Submitted by Despite what many (including myself) thought when EA announced they would support the Mac platform, the games EA will release are actually not native ports – instead, they will use Transgaming’s Cider engine, a Wine-like wrapper for running Windows games on Intel Macs. This news was found in a Transgaming press release. Apart from the fact that this might negatively affect performance, it also means PowerPC Macs will not be able to play these games.
it Figures…..
Yeah, and whats the point anyway. If you like Mac and you like play games, use bootcamp. Most hardcore gamers aren’t Mac users anyway. Whole WWDC stuff has been pure publicity stunts, Safari for Windows was more buggy than Windows ME, iPhone 3rd party support way was lame and Leopard was just same as we seen before. I hope next big event will feature better news, maybe widescreen iPod with something new.
the point is that i dont want to have to buy xp/vista for my mac. I bought the mac to get away from windows. not to have windows come to me. especialy in pay form as a game “dependency”. i mean thats jsut wrong!
“I bought the mac to get away from windows. not to have windows come to me. especialy in pay form as a game “dependency”. i mean thats jsut wrong!”
In other news, Nintendo WII games depend on you owning a WII console and PS3 games depend on you owning a PS3.
“I bought the mac to get away from windows”
It’s not wrong. You should have thought of that before you went out and blew your cash.
safari for windows is a beta… How many times are people going to slate something like Safari on windows when it is an initial beta? BETA = always have bugs, that’s why we developers issue public betas, so people find the bugs and we fix them…
Did you not notice the bug icon on the toolbar? It’s for reporting bugs… USE IT.
if this is true it is incredibly lame. I honestly dont think all the games will use this. Blizzard will still make native games and iD i hope will as well. I think this might be for most titles as it would alow u to play basicaly any windows game on yoru mac but surely there will be real mac ones too. probly jsut not as many. heres hoping anyways
I agree. This is a bit of a disappointing revelation. Though not at all surprising really. The advantage here is that this will allow EA to bring current titles to the Mac market quicker. Hopefully future titles will have native versions.
I doubt they will, but Transgaming is very good at DirectX and as long as Apples OpenGL drivers (hopefully Nvidia can help them here) doesn’t suck it will probably be very close to a native port in speed anyway.
Might…but no one knows. This kind of speculation is very premature.
Might…but no one knows. This kind of speculation is very premature.
Hence, “might”.
From what I gather, when you can get Wine to run Windows apps there is barely any slowdown. In fact, the Transgaming boards are full of people who say that running games under Wine (Cedega) is better than under Windows.
Unless they’re all lying or suffering from some sort of RDF, having Cider on the Mac can only be a good thing. More games on the Mac means everybody wins.
I’ve never heard such rubbish. Transgaming is faster than running the games native? It’s just fanboys doing what they do best, spinning in order that it might become true.
Edited 2007-06-13 09:14
“Transgaming is faster than running the games native? It’s just fanboys doing what they do best, spinning in order that it might become true.”
Yawn. Wine/Cedega isn’t rocket science. It is just a reimplementation of Win32-APIs and DirectX. Sometimes a reimplementation is faster than the original. The Wine developers looked at the Win32-API and DirectX API and wrote their own version of it with the same interfaces as the original.
Thus, Wine Is Not an Emulator.
There is nothing inherit in Wine/Cedega or indeed Cider that means that games have to run slower. The DirectX to OpenGL “translation” is just what programmers like to call “wrappers”, and if properly done doesn’t have to add any substantial overhead.
So, if the Wine developers are good and do a good job at the implementation, it could turn out faster than the original.
Unfortunately, Wine/Cedega/Cider isn’t always a 100% complete and the implementation isn’t always exactly the same as the original. This leads to compatibility problems and bugs. And a substantial portion of the time, the reimplementation is actually slower than the original.
What EA is doing is to fix their games so that they run perfectly with Cider. This means replacing API-calls that are known to work poorly with Cider with something else and make sure that the API-calls that are left work well.
