451F
|
Posted - 2007.07.21 18:48:00 -
[1]
Originally by: Capn Hack
eve works well for me in parallels (cept for the progress bars) running it in a vm window. that is, have parallels run in a window and set eve to run fullscreen to that windows size. this means you can get on with other mac stuff in the background as you play, which is pretty handy. as for the mouse lag, ive not had any of that (tho i am on sturdier hardware). make sure you click on install parallels tools in the actions menu, even if you already installed them once, cos the mouse driver in there should smooth things out a lot.
OK, I may not be running an 8-core Mac Pro, but it's no slouch:
Model Name:MacBook Pro 15" Model Identifier:MacBookPro2,2 Processor Name:Intel Core 2 Duo Processor Speed:2.33 GHz Number Of Processors:1 Total Number Of Cores:2 L2 Cache (per processor):4 MB Memory:2 GB Bus Speed:667 MHz Boot ROM Version:MBP22.00A5.B01 SMC Version:1.12f5
:) I would prefer an NVidia GPU, particularly since now AMD = ATI. So I have an Intel system with graphics by AMD. Hellooooo.
I run a two-display setup. I use the full 15" screen in fullscreen mode for the game, and my 17" screen for Mail, etc.
The mouse lag is the time it takes the pointer to catch up to where you made movements to. I'd say it's about a half second or less... and this is just enough to make it painful, since Eve's interface has thin borders and tiny scrollbars, etc.
Now that the Eve API stuff is going, I am _REALLY_ hoping someone makes mods to cut out the mousing entirely with some keyboarding, because context switching between the mouse gets on my nerves. I am a heavy QS user and if I never had to use the mouse for anything, that would suit me from my shoes to my scalp. I might make those mods myself if I can find the time.
The game is playable... however, I wouldn't try to do any pvp in Eve under Parallels, it's just not responsive enough. So I'm training, doing simple quests, and social stuff. It's nice to just be playing Eve again but it's not where I want it.
I'd really like to see CCP switch to OpenGL and make a true Mac client, not a Cider release... but I'm not goign to complain about a Cider release at all. It will be so much better than what I'm currently doing. DirectX is only becoming more like OpenGL over time, and why continue with that when you could use an open standard (no longer subject to what Microsoft alone decides to do), and thus open your product up to a multi-platform strategy? The only advantage I see is that in DirectX you don't have to write some extra code to take advantage