The new Mac Pro: The audacity to say “Yes” in a design culture of “No”

Re:The new Mac Pro: The audacity to say “Yes” in a design cu... by dbg31415 on Saturday April 15, 2017 @11:17PM (#14124158)

> Mac gamers need a high-speed/low-core-count CPU, the best single gaming GPU possible, and VR hardware support.

So honestly, are there any real "Mac Gamers"? At this point I think everyone knows to just boot into Windows to play games... the hardware isn't amazing for gaming, but games run a lot better on Windows than they do on MacOS on Apple hardware. Feels like "Mac Gamers" debate was settled years and years ago... if you're serious about gaming, even like casually-serious, you wouldn't even consider running MacOS.

It's sad... I remember playing Unreal back in the day on a Mac (one of the colorful case Macs) in college. The game ran so much better than it did on a PC... steam looked like steam, lighting looked better... everything was clearly better on a Mac than any PC I had seen / had access to. But when the latest generation of MacPro was new (ha, 2000 years ago at this point)... I fired up a game on it (running MacOS) to see how it compared... and I got better gaming performance on a $400 off-the-shelf-PC with a $250 graphics card added.

What I would LOVE to see is just a Mac like the slightly older MacPro -- aluminum tower case. With lots of standard expansion slots so we could expand as needed (specifically video cards). I don't think games will ever be optimized for Macs the way they are for PCs, but I'd be happy just switching into Windows on the Apple hardware when I played games.

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Side note... anyone else play Escape Velocity? I got to thinking about "good Mac games" and that one stands out. Also most of the Marathon series (spiritual precursor to Halo). Hellcats stood out too for being advanced for the time... most everything else came out on PC first though I think.

* EV Nova | Ambrosia Software, Inc. || http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/

* Marathon (video game) - Wikipedia || https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_(video_game)

* Hellcats over the Pacific - Wikipedia || https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellcats_over_the_Pacific

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Re:The new Mac Pro: The audacity to say “Yes” in a design cu... by ksec on Sunday April 16, 2017 @01:07AM (#14124445)

I have always wondered if Steve Jobs hated Gaming. There are simply no body in Apple who are gamers, and cares about the market. iPhone Gaming revenue was a pure coincidence. Even Gaming on Apple TV sucks.

As a matter of fact Gaming Desktop / Laptop is now the fastest growing! market despite the general decline in PC market as a whole.

Apple wanted to leverage the games and Metal API on iOS to be used in Mac, but the driver performance and support were appalling. No to mention the games on iOS are completely different to how games are played on Desktop and laptop. This just shows they dont actually understand gaming.

It is no wonder even John Carmack couldn't be bothered with them any more.

Yes, I am sure there are huge market for people to buy a Mac and run Windows for gaming, but that is unlikely in Apple's DNA to care.

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Re:The new Mac Pro: The audacity to say “Yes” in a design cu... by Stranger43 on Sunday April 16, 2017 @10:16AM (#14125869)

One of the things that Jobs did that nobody seams to want to remember was to market the computer as something else then a computer, i.e. his focus was never to make the best fastest or most advanced computer but to make a computer you could sell to people who were/are afraid of computers.

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Re:The new Mac Pro: The audacity to say “Yes” in a design cu... by jblow on Saturday April 15, 2017 @11:42PM (#14124207)

It's very sad. Halo was originally announced at MacWorld:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eZ2yvWl9nQ

but history did not go that way....

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Re:The new Mac Pro: The audacity to say “Yes” in a design cu... by dbg31415 on Saturday April 15, 2017 @11:57PM (#14124245)

I totally forgot about this! Thanks for sharing.

Halo demos at MacWorld 1999...

Microsoft buys Bungie in 2000...

Halo: Combat Evolved comes out exclusively on XBox in 2001... along with the launch of XBox. What would XBox be without Halo?

* Microsoft Buys Bungie, Take Two Buys Oni, PS2 Situation Unchanged - IGN || http://www.ign.com/articles/2000/06/20/microsoft-buys-bungie...

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Re:The new Mac Pro: The audacity to say “Yes” in a design cu... by Terr_ on Sunday April 16, 2017 @01:14AM (#14124459)

I remember that well, because I was playing Starseige:Tribes and there were some Mac fans (and probably a few trolls) in the forums who were very excited... Predicting that Halo (Mac) would be the downfall of PC gaming.

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