The only thing required by a company for their games to work perfectly with Linux and OS X is to add Wine to their testing platforms. If every company used Wine as a target in addition to Windows XP/Vista, we would have every single Windows game available to run perfectly and NATIVE on Linux.
The wine overhead is minimal, since all wine does it map all MS Win32 function calls to Wine’s own implementation of the Win32 API. If the Wine implementation is better, there is no reason why games cannot run faster.
True. The games I can run on Linux with Wine in many instances run as well as they do on Windows. That’s just running through Wine, something attempting to implement Windows’ APIs in general without (usually) focusing on specific games.
If a company decides to use Winelib or Cider, that has the potential to run very well, as the company can see what does and doesn’t work, and either change their code or collaborate with transgaming/wine to change theirs as needed.
I much prefer native apps in my usual toolkit (Qt for me), but with games it isn’t such a big deal. Hardly any actually use the host OS’s toolkit in the first place. They all implement their own menus and stuff, so I really don’t feel like I’d be missing out if more games used Cider/Winelib, which one can think of as a sort of cross platform API. Granted, I’d prefer they use other cross platform APIs like OpenGL and such, but if performance is up to snuff, who cares?
Four games running in a non-native environment is not going to turn around the Mac games scene. It certainly isn’t enough to lure gamers away from Windows.
If I were in charge of this, I’d have kept quiet about it – left it as a pleasant surprise when it happens. It’s such a non-event. I can only assume that Apple’s recent spree of slightly disappointing announcements has some long-term strategy behind it.
now osx faces the same battle gaming on linux does. the whole ‘they wont make games tillthere are users, there wont be users till there are games’ thing. on the bright side if a company was going to bash out a port for OSX native then it wouldnt take much to bash out a native linux port too. and with these 2 major (major as in largest of the minor) platforms both using OpenGL then maybe more effort will go into it as a gaming tool again. if the ball roles the right way this could all be a good thing, in 5-10 yrs.
Now, here’s the curious thing: Why doesn’t Apple make games?
Microsoft doesn’t make many games, but the few big-ticket games they have released — Halo, Mechwarrior, Age of Empires — have been games that have really showcased the possibilities of PC game development.
Microsoft does few of them in-house, but that could be Apple’s solution as well. If Apple has the money to create dozens and dozens of new iProducts with accompanying advertisement lines, why not entice developers and gamers to the platform by commissioning a few top-notch games (one each in a few broad genres would do it) to show off the power of the Mac as a gaming platform? Heck, you could make an XBox Live-lookalike (iPlay?) without any problem.
Interesting that you mention Halo…
Halo was originally announced at MacWorld ’99, as the flagship game of Apple’s Mac gaming push, from Bungie, a well known Mac games developer. Of course it has changed alot since then, even changing genre.
The only reason it ever got a Mac version was because it had been promised to Mac users for so long.
So last time Apple tried to push Mac gaming, their flagship game ended up the flagship of Microsoft’s console. I can’t think of a worse result.
Besides, none of the games you mentioned was actually developed by Microsoft. Microsoft only publishes games.
Edited 2007-06-13 01:24
I know… and I mentioned that. Apple can leave the development to the guys who are talented at game development.
Thing is, if Apple (or anyone else for that matter) look like they have a system moving awesome game coming out for their platform Microsoft can always come along and offer the developer a boatload of money to make it an Xbox (or Windows) exclusive.
Well Apple is a hardware company, they may do software but not to that level. Microsoft have a separate place for games dev not in-house.
There is a big difference between Linux and OS X when it comes to games. How many shareware game companies are there on OS X, or companies that specialize in porting PC games to OS X? Off the top of my head, I count 4. Ambrosia, Freeverse, Macplay and Macsoft. How many similar companies exist on Linux? None. Loki was in business for a bit, but they went bust. iD’s John Carmack has come out and stated that there is no demand for games on Linux and the cost of the port is not recouped by the sales.
