version 1.0.3. [of Doom II]
Do you mean 1.0.2, or is there a newer version floating about?
--
Sean Trowbridge se...@visix.com
Visix Software Inc.
Chris Butcher (452 453 455 470)
In article <4srlhj$l...@solaris.cc.vt.edu> Nathaniel Scheckler
> In article <4sp1f1$k...@celebrian.otago.ac.nz> Chris Butcher,
> cbut...@menolly.otago.ac.nz writes:
> >Lion's and Presage's are good ports
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> I have to strongly disagree with you on this one. MacHexen was _not_ a
> good port, by any stretch of the imagination. First, it was extremely
> slow, even on the 120 Mhz 604 I once tried it on. I have seen it run
> _way_ faster on a P75 than on the aforementioned PPC, at comparable
> resolutions and screen sizes. Second, the graphic quality was quite
low.
> Even on high-res, 640x480, it looked pretty crappy. It was really
ugly,
> especially compared to games like Mara2, MacDescent, even MacDoom (which
> I also disliked, BTW). Third, although I never played it long enough to
> find any, I have heard of a lot of bugs, like save-game corruption.
releasing
> a bad port, I'm saying that they should have worked on it for at least 3
> more months before releasing it, to work out all the kinks and get some
> more speed.
Please, Nathaniel, try to keep people's comments in context. What I said
was that Lion's and Presage's are good ports given that they preserve the
operating system to the level that they do. They mostly adhere to the
Application Standard to a level that games like Marathon 2 and
MacDescent(?) do not.
That's why they're slower, I believe.
Bruce Burkhalter
In article <4t0t64$n...@shelby.visix.com>, se...@visix.com (Sean E.
Trowbridge) wrote:
> >>>>> On Thu, 18 Jul 1996 01:40:09 -0500, che...@eden.com (Bruce
Burkhalter) said:
>
> > 3. We fixed the jerky motion with version 1.0.3. [of Doom II]
>
> Do you mean 1.0.2, or is there a newer version floating about?
There is a 1.0.3. If you can't find it, I can email the updater to you.
Bruce Burkhalter
Lion Entertaiment
che...@eden.com
John Kundert-Gibbs
Bruce Burkhalter wrote:
It is far
> easier to find a company that specializes in porting to the Mac and have
> them do it. To do a good port you have to know the Mac and know what
> people like and expect in a Mac game. You can't just hire a Mac
> programmer and assume that you will get a good port. I would say the same
> goes for id.
>
> Lucas or MacPlay)?
>
Actually, from talking w/ the programmer for X-Wing (can't remember
his name right now, but he hangs out here), X-Wing itself was an
'outside' job, but was not publicized as such. So... even LA appears
to do outside contracting on some jobs ;)
John
John Kundert-Gibbs
Bruce Burkhalter wrote:
> That said, I am very happy with our job on Wing Commander III and IV
> (especially IV).
>
Bruce, where can I get WC IV??? I've been waiting on Cyberian Outpost
for nearly a month w/ the constant 'backordered' message blinking at
me. I really want this game, but there don't seem to be any CDs out
there--or is Cyberian really starting to slip (like folks have
rumored)?
John
Mark Rein (Epic)
>Well, although the Doom II port may not have been up to par, Lion has
>made a LOT of progress since then. Namely, Wing Commander IV. If they
>can make this game run just like the PC (ALMOST) on a Mac, they caould
>certainly do it for Unreal.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on here.
Wing Commander IV and Unreal do not use similar technogies. To make
the assumption that someone who could port WC4 could "certainly" port
Unreal is "certainly" a risky assumption.
>Personally, If I was working at Lion, I'd be bugging the makers to let
>me do the port instead of waiting for them to contact me =)
Too late. I sent Bruce at Lion an email this evening asking him to
give me a call.
Nathaniel Scheckler
In article <4t9rnl$2...@news.inforamp.net> Mark Rein, mr...@inforamp.net
writes:
>Too late. I sent Bruce at Lion an email this evening asking him to
>give me a call.
Well, since you folks at Epic seem to have finally seen the light, may I
suggest you port Jazz and Jazz 2? Since there seems to be a dearth of
platform shooters on the Mac, I bet they'd sell really well. As I've
mentioned before, Jazz was one of the reasons I held on to my 486SX25.
The only problem is, I'll never be able to run Jazz 2 on it, and as the
sequel looks like it will be better than the first, this is very bad for
me. Will these two excellent games ever be ported?
