7 ms·

Does anyone know why the Mac port has not been updated since 2012 (but downloads are still being offered)?

by mahrain 6y ago

mister_hn 6y ago
Is still Mac a relevant platform for gaming? You can try run it in a virtual machine
- brootstrap 6y ago
  for indie games yup... been rocking mostly indie, rogue like, single player , 2D type stuff. 2013 mac air still going strong!! 500+ hours of darkest dungeon, slay the spire, isaac... serious bang for buck getting hundreds of hours from 3 games totaling like $60 dollars
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    Even with Catalina, or are you on an older OS? Catalina just seems to have killed an inordinate amount of stuff...
    - karatestomp 6y ago
      Can confirm. Most of what ran well on my older MacBook with Intel graphics were indie games and older games, and those are the same ones hit hardest by the Bitpocalypse. I went from something like 150-200 games on Steam that'd run natively on my MacBook, to almost none.
bluescrn 6y ago
Macs tend to lack decent GPUs, and Apple’s approach to backwards compatibility/industry standards (removing 32bit support and with it half of the Mac Steam library, and deprecating OpenGL) is hardly encouraging people to support the platform when it comes to anything gaming-related.
- danielscrubs 6y ago
  > Macs tend to lack decent GPU Are you saying the majority of the emulation calculation nowadays are done in a gpgpu fashion in that emulator? For if that's the case, it would be insanely cool.
  - wheybags 6y ago
    No, it's more that the consoles they're emulating have GPUs, so they emulate the GPUs with the computers GPU.
    - danielscrubs 6y ago
      So it wouldn't be possible to play PS2 games on my MacBook because it has an integrated Intel Iris Graphics GPU?
      - galad87 6y ago
        It would be possible. An Intel Iris Graphics GPU is good enough for a PS2 emulator.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  > Macs tend to lack decent GPUs In 2012, I played through the entirety of Persona 4 in PCSX2 on a Macbook Air with an Intel HD Graphics 4000. I was using Bootcamp (even back then when it was more current, getting the native Mac version to actually run was a PITA), but clearly the hardware is sufficient. Persona 4 is among the easier games to emulate IIRC, but I'd expect that in 2020 both the hardware and software would be more capable.
  - karatestomp 6y ago
    My 2014 MacBook Pro with Intel graphics can play lots of Unity games just fine, including Kerbal Space Program. Can't crank the graphics all the way up on all of them (can on some!) but it's fine. Minecraft's good, maxed out. Any older games, of course. Most of the new wave of Baldur's Gate-alikes and sequels, if I don't max out the pretty, run fine. And that's on 6-year-old Intel graphics. Definitely no problem with PS2/N64 emulation or earlier. Only reason I do almost zero gaming on it these days is that they killed 32-bit support, and with it most of my library.
bzb3 6y ago
From my experience with open source projects: nobody in the team owns a Mac.
- john_alan 6y ago
  I disagree with that. macOS is basically BSD and it’s great for Dev. Most of the devs I work with use it.
  - Jonnax 6y ago
    You have to define what kind of developers you're talking about. Do they work with graphics? OSX doesn't really have many native games running on it. So clearly there's a whole group of developers who aren't Mac first. Like OSX is enjoyed by a lot of developers because it's similar to Linux. However Apple deprecated openGL, aren't using Vulkan but have their own thing called Metal. So that makes it quite OSX specific. Edit: Looks like someone is working on it: https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/issues/18 https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/issues/18
  - snickerbockers 6y ago
    Apple ditched OpenGL and Vulkan for their own exclusive 3D graphics API. They're a terrible platform to develop for.
    - john_alan 6y ago
      ...if you're writing cross-platform games. FTFY
      - snickerbockers 6y ago
        OP is literally asking why PCSX2 isn't cross-platform.
      - majewsky 6y ago
        > if you're writing cross-platform games and not using one of the established game engines that wrap OpenGL/Metal/Vulkan FTFY
galad87 6y ago
Probably because there were no contributor interested in porting it to macOS. There is some activity on https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/issues/18 https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/issues/18 , it seems the biggest issue is that the PCSX2 JIT is 32bit only.
chkuendig 6y ago
See https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/issues/18 https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/issues/18 Looks like there's a working build again.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  Anyone manage to build a binary from that tree? I'd be interested to try it.
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
PCSX2's JIT is 32bit only, so that's probably one reason at least more recently.

