Mac gaming
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Video games |
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Mac gaming refers to the use of video games on
macOS Catalina (and later) eliminated support for 32-bit games, including those compatible with older versions of macOS.[1]
Early game development on the Mac
Prior to the release of the
During the development of the Mac, a chess game similar to
By the mid-1980s most computer companies avoided the term "home computer" because of its association with the image of, as Compute! wrote, "a low-powered, low-end machine primarily suited for playing games". Apple's
Pippin
The
Attempts by Apple to promote gaming on Mac
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The co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, disliked video games,[10] but Apple has at times attempted to market the platform for gaming. In 1996, the company released a series of game-enabling APIs called Game Sprockets.[6] In April 1999, Jobs gave an interview with the UK-based Arcade magazine to promote the PowerPC G3-based computers Apple were selling with then new ATI Rage 128 graphics cards, and describing how Apple was "trying to build the best gaming platform in the world so developers are attracted to write for it" and "trying to leapfrog the PC industry".[11]
A 2007 interview with Valve's Gabe Newell included the question of why his company was keeping their games and gaming technology "a strictly Windows project".[12] Newell answered:
We tried to have a conversation with Apple for several years, and they never seemed to... well, we have this pattern with Apple, where we meet with them, people there go "wow, gaming is incredibly important, we should do something with gaming". And then we'll say, "OK, here are three things you could do to make that better", and then they say OK, and then we never see them again. And then a year later, a new group of people show up, who apparently have no idea that the last group of people were there, and never follow through on anything. So, they seem to think that they want to do gaming, but there's never any follow through on any of the things they say they're going to do. That makes it hard to be excited about doing games for their platforms.
In 2015, Apple brought to the Mac its low-level graphics API
Original Mac games
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Although currently most big-name Mac games are ports, this has not always been the case. Perhaps the most popular game which was originally developed for the Macintosh was 1993's
Another popular Mac game in the mid-1990s was
Other Macintosh focused developers have included
.Windows games
A particular problem for companies attempting to port Windows games to the Macintosh is licensing
Because of the smaller market, companies developing games for the Mac usually seek a lower licensing fee than Windows developers. When the middleware company refuses such terms porting that particular Windows game to the Mac may be uneconomical and engineering a viable alternative within the available budget impossible.[13] As a result, some popular games which use the Havok engine have not yet been ported to the Macintosh.
In other cases, workaround solutions may be found. In the case of GameSpy, one workaround is to limit Mac gamers to play against each other but not with users playing the Windows version.[13] However, in some cases, GameSpy has been reverse-engineered and implemented into the Mac game, so that it is able to network seamlessly with the Windows version of the game.[citation needed]
In-house porting
Only a few companies have developed or continue to develop games for both the Mac and Windows platforms. Notable examples of these are
Among the Mac versions of popular Windows games that were developed in-house are
Third-party porting
Most high-budget games that come to the Macintosh are originally created for Microsoft Windows and ported to the Mac operating system by one of a relatively small number of porting houses. Among the most notable of these are Aspyr, Feral Interactive, MacSoft, Red Marble Games, Coladia Games, The Omni Group, and MacPlay. A critical factor for the financial viability of these porting houses is the number of copies of the game sold; a "successful" title may sell only 50,000 units.[14]
The
Due to the time involved in licensing and porting the product, Macintosh versions of games ported by third-party companies are usually released anywhere from three months to more than a year after their Windows-based counterparts. For example, the Windows version of Civilization IV was released on October 25, 2005, but Mac gamers had to wait eight months until June 30, 2006, for the release of the Mac version.
Boot Camp
In April 2006 Apple released a
Boot Camp is no longer an option for new Apple computers powered by Apple silicon M-series chips. This method continues to be available for older Intel-based Macs.[19]
Emulation and virtualization
Over the years there have been a number of
Since the introduction of the Intel processor into the Macintosh platform, Windows
Wine-based projects
An open source Wine-based project called Wineskin allows anyone to attempt to port games to Mac OS X[27] since 2010. It uses all open source components and is open source itself. Its technology is very similar to what TransGaming does with Cider, but it is free to use to anyone. Wineskin creates self-contained ("clickable") Mac Applications out of the installation. The "wrappers" that can be made from this are often shared with friends or others. Legal versions of games can then be installed easily into the shared wrapper and then the final result works like a normal Mac app. Wineskin is mainly only used in "Hobbyist Porting" and not professional porting, but some professional game companies have used it in major releases. Since the end of 2014, there is a PaulTheTall.com app called Porting Kit[28] which automatically creates ready-to-use Wineskin wrappers for some specific games.
