[casca]

It will be interesting to see whether Valve can encourage the move to Linux gaming. Their biggest asset at this time is the distribution model of Steam, but that's not sufficient to get the big publishers to develop for OSX, never mind Linux.

Edit: Valve's game list: http://www.valvesoftware.com/games/

[terabytest]

OS X is not a good platform for gaming. It has a significantly smaller user base of which only an even more significantly smaller are gamers. Playing on a MacBook (or at least on my MacBook) is impossible, and I wouldn't buy an iMac for gaming.

On the other hand, you can put Linux on anything (for free!), from your mom's 2002 pc to the latest generation hot stuff. This means there is indeed a potential, and somebody just has to set the foundation.

[stinkytaco]

You seem to be contradicting yourself. Gaming doesn't work on OS X because it has too small a user base, but Linux's user base is much smaller. Playing on a Macbook is impossible (presumably for performance reasons?), but you talk about putting Linux on a 2002 PC for gaming. And Linux may or may not run on the latest generation hot stuff, depending on how much time you want to spend to get your newest graphics card working.

I'm not sure what potential you are talking about. If gaming doesn't work on OS X, I can't see it working on Linux.

As an aside, Linux gaming would seem to me to suffer the same fate as the Android market times about a billion. Too many possible variations and massive platform fragmentation. It sounds like a development nightmare.

[Mikeb85]

> Gaming doesn't work on OS X because it has too small a user base, but Linux's user base is much smaller.

There's an estimated 20 million Ubuntu users worldwide, probably another 10 million or so of other Linux distros. Not to mention, Linux (and thus Steam OS) is easily installed.

Adoption isn't a problem. Gaming on OSX doesn't work as well as on a PC because you can't put OSX on custom hardware.

> As an aside, Linux gaming would seem to me to suffer the same fate as the Android market times about a billion. Too many possible variations and massive platform fragmentation. It sounds like a development nightmare.

You sound like an iOS developer. It's not like every Windows PC has the same screen resolution and hardware, yet it's the biggest gaming platform...

Have you ever developed anything for the desktop? It's not particularly difficult to get things to run on computers with different hardware...

[PhasmaFelis]

> There's an estimated 20 million Ubuntu users worldwide, probably another 10 million or so of other Linux distros.

And there's 60 million Mac users worldwide, and it was asserted that that's not enough for a good gaming platform.

You can't have it both ways. If Linux is a good platform for games (and it may be), then OSX necessarily is as well.

[sliverstorm]

Nah, his points go like this:

- There is a pretty sizable Linux userbase compared to OS X. Not larger, but the same league.

- Any existing Windows PC can be installed with Linux, and many other non-desktop devices already run Linux, so the potential for growth in userbase given the right trigger (i.e. games) is much larger

- A significant portion of machines that run OS X have very low performance hardware. The Macbook is one of Apple's top-selling computers, and it has always lagged in graphics.

So, to wrap it up, both Linux and OS X currently have small share, but Linux has the potential for rapid marketshare growth on capable hardware, while OS X has neither.

[Crito]

Add to this the fact that only some fraction of those 30 million linux users are interested in gaming.

[rofindesia]

Same for OSX. Personally I'm a Windows refugee and I've been bouncing around Mint, *buntus, Deb n Arch to find my favourite and TBH I love what I see. Valve has done great work on their Linux Steam client.

I foresee a few blockbuster games being ported for Linux and Valve using some great marketing for it to win PC gamers over. Eventually it will become the preferred platform. Unlike OSX, Linux isn't hardware locked and CAN spread like wildfire.

[coldtea]

>It's not like every Windows PC has the same screen resolution and hardware, yet it's the biggest gaming platform...

No, but it has excellent binary compatibility, long term game APIs, and stable 3D and audio driver APIs. Which is what matters for desktop gaming, and what Linux does not have.

As for screen resolution and hardware capabilities, those matter on mobile (e.g iOS vs Android), and mostly for applications, not games.