To sum up, on one hand you’ve got a pretty vibrant shareware and commercial games scene on the Mac. You’ve got pretty much a dead scene on Linux. The Mac game houses are pretty well established and don’t look like they’re going anywhere. Nobody is willing to take the plunge into Linux gaming after the Loki debacle.
I’m sorry but I disagree with you. Linux and OS X do not face the same battle. There is no commercial demand for games on Linux while companies are making a living porting games over to the Mac and developing Mac native shareware games.
There is a big difference between Linux and OS X when it comes to games.
Yes. The big difference is that the majority of Linux users have always had the ability to dual boot and play games on Windows, which was not true for the Mac platform up until recently. Since Apple switched to x86 it also gained this ability, which naturally gives Mac users a lot more possibilities and makes the life of the companies you mentioned a lot harder.
Nobody is willing to take the plunge into Linux gaming after the Loki debacle.
Of course, you’re forgetting the obvious one: Transgaming. You’re also forgetting that there’s a wealthy collection of Free software games available for GNU/Linux and other free operating systems, some which are quite impressive I might add.
Since Apple switched to x86 it also gained this ability, which naturally gives Mac users a lot more possibilities and makes the life of the companies you mentioned a lot harder.
Exactly. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to Macplay and Macsoft in the coming years. I just hope they don’t go bust.
Of course, you’re forgetting the obvious one: Transgaming. You’re also forgetting that there’s a wealthy collection of Free software games available for GNU/Linux and other free operating systems, some which are quite impressive I might add.
Err… no. Transgaming doesn’t port games to Linux. There is no guarantee that a game update won’t break the game causing you to have to wait for a Cedega update as well.
And come on. Free alternatives? I love Wesnoth as much as the next guy, but lets be realistic. I doubt many game companies are losing sleep over the free “alternatives”.
There is still a big difference.
The majority of Linux users had no option than to pay the “Windows Tax”, thus they have a valid Windows licence and usually even have it already installed.
Therefore dual-booting is just that: simple rebooting.
To sell games on Linux one cannot do “ports”. The only viable option is to do a multi-platform developed game, which can be released simultaniously on all platforms.
Let’s just hope the ‘Live’ nonsense doesn’t catch on with PC games or we’ll be begging for alternatives.
loki happened a long time ago as far as technology is concerned. with the presure ubuntu is having in getting the linux out its only a matter of time before users start screaming for gaming.
OSX on x86 is step one. and a baby step at that. gaming on that platform will increase. and as linux use increases peeple will want to use it for gaming. the porting houses will take notice.
like i said if the ball rolls the right way this could be the start of a huge movement, in 5-10 yrs.
Technology is not the issue. All Blizzard games have had a simultaneous release on the Mac. The same CD that installs the PC version also installs the Mac version. This has been a feature of Blizzard games since the original Diablo. I didn’t play the original Warcraft so I don’t know if that was present.
The big problem is the market. Ported games will always cost more and be less widely distributed. That’s the situation on the Mac, and that was the situation with Loki. The question at the end of the day is whether Linux users are willing to pay a premium for Linux native games? It’s a hard sell, seeing as most Free software users are in it for the gratis and not the libré aspect of free.
This is a myth. Linux gamers already pay a premium since they usually paid for Windows, buy the Windows games and often additionally spend money for technologies like Cedega or CrossOver to enable them to use their purchase with their actual operating system.
You cannot just dismiss it as myth. The situation you’ve mentioned relates to Linux gaming as it currently stands. They have a Windows license bundled with their machine, and they can run Windows games by rebooting into Windows.
However, we’re talking about porting Windows games to Linux. Take a browse over to Mac game sites, like Macgamestore or Macgold. Notice how much the games cost? In the UK, a new Windows game release usually has an RRP of lb29.99 while a new mac game will usually sell for lb39.99. That’s 33% more. This is also ignoring the fact that stores tend to offer massive discount on games after 2 – 3 months, so it’s not uncommon to find today’s new release selling for lb10 – lb20 a few months down the road. Mac games on the other hand … they rarely ever budge from the RRP.