PlayOnMac is a free version of the same technology, also based on Wine.
A list of Wine-compatible Windows software, including over 5,000 games and how well each individual game works with Wine can be found at appdb.winehq.org. 1,500 games are listed as "Platinum", which means they work "out-of-the-box", while 1,400 more are listed as "Gold", meaning they require some tweaking of the installation to run flawlessly.
Linux gaming and free software games
This section is written like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic. (December 2019) |
Since the mid-2000s Mac gaming became more intertwined with that of another
Mac-focused porter Aspyr also started releasing titles for Linux following the release of Steam for that system in 2012, starting with Civilization V. Feral Interactive also released XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor for Linux.[30] Virtual Programming, Team17, and Devolver Digital have published for the two systems.
.Steam
On March 8, 2010, Valve stated that they would be porting their entire library of games over to Mac. They decided on native versions of their games, rather than emulations, and that any games purchased over Steam for computers running Windows would be available for free download to computers running Mac OS X, and vice versa. The first game to be released simultaneously for Mac and Windows by Valve was Portal 2 in April 2011.[48]
Apple silicon
Game Porting Toolkit is Apple's new translation layer released on 6 June 2023. Game Porting Toolkit (GPTK) combines Wine with Apple's own D3DMetal which supports DirectX 11 and 12. This is a less user-friendly method of installing Windows games on Apple Silicon Macs compared to CrossOver or Parallels, however it unlocks the ability to play many DirectX 12 games. A lot more games work using GPTK, however, games that use anti-cheat or aggressive DRMs generally don't work, along with games that require AVX/AVX 2, e.g. The Last of Us Part I.
See also
- List of Macintosh games
References
- ^ "Steam and macOS 10.15 Catalina". Steam. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
- ^ ISBN 0-596-00719-1
- ^ Mace, Scott (May 7, 1984). "In Praise of Classics". InfoWorld. p. 56. Retrieved February 6, 2015.
- ^ Halfhill, Tom R. (December 1986). "The MS-DOS Invasion / IBM Compatibles Are Coming Home". Compute!. p. 32. Retrieved November 9, 2013.
- ^ "Fusion, Transfusion or Confusion / Future Directions in Computer Entertainment". Computer Gaming World. December 1990. p. 26. Retrieved November 16, 2013.
- ^ Imagine Media. October 1996. pp. 38–46.
- ^ CSE/ISE 364 Lectures & Recitations (2007). A Brief History of Hypertext, Authoring, and Multimedia[permanent dead link], Centre for Visual Computing, Stony Brook, State University of New York
- Imagine Media. August 1996. p. 116.
- ISBN 1-59327-010-0
- ^ Iger, Robert (September 18, 2019). "'We Could Say Anything to Each Other': Bob Iger Remembers Steve Jobs". Vanity Fair.
- ^ Shepherd, Carrie (April 1999). "Profile: Steve Jobs". Arcade: 42–43.
- ^ "Gabe Newell Valve Interview – Orange Box". September 28, 2007. Retrieved October 2, 2007.
- ^ a b c d Peter Cohen (2006). Middleware messing up Mac game development, Macworld
- ^ Arik Hesseldahl (2006). Apple Needs to Get Its Game On , Business Week
- ^ Neale Monks (2006). Has BootCamp squished gaming on the Mac? MyMac.com
- ^ Tuncer Deniz (2006). Developers React To Apple's Boot Camp Inside Mac Games
- ^ Apple Inc. (2007). Apple – Boot Camp
- ^ Peter Cohen (2006). Mac games: What to look for in 2007 Archived October 13, 2008, at the Wayback Machine Macworld
- ^ "Install Windows on your newer Mac using Boot Camp". Apple Support. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
- ^ Neale Monks (2004). Review: Virtual PC 6.1 for Mac Archived October 8, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, AppleLust.com
- ^ "What is Virtualization?". Parallels Blog. March 21, 2017. Retrieved April 4, 2019.