[un1xl0ser]

Linux has good enough binary compatibility. I have seen 32-bit applications built on RHEL 2.1 run on RHEL 5. You need the correct libraries and versions, but that's not a difficult problem to solve. See AppCafe[1] by PC-BSD. You may use it if you use plugins on FreeNAS. Lets say that you need fifteen copies of SDL installed to ensure that you can support ten years of games. This is not a problem for a Unix/Linux system with existing tooling.

Stable 3D depends on the hardware and drivers, but gaming already has hardware requirements for graphics and it's getting much better. As far as OpenGL support, recent posts on HN lead me to believe that we are doing okay.

Audio compatibility? Support ALSA and OSS.

1. http://wiki.pcbsd.org/index.php/AppCafe%C2%AE/9.2

[stock_toaster]

  >  You need the correct libraries and versions, but that's not a difficult problem to solve

Or just ship statically linked binaries. That seems like it would be a good solution for games.

[zurn]

Someone needs to dig up pre-ELF binaries for NetHack and XPilot and we can have a backwards compatiblity race, on latest versions of Ubuntu and Windows. Linux has a better chance now that Windows has dropped 16-bit support :)

[unsignedint]

Even Windows binaries WINE on 64-bit runs 16, 32, and 64-bit applications! :-)

[PhasmaFelis]

> Gaming on OSX doesn't work as well as on a PC because you can't put OSX on custom hardware.

...What? That's a complete non sequitur. There are high-end and low-end Macs, just as with anything else, and high-end Macs play games just as well as high-end Windows boxes. And of course you can put OSX on custom hardware, it's just not a popular option.

> You sound like an iOS developer. It's not like every Windows PC has the same screen resolution and hardware, yet it's the biggest gaming platform... Have you ever developed anything for the desktop? It's not particularly difficult to get things to run on computers with different hardware...

Wow. Have you ever developed high-end games for a desktop? It's a damn nightmare to get fast 3D to run on computers with different hardware. There's a reason that so many devs only work with consoles: targeting a single, specific hardware set reduces development costs immensely. It's getting easier now that pre-fab engines are practical and popular and the developer can fob some of the work off on the engine creator, but testing a AAA game properly requires a bunch of tests to be repeated across dozens of different hardware setups, and you still get post-launch bug reports that the game crashes when run on X video card with Y motherboard.

And all that is just for Windows. Adding Ubuntu support alone doubles the testing and debugging load. I actually do think that Linux can be a successful gaming platform with Valve's backing, but your arguments are not good.

[adamors]

> high-end Macs play games just as well as high-end Windows boxes

Are you joking? Because even $2000 iMacs come with mobile GPUs. Not to mention CPUs that cannot be overclocked etc.

That's comparable to a high-end gaming laptop, not a PC.

[PhasmaFelis]

> Are you joking? Because even $2000 iMacs come with mobile GPUs. Not to mention CPUs that cannot be overclocked etc. That's comparable to a high-end gaming laptop, not a PC.

And what's wrong with high-end gaming laptops? My $1000 MacBook Pro has played everything I've thrown at it acceptably well, and it's not even particularly high-end. It's no longer the mid-90s, when you needed a new $2000 rig every year to keep up with current releases. For the typical gamer, overclocking your CPU hasn't been worth the effort in years.

[archagon]

Have you been paying attention to Intel's graphics improvements? At the rate they're going, we'll have the power of (current gen) desktop graphics in just a few iterations. I think you could even make the claim that the current Iris graphics are as powerful as current-gen consoles, though you wouldn't know it from all the crappy ports and the lack of a low-level graphics API.

(Also, people still overclock their CPUs?)

[ssalenik]

Dunno, but my MBA ran cs:go way better than my linux box with a dedicated (low end but new) ati card can run cs:source. I'm sure it's a driver issue, but point is that macs current can outperform many linux setups.

[edoloughlin]

Not to mention, Linux (and thus Steam OS) is easily installed.