Are Linux gamers willing to pay a premium for their games? History with Loki has shown that they won’t.
As I said, this is a whole different situation.
Loki showed that it doesn’t work to do ports months or years after the original release, since the majority of your potential customer base has already finished playing the game.
What’s the point in buying it again, especially, as I wrote in the comment you replied to, they already had additional costs, e.g. the Windows Tax and quite likely an adapter solution like Cedega or CrossOver
I have yet to see a portion of the Mac market in the same situation, e.g. getting Windows pre-installed on their Macs, without option to not have it pre-installed.
How many Mac users have bought the Windows version, finished playing it and then also bought the premium-priced Mac version just for fun?
The very fact that Linux gamers buy Cedaga subscriptions is proof that Linux gamers are ready to cover additional costs. Their number is big enough that companies like Blizzard even acknowlegde they are testing their Windows games on Cedega.
As we can read in the article, EA is about to do the same, i.e. buying adapter technology to make their Windows games work on OS X. The only difference will be that the consumer will buy a higher price for the Mac version and EA will transfer part of the money to Transgaming, while a Linux customer buys the lower priced Windows version and pays the Transgaming part directly.
“It’s a hard sell, seeing as most Free software users are in it for the gratis and not the libré aspect of free.”
Beats pirating, which is what the majority of Windows (and perhaps Mac) gamers are in it for.
RuneSoft, Linux Game Publishing
http://www.rune-soft.com/main.php
http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com/
Wine and derivatives have two components: one is an implementation of the Win32 APIs for a non-Windows operating system. The other is a utility that’ll run programs compiled for Windows on a non-Windows OS. They’re separate things…
A quick way of porting to Linux is to compile an app against libwine. And then my understanding is that it basically runs natively on Linux; which is to say there’s not some other program in the mix translating Windows calls so that they work. The program is effectively a native Linux app, using a native Linux implementation of Win32 (in the same way you can have a native Linux app implemented atop the SDL API).
Cider appears (to me) like it could be a similar thing: a “native” Win32 implementation for MacOS X. There doesn’t have to be a weird runtime patching mechanism like when you run a Windows game under wine itself. So in principle, it should work nicer…
I’m afraid this post contained more speculation / guesswork than I usually aim for. However, my point is just to remind people that this is not necessarily the same as “running it under wine”, and won’t necessarily come with the same performance hit.
It’s still disappointing they’re not writing directly to MacOS APIs though, but I guess it’s still a victory and a step in the right direction that they’re supporting the Mac at all.
They are natively compiled architecturally wise, but they are not ported to OSX’s platform.
Strange, EA makes these games for Windows, PS2, XBOX360, PS3, Wii, DS, PSP, how hard can it be to add another compile target? They already have to have some system in place to make all these variants. (OK, I know it’s not just another compile target, but not so far either, all the assets for the Windows version can be used straight up).
Because Apple market share is very low when compared to the Wii, PS2, PS3, Xbox, Xbox360, and Windows. The bottom line is time vs. profit. It’s better to use a wrapper with OSX rather than the spend $$$$ making something that you might lose $$$$ in.
It would be nice to see OSX and Linux ports but atm I don’t see many games supporting OSX and Linux.
See, you’re thinking like a programmer, kudos to you!
However, if you ask any professional programmer, they can tell you how management has a wonderful way of screwing things up by making bad decisions.
So the bottom line is, if it’s not part of the business plan, it won’t be done.
Now you’re thinking with portals.
For console ports, they often have to hire entire teams to port the code. Sometimes, the projects for different platforms are completely different, with only a few common resources (such as art) being shared across projects.
Microsoft’s XNA initiative is curious, as it may be the first time that a company has offered a method for developing for two platforms at once.
