Quoting: manus76

Quoting: Bergerac

Quoting: manus76And with a quote from Adam Smith we might summarise the whole discussion about Apple: '...that I have fresh bread and rolls every morning is not because of the baker's goodwill, it's because of his greed' (or something to that effect, quoted from a failing memory).
I suggest we leave it at that and do not open this usual can of worms, it might turn too political and heated.

That's fine in a competitive market where there are many bakers, but should one baker have a monopoly on the supply of wheat... your bread will most probably be stale, and most --certainly-- a lot more expensive.

And aren't there companies competing with Apple on basically all fronts? Samsung? Microsoft? Google?

My attitude is along the lines of 'provide me with ease of legally obtaining such things, don't gouge on the price, and I won't attempt to obtain your product for free.' A perfect example of this is HBO. I really wanted to watch Game of Thrones. I just simply couldn't do it unless A) I decided to fork over to a cable company tons of money for crap I'll never watch. B) Obtain the episodes illegally. They finally got a bit of a brain and released HBO Now. I paid for a subscription up until it stopped working on my Android phone because it was rooted, and the HBO Now web client stopped working on Linux.

Come to the current time; I canceled my HBO Now account through T-Mobile google, since the only source I could watch it on decently was my PS4 (and no I don't count watching Game of thrones on my 5.7" Note 4 or even my 12" Note Pro as decent). And now Amazon actually provides the option to subscribe to HBO, and Amazon Video pretty much works everywhere (Including Linux browsers).

Provide us with a legal way to obtain it, and we'll pay for it. Price point is important too, I mean if HBO Now was more than 15 a month, I wouldn't get it. There are 3 shows in total that I want to watch on it, I even ended up getting Showtime this way as well. Smartest thing these companies ever did, now I don't have to deal with 200 channels of bullshit just to watch something.

The funny thing about Pirating games though, much like HBO Now's DRM preventing it from working directly in Linux browsers, there have been so many cases where people would buy legitimate copies of games, only to have their computer lockup, become unstable, or kill their kitten because of some DRM that came with their game. When they would have saved time and effort and money if they'd just downloaded it. The publishers are so afraid of piracy, they ended up forcing some people to just so they could play a game they already paid for, so then they start doing that more, without paying for them.

About availability. That's no longer really the case, with digital stores, etc. But not too long ago when we had more platforms to choose from, stores were drying up left and right. They blamed Atari and Amiga disappearing due to piracy and no one wanted to buy software for them if they got it for free. Problem was, it was the ONLY way to get software for a long time. Any of the computer stores that carried it usually had a section that dwindled more and more every year, so once again people just stopped going to the store to see if anything was new, they just hit the BBS's.

Thank goodness for sites like this one where we get announcements that games came out, and we have access to just buy things from the comfort of our own homes.

Sorry for the rant, Game on!

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Quoting: Jan

Quoting: slaapliedjeHas anyone done a side by side comparison of graphics for a PC vs Mac to see if they 'console-ize' Mac versions? I know I tried playing Total War: Attila on my Mac and the fan went crazy, the frame rate was barely more than a slide show, and I thought it was going to melt. I just figured the Intel chipset in it couldn't handle it, but it did make me wonder what kind of person uses solely a Mac for gaming? I'm really curious how their numbers are higher than ours, unless it is some sort of 'inside job'.

There has always been a group of dedicated Mac gaming enthusiasts -- just visit insidemacgames.com and learn more about the topic. Most 'hardcore' Mac gamers used to buy the old-school expandable Mac Pro (which still supports the latest Kepler GPUs) or the high-end iMac, which usually has a decent graphics card (the Nvidia 680MX in the 2012 model was the fastest mobile GPU available back then).

Most Mac users nowadays run a MacBook (Pro). Thanks to official eGPU support (Apple offers a dev kit with an AMD RX580) this won't be a bottleneck in the foreseeable future. My own experiences with unofficially supported eGPUs on the Mac have been mixed. It worked after some Terminal hacks, but the official solution should be stable.

If you ask me to portray an average Mac gaming enthusiast? Creative professional (designer, audio/video editor, etc.), scientist or student who needs a reliable working machine with little to no support costs, well designed (both OS and device), standard software support and likes to play games in his/her spare time. All on one box. Some dual-boot with Windows (Boot Camp), but the majority doesn't. Only half of them use Steam, the remaining 50 % buy their games off of the Mac App Store (according to Feral's numbers).

Hmm, I'm still wondering if there is any dumbing down of graphics during porting. A good example is some of the things like PhysX that wasn't supported by OpenGL/nvidia driver when Borderlands was ported to Linux means that the water effects aren't as cool looking.

Frontier Development simply just didn't release Horizons for mac due to lack of OpenGL 4.5 requirement.