Nathaniel Scheckler
Mark Rein (Epic)
>Well, since you folks at Epic seem to have finally seen the light, may I
>suggest you port Jazz and Jazz 2? Since there seems to be a dearth of
>platform shooters on the Mac, I bet they'd sell really well.
Oddly enough that was discussed this morning. The original Jazz would
not be a candidate for porting but the upcoming Jazz2 certainly would
be.
>As I've
>mentioned before, Jazz was one of the reasons I held on to my 486SX25.
>The only problem is, I'll never be able to run Jazz 2 on it, and as the
>sequel looks like it will be better than the first, this is very bad for
>me.
Jazz 2 is a MAJOR improvement over the original in almost every
aspect.
>Will these two excellent games ever be ported?
The original Jazz Jackrabbit no but we're looking into it for J2.
Mark Rein (Epic)
Nathaniel,
>Yeah, that's definitely true. However, LucasArts is a great example of a
>company that originally hired just one or two Mac programmers, who then
>proceeded to put out ports that are in most cases superior to the PC
>versions. Epic _could_ do the same (althought they probably won't).
It really depends on the state of the Mac gaming market at the time
that Unreal comes out. If Mac looks like it will be a viable future
porting opportunity we'll hire programmers and do it that way. If not
then we might hire a porting house. If the port sells we might still
want to go back to the idea of hiring some good Mac people.
It's really hard to guess things like this. At any case I'd like to
talk to these porting houses and find out how well they think the
product would port and what the cost would be.
Mark Rein (Epic)
Nathaniel,
>Besides, Epic is one of the best game companies around. Why
>shouldn't they do their own ports, if they decide to port at all?
Thanks for the compliment!
Why wouldn't we do our own port? Well there are a lot of potential
reasons. Cost: maybe it would cost us a lot more. Time: maybe it would
take us a lot longer. Performance: maybe we couldn't do as good a job
as an experienced Mac house. Mac inability to host the game: maybe the
Mac just couldn't cut Unreal in configurations likely to be used for
by paying customers playing games.
It's really too hard to answer any of these questions right now. For
now our focus is on the PC version but the code has been written with
portablilty in mind.
Spammer
[About Unreal]
]>Personally, If I was working at Lion, I'd be bugging the makers to let
]>me do the port instead of waiting for them to contact me =)
]
]Too late. I sent Bruce at Lion an email this evening asking him to
]give me a call.
]
]
]Mark Rein,
]Epic MegaGames.
]
]Check out the Epic Web Site at http://www.epicgames.com or
]GO EPIC on CompuServe to visit our forum or download our latest
]shareware games via FTP at ftp.uwp.edu in /pub/games/epic
]
Oh boy! Oh Boy! OH BOY!!
Relax, Mark. If Unreal comes out on Mac with 3D RAVE support Power
Computing won't be able to sell enough Power Tower Pros and Apple won't be
able to crank out enough cards. I may have to sell my car for a faster Mac
if Unreal comes to Mac and is as good as it looks.
Remember also that most of the PCI Macs have processor cards making every
100Mhz PowerPC 601 powered 7500, for example, a potential dual 180Mhz 604e
or 225Mhz 604e (sticking to chips _currently_ available). And fast video
has never been a Mac problem. The Macs will be able to take it...
Sam
(owner of a nearly fossilised 'lowley' 80Mhz 601 powered 6100 with piles of
RAM which nevertheless runs every first person game I've thrown at it
smoothly)
---
Roadkill has its seasons, just like anything
It's possums in the autum, and it's farm cats in the spring.
- Tom Waits "Murder in the Red Barn"
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This message was created and sent using the Cyberdog Mail System
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Mark Rein (Epic)
>Relax, Mark. If Unreal comes out on Mac with 3D RAVE support Power
>Computing won't be able to sell enough Power Tower Pros and Apple won't be
>able to crank out enough cards. I may have to sell my car for a faster Mac
>if Unreal comes to Mac and is as good as it looks.
Cool.
>Remember also that most of the PCI Macs have processor cards making every
>100Mhz PowerPC 601 powered 7500, for example, a potential dual 180Mhz 604e
>or 225Mhz 604e (sticking to chips _currently_ available). And fast video
>has never been a Mac problem. The Macs will be able to take it...
Yes but if it takes too much expensive horsepower to make Unreal run
on Mac it probably won't get done. We need to release it to a market
where the majority of users can run it without buying a lot of
expensive hardware, something which IS the case on the PC side.