On the other hand, why should they? If they can save time and money by compiling against a compatibility layer rather than the native platform and get good performance, then why not? The less money they have to spend on each port, the more ports there will be, at least until the Mac has proven itself as a profitable platform for them to target.
I think the latest Heroes of Might and Magic is using this same method (wine) and the game has had really good integration/performance.
i dont really understand why a game should be a 100% osx/cocoa app when every game uses its own custom interface.
this also means that EA and other companies that use this method will make sure that their games work perfectly with this wine wrapper and will more than likely invest some time/money in wine/transgaming.
there is also a thread at insanelymac.com in the game section about this, basically a month ago someone discovered this from Heroes game and replaced the heroes data files with Need 4 Speed carbon data files and the game worked 100%.
People have been using that same method to get other EA and even other games working at amazing performance.
Basically.. stop bitching, its this or nothing and this is pretty damn good.
Most game developers will wake up and realize that EVERYONE likes to play games not just Windows users. It’s was great when 3dfx were here and there was a pick of API’s but not just the dominant DirectX tied into Windows .
It shouldn’t surprise me really, EA is all about making money not bring games to everyone on other platforms. OpenGL native games are pretty much dead thanks to Microsoft killing it off and no amount of resources will change that until OS X gets a big percentage of market share.
Why did even think that EA was going to do native OpenGL games, I bet they dont even know the API,silly me.
Edited 2007-06-12 22:38
They have to know the API though, since the PS2, PS3, Wii and Gamecube all use OpenGL.
As for negatively effecting performance, even if it does it should be negligible. I’ve been using transgaming’s Wine on Linux for years without ever having speed issues, just compatibility ones.
If anything will really disappoint me, it will be if Transgaming have gotten EA to release these games for the Mac and ignored a bringing them to Linux.
Dont they have their own game API?, it never crossed my mind that consoles would use OpenGL. OS X has lots of games and third parties(Aspyr Media) convert the games to OpenGL, EA must have more resources than them surely!
What else is there that they would use? They may have their own Game APIs (well they have their own game engines which most games wind up using), but they don’t maintain their own 3d graphics APIs, I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t using OpenAL and even SDL as well.
Edited 2007-06-13 00:38
You also have to remember that most game engines are licensed and the unreal engine which is one the biggest and most used has the ability to use both directx and opengl as their api. Opengl is a proven and stable api, it has the ability to be extended and has the added benefit that most game engines have a backend to it as well as the fact that its cross-platform which is most likely why its used so widely till this day. Most game companies especially those that develop for consoles usually use middleware which is usually provided by the console maker, and then they build their engines on top of that.
AFAIK only the PS3 is using OpenGL, to be more specific OpenGL ES with CG as shading language.
As someone that has a bit of experience on the games industry I find always comic that everyone assumes that all consoles just use OpenGL.
It is not like that and it will never be.
Each console tends to have their own API, NOT OpenGL.
Edited 2007-06-13 07:32
Please…. don’t use WINE and Cider in the same sentance. People will just get confused if you do. Yes WINE and Cider share the same family tree, but they are both very VERY different branches. Cider is a compile-time wrapper library for developers to compile against. WINE/Cedega are run-time wrappers. Obviously placing the whole binary into memory and then trying to re-map function calls to OpenGL/OpenAL/etc calls, while it tries to run, is going to run at sub-par performance… that is why Cedega is a hobbiest system at best.
Cider on the other hand is a library that turns win32/DirectX function calls into their equivalent OpenGL/OpenAL/etc function calls when the developer compiles the binary. Because this happens at compile-time and not at runtime, performance hits aren’t severe (if any). They both do the same thing, but there is definately less of a performance hit with Cider because it all happens when the game is in development. If the developer sees that some particular function calls are causing serious performance problems they can choose to re-write them in the native OpenGL/etc calls and remove any of the Cider overhead. This is a bridge to other platforms… not a be-all-end-all solution. No doubt some platform specific code will need to be rewritten for the games to function, but it just means that less work needs to be put in for devs to have multiplatform code.
