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The fact of the matter is, of the 250+ games I have in my steam library <50 of them work with mac. This ties me to windows. When I run windows 8, I can run ste

by Sumaso 14y ago

The fact of the matter is, of the 250+ games I have in my steam library <50 of them work with mac. This ties me to windows. When I run windows 8, I can run steam and all my games, they dont magically stop working. While windows 8 RT isnt an open platform, the windows i will be running on my laptops and my desktops will be. I'm very disappointed in valves wording, and it shows how poorly their responding to their first real competition.

w1ntermute 14y ago
> The fact of the matter is, of the 250+ games I have in my steam library <50 of them work with mac. This ties me to windows. And what has Valve done to promote gaming on OS X exactly? Sure, they had a short Portal promotion and have added games since, but they haven't exactly pushed the platform. And besides, Macs are not good gaming machines. Desktop Macs (iMacs and Mac Pros) are much more difficult to upgrade than Linux/Windows desktops, and you get less powerful hardware for your money. You can't install OS X on a non-Apple desktop (not without a lot of hassle, anyway), and very few people have done that. OTOH, you can easily install Linux on a Windows desktop, which is what most gamers have at the moment. A lot of the people on HN have spent a lot of time in the Bay Area and have forgotten that 90% of the population doesn't own a Mac, so let me remind you of that fact. Unlike with OS X, gamers can move to Linux without purchasing any new hardware. Therefore, using the lack of success of OS X as a gaming platform since Steam added support for it to say that Linux won't succeed either is faulty logic. > When I run windows 8, I can run steam and all my games, they dont magically stop working. Well, there are many of us who already run Linux and only keep around a Windows install to play games. The vast majority of my time is spent playing Source-based games. If I were given the option of playing Source-based games in Linux, I would spend very little time in Windows. > I'm very disappointed in valves wording, and it shows how poorly their responding to their first real competition. I think they're responding the best they can. They're going up against Microsoft, which is well known for its anticompetitive behavior. The Windows 8 app store will be installed by default and given prime real estate (baked into the UI) in Windows 8. Valve needs to do something quickly before Microsoft starts abusing this power, and the best way to do that is to get gamers onto a platform no one controls - Linux.
- psykotic 14y ago
  > Desktop Macs (iMacs and Mac Pros) are much more difficult to upgrade than Linux/Windows desktops 'Much more difficult' is an exaggeration for Mac Pros. The biggest issue for gaming is the GPU. With Mountain Lion, you have seamless support for 600-series NVIDIA cards using NVIDIA's own drivers (I use a GTX 670 at home in my recently built Hackintosh). The bigger issue from a game developer's point of view is that the OpenGL implementation on OS X is still a mess, though it's been slowly getting better, partly from pushback from developers like Valve. I know the guys doing the Linux work at Valve personally. They've been doing a ton of work with vendors in the process of getting their games to run well on different GPUs. Right now NVIDIA and Intel have the best Linux support. Hopefully AMD/ATI will catch up if Valve's Steam push creates enough momentum. Almost all the issues with gaming on OS X and Linux are chicken-and-egg problems that will resolve themselves if there is ever enough anti-Windows momentum to warrant the sufficient vendor work.
- hdra 14y ago
  Macs are not good gaming machines? Most Macs have decent hardware, and the driver problem in Linux prevents a large portions of hardware to perform efficiently anyway, so performance is definitely not a problem for Macs, my friend play Skyrim and Diablo 3 without any problem on their macs. > Therefore, using the lack of success of OS X as a gaming platform since Steam added support for it to say that Linux won't succeed either is faulty logic. True. Same thing applies with saying that gaming on Linux will take off just because Steam added support for it. I think the problem with desktop Linux that was discussed around a while back is still the biggest thing that is holding Linux as a gaming platform (or as a desktop OS, even). A number of humble bundle that I purchased runs really slowly on Linux because of lack of support for my graphic card. TLDR: Still a chicken/egg situation with Linux adoption as a mainstream OS in general.
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    > Most Macs have decent hardware It doesn't matter if they have decent hardware, that hardware is expensive and not upgradeable. That's a big factor for gamers who want to get the most bang for their buck. 2 years down the line, those Macs will struggle to run the latest games at the highest settings, and rather than being able to just swap out some components as necessary, people will have to ditch the whole computer and buy a new one from Apple. Good for Apple's profits, bad for the gamers. > the driver problem in Linux prevents a large portions of hardware to perform efficiently anyway I don't know what this mythical "driver problem" is, but I haven't personally encountered it. > A number of humble bundle that I purchased runs really slowly on Linux because of lack of support for my graphic card. I don't know what graphics card you have, but I have purchased just about every Humble Bundle so far, and they run just fine on my Linux machine.