Bruce Burkhalter
In article <31F604...@ruby.indstate.edu>, John Kundert-Gibbs
<cmku...@ruby.indstate.edu> wrote:
> Bruce Burkhalter wrote:
> It is far
> > easier to find a company that specializes in porting to the Mac and have
> > them do it. To do a good port you have to know the Mac and know what
> > people like and expect in a Mac game. You can't just hire a Mac
> > programmer and assume that you will get a good port. I would say the same
> > goes for id.
> >
> > What games that have been done inhouse do you like (other than ones by
> > Lucas or MacPlay)?
>
> Actually, from talking w/ the programmer for X-Wing (can't remember
> his name right now, but he hangs out here), X-Wing itself was an
> 'outside' job, but was not publicized as such. So... even LA appears
> to do outside contracting on some jobs ;)
That is sorta true. X-Wing and TIE Fighter for the PC are done by a
different company than Lucas. They have an inhouse Mac guy do their Mac
conversions.
Bruce Burkhalter
> Bruce, where can I get WC IV??? I've been waiting on Cyberian Outpost
> for nearly a month w/ the constant 'backordered' message blinking at
> me. I really want this game, but there don't seem to be any CDs out
> there--or is Cyberian really starting to slip (like folks have
> rumored)?
I would try some of the mail order companies. I don't why they would be
backordered so long. I will talk with Origin and see if they know
anything.
Andrew Longley
>Yes but if it takes too much expensive horsepower to make Unreal run
>on Mac it probably won't get done. We need to release it to a market
>where the majority of users can run it without buying a lot of
>expensive hardware, something which IS the case on the PC side.
>
>
>Mark Rein,
>Epic MegaGames.
Everyone, bite your tongues...
--
Regards,
Andy
ao...@flash.net
Spammer
]>Yes but if it takes too much expensive horsepower to make Unreal run
Ahem! <BITE> ;-]
Sam
(Whose 6100 (80Mhz PPC601 w/512k cache, 2 years old) ROCKs every game I've
thrown at it despite being an 'old & slow' (by modern standards) Power Mac;
more than a match for the P100s at work...)
Spammer
]>Yes but if it takes too much expensive horsepower to make Unreal run
]>on Mac it probably won't get done. We need to release it to a market
]>where the majority of users can run it without buying a lot of
]>expensive hardware, something which IS the case on the PC side.
]>
]>
]>Mark Rein,
]>Epic MegaGames.
]
]Everyone, bite your tongues...
]
]--
]Regards,
]Andy
]ao...@flash.net
]
What I meant by talking about the processor cards is that the mainstream
modern Macs are capable of going a lot faster with a little investment. On
the one hand not many folks with a 7500/100 are going to put a dual 180Mhz
card in just to run one game. Of course most Macs in business are
constantly being tuned for greater speed because a lot of them are in
graphics shops (this doesn't stop the owners playing cool games on them).
On the other hand, a stock 7500/100 is still P120 class at least (on code
equally optimised for each platform). I didn't mean to imply that all of
these machines would need such an upgrade to run a game like Unreal.
I've seen Quake running quite smoothly at low res on the P100s at work.
Based on the way both these machines and my machine run a game like Descent
(whose porting to the Mac was done _well_) I would say my 80Mhz 601 is if
anything a bit faster. My 80 Mhz 601 was bought as a 6100/60 and I simply
reclocked it with a clip-on clock chip(as many 6100 owners have). I can run
Descent full screen, high res, everything on and it rocks. My machine
represents the slowest PowerMac you can buy.
In other words, we (PowerMac owners, and Apple sells nothing else these
days) have the hardware...
Sam
Michael M. Eilers
In article <aol1-27079...@p2-36.flash.net>, ao...@flash.net (Andrew
Longley) wrote:
>>Yes but if it takes too much expensive horsepower to make Unreal run
>>on Mac it probably won't get done. We need to release it to a market
>>where the majority of users can run it without buying a lot of
>>expensive hardware, something which IS the case on the PC side.
>>
>>
>>Mark Rein,
>>Epic MegaGames.
>
>Everyone, bite your tongues...
>
I'd rather bite back instead.
I'm speaking for myself and no others, but here it is: Mark Rein, your
platform bias is showing, and it is not acceptable. The old saw that "macs
are slower" is not true, has not been true for several years, and is a
lousy excuse for not publishing games on our platform.