I updated my desktop to Linux Mint 16 today and discovered that neither Steam nor Wine will install on it. Steam seems to be supported on Ubuntu 12.10 (although it does work on 13.04).

[prg318]

Steam is included in the Linux Mint 16 repositories and you shouldn't have issues installing it from the package manager. Or you can always "apt-get install steam". Like most Linux applications, you are better off installing the application from the package manager instead of from the upstream website.

[Mikeb85]

Your problem is using Linux Mint...

Both Steam and Wine work perfectly on Ubuntu 13.10 (I'm running both on my 13.10 laptop).

[stinkytaco]

> Your problem is using Linux Mint...

I think you just provided a shining example of the potential problems linux gaming faces...

[pavanred]

I updated to Linux Mint 16 a few days ago, and my Steam and Wine installations are working just fine.

Edit: But, yes LM 16 is little buggy, but its perfectly usable and I am sure the bugs will be ironed out in subsequent updates.

[njbooher]

Works fine on Arch.

[keypusher]

Wouldn't install how/why? Both Steam and Wine are in the Mint repos, there is no reason they shouldn't install.

[stinkytaco]

I'm curious what the user base of gaming focused users in for linux world wide. Linux tends to attract developers rather than users who spend a great deal of money on their gaming hobby. Perhaps I am wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love this to work, but it seems like a bit of a stretch to say it will work better than a platform that is already successful at getting people to spend money on games (see Mac App Store, iOS).

>You sound like an iOS developer. It's not like every Windows PC has the same screen resolution and hardware, yet it's the biggest gaming platform...

This coming from the guy who just told someone their problem is that they are running Linux Mint...

[Mikeb85]

> I'm curious what the user base of gaming focused users in for linux world wide. Linux tends to attract developers rather than users who spend a great deal of money on their gaming hobby. Perhaps I am wrong.

I'd wager a good portion of Linux devs are gamers, and likely just dual-boot, have a console, an iPad, etc... Seeing as how the barrier to using Linux is lower than either Windows or OSX, it doesn't really matter how many users currently use it, as much as how many will in the future...

> Don't get me wrong, I'd love this to work, but it seems like a bit of a stretch to say it will work better than a platform that is already successful at getting people to spend money on games (see Mac App Store, iOS).

As we like to say in trading, past performance doesn't guarantee future results... In any case, if you look at something like Humble Bundle, Linux total revenue almost always beats OSX revenue in Humble Bundle sales...

> This coming from the guy who just told someone their problem is that they are running Linux Mint...

Isn't it though? If a program works on every single other distro...

[gareim]

Barrier to using Linux is not lower than Windows. Windows comes installed on almost every PC sold. Linux does not. Therefore more work is required to use Linux.

I love Linux, but "if a program works on every single other distro.." is disingenuous. I have not once had 100% success with Linux on initial install. There has always been something that needed to be tweaked (usually sound or graphics). No, Windows isn't 100% either, but it's more like 98% while Linux is like 92%. For the majority of people, that 6% difference matters.

Gaming on Linux still needs to catch up. NVidia Optimus support is still being worked on. Most platforms don't ship with the proprietary drivers, which are the ones that are actually good for gaming. And from what I hear, the OSS AMD drivers are good at power management while they suck at gaming and flipped for the proprietary ones. AMD also has a problem where they drop support for cards relatively quickly.

I love Linux so much (Crunchbang, baby) but it's so fragmented that unless things change, gaming on Windows is going to stay easier. I don't see any reason why my family would give up Windows with its large library of games and all that support for Linux with its tiny library and not up to par drivers. That might not work on that distro without some workaround.

[adamors]

Another thing that is not mentioned, is that Steam on OS X is kinda bad. Tends to freeze often etc.

In the case of Linux, Valve has the incentive to ship a better version because they'd be running that version on their Steamboxes as well.