- ^ VMWare.com
- ^ Inside Mac Games Interviews Parallels Inside Mac Games
- ^ "Knowledge Base". System requirements for DirectX 11. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
- ^ "TransGaming Talks Cider – The Mac Observer". www.macobserver.com. Retrieved April 4, 2019.
- ^ AppleInsider | EA's new Mac games will demand Intel-based systems
- ^ "Wineskin official website". Archived from the original on November 6, 2020. Retrieved June 26, 2012.
- ^ Porting Kit official website
- ^ Heggelund Hansen, Robin (March 10, 2009). "Porting games to Linux". hardware.no.
- GamingOnLinux. February 20, 2015. Retrieved February 27, 2015.
- ^ Rosen, Jeffrey (December 28, 2008). "Why you should support Mac OS X and Linux". Wolfire Games. Retrieved April 5, 2023.
- ^ Barr, Joe (December 22, 2006). "Commercial gaming: Can it thrive on Linux?". Linux.com. Archived from the original on May 15, 2011.
We've offered games for Linux since June 2004. I personally support alternatives to Microsoft, including Mac OS and Linux, so that's a big reason why we support Linux. Since we're using Java as a development environment, the porting is pretty easy, so that's another big reason. Extra testing and support is also required, so even with Java it's not a fully free porting process.
- LinuxGames. August 22, 2004. Archived from the originalon September 24, 2004. Retrieved April 5, 2023.
- ^ Orland, Kyle (February 28, 2011). "GDC 2011: Humble Indie Bundle Creators Talk Inspiration, Execution". Game Developer. Retrieved April 5, 2023.
Linux users tended to be the most generous of these, leading Graham to suggest indie developers go after underserved markets. "If you support Mac and Linux as an independent developer you have a good chance of doubling your revenue," Graham said.
- ^ Monks, Neale (November 29, 2007). "Open Source Mac Gaming: 10 Free Games Reviewed". Tidbits. Archived from the original on May 15, 2010. Retrieved July 20, 2022.
- ACM Digital Library.
- ^ Scarpelli, Michael (October 26, 2005). "Battle for Wesnoth". Inside Mac Games. Archived from the original on March 31, 2012. Retrieved April 4, 2023.
- ^ Markowitz, David (May 12, 2006). "Nexuiz". Inside Mac Games. Archived from the original on January 15, 2008. Retrieved April 4, 2023.
- ^ Saltz, Austen (November 25, 2007). "OpenArena: Pure, Fragilicious Fun for the Mac". MacApper. Archived from the original on March 24, 2010. Retrieved March 15, 2024.
- ^ Llorence, Gerald (April 29, 2007). "X-Moto: Open Source Motocross Platform Action". MacApper. Archived from the original on January 14, 2012. Retrieved April 4, 2023.
- ^ Barylick, Chris (September 11, 2006). "The Slacker's Guide - Something Cool For the Nerds: GLTron". The Mac Observer. Retrieved May 1, 2023.
- ^ "Want to Play Age of Empires for Mac? Try 0 A.D. Instead, & It's Free". OSXDaily. June 16, 2018. Retrieved April 4, 2023.
- ^ Patterson, Blake (April 25, 2001). "Tux for OS X!". MacRumours. Retrieved April 8, 2023.
- ^ Gatlan, Sergiu (November 12, 2008). "Six Free and Must Have Games for Your Mac". Softpedia. Archived from the original on December 13, 2009. Retrieved July 20, 2022.
- ^ Crider, Michael (December 24, 2017). "The Best Modern, Open Source Ports of Classic Games". How-To Geek. Retrieved March 20, 2023.
- ^ Bolding, Jonathan (September 4, 2022). "Y'all know about these huge lists of free, open-source game clones, right?". PC Gamer. Retrieved February 4, 2023.
- ^ Mitchell, Alex (November 10, 2023). "Mac Source Ports brings retro gaming to MacOS". RetroRGB. Retrieved November 24, 2023.
- ^ Valve to Deliver Steam & Source on the Mac
External links
- Mac gaming at Curlie