As an experiment I set up my 7100/66 (since sold for a 7500/100) next to
the 90 MHz pentium my neigbor owns. We ran demo after demo, game after
game of "ported" games side-by side. Guess what? the 66 MHz machine was
equal or faster in every case, with the lone exception of Hexen (sorry
presage, you screwed up.) Of those games he could play hi-rez, Descent was
equal on both machines, and Dark Forces was faster on my machine.
Both of us are relentless system-tweakers. He's got a fast video card and
a sound board, I just have what came built-in. The most dramatic speed
increase was Dark Forces--on my Mac it screamed along, even when the music
was playing and all sound mixing (handled by the processor, not by an
external sound board) turned on. Havoc was much smoother on my machine
than his, but he had to run it under Win95.
Oh, and about the "expensive" hardware: we dug out bills of sale out of
the desk drawer, totaled everything up, and after the extra money he spent
on a vdieo card, RAM, and Win 95, guess what? We spent within $5 of each
other, buing our computers the same year (January 95). Shoots that theory
as well, I'm afraid.
The point: the 7100/66, the most common and popular powermac, outgusn a 90
MHZ pentium loaded to the gills--and does it right out of the box. Bring
us unreal, and not only will we buy it, we will run it fast and smoothly.
michael
Nathaniel Scheckler
In article <4tb6i1$a...@news.inforamp.net> Mark Rein, mr...@inforamp.net
writes:
>The original Jazz Jackrabbit no but we're looking into it for J2.
Aaaaaahhh!! Would wailing and pulling my hair out make you change your
mind about Jazz 1? Oh well, it runs great on a 25 Mhz 486, so I guess
it'll run okay on a DOS card or in SW3.0. It's great to hear that about
Jazz 2, though. Yay for Epic!
Nathaniel Scheckler
Parafilmus
>>>Yes but if it takes too much expensive horsepower to make Unreal run
>>>on Mac it probably won't get done. We need to release it to a market
>>>where the majority of users can run it without buying a lot of
>>>expensive hardware, something which IS the case on the PC side.
>>>Mark Rein,
>>>Epic MegaGames.
>>
>>Everyone, bite your tongues...
>I'd rather bite back instead.
>I'm speaking for myself and no others, but here it is: Mark Rein, your
>platform bias is showing, and it is not acceptable. The old saw that "macs
>are slower" is not true, has not been true for several years, and is a
>lousy excuse for not publishing games on our platform.
Bite back? Platform Bias?
I think you're overreacting a bit here.
Mark did not say that "macs are slow", and I'm sure he isn't looking
for an excuse not to port the game.
What Mark said is that he doesn't know what mac configuration would be
needed to play Unreal, and he doesn't know how many people have such a
system. How can he know if the mac version is a good idea until he
knows how many potential customers he has?
Mark has been doing a great job of answering questions in this group.
He has been honest and informative about the possibility of a mac
port, and about the possibility of future mac products from Epic.
Until a decision is reached, what more can he do?
-R. Ryan Clark
Spammer
]>I'm speaking for myself and no others, but here it is: Mark Rein,
your
]>platform bias is showing, and it is not acceptable. The old saw that
"macs
]>are slower" is not true, has not been true for several years, and is
a
]>lousy excuse for not publishing games on our platform.
]
]Hang on. Before you go off at me just understand what I meant: If our
]game is too piggy to run well on the kind of Macs people have (as
]opposed to the kind they want) then it won't make sense to do it.
]However, if we can accomodate a majority of the systems that game
]players are going to have then we're OK. It's just way to early to
]judge that. There is no platform bias going on here, this is simply a
]case of know what our limitations are on PC but not knowing that they
]are on Mac.
]
Mark,
Thank you for your patience. I'd just like to say that you are a true
gentleman and I hope we all appreciate that on this li'l newsgroup.
We're a touchy bunch, we faithful Mac hermets, burned a thousand times
by Apple's inability to sell water in a desert. The Macs are doing
better in performance than market share these days and a lot of that
has more to do with them being sold by one previously badly managed
company. All of this is changing, albeit slowly.
Meanwhile we're twitchy, especially because todays Macs are very fast
and able (and underutilised).