[jebblue]

>> Linux tends to attract developers rather than users who spend a great deal of money on their gaming hobby.

Gamers want fun. Gamers don't really care what's underneath. There was a time, back before the illegal deals of Gates when any gamer you talked to would literally laugh out loud at you at the thought of paying serious money for any game not on DOS - meaning Windows.

[aclevernickname]

>This coming from the guy who just told someone their problem is that they are running Linux Mint...

Nice Ad Hominem [1] you threw out there.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

[stinkytaco]

I don't see ad hominem. He explicitly stated that fragmentation would not be an issue for gaming on Linux, and then in response to someone saying that Steam didn't work, he said "Well, that's because you're running Linux Mint". That sounds to me like a fragmentation problem. I'm not attacking him personally, I'm pointing out that he literally just used fragmentation as an excuse for why something didn't work while at the same time claiming it's not an issue.

[archagon]

> Gaming on OSX doesn't work as well as on a PC because you can't put OSX on custom hardware.

I'm sure most of those 20 million Ubuntu boxes have top-of-the-line CPUs and blazing fast GPUs, right? Fact of the matter is, the vast majority those machines won't be able to run anything other than 2D games.

Also, before we start condemning OSX as a platform with no games, need I mention Borderlands 2? Metro: Last Light? All of Valve's titles? Civilization? Bioshock Infinite? Batman: Arkham City? XCOM: Enemy Unknown? I mean, come on. At least do some research.

> You sound like an iOS developer.

Don't do that.

[derefr]

Pretty sure a large portion of those 20 million Ubuntu installations don't even have monitors. (Ubuntu is a pretty good server distro.)

[zanny]

> because it has too small a user base

Maybe we should instead speak to potential user base.

For OSX, the potential userbase is always whoever has the money to buy extremely pricey Apple hardware, at least if you want to game on it, since getting a competent gpu almost always requires the rest of the components be really pricey.

For Linux, it is the sum total of all PCs out there with compatible hardware and firmware that can boot a Linux iso. Sure, you have to subtract the subset of the population that would never be able to install it - which is quite sizable - but you also have to consider they don't have to do it themselves, a tech shop or techie friend could.

> It sounds like a development nightmare.

When I develop for Linux, I use the Open Build System and throw my build script up on the AUR. If you are writing games you are using SDL, and if you aren't I personally use qt. Through that, I get FS access, services acccess, apis for almost everything, such that I don't even need to care about what audio backend you use, what your window manager is, what display server you use, etc.

Yes, there might be bugs, but unlike the Windows model, which is write for the buggy APIs because you can't do anything about it, on Linux you send the bugs to the upstream projects they originate from. Yeah, it is about 2 years until that bug fix sees mainstream adoption, but it beats using a buggy DX call for 15 years.

[stinkytaco]

>For OSX, the potential userbase is always whoever has the money to buy extremely pricey Apple hardware, at least if you want to game on it, since getting a competent gpu almost always requires the rest of the components be really pricey.

But the kind of gaming that Linux lacks is the kind that need pricey components. I can play Organ Trail or World of Goo on Linux right now. If I want to play COD, I'm going to need something substantial. That narrows the user base even more.

[mcb3k]

I think you're over-estimating how much money it takes to get a relatively good gaming computer. You could probably build an entry-level gaming machine for around 700 to 800 dollars. Add in a keyboard, mouse, and a nice monitor and you'll probably end up closer to 1,000 USD. That's still 200 to 300 dollars cheaper than a Macbook Pro or an iMac, and 100 dollars cheaper than building the equivalent system running Windows (OEM Windows Home Premium is 100 dollars).

That would be equivalent to, say, buying a desktop from Dell (300~500 USD) and an XBox One (500 USD), which is a reasonable cost if someone wants to play the more graphically intense games.

[aclevernickname]

>That would be equivalent to, say, buying a desktop from Dell (300~500 USD) and an XBox One (500 USD),

As a reference, the fastest home consoles now(XBO and PS4) are based on an AMD Jaguar core (AMD's version of the Atom), with 8GB of Ram. You can build a (Faster) AMD A10-based machine with the same specs for less than $400 in Canada.

