do i need to re-buy my games?

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hey guys

firstly apologies if this has already been asked before.

ive just bought a new powermac g5, going to be using it for video editing and also i want to use it for gaming, as its replacing my gaming machine (windows based)...i was just wondering if i am going to have to buy mac versions of all my games or is there, say, mac installers for windows based games that i can download? or any games that come with mac installers as well? im aware some games already come with linux installers, such as ut2004, doom3, and i think quake4, tho havent tried that on linux yet.

also is there a link someone can give me to read up on the basic differences between pc and mac games? i read somewhere its to do with the lack of directx on mac's so the games need to b ported to opengl??? might b miles off there for all i understand lol. do most games get released for mac? or is it a small selection of the top games?

sorry for the amount of questions

any help would b great

regards

frozen
 
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No - you can't install a windows version of a game on a mac.
Some games come with both version of the game on one disc (nearly all of blizzard's for example) but these are rare.

The problem is that currently mac's & PC's use to different types of processors, which makes all the code incompatible.
Next year, mac's will be introduced that run on "regular" processors, eliminating the need for a full port of the game. Then it should be possible to just provide a mac installer.
 
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I don't think they have Quake 4 ported to mac yet, but you can get mac versions of Doom 3 and UT2004, in fact if you have a Power Mac, I recommend it.

www.gogamer.com
 
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I don't even think that will be the case. Games are rarely coded in machine code/assembler so they are programmed in a higher level language such as C/C++ - which accesses things like the Windows API (say DirectX for example) meaning that whilst the code compiled for it will be machine readable by an intel Mac as it was compiled for x86, it would not work as none of the Windows APIs would exist. So they need to convert the game as at present to use the OS X APIs, I expect they use some kind of abstraction layer which translates the Windows API calls to OS X ojnes to speed up development and to save re-inventing the wheel, and then optimise from there.

So in essence, I still see things coming on seperate packages just as a ton of x86 machines running Linux, doesn't mean we see games for x86 Windows also coming with an x86 Linux version (or very rarely). Some of the data files will remain identical across platforms but the program itself still won't.

Vicky
 
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thanks for your help guys, sounds about what i expected...im now just looking at what games i would like to buy and play, money's short so cant really afford many at all and am reluctant to pay for games iv already played loads of, doom3 and ut2004...looking at world of warcraft...however wld idealy like sumink thats gonna give me the eye candy factor of looking really sweet...

is there a rough time gap between the release of a pc game and it being ported to mac? just id b real up for buying NFS: Most Wanted, been playing it on pc recently and would like to carry on playing it on mac if its likely to come out anytime soon

regards

fraser
 
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Usually it takes a few months for the mac port to come out...
Check the developers homepage for dates etc.

You realize WoW needs a monthly subscription after the first 2 or 3 months that are included right?
 
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Games are usually a couple of years later coming out on macs
 
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Less than a couple of YEARS for the major developers like Aspyr and MacSoft- they'll have most games out a few months after the PC release.

The intel switch will speed up the mac porting considerably.
 
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yeah am aware of the monthly subscription for WoW...bin lookin at a lot of mmorpg's recently...

thanks for the help guys, will keep an eye out for things.

regards

fraser
 

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