We're a frontier band, far from the comforts of the city. We brew our
own shareware (much of it excellent) and hew our own path. When this
path is followed by Micro$oft we are dismayed at how they always seem
to take the credit of discovering it. We give thanks for the great
Human Interface Guidlines handed down from Apple, we give thanks for
our true plug and play and complete-out-of-the-box (yet very easily
expandable) systems. We have no desire to give up our wild lifestyle
but we, DAMNIT, want some great games!
Best piece of advice I can offer a Mac market newcomer: study the
ways of Bungie.
Sam
(Who uses and supports PCs all day and thinks they are fine, but would
never switch)
Mark Ashton
In article <eilersm-2807...@news.arizona.edu>,
eil...@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu (Michael M. Eilers) wrote:
> In article <aol1-27079...@p2-36.flash.net>, ao...@flash.net (Andrew
> Longley) wrote:
>
> >>Yes but if it takes too much expensive horsepower to make Unreal run
> >>on Mac it probably won't get done. We need to release it to a market
> >>where the majority of users can run it without buying a lot of
> >>expensive hardware, something which IS the case on the PC side.
> >>
> >>
> >>Mark Rein,
> >>Epic MegaGames.
> >
> >Everyone, bite your tongues...
> >
>
>
> I'd rather bite back instead.
[blahblahblah]
Geez, man. I really think he was just responding to the previous poster's
comments about the kind of hardware he would buy to run Unreal. He did say
they would do it if the majority of users can run it without buying
hardware, which is true. He didn't even imply that macs couldn't handle
Unreal. It's just that the previous poster's comments made it seem that
such a thing might be necessary. Mark has every right to be platform
biased, just as all of us are.
--
Mark Ashton
Purveyor of Whimsical Notions
"I was raised to be strong and hard, but if you touch me wrong, I'll fall apart"
-Mark Sandman of _Morphine_
Mark Rein (Epic)
>I'm speaking for myself and no others, but here it is: Mark Rein, your
>platform bias is showing, and it is not acceptable. The old saw that "macs
>are slower" is not true, has not been true for several years, and is a
>lousy excuse for not publishing games on our platform.
Hang on. Before you go off at me just understand what I meant: If our
game is too piggy to run well on the kind of Macs people have (as
opposed to the kind they want) then it won't make sense to do it.
However, if we can accomodate a majority of the systems that game
players are going to have then we're OK. It's just way to early to
judge that. There is no platform bias going on here, this is simply a
case of know what our limitations are on PC but not knowing that they
are on Mac.
Your original posting lead me to believe that _you_ felt the newer,
faster, better Macs would run the game and perhaps the older ones
wouldn't. We're going to have to wait and see.
>The point: the 7100/66, the most common and popular powermac, outgusn a 90
>MHZ pentium loaded to the gills--and does it right out of the box. Bring
>us unreal, and not only will we buy it, we will run it fast and smoothly.
Excellent. That's exactly what we're hoping for. A P90 is easily
capable of running Unreal. Maybe not in the higher resolutions but
certainly more than capable of hosting it. In the PC world, there are
certainly much better machines that P90s out there but we needed to be
sure our technology would run on P90s because we felt that was the
base machine. If a 7100/66 is equivalent to a P90 and the majority of
potential customers have those or better then bring on the Mac!
Mark Rein (Epic)
> Thank you for your patience. I'd just like to say that you are a true
>gentleman and I hope we all appreciate that on this li'l newsgroup.
Don't worry, I have thick skin <g>.
>but we, DAMNIT, want some great games!
And damnit, we'd like to give you some <g>.
Kevin Armstrong
>> Thank you for your patience. I'd just like to say that you are a true
>>gentleman and I hope we all appreciate that on this li'l newsgroup.
>
>Don't worry, I have thick skin <g>.
I'm glad, I'd hate for Epic to get scared off by a few people that misread
your posts. =)
>>but we, DAMNIT, want some great games!
>
>And damnit, we'd like to give you some <g>.
Not to mention those of us at Lion. ;)
>
>Mark Rein,
>Epic MegaGames.
>
>Check out the Epic Web Site at http://www.epicgames.com or
>GO EPIC on CompuServe to visit our forum or download our latest
>shareware games via FTP at ftp.uwp.edu in /pub/games/epic
Kevin Armstrong
Lion Entertainment, Inc.
Rishi Gupta
Kevin Armstrong wrote:
> >>but we, DAMNIT, want some great games!