Please think/research before you post negative comments on a product that hopes to revamp non-windows gaming. A lot of users on this site are non-Windows users/advocates, so why bash a technology that supports your alternate platforms?
NOTE: I am the last person to advocate for WINE/Cedega, they run like dogs with 1 leg. Cider however is a step in the right direction. Compile-time function-call conversion beats runtime conversion any day.
Edited 2007-06-13 02:30
WINE doesn’t translate anything at run time. It implements the Windows DLLs in an ABI compatible manner so that the native executables can link against them. There really shouldn’t be any performance difference between Cider and WINE as far as linkage goes.
You’re confusing Wine with Winelib. Winelib does exactly what you’ve described. On the other hand, Wine fools the windows executable into thinking it’s running on Windows by remapping the Win32 function calls to Wine’s own functions. Therefore, Cider is comparable to Winelib and not Wine.
While there is a dynamic aspect to the way Wine works, the overhead is minimal since nothing is being emulated. At most, each Win32 function call will just call another function. How bad can that be?
Edited 2007-06-13 16:10
Not all that surprised coming from EA, if you’re a gamer you know how EA has been pumping out some hugely buggy games lately, and it’s getting worse.
Need for Speed Most wanted anyone? Good game, but the thing crashes like it’s going out of fashion, so instead of fixing it, they drop all support for it, no more patches nothing, and that’s on a relatively new game too.
EA are getting very sloppy lately, so this doesn’t shock me.
Will still have to wait and see how it go’s though.
Dual booting is probably still going to be the best option in most cases.
I’d like to see the Mac Pro line where you could put in any ATI or Nvidia card, the ones on Apples site aren’t high enough for some peoples tastes.
Maybe stupid question. But if it’s compiled with this “cider” libs, does this mean that it works on MAC but should also work under linux?
The short answer is no. The slightly longer answer is, Transgaming would first have to port Cider to Linux, and then there would have to a recompile of the game against Linux. Transgaming has a lot of experience with Linux development and games on Linux with developing Cedega, so it should certainly be possible for them to port Cider to Linux. If it’s a success under OS X, then maybe we’ll see Cider for Linux in the not too distant future.
reply outdated by the one above
Edited 2007-06-13 07:35
I stopped buying EA games a long time ago; I’ll start again if/when they start putting out anything that isn’t just a rehash of last year’s (which is a rehash of the year before’s, etc.).
I plan on using Parallels 3 and BootCamp for my “hardcore” gaming, while bugging the developers for native OS X versions. Also, buying native OS X games from folks like Aspyr and Ambrosia, etc. Eventually, I hope, developers will see the value of producing OS X versions of their games, or at least allowing porting houses to do it. (Hint: Making your code portable also magically makes it less buggy, since other compilers/platforms will turn up different bugs.)
– chrish
I stopped buying EA games a long time ago; I’ll start again if/when they start putting out anything that isn’t just a rehash of last year’s (which is a rehash of the year before’s, etc.)
While I fully agree with you, I think you’re expecting too much from EA. Football was Football in 2006. Football is Football in 2007. There’s not much they can do to make things different apart from updating the player roster and such.
I personally think sports games are boring anyway. The whole reason I play video games is to do things I can’t do IRL. I wanna blow things up, drive at 200 mph, beat shit up, dodge bullets, command an army, etc. If I wanted to play football, I’ll phone up some friends and we’ll go kick about in the field for a bit.
I don’t know if any of you have checked out Myst Online: URU Live, but it’s using Cider to run on Tiger. I’ve never played the game in Windows, but it felt like it was running full speed to me. Maybe the Cider thing is only to get current games on the platform early and they’ll start to develop compiled Mac OS X binaries in the future.
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Edited 2007-06-13 19:35