


It was abundantly clear to gamers that the Mac was not a competitive platform in the PowerPC days.įurther Reading Gaming on the Mac: once maligned, now showing signs of improvement And frankly back at that point in time, Macs weren’t very popular, so the audience was small. The cross-platform OpenGL API used in Apple computers struggled to keep up in the meantime. It didn’t help, either, that Microsoft’s Direct3D (part of the DirectX suite of APIs) became the industry standard graphics API. PowerPC-based Macs in the '90s and early '00s used a different processing architecture from the Windows PCs for which most games were primarily developed. He cited changes like the advent of dedicated graphics processing units (GPUs), the move to a UNIX-based operating system, and the transition from the PowerPC processor architecture to Intel. “We’ve dealt firsthand with all the big changes to the platform that have taken place over the last two decades,” Edwin Smith, Feral’s head of production, told Ars. On top of that, discrete Mac graphics processors have just seen some of their biggest boosts in recent years, VR support is on the way, and external GPU enclosures promise previously impossible upgradeability.įurther Reading “It felt like robbery”: Tomb Raider and the fall of Core Design

#2017 GAMSE STHAT WORK FOR MAC INSTALL#
Gaming on a Mac may look more appealing than ever thanks to the introduction and gradual improvement of Apple’s relatively new Metal graphics API and a better-than-ever-before install base. When Apple announced new Macs and a major update to its Mac graphics API at this year’s developer conference, there was an air of hope amongst Mac gamers and developers.
#2017 GAMSE STHAT WORK FOR MAC FOR MAC#
And after Apple dedicated an unprecedented amount of attention to Mac gaming at WWDC 2017, things might be looking up for Mac gamers in the coming years. But in reality, the situation has gotten better. Gaming on the Mac is terrible, right? That has been the consensus among gamers for a decade-plus-Ars even declared Mac gaming dead all the way back in 2007.