by Sumaso 14y ago

w1ntermute 14y ago

> The fact of the matter is, of the 250+ games I have in my steam library <50 of them work with mac. This ties me to windows. And what has Valve done to promote gaming on OS X exactly? Sure, they had a short Portal promotion and have added games since, but they haven't exactly pushed the platform. And besides, Macs are not good gaming machines. Desktop Macs (iMacs and Mac Pros) are much more difficult to upgrade than Linux/Windows desktops, and you get less powerful hardware for your money. You can't install OS X on a non-Apple desktop (not without a lot of hassle, anyway), and very few people have done that. OTOH, you can easily install Linux on a Windows desktop, which is what most gamers have at the moment. A lot of the people on HN have spent a lot of time in the Bay Area and have forgotten that 90% of the population doesn't own a Mac, so let me remind you of that fact. Unlike with OS X, gamers can move to Linux without purchasing any new hardware. Therefore, using the lack of success of OS X as a gaming platform since Steam added support for it to say that Linux won't succeed either is faulty logic. > When I run windows 8, I can run steam and all my games, they dont magically stop working. Well, there are many of us who already run Linux and only keep around a Windows install to play games. The vast majority of my time is spent playing Source-based games. If I were given the option of playing Source-based games in Linux, I would spend very little time in Windows. > I'm very disappointed in valves wording, and it shows how poorly their responding to their first real competition. I think they're responding the best they can. They're going up against Microsoft, which is well known for its anticompetitive behavior. The Windows 8 app store will be installed by default and given prime real estate (baked into the UI) in Windows 8. Valve needs to do something quickly before Microsoft starts abusing this power, and the best way to do that is to get gamers onto a platform no one controls - Linux.

psykotic 14y ago
> Desktop Macs (iMacs and Mac Pros) are much more difficult to upgrade than Linux/Windows desktops 'Much more difficult' is an exaggeration for Mac Pros. The biggest issue for gaming is the GPU. With Mountain Lion, you have seamless support for 600-series NVIDIA cards using NVIDIA's own drivers (I use a GTX 670 at home in my recently built Hackintosh). The bigger issue from a game developer's point of view is that the OpenGL implementation on OS X is still a mess, though it's been slowly getting better, partly from pushback from developers like Valve. I know the guys doing the Linux work at Valve personally. They've been doing a ton of work with vendors in the process of getting their games to run well on different GPUs. Right now NVIDIA and Intel have the best Linux support. Hopefully AMD/ATI will catch up if Valve's Steam push creates enough momentum. Almost all the issues with gaming on OS X and Linux are chicken-and-egg problems that will resolve themselves if there is ever enough anti-Windows momentum to warrant the sufficient vendor work.
hdra 14y ago
Macs are not good gaming machines? Most Macs have decent hardware, and the driver problem in Linux prevents a large portions of hardware to perform efficiently anyway, so performance is definitely not a problem for Macs, my friend play Skyrim and Diablo 3 without any problem on their macs. > Therefore, using the lack of success of OS X as a gaming platform since Steam added support for it to say that Linux won't succeed either is faulty logic. True. Same thing applies with saying that gaming on Linux will take off just because Steam added support for it. I think the problem with desktop Linux that was discussed around a while back is still the biggest thing that is holding Linux as a gaming platform (or as a desktop OS, even). A number of humble bundle that I purchased runs really slowly on Linux because of lack of support for my graphic card. TLDR: Still a chicken/egg situation with Linux adoption as a mainstream OS in general.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  > Most Macs have decent hardware It doesn't matter if they have decent hardware, that hardware is expensive and not upgradeable. That's a big factor for gamers who want to get the most bang for their buck. 2 years down the line, those Macs will struggle to run the latest games at the highest settings, and rather than being able to just swap out some components as necessary, people will have to ditch the whole computer and buy a new one from Apple. Good for Apple's profits, bad for the gamers. > the driver problem in Linux prevents a large portions of hardware to perform efficiently anyway I don't know what this mythical "driver problem" is, but I haven't personally encountered it. > A number of humble bundle that I purchased runs really slowly on Linux because of lack of support for my graphic card. I don't know what graphics card you have, but I have purchased just about every Humble Bundle so far, and they run just fine on my Linux machine.