[jeremyjh]

"Something substantial" is still a computer costing less than $800, or one that is four years old.

[adamors]

> something substantial

Not really. More like $4-500.

For a price of a "next gen" console you can build a PC that can run modern games at 1080p. Granted, not the highest settings but even that is achievable for less than $1000.

[cloverich]

> And Linux may or may not run on the latest generation hot stuff

I've now installed Linux on two custom built machines, both with new hardware, neither of which were specifically built for linux. I was very surprised, compatibility was really good, and hardware issues were almost none...

> depending on how much time you want to spend to get your newest graphics card working.

Other than the one that had a dedicated GPU (even here, worked out of the box on Ubuntu). But then, this is an area that Valve seems to be focusing on heavily, and throwing steam support behind linux is a good reason to get Nvidia (et al) involved in better driver support.

It's still a longshot overall IMHO, but I do agree that the potential user-base is higher. You can't get a budget gaming Mac - the closest is the iMac for >$1,000, and that can be easily out-performed by a $5-600 custom built box.

[ekianjo]

> And Linux may or may not run on the latest generation hot stuff,

This is quite wrong. Most of PC gaming occurs on the desktop, and desktop hardware Linux compatibility is excellent. You see more issues on laptops, true, but again that's not where the main gaming crowd is on PC.

[stinkytaco]

I would not go so far as to say that 3D hardware support in linux is "excellent". Probably as good as on Mac, true, but far from excellent. Basically if you want high end graphics on Linux you need to use an Nvidia card and their closed drivers. This closes of a section of the linux community right away. Intel and AMD have open source drivers but AMDs are terrible (no power management, buggy) and Intel still does not approach the performance of Nvidia for 3D gaming. The Nvidia drivers are good, but always lag behind their Windows cousins. Things are improving, but "excellent" is not the word I would use.

[aclevernickname]

See, this right here is a perfect example of "Moving the Goalposts" [1]. We first redefine "excellent" to mean "without flaw", then state that using non-open drivers, which are freely available, no longer makes linux driver support excellent because it closes a section of the linux community. This also comes dangerously close to being a "No True Scotsman" fallacy as well [2].

What's even more interesting is that in a different post, you said that AMD's open drivers were better than their closed ones, citing power management and less bugs as one of the benefits. Here you are doing a complete 180.

Go to Phoronix.com and show me the benchmarks where Nvidia's windows drivers consistently outperform the Linux ones.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_scotsman

[LukeShu]

I think GP's point is that the user base of OS X-capable hardware is a lot smaller than the user base of GNU/Linux-capable hardware.

[neckro23]

Gaming on Mac has gotten a lot better, mainly thanks to Steam.

I'm a huge gamer type, but for assorted reasons my "real" gaming PC isn't actually at home so I'm usually "stuck" with my Macbook. SteamPlay has therefore has been a huge boon to me -- I apparently have 272 games on my Steam account, and of those 121 run on Mac. That's a really impressive batting average.

Of course, a bunch of those I can't actually play due to the absolutely terrible Intel HD 3000 GPU in this thing (Witcher 2? Yeah, right!), but most indie games run fine because they're usually 2D or light 3D.

[anoncowherd]

>> I apparently have 272 games on my Steam account, and of those 121 run on Mac.

How many of those 121 are AAA-titles? I'd like to be a Mac gamer too, but it seems to me there are extremely few AAA grade games available for the Mac. What else is there besides Valve, Blizzard, and .. Borderlands 2 & Arkham City?

[stonith]

I dumped my gaming pc for an iMac a couple of months ago as I got sick of rebooting linux > windows and back to get shit done when I wasn't playing games, and figured OSX was a good middle ground.