> >
>
> Not to mention those of us at Lion. ;)
What exactly are you implying? :-)
--
Rishi Gupta: risg...@cyberus.ca
Visit my Mac Wing Commander IV Page at
http://www.cyberus.ca/~risgupta/macwciv
(last updated July 21)
Kevin Armstrong
In article <31FF5D...@cyberus.ca>, Rishi Gupta <risg...@cyberus.ca> wrote:
>Kevin Armstrong wrote:
>> >>but we, DAMNIT, want some great games!
>> >
>> >And damnit, we'd like to give you some <g>.
>>
>> Not to mention those of us at Lion. ;)
>
>What exactly are you implying? :-)
I was only trying to hint to Mark to that *I* at least want to see UNREAL
on the Mac. Oh, and I suppose it would imply that I would like to see
Lion get the contract. =) What's wrong with that? In the meantime, stop
trying to read between the lines. There was only one anyway. =)
>--
>Rishi Gupta: risg...@cyberus.ca
>Visit my Mac Wing Commander IV Page at
>http://www.cyberus.ca/~risgupta/macwciv
>(last updated July 21)
Kevin Armstrong
Lion Entertainment, Inc.
John Reid
In article <AE22C68...@195.60.5.1>, "Spammer"
<spa...@agnew.powernet.co.uk> wrote:
[...]
> Mark,
>
>
> Thank you for your patience. I'd just like to say that you are a true
> gentleman and I hope we all appreciate that on this li'l newsgroup.
[...]
Agreed! Just wanted to say that I've enjoyed reading this thread, and
thanks to Mark and everyone else for not letting it get too ugly (a rarity
on Usenet). Also, since some of you game-makers have been hanging out
here, I thought maybe you could comment on something: what do you (or
anyone) think about the Game Sprockets (was that the final name?) that
Apple came up with? Are they very useful for game development? What
about Quickdraw3D, Quicktime 2.5, and any other new tech stuff? Will
these make for cooler games, and does any of it compare to Intel's MMX?
Thanks for any insight!
John Reid
<jer...@hiwaay.net>
Kevin Armstrong
In article <jereid-3107...@max2-204.hiwaay.net>,
jer...@hiwaay.net (John Reid) wrote:
>what do you (or
>anyone) think about the Game Sprockets (was that the final name?) that
>Apple came up with? Are they very useful for game development? What
>about Quickdraw3D, Quicktime 2.5, and any other new tech stuff? Will
>these make for cooler games, and does any of it compare to Intel's MMX?
Well, I can say that I like the Game Sprockets and the guys (well those
I've met) at Apple that worked on them. My concern, as well as those of
the people I work with, is that the Sprockets are PowerMac only. This may
not sound bad, but for game publishers, the PowerMac market looks small
compared to the 68k market. And in truth it is. Altthough the difference
in market size depends on how much processing power the game requires. If
Apple does develop a 68k version of the sprockets, it will be some time
before it appears. Anyway, enough of the politics.
The Draw Sprocket does some very nice things for the programmer. I'd love
to use it, but my projects still require 68k. The only other technology I
have any experience in is the QuickDraw 3D RAVE stuff. I played around
with it at the Austin Games Kitchen and had some interesting results.
(No, I won't say what I did.) The other Sprockets look very useful as
well. I just haven't had the opportunity to look at them yet.
There are problems though. The technologies you mentioned QuickDraw 3D
and QuickTime take up lots of memory when running. Open Transport does
too. Apple has said that they will be putting more memory in future
systems, but as of right now, there are millions of Macs with maybe
adequate amounts of RAM vs. a few with enough. Right now, getting a game
to run on an 8 Meg Mac can be quite a task. The overhead of QuickTime,
OT, or QuickDraw3D can easily keep a game from running in 8 Megs of RAM.
You have to remember, a 7.5.3 system with extensions off takes up at least
2 Megs of RAM. (I'm being very generous there.) That leaves you with 6
Megs of RAM. Subtract another 500 to 1,500 k depending on what else you
NEED to have running and you can see the problem.
I do think that cool games will be made using the sprockets. I doubt you
will realize that anything special is happening. The transition will be
gradual and hopefully non-intrusive. You may start to notice things like
a common network connection dialog box, a more common joystick setup, more
games switching the monitor to 640x480 or other resolutions before
running, and some 3D sound effects. But other than that, the Sprockets
are there to help make the job of being a game developer easier.
>Thanks for any insight!
>
>John Reid
><jer...@hiwaay.net>
Kevin Armstrong
Lion Entertainment, Inc.
