Curious how the new 21.5″ iMac games? Me too.
Test coming soon.

Curious how the new 21.5″ iMac games? Me too.
Test coming soon.

GTA IV (PC version) is $19 at staples so I bought it. Here are some brief thoughts.
Cons
Positives
Maybe the best feature of this game is the VRAM usage model, which should help end the stupid discussions on how you ‘don’t need more VRAM.’
As for the anti-piracy, my title was sarcastic. A hacked version of the game was available on Torrents before you could actually buy this game in stores or online. These punishing measures are inflicted only on legit buyers like me. I’d be rather unhappy if I had paid $60 – but I know the reason I got this sweet game for so cheap is the crappy anti piracy scheme that turned legitimate buyers off. Ironic, no?
It took about 50 hours, but I have finally finished one play through of the game – which is not the same as fully completing the game.
Story
A cliched overarching story is reminiscent of many RPGs of the last 20 years; rise up against the return of an ancient evil. Almost every Bioware game uses this same story. That’s not a fault because the true meat is in the dozen or hundreds of smaller stories that comprise the larger tale.
To talk about these stories, particularly the origins, is to risk spoilers. Instead what I can say are two things.
First, you will never be satisfied with only one play through. Each story has multiple points that force decisions from you – irrevocable ones. These are much bigger than who lives and dies – we are talking hundred or thousands of virtual lives! Their integration into and throughout the story is masterful. You might not even know the extent to which you turned the game’s narrative until the very end of the story.
Second, the sheer volume of twists and shocking turns in this game is staggering. It is well written and you form a bond with the characters (as much as it is possible in a game). Your friends will surprise you. Read the rest of this entry »
Yet another new release PC game you can play immediately on your Mac, thanks to the hardworking Porting Team. Register on the following forum to get all the details:
http://forum.portingteam.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=1974
“Notes: I am running an iMac (8,1) at 2,66GHz 4GB ram and 256Mb Nvidia 9400. I was able to run the game at 1920 x 1200 and max settings “
Sounds too good to be true! In my experience CoD 4 was barely playable at low/med settings an 720p on a 9400m.
A great article that should lay this contentious issue to rest. I have to admit this was an eye-opener for me. I thought more games would use the space afforded by modern video cards.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-ram-4870,2428.html

Keep in mind however that this test is valid at this point in time. More buffer effects, bigger textures, etc. Like Doom III was back in the old days, GTA IV is an excellent example of a game which requires will use all the VRAM you throw at it. The difference between 256 and 512 is stark.
If Apple were smart they would listen to this guy. Well according to Forbes Steve Jobs is as smart as they come, and it’s tough to argue his results. For evidence just look up how much a $10,000 Apple investment made in 2001 would be worth in 2010.
Why should Apple get on the gaming bandwagon?
Gaming encourages hardware upgrades. I would still be using a PowerBook if not for the games that run well on my MacBook Pro. And I will happily upgrade to a Core i7 MBP when they come out if Apple includes a GPU like the RADEON Mobility 4670 or 4830 – in other words, if the new model improves game performance I’ll buy it.
Gaming is the most demanding consumer application of computer technology. Nothing says powerful hardware as much as Crysis running smoothly at its highest settings. Non linear HD video editing requires power too, but the difference between this year’s and last year’s gear is minor.
Good GPUs are useless without games. Grand Central, DX Compute, AVIVO, Pure Video, blah, blah, blah… It’s all marketing crap until someone actually implements real world pervasive GPU acceleration throughout a platform – be it MacOS or Windows. Every year there are promises and every year (so far) these promises are not kept. At the moment the only reason to have anything more powerful than an ATI Rage or Matrox G200 is games.
Games are as big as music and movies. It makes no sense to deprive consumers of something they want just because Steve Jobs may/may not think that they are mind-diluting time-wasters. People said the same thing about books, music and movies in the past. Lot’s of folk look forward to the release they get from spending time in virtual places. Could this time be spent of self improvement? Maybe, but not everyone can be (or even wants to be) a techno messiah.
You have a piracy-resilient distribution platform. iTMS would make a great Steam-like distribution system for Mac games (and all applications). It would instantly create publisher and developer interest in supporting the Mac platform. Such a move would also create a differentiator between the Mac and PC versions of iTunes. One click purchase of apps and games might lure even more people to the platform from Windows.
Expect updates to this blog to slow right down due to chronic gaming habit. Yes, it is that time of year again when all the prettiest video games hit the scene in a retail fight to the death. How can I resist installing them on my MacBook Pro’s Windows 7 gaming partition? My November dollars are spent:
I really should do proper FRAPS tests, but I have been at this long enough to be able to ball park things quite accurately.
Games I won’t be playing:
For a crappy gaming platform, I sure do play a lot of games on my Mac. But I could not do it without Windows 7!
http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/16227/41/
“This CPU launches in Q1 2010 and will be the king of the ultra-thin, “Ultra-Mobile” (UM) performance market. In fact, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that it looks like the best mobile chip ever made by Intel, as it has runs dual cores at 1.2GHz default clocks but with Turbo mode, it can overclock all the way to an astonishing 2.26GHz per core.
All of this can be done in under an 18W TDP envelope which is a great number considering that the integrated graphics core (IGP), integrated memory controller (IMC) and northbridge (IOH) are all part of this 32nm Arrandale-based CPU.”
My guess is that HT will be enabled so that it can be marketed as quad threaded or some clever way of implying that it has four cores, without outright making such a claim.
Intel must have something else up its sleeve for Apple’s high end line.
Free full version software and awesome bundles!!!
So far, the loot is DaisyDisk (free). Just read the scroll bar across the top of the site. Puzzles will a lot harder soon.
I love these events!!! There will be puzzles whose solutions get you lots of free apps. This is then followed by a bundle using for about $50 that includes a sick quantity of really good software.
Examples of puzzle loot: MacHeist 3 – A Treat for Mac Users Notebook Critic
Example of Bundles: Macheist Bundle: $557 worth of stuff for $39! Notebook Critic
For folks worried about keeping track of all this loot, software from the last heist is still in my MacHeist account (this includes serials and downloads) – its kind of like a Steam account. AppShelf was one of the MacHeist apps last year, so I use that to keep track of the generous amount of programs I obtain from the promotion.
Testers have Apple Mac OS X 10.6.2 in their hands right now, and a few have probed the depths of the configuration scripts looking for hints of new hardware. This time they struck gold by finding references to a MacBook Pro 6,1 and 6,3. What could these entail?
So wild guesses:
New 15″ and 17″ MacBook Pros in January with the following:
Safe predictions IMO, but when it comes to Apple I am usually wrong.