It really depends what you're interested in as to whether that's possible for you at the moment. The Blizzard titles all run, the Valve titles all run, LoL runs, and as mentioned in this thread a good portion of my steam library is available.

The big missing pieces for many are the Battlefield series and the CoD series, but since I don't play that type of game I'm fine - ymmv

[anoncowherd]

Well, I've been using a Mac exclusively for a few years now. I just think the gaming situation is still really sad, even if things may be gradually improving.

It's difficult to believe that even 25% of those 121 games you mentioned are AAA quality, and that's what I was curious about. What's your estimate? Could you list a few AAA games for the Mac?

[erifneerg]

I'd like to say that with Mavericks adding OpenGL 4.1, I can play a number of games much better on my Macbook Pro (early 2008).

[nullsoldier]

Nothing about what he said sounds contradictory to me. In short, what I gained from reading his post is that OSX is small and it doesn't have room to grow to host a gaming population because it's expensive and the hardware doesn't lend itself to gaming. One does not simply just build a mac gaming machine for a reasonable amount of money. On the other hand, he's saying Linux does have that potential because it's cheap and pushes by certain distros have made it much easier to use.

[erpellan]

The difference here is that every Windows user is a potential Linux user. They just need to download and install some free software. The platform fragmentation is precisely the same as it is on Windows and is largely a solved problem.

[dimillian]

You'll be amazed on how it has changed. First, latest Macbook are kinda powerful on the GPU side, even with the integrated one, the Intel HD 5000 or Iris can run modern game at low/med settings. While it's shit for gamers who cares about graphics and performances, for any casual gamers it's sufficient. My Macbook is my work machine but also my gaming machine.

The other things is about Wine, they're working on accelerating the Direct3D driver, and OMG, it's soooo fast now. I'm running Skyrim on a custom Wine engine (1.7.1 with a patch from the D3D boost branch), on hight/ultra settings on my Macbook Retina, It's running at 80% of the Windows performance. And it's only the beginning, it's far from done. I also have it running on a friend Macbook Air, it run at medium setting at a solid 30 FPS.

My point is that you can actually plays with Macbook nowadays.

Edit: The PR from codeweavers is relevant (Especially the part about the Command Stream). http://www.codeweavers.com/about/general/press/20131112/

[salient]

Last I checked Mac OS also had very poor OpenGL support, from what I hear because it's Apple the one writing their own OpenGL driver and building it into the OS. Have they even caught up to OpenGL 4.0 yet? Even if they did, that's still what - 3-4 years behind the others? (4.4 is the latest)

[robin_reala]

In short, mostly. Full 4.1 support in Mavericks: http://rk.md/2013/opengl-osx-mountain-lion-vs-mavericks/

[drzaiusapelord]

You're not really playing BF4 on that Macbook. There are other non graphically challenging games you can play but not complex 3D games with decent graphic settings. I'm far from a graphics guy but things below a certain threshold just look bad and take away from the experience. I'd rather console game than deal with modern games on "low." Especially when you find yourself in situations where you get random frame drops and massive lag as the system tries to keep up. That's just annoying.

I'm always bewildered by Apple's choice of weak GPUs. These are premium products, why not spring for a decent GPU and call it a day? I imagine a lot has to do with maintaining a quiet experience and selling a thin computer, but at some point form hurts function.

[dimillian]

Yeah, BF4 on wine may be unplayable (I've not tested it). About the GPU, My MBPr was shipped with an NVIDIA GT 650M, which is not that bad. And the new one got a 750M.

With those GPU you can have med/hight settings on... on Windows. I'm really impatient for the release of the Wine version with the graphic boost, it should be able to run most game at 70-90% of their Windows counterparts.

The big problem is with the retina display, you have to run game at 14XX X 9XX to have decent performance, but it can be ugly, because of the display not being at its native resolution.

[derefr]

For the mobile products? Number one consideration is battery life. Discrete GPUs are horrible battery drains that Apple wants to eliminate any way they can, so they can get the MBP to the same kind of 12-hour-life numbers the Air has.

