Half-Life 2 on Mac, without Windows
by Zack Stern 
{ Oct 4th 2006 at 9:15AM }
A Mac gamer has been running Half-Life 2 on a MacBook using the public beta of CrossOver Mac, a tool to run PC apps on Intel Macs without Windows. Half-Life 2 and other games previously required booting into XP to work on Intel Macs. The CrossOver gamer documents his process and results; expect glitches and bugs.While CrossOver Mac is still in beta and may never acceptably run PC games, the future of Mac games is uncertain. Will tools like Cider, which let PC publishers quickly port titles to Intel Macs, cause more Mac games? Or will Mac releases slow down because gamers can play new PC titles by booting into XP?
[Via Xlr8yourmac.com]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
steve @ Oct 4th 2006 9:29AM
How can Mac game releases slow down from "none?"
The Mac is dead as a game platform, at least for native software. Boot Camp was the final nail in the coffin. There's no way any of these kludges will support all vidocards, all versions of DirectX, all the crazy shit developers do to extract the most performance, etc.
The only games that may be cross platform would be OpenGL ones. But few games are going that route anymore.
Josh @ Oct 4th 2006 9:49AM
Developers don't do crazy shit to PC games to increase performance. Hell, they don't even usually deviate from the standard compiler settings. They rely on people to buy new, faster hardware.
Now, on consoles, developers will do crazy things because there is no way to upgrade the hardware. :)
Paul Avers @ Oct 4th 2006 10:37AM
Honestly, I'd take a native-running port running in OS X any day of the week instead of running in XP of... well, just about anything. Even if it involves waiting longer. I'd probably be playing CoH more if I didn't have to restart all the time *just* for it.
CrossOver's nice, but *extremely* buggy.
In short: 'eff Havok.
Colon D @ Oct 4th 2006 10:40AM
I agree largely with #1 - I can't really see many developers using things such as Cider as the potential sales for the Mac platform are, to be quite honest, negligible and not worth the effort. Having Boot Camp also places the Mac as a gaming platform into further peril as if anyone really wants to play the games they could just boot up Windows and do so at their leisure.
So, in a phrase: not good.
Matto @ Oct 4th 2006 11:54AM
As a Mac user, and a serious gamer (although I'm pretty casual when it comes to PC games), I'm really looking forward to this kind of technology (cider in particular). I'll finally be able to play PC games without having to worry about maintaining a Window environment, and rebooting.
I think as Mac use continues to climb more developers will be willing to put the (small amount) of money into getting a near-native "port" of their game on the Mac.
computer gamer @ Oct 4th 2006 12:35PM
A lot of casual and indie titles could benifit (more from Cider) as there is quite a good market on the mac for those... less so the AAA retail games.
The ZeroCorpse @ Oct 4th 2006 12:50PM
I don't really care for games on my Mac. I didn't get a computer to play games. I got a computer to search the Internet, do work, create some things, and stay in touch. I can author DVDs on my computer. I can play games on my 360. They both have a place in my home.
And seriously-- Has anyone looked at the PC gaming field lately? What MUST HAVE games are there for the PC? MMORPGs? No thanks. I can take a break from those for a while and not miss anything. FEAR? It's coming on the 360. Oblivion? It's better (and less of a pain in the neck) on the 360.
What's on the computers that I can't get for consoles? The Sims 2? Mahjongg Extreme? There's nothing compelling in the PC gaming world right now. Nothing worth spending so much on a gaming rig, anyway.
A walk through Best Buy or EBGames shows damn near NOTHING available on PC. Releases have slowed to a trickle.
Looi @ Oct 4th 2006 1:35PM
WoW won't let me play other games anyway. It's mean like that.
Justin D'Onofrio @ Oct 4th 2006 1:47PM
Hey y'all,
Imagine my surprise when my boss told me that my forum post was linked on Joystiq. Nifty! =)
Discussion on technologies like Wine have been an issue of much debate amongst Mac gamers and developers. Personally, I feel it is too soon to tell what the overall outcome is going to be for Mac game developers - especially with easy-to-use tools such as Unity really making it easy for both indie devs and bigger devs to develop original Mac games.
Having said that, I absolutely love the Source engine. The scaling that it does based on the power of the hardware it is running on is fantastic. I'm really going to be a bitch about getting Source games running on the Mac, as well as they can, through technologies such as Wine and others.
Especially Half-Life 2 and CounterStrike:Source. I've played with many CS gamers that ONLY play CS - and many of them would love to get a Mac if it played CS as well as their PC.
~ Justin D'Onofrio
sight_unseen @ Oct 5th 2006 2:36AM
Right Justin,
It'll be interesting to see what happens in the next year or so. I'm on Mac, do all of my work on it, no desire to move to XP at all except for games. Vista might be a different story. Dual booting is a problem as I can't be in my games when there's anything even remotely connected with the idea of 'work' happening. Crossover would be a decent solution, and Cider is a ray of light, but I've gathered that DirectX games can't be ported. What I really want is EVE Online running on my Mac laptop within OS X. Dare to dream.
eric @ Oct 5th 2006 7:48PM
ZeroCorpse
Pc gaming is by far superior to console gaming, not just in games, but in technology. All the next gen consoles combined will only look just as good as any dx10 game, not even the ps3 will compare to it. Will you ever see a playable(playable i mean with mouse and keyboard, how one is supposed to be played) RTS on a console? Flight sim? And dont even get me started on how horrible consoles are for FPS games...so get out of being a console fanboy and come see the light that is PC gaming