Curious how the new 21.5″ iMac games? Me too.
Test coming soon.
Coming Soon: iMac 21.5″ Review
21 11 2009Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: imac, imac 21.5, imac 4670
Categories : News
Rockstar Solves PC Piracy! GTA IV on MacBook Pro
21 11 2009GTA IV (PC version) is $19 at staples so I bought it. Here are some brief thoughts.
Cons
- A 1 hour install
- Anti-piracy and all the crap you have to sign for:
- online authentication – serial number authentication
- securom installation
- disk check
- Rockstar Social Club
- Games for Windows Live run time
- benchmark launches game when finished
- performance: 30-35 fps on low detail 1440*900 on 2.66 C2D and 9600m GT DDR3
Positives
- video setting config shows impact of video memory usage
- realistic settings as detected at launch run smooth (low, 800*600) LOL
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?
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Tags: 9600m gt, gta iv, mbp gta iv, the futility of anti piracy
Categories : Opinion
Dragon Age Review
15 11 2009It 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 »
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Tags: buy, dragon age, dragon age 9600m, dragon age notebook, dragon age review, macbook pro
Categories : Reviews
Modern Warfare 2 on Mac… It Works Well!
11 11 2009Yet 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.
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Tags: cider, imac, modern warfare 2
Categories : News
Tom Tells Us How Much RAM Your Graphics Card Needs
9 11 2009A 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.
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Categories : News
Carmack’s Fruity Roller-coaster Ride
9 11 2009If 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.
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Tags: itms, itunes apps and games, john carmack, mac gaming, steve jobs
Categories : Opinion
Where Are the Posts?
9 11 2009Expect 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:
- Borderlands – Medium/High at 1440*900 runs pretty good (I would estimate ~30 fps with dips below 24). Even with its action focus the game is slow-paced and the low frame rate does not hinder enjoyment. This is mindless fun.
- Dragon Age – this masterpiece runs nicely at Medium 1440*900. In my opinion it still looks incredible, and again the slower pace of the game means that an approximate frame rate of 20-25 does not detract from my enjoyment. I don’t have the words to describe how awesome this game is. Buy it.
- Left 4 Dead 2 – preloaded last night. It’s predecessor was no problem for the 9600m GT in my MacBook Pro. Lots of fun – the zombie apocalypse in 1 hour increments.
- Mass Effect – I bought both versions but preferred the PC edition. It runs fine at 1440*900 medium particle and ultra textures. My only gripe was EA’s activation DRM – particularly since EA has stopped replying to my emails for activation increases on my original copy. So I bought it again on steam for $10 (I had half a mind to just download the crack – but the game has delivered so much value I don’t mind paying a bit more for it). I have to play it through a couple more times to have good save games ready for the sequel coming this January. I have a about a dozen save games backed up in various places but I can’t remember any of the decisions I made in those saves.
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:
- Modern Warfare 2 – The Moscow Airport massacre is disturbing and could have been handled better – its as offensive as the Columbine Massacre video game from a few years back. Also, it’s not a good enough game to look past how Infinity Ward and Activision have treated the PC fans who built the franchise up. I’ll pass.
- Torchlight – I’ll wait for the Mac version. It looks yummy.
- Assassin’s Creed 2 – no PC version at launch so Ubisoft is forcing me to wait. Mass Effect 2 launches in the same window and will dominate my 2010 gaming time so there won’t be time to play AC2.
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!
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Tags: 9600m gt, assassin's creed, boot camp, borderlands, dragon age, left 4 dead 2, mac gaming, macbook pro, mass effect, mass effect 2, modern warfare, torchlight, windows 7
Categories : Opinion
Fudzilla on the Likely 2010 MacBook CPU
2 11 2009http://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.
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Categories : News
MacHeist Starts Again
31 10 2009Free 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.
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Tags: freeware, indie software, mac software, machesit, shareware
Categories : News
MacBook Pro 6,1 and 6,3?
31 10 2009Testers 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?
- The new iMac is a good indicator of the components, as Apple usually keeps the components in their mobile and consumer desktop platforms similar. iMac now uses AMD’s RADEON dedicated GPU rather than the Nvidia G92 based 130 GT.
- Core i5 and i7 makes their first appearance. These are Desktop variants, not the recently announced mobile i7 as I expected.
- iMac uses a 16:9 aspect ratio. I could see this extending to the whole lineup eventually – is too 1080p too fine a dot pitch for a 15″ screen? Thanks to Quartz Mac OS can scale very nicely on high dot pitch screens and still be legible.
So wild guesses:
New 15″ and 17″ MacBook Pros in January with the following:
- Intel Core i5 Dual Cores with HT on an Intel chipset. Maybe some unannounced LV Quad core with HT in the 17″. I just can’t see Apple going backwards in terms of battery life or form factor. I think a MBP using the current mobile i7 would require a thicker body to accommodate sufficient cooling and room for a big enough battery. The HP Envy 15 illustrates these compromises very well (particularly its bolt-on extended battery pack).
- 16:9 screen powered by RADEON Mobility 4650/70 with 512 or 1024 memory. Maybe RADEON Mobility 5650 parts will be ready for launch, but it is not looking good. I just can’t see Apple sticking with Nvidia unless their 3×0m parts are something revolutionary. More G92 derivatives are something no one is asking for.
- 320 GB to 1 TB HDD options and some SSD options for the wealthy. There might be room in the 17″ for a dual drive config that enables the notebook to boot off SSD super fast.
- Blu Ray. By January it will be a BTO option in iMacs and notebooks. I just can’t see how Apple can continue to ignore this format any longer regardless of their plans for HD content in iTMS. I’d expect combo/superdrive versions with some HD moniker.
Safe predictions IMO, but when it comes to Apple I am usually wrong.
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Categories : Opinion