[drzaiusapelord]

Well, that can be worked around. In the windows world there are lots of laptop models that switch between low power integrated graphics and a high power GPU for gaming. Its not either or anymore. Its not 1998 anymore.

[derefr]

That's what Apple has been doing. It's still not enough.

[sandGorgon]

is this the case only with OSX-Wine or Linux-Wine as well ? I dont mind paying for professional quality wine on linux - a.k.a Crossover

[dimillian]

From what I understand Crossover already integrated the performance improvement from the in progress Wine branch into their closed source alternative.

It's still coming soon on the main branch for Wine, but they still have a lot of works to do. But yeah once it'll be merged, both OSX Wine and Linux Wine will benefit from it. And it's a big, big performance improvement.

And if you want to try Crossover, go for it (They have a trial), so you can compare the performance.

[lsdafjklsd]

I've been playing Dota 2 / Hereoes of Newerth on my 13in mac air for years just fine. My only gripe is the mouse acceleration on OS X... the mouse feels horrible and you have to get third party software to make it only slightly better.

[danbee]

http://smoothmouse.com

[goostavos]

Which third party software do you use to fix the mouse acceleration? I'm in the process of porting some Wx stuff over to OS X, a processes for which work provided a shinny new macbook, but I hated the way the mouse handled so much -- I mean, to the point where I was yelling at the computer -- that I ended up virtualizing OS X on my windows box and developing that way.

I don't know what it is. The Macbook's track pad is miles above its peers -- an absolute joy to use. However, the second you plug a mouse in, the cursor becomes an unusable, inaccurate, enraging piece of garbage.

[girvo]

I game on my iMac. Currently just played through BioShock Infinite, and play StarCraft 2 daily, and really should get back to Guild Wars 2 at some point... but yeah, I'm considered odd by my friends for doing so.

[lloeki]

Throw in Diablo 3 and Portal 2 into the mix and you've got what I'm playing these times around on my rMBP13's HD4000. I've actually run through both SC2:LW and D3 on a '09 MBP. Sure you don't get all the bells and whistles, but a steady 25fps (capped through INI settings) matters more to me than shiny effects and had the games be perfectly enjoyable.

[SkyMarshal]

Why is playing on a MacBook impossible? (not a Mac user, serious question)

[lazerwalker]

The driver performance just isn't there. If you have a cross-platform game and run it on the same Apple machine in OS X and on Windows, the Windows version's gonna be WAY more performant.

As a lesser frustration, most Windows games I play natively support the Xbox 360 controller, whereas almost no OS X ports do.

[Kurtz79]

I was able to play quite a few games (Civ5, Walking dead, Portal 2, Diablo 3) without any issues on a Macbook (Pro 15 Retina first generation). Portal 2 and Walking Dead are quite playable also in my Macbook Air 13 (2010, last model with nvidia board).

Of course these are relatively low requirements games. Do you have examples where the performance difference is relevant, and the games actually unplayable ?

[lazerwalker]

On my mid-2012 11" MB Air, most games around the level of requirements you said tend to run maybe 3/4ths as well in OS X as in Windows 8 (Portal 2 being a concrete example). Not unplayable by any means, but the performance difference is substantial enough that it's worth my while to reboot into Windows.

[Angostura]

Just to point out that 10.9 significantly updates OS X's OpenGL support which may have an effect on performance - we shall see (Mac gamer).

[dimillian]

You're right, but it's moving fast (At least once a year...). I would say that native games are 95% on par with Windows equivalent.

Wine and other "Translator" are moving fast too, in a few release you'll see a lot of big improvements in the graphics area. Crossover latest release already profit from that.

[kd0amg]

It's been a few years since I tried, but I got much better performance running the Windows version of the Orange Box in Crossover than I did with Valve's OS X port. Is the driver situation significantly different when running in Crossover/Wine than native?