Generally the 'Creative professionals' tend to be more casual gamers, not hard core ones. Always exception to every rule, that's for sure. I don't know about scientists using macs all that much, seems to me there are quite a few Linux distributions and tools out there specifically written by scientists for scientists. I think Macs are mostly used by sys admins who need to have their computers watched over by IT, but still need a *nix of some sort.. and students and the Creative types like you said. None of those are usually all that hardcore of gamers. Hell, even people into VR right now aren't really getting the 'Hardcore Gaming' experience. That's probably the biggest complaint right now with it, is you have to have a hardcore rig, but there aren't really any (or may, aforementioned E:D is certainly hardcore) that support VR yet, so people label it 'niche'.

So with that in mind, A) SteamVR on Linux required Vulkan. B) SteamVR is going to use Metal on Apple, and C) SteamVR is going to use DirectX/Vulkan on Windows. What do you think makes things easier to port to?

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So, I just some quick look ups, and referencing other bits in this...

OpenGL 4.1 was released in 2010. OpenGL 4.2 was released in 2011. OpenGL 4.3 was released in 2012.

Pretty continuous updates, yet Apple stuck with 4.1 (or is it 4.2, can't recall, just remember Elite:Dangerous was ported to it, and Elite:Horizons can't run on it because that old of a GL version doesn't support the shaders necessary for the planet landing graphics). That's at least a year between initial announcement of either Vulkan or Metal. Considering Vulkan runs on mobile devices, Metal could have been nothing more than lock-in.

As covered by others a few posts back as well as myself, so many times it'd be stated "Oh, it's already out for Mac/OpenGL, should be easier to port to Linux, since <insert random percentage> is already completed!" We (being the Linux users of somewhat sound mind) can no longer claim that due to Metal.

We can at least say Vulkan is winning over DirectX 12. Last I looked at the two, which was a month or two ago, the only DirectX 12 only games out there were published by Microsoft. No one else was ready to dive in to force people to use Windows 10 yet, which has been out for TWO years! There are games that support DX 11 and 12, but even then the list is slowly being surpassed by ones that have added Vulkan support.

Now about what Feral and Aspyr port. We should realize... when things like Mafia 3 only get a Mac port, it's because of the publisher's wishes, not what Aspyr wants or thinks will be profitable. They make their deal for whatever the publisher will allow. I was thinking about this quite a bit some time ago, trying to figure out the WHY and WHO that buys video games for Macs. The hardware on average isn't that great, unless you don't mind spending $1000 more for lesser hardware... I can't help but think that Publishers/Sales critters have a good amount of Apple fans within them. So they say "Yes, let's publish for our great platform, it can do anything!" Yet even something as old as World of Warcraft that has a native Mac version... a guy I know who loves everything Apple bought a PC specifically to play that game at higher resolution because his Macbook Pro (with an nVidia chip in it) was too slow.

Has anyone done a side by side comparison of graphics for a PC vs Mac to see if they 'console-ize' Mac versions? I know I tried playing Total War: Attila on my Mac and the fan went crazy, the frame rate was barely more than a slide show, and I thought it was going to melt. I just figured the Intel chipset in it couldn't handle it, but it did make me wonder what kind of person uses solely a Mac for gaming? I'm really curious how their numbers are higher than ours, unless it is some sort of 'inside job'.

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Quoting: scaine

Quoting: slaapliedjeLet's break that down;
CUPS: Open Source project bought by Apple. Still open sourced.
WebKit: Forked from KHTML, but is updated from various people. Still open sourced.
Swift: I'll give this one to Apple, cool.
Darwin: Open source kernel, but they don't keep it all that updated.
OpenCL: Already covered that it was kind of dropped. Not sure if they invented it or not.
Bonjour/Zeroconf: pretty sure that's a standard called mDNS, no?
USB-C/Thunderbolt: Intel created this.
FireWire: Same thing as above.
HTML5 vs Flash? everyone was behind this, even Adobe...

mDNS was based on an open paper which was adopted by Apple and Microsoft. mDNS/Bonjour is Apple's name for zeroconf, Linux called it Avahi, not sure what MS did.

CUPS was around for a while, Apple didn't buy it, but they did eventually head hunt the main dude behind the company that did.

Don't know much about the rest, but it does seem to me that Apple get credit for stuff that's been around for years. I wouldn't mind, if they actually offered anything (literally, nearly anything, even just "credit", jesus!) back to the projects they use. But since they won't hardly even give anything back to their own shareholders, it hardly surprises me that they don't give anything back to the giants upon whose shoulders they stand.

Oh, sorry, bought/hired them all.. I couldn't remember exactly, but CUPS was around forever... I was convinced at the time it was a Good Thing™. It hasn't really turned out bad, but my thought had been "Cool, for once you can see 'Windows/Mac' on a printer, and know it should also work with Linux due to CUPS.' But I think the decision was more about Apple realizing their own printer support was becoming terrible. I don't now, I didn't use Macs back then, and only grew to dislike them after I used one. One things for sure, CUPS is still superior over Microsoft's printer spooler, which feels like it hasn't really been updated since Windows '95...

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[quote=Jan]

Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: JanConsider other cases (besides graphics). Apple didn't join Alliance for Open Media (while even MS did). Apple refused to support WebRTC in desktop Safari, they refused to support MSE, trying to sabotage adoption of DASH, and so on and so forth. The bottom line, they are the most notorious lock-in jerks around and they are causing a lot of damage to the industry because of that.