Does anyone know why the Mac port has not been updated since 2012 (but downloads are still being offered)?

mister_hn 6y ago

Is still Mac a relevant platform for gaming? You can try run it in a virtual machine

brootstrap 6y ago
for indie games yup... been rocking mostly indie, rogue like, single player , 2D type stuff. 2013 mac air still going strong!! 500+ hours of darkest dungeon, slay the spire, isaac... serious bang for buck getting hundreds of hours from 3 games totaling like $60 dollars
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  Even with Catalina, or are you on an older OS? Catalina just seems to have killed an inordinate amount of stuff...
  - karatestomp 6y ago
    Can confirm. Most of what ran well on my older MacBook with Intel graphics were indie games and older games, and those are the same ones hit hardest by the Bitpocalypse. I went from something like 150-200 games on Steam that'd run natively on my MacBook, to almost none.

bluescrn 6y ago

Macs tend to lack decent GPUs, and Apple’s approach to backwards compatibility/industry standards (removing 32bit support and with it half of the Mac Steam library, and deprecating OpenGL) is hardly encouraging people to support the platform when it comes to anything gaming-related.

danielscrubs 6y ago
> Macs tend to lack decent GPU Are you saying the majority of the emulation calculation nowadays are done in a gpgpu fashion in that emulator? For if that's the case, it would be insanely cool.
- wheybags 6y ago
  No, it's more that the consoles they're emulating have GPUs, so they emulate the GPUs with the computers GPU.
  - danielscrubs 6y ago
    So it wouldn't be possible to play PS2 games on my MacBook because it has an integrated Intel Iris Graphics GPU?
    - galad87 6y ago
      It would be possible. An Intel Iris Graphics GPU is good enough for a PS2 emulator.
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
> Macs tend to lack decent GPUs In 2012, I played through the entirety of Persona 4 in PCSX2 on a Macbook Air with an Intel HD Graphics 4000. I was using Bootcamp (even back then when it was more current, getting the native Mac version to actually run was a PITA), but clearly the hardware is sufficient. Persona 4 is among the easier games to emulate IIRC, but I'd expect that in 2020 both the hardware and software would be more capable.
- karatestomp 6y ago
  My 2014 MacBook Pro with Intel graphics can play lots of Unity games just fine, including Kerbal Space Program. Can't crank the graphics all the way up on all of them (can on some!) but it's fine. Minecraft's good, maxed out. Any older games, of course. Most of the new wave of Baldur's Gate-alikes and sequels, if I don't max out the pretty, run fine. And that's on 6-year-old Intel graphics. Definitely no problem with PS2/N64 emulation or earlier. Only reason I do almost zero gaming on it these days is that they killed 32-bit support, and with it most of my library.

bzb3 6y ago

From my experience with open source projects: nobody in the team owns a Mac.

john_alan 6y ago
I disagree with that. macOS is basically BSD and it’s great for Dev. Most of the devs I work with use it.
- Jonnax 6y ago
  You have to define what kind of developers you're talking about. Do they work with graphics? OSX doesn't really have many native games running on it. So clearly there's a whole group of developers who aren't Mac first. Like OSX is enjoyed by a lot of developers because it's similar to Linux. However Apple deprecated openGL, aren't using Vulkan but have their own thing called Metal. So that makes it quite OSX specific. Edit: Looks like someone is working on it: https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/issues/18 https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/issues/18
- snickerbockers 6y ago
  Apple ditched OpenGL and Vulkan for their own exclusive 3D graphics API. They're a terrible platform to develop for.
  - john_alan 6y ago
    ...if you're writing cross-platform games. FTFY
    - snickerbockers 6y ago
      OP is literally asking why PCSX2 isn't cross-platform.
    - majewsky 6y ago
      > if you're writing cross-platform games and not using one of the established game engines that wrap OpenGL/Metal/Vulkan FTFY

galad87 6y ago

Probably because there were no contributor interested in porting it to macOS. There is some activity on https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/issues/18 https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/issues/18 , it seems the biggest issue is that the PCSX2 JIT is 32bit only.

chkuendig 6y ago

See https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/issues/18 https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/issues/18 Looks like there's a working build again.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
Anyone manage to build a binary from that tree? I'd be interested to try it.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

PCSX2's JIT is 32bit only, so that's probably one reason at least more recently.