[pjmlp]

Intel GPUs lack performance when compared with ATI/NVIDIA.

Plus they manage to have even more buggy OpenGL support, and their drivers are well known among OpenGL developers for lying about supported features.

[Kurtz79]

There are Macbooks (and Macs) with dedicated GPUs.

[pjmlp]

Which cost almost three times the average salary of most European countries.

[Kurtz79]

I bought mine refurbished for 1300 euros, which is comparable to the price of similarly specced PCs (and about the average salary of most European countries).

Even if it was three times this price, what has that to do with its ability to play games ?

[larksimian]

Playing AAA titles might be difficult if they're badly optimised/don't have low graphics options. Others, like Skyrim, can run on an 2011 Macbook Air if you put the settings to low(though it leaves you with a surprisingly boring experience once the "HOLY CRAP MOUNTAINS!" is taken out of the equation).

If you're into indie games/GoG oldies it makes literally 0 difference what hardware you run most of them on as long as they actually run on that OS.

[adamors]

Because it's a laptop? It's just an inferior experience, especially since the hardware isn't what you'd call beefy.

[shangxiao]

Not enuf grunt :(

[wmoxam]

I regularly play Dota2 on my MacBook Air. Works well enough.

[darklrd]

Ditto.

[trumbitta2]

I play The Witcher 2, Skyrim and so on with my rMBP on the Windows 7 partition, while I played Batman Arkham City on the OSX one.

[Djehngo]

For what it's worth my macbookpro runs Dota2 without complaint.

[mimiflynn]

My 2011 Macbook Air runs Portal perfectly.

[pantalaimon]

That's a 2007 game.

[benihana]

In my opinion, this will only take off if installing everything is easier than installing Windows + Steam + drivers. If Valve can give you an image to download that has the OS, the drivers, Steam, Firefox, and all the basic codecs you need to use a computer for gaming and common things like browsing the web, reading email, watching video and listening to music, this has a chance.

[ZeroGravitas]

You shouldn't think of OS X and Linux as two completely separate platforms in this regard, since they share a lot of relevant tech.

I would imagine the work put in to making OS X ports translates well to Linux and vice versa and it's the combined sales that people will consider when deciding whether to port (or what base technologies to build on for brand new projects).

As SteamOS takes off there's also the possibility of using Bootcamp to switch your Mac into a SteamOS machine if that gives you access to better GPU drivers (I believe currently some people do this for windows for the same reason) but of course you can play (mostly) the same Steam games library from either OS.

edit: a quick glance at Valve's site suggests 598 games for Mac, 253 for Linux and of those only 9 weren't also available for the Mac (they're all available for Windows).

[malandrew]

On that note are there any changes or improvements on the horizon that would let you fast user switch between two or more booted and running operating systems. It'd be great in the future if you could allocate a small chunk of your RAM to keeping the background machine in a chunk of RSm so it switches faster than you can switch between users on the same OS. E.g. Of 16GB of RAM, 12GBis allocated to the foreground OS and 4GB to the background. Then when you switch you get a near instantaneous switch and the 8GB difference is allocated to the now current foreground system as necessary.

[kilburn]

This can be done today using kvm's memory ballooning. Essentially, you install a driver in the guest VM and it takes care of (1) reclaiming RAM from the guest OS when the host OS needs more; and (2) providing more RAM to the guest if needed and available.

[keeperofdakeys]

While both may be Posix systems, the GUI, mouse and audio apis are much different - so there is still a lot of work you'd need to do. Since both use opengl though, you get rid of half the trouble by porting.

It's also important to remember that many game makers don't make their own engine, and so the engine must support OSX/linux (most classic linux ports have used the unreal engine, or source engine). Unity is quite good in this regard, you can hit a button to export your project to all three different platforms.

[k3n]

> Their biggest asset at this time is the distribution model of Steam

IMO the Steam Machines will offer a very supportive backing as well.

[grahamburger]

They also have SteamBox. I think big developers will target SteamOS.