What about CUPS, WebKit, Swift, Darwin, OpenCL/Grand Central, Bonjour/Zeroconf, USB-C/Thunderbolt, FireWire, embracing of HTML5 instead of Flash, etc.?

I have the impression certain people like to cherry pick a lot just to find another reason to bash 'Evil Apple' instead of focusing on the real reasons why Linux adaption in gaming and on the desktop in general is lacking.

Apple is not preventing Linux from succeeding.

The lack of software people actually want and use on a daily basis (e.g. Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office) and no flagship hardware/software company with an attractive Linux-specific product is more important than anything coming out of Cupertino.

Let's break that down;
CUPS: Open Source project bought by Apple. Still open sourced.
WebKit: Forked from KHTML, but is updated from various people. Still open sourced.
Swift: I'll give this one to Apple, cool.
Darwin: Open source kernel, but they don't keep it all that updated.
OpenCL: Already covered that it was kind of dropped. Not sure if they invented it or not.
Bonjour/Zeroconf: pretty sure that's a standard called mDNS, no?
USB-C/Thunderbolt: Intel created this.
FireWire: Same thing as above.
HTML5 vs Flash? everyone was behind this, even Adobe...

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And why wouldn't they have a hidden agenda against Desktop Linux? How many in the tech industry use Macs because they have a Unix-like environment underneath the shiny bits? Windows is just not good at administrating thousands of Linux servers. Macs are almost good enough if you can tolerate older versions of bash / python, etc. If it weren't for Apple lock-in for these people, I'm sure there would be more Desktop Linux users.

I'm still puzzled on what Mac owners are buying these games that don't get Linux ports. Most of them are too large and require more hardware than the majority of Macbooks have. Try running something like Mad Max on a intel chipset.. While there are ones out there with Nvidias, I'm betting that is a smaller majority. Then there are the PROs but who would spend that much money on something to game?

As far as the Metal vs Vulkan thing. Vulkan wasn't created mainly for Android, that was an afterthought. In fact only the most recent Android versions even support it. It was started as a low level API to replace openGL, which Apple had already long ago ditched. They created their own for lock-in there is only one reason to create an API that isn't cross platform. Same reason as MS not releasing DirectX everywhere.

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For all those 'when it's on GOG', maybe Liam should have a bot troll GOG and the forums and send a PM to those that say they'll buy it on there.

Of course, that's kind of a dick move, but would be funny. If GOG would release their Galaxy store for Linux, it'd be nice to have notifications like this.

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Their latest patch added a nice glitch to the gamepad mapping page where you can't assign the right bumper to the heavy strike ability. Good thing the steam controller can be re-programmed.

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[quote=Jan]

Quoting: Shmerl1. Lock-in taxes cross platform development making it more expensive.
2. In practice it means some simply won't do it, and will limit their releases to bigger platforms (not Linux).

...

3. Vulkan on Sony and Apple hardware
Both vendors don't license out their operating systems or technology. They even build their own chips (Sony in the past with Cell, Apple with their customised A+ chips). You cannot legally build and sell an 'alternative PlayStation' or a copycat iPhone. Those companies make money with their fixed/locked hard-/software combination and exclusive features. This is different from MS's business model, which relies on building an OS platform for anyone to use and build whatever they like.

If Microsoft as an 'open platform supplier' decides to ignore or even prevent Vulkan this is much more crucial to Linux' development as a viable gaming platform than Sony or Apple doing their own thing.

This is the thing here. If Vulkan was a Linux Only API, then it'd probably very rarely get used. The fact that it was being worked on before Metal (it derives from AMD's Mantle), and Apple had stopped supplying newer OpenGL, they were specifically trying to be more anti-competitive to Linux/other BSDs. For so many years, whenever there was a Mac port of something, Linux users would ask the the developers for a Linux port, and the largest argument for it was "It should be easy, since you have already done the DirectX to OpenGL conversion." But that argument has now been killed. Now it's "Oh, you only have to do the Metal to Vulkan conversion after already converting from DirectX"

You see how that's sort of a jerk move? And what does Metal bring over Vulkan? Nothing except a "DirectX like API, but only for Mac" It's complete vendor lock-in. By the way, Vulkan isn't just a Windows/Linux API, It is supported on Android too. So any reason for 'mobile 3D for metal' goes out the window too.

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Quoting: DrMcCoy

QuoteIt will end up giving you a list like this (yes, I really do have a lot of games!):

QuoteYou have 1094 games

You are like a little baby, watch this:

QuoteYou have 1402 games

However, for me, with Python 3.4, the script itself fails:
  File "winehqextract.py", line 72
    getpluspost = {**getparams,**postparams}
                    ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

I'm a C/C++ programmer, the only contact with Python I have is a few IDAPython scripts or Ren'Py scripts, so I have no idea what's going on there.

EDIT: Seems like I've been ninja'd there. :P

Ha, I have 1964 Games... now if only I had time to play them.

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