David Shackleton
Timothy A. Seufert
>Also, since some of you game-makers have been hanging out
>here, I thought maybe you could comment on something: what do you (or
>anyone) think about the Game Sprockets (was that the final name?) that
>Apple came up with? Are they very useful for game development? What
>about Quickdraw3D, Quicktime 2.5, and any other new tech stuff? Will
>these make for cooler games, and does any of it compare to Intel's MMX?
MMX is hardware, not software, so comparing MMX to the Sprockets is apples
to oranges. MMX is an extension to the x86 instruction set to allow the
CPU to do limited forms of vector math. This works out very well for
graphics because you can (for instance) work on 24- or 32-bit pixel values
without expanding each 8-bit component out into a separate register.
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
|Tim Seufert, bwa...@cats.ucsc.edu | UselessWastedSpace(tm) |
| "I never give them hell. I just tell the truth, and they |
| think it is hell." -Harry S Truman |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
Michael Eilers
>Kevin Armstrong wrote:
>> >>but we, DAMNIT, want some great games!
>> >
>> >And damnit, we'd like to give you some <g>.
>>
>> Not to mention those of us at Lion. ;)
>
>What exactly are you implying? :-)
>
hey rishi, how come when anybody from Lion posts, you always stick your
head in? I'm just curious about this--it seems to be a running obsession
with you. Obvisouly I spend way too much time on this group.
michael
Ggadwa
My 2 cents ...
RAVE is very nice, and very useful. It takes some planning ahead to make
a compliant program, but it is also low-level enough so you can just
replace your final poly-draws with RAVE calls.
If Apple puts 3D acceleration on board, or the new brand of accelerator
cards are as good as the hype, then RAVE will be the next QuickTime.
Or so I think!
Anybody that's making any 3D game should take a look at the docs, they are
very short. A little ahead-of-time planning will give you a very fast
game with little overhead for using hardware acceleration.
[>] Brian
Michael Eilers
In article <karm-02089...@news3.realtime.net>, ka...@bga.com (Kevin
Armstrong) wrote:
>Well, I can say that I like the Game Sprockets and the guys (well those
>I've met) at Apple that worked on them. My concern, as well as those of
>the people I work with, is that the Sprockets are PowerMac only. This may
>not sound bad, but for game publishers, the PowerMac market looks small
>compared to the 68k market. And in truth it is. Altthough the difference
>in market size depends on how much processing power the game requires. If
>Apple does develop a 68k version of the sprockets, it will be some time
>before it appears. Anyway, enough of the politics.
I think the 68K games market is collapsing faster than any of us though it
would. Of 12 games announced at E3 (including Flying Nightmares 2, Dark
Vengance, Dark Forces II, etc) only 2 will run on a 68K machine. Most of
the upcoming MacPlay titles (Virtual Pool, VR Soccer, Descent II [already
out], Vitrual Pro Pinball) are PowerMac only--and MacPlay is the biggest
(AFAIK) games company on the Mac platform!
The question I have always wondered is, do 68k users actually buy games? I
know that their market is bigger in terms of actual numbers, but all the
040 owners I know rarely, if ever, buy new software or upgrade. They just
assume (incorrectly) that the market has left them behind, and drudge on
with PageMaker 4.0, Word 5.1 and Photoshop 2.5, and would not dream of
buying Hexen or Marathon 2 or even a 68k version of Descent, if it were
available. I've only had a Powermac for 2 years, but it accelerated (awful
pun, sorry) my software purchasing tremendously--now only the latest
versions will do.
I'n not saying any of this to squash the 68040 people, I just wonder
(without any malice) how long we will hear that 68k machines are the
larger market--it reminds me of the PC side, where many of the games are
still VGA/8-bit sound when the people with the hot gaming systems--the
ones buying the games--have SVGA, 16-bit soundcards, etc. There are
certainly more Mac SE's out there than 9500's--but they are doorstops.
michael
John Reid
[Kevin from Lion Ent. said:]
> Well, I can say that I like the Game Sprockets and the guys (well those
> I've met) at Apple that worked on them. My concern, as well as those of
> the people I work with, is that the Sprockets are PowerMac only. This may
> not sound bad, but for game publishers, the PowerMac market looks small
> compared to the 68k market. And in truth it is. Altthough the difference
> in market size depends on how much processing power the game requires. If
> Apple does develop a 68k version of the sprockets, it will be some time
> before it appears. Anyway, enough of the politics.
One thing to consider, maybe, is the "build it and they will come" factor.
;) I know that Marathon was an incentive for many people to go ahead and
get a PowerMac ('course, they were thinking about it anyway, I'm sure).
Also, I know that some PCers are now buying new Pentium systems just
because Quake came out. I'm sure this is a risky way to go, though.
Several companies do have PowerPC-only games out there, anybody know if
they're suffering money-wise?
> There are problems though. The technologies you mentioned QuickDraw 3D
> and QuickTime take up lots of memory when running. Open Transport does
> too. Apple has said that they will be putting more memory in future
> systems, but as of right now, there are millions of Macs with maybe
> adequate amounts of RAM vs. a few with enough. Right now, getting a game
[...]
Understood, and I fall into the "maybe adequate" category at the moment.
;( I also hear that MacOS 8 will take an outrageous amount of RAM. But
RAM-hogging is happening on the PC platform too.
Anyway, thanks for commenting on my question! Glad to know the Sprockets
are at least being looked at!
John Reid
<jer...@hiwaay.net>
Butch Weber
In article <eilersm-0308...@news.arizona.edu>,
eil...@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu (Michael Eilers) wrote:
>I think the 68K games market is collapsing faster than any of us though it
>would. Of 12 games announced at E3 (including Flying Nightmares 2, Dark
>Vengance, Dark Forces II, etc) only 2 will run on a 68K machine. Most of
>the upcoming MacPlay titles (Virtual Pool, VR Soccer, Descent II [already
>out], Vitrual Pro Pinball) are PowerMac only--and MacPlay is the biggest
>(AFAIK) games company on the Mac platform!
>
>The question I have always wondered is, do 68k users actually buy games? I
>know that their market is bigger in terms of actual numbers, but all the
>040 owners I know rarely, if ever, buy new software or upgrade. They just
>assume (incorrectly) that the market has left them behind, and drudge on
>with PageMaker 4.0, Word 5.1 and Photoshop 2.5, and would not dream of
>buying Hexen or Marathon 2 or even a 68k version of Descent, if it were
>available. I've only had a Powermac for 2 years, but it accelerated (awful
>pun, sorry) my software purchasing tremendously--now only the latest
>versions will do.
>
>I'n not saying any of this to squash the 68040 people, I just wonder
>(without any malice) how long we will hear that 68k machines are the
>larger market--it reminds me of the PC side, where many of the games are
>still VGA/8-bit sound when the people with the hot gaming systems--the
>ones buying the games--have SVGA, 16-bit soundcards, etc. There are
>certainly more Mac SE's out there than 9500's--but they are doorstops.
>
>michael
This one does. Of course, i'm buying less games than I used to, but those
that do support 68040 are definitely welcome and worth at least looking to
see if I'll like it. With the new faster PowerPC Macs that are being
announced at MacWorld, I hope to be buying a new computer by the end of
the year, but until then, I'll just limp along running Quicken 6,
WordPerfect 3.1 (never saw a compelling reason to upgrade), most of the
latest Internet apps, and, of course, those games that are 68040
compatible.
Butch Weber
mcw...@dsmnet.com
Spammer
]Understood, and I fall into the "maybe adequate" category at the moment.
];( I also hear that MacOS 8 will take an outrageous amount of RAM. But
]RAM-hogging is happening on the PC platform too.
Don't worry, those rumours about Copeland taking 20 Megs or whatever were
the result of a clueless reporter (read the newsgroups). Apple says running
on 8MB systems is still the goal (should be easier with the MUCH faster VM
scheme...).
Sam
Daniel Nash
In article <AE2A7A4...@195.60.5.22>, "Spammer"
<spa...@agnew.powernet.co.uk> wrote:
> ]Understood, and I fall into the "maybe adequate" category at the moment.
> ];( I also hear that MacOS 8 will take an outrageous amount of RAM. But
> ]RAM-hogging is happening on the PC platform too.
> ]
> Don't worry, those rumours about Copeland taking 20 Megs or whatever were
> the result of a clueless reporter (read the newsgroups). Apple says running
> on 8MB systems is still the goal (should be easier with the MUCH faster VM
> scheme...).
> Sam
Yes, but remember that MacOS8 uses virtual memory more extensively and
better than 7. Major parts of the system will be stored in virtual while
not in use and 'paged' into real memory when needed. If Apple does this
well, it will be awesome; if not, ... they have to do it well, or add a
nail to their own coffin.
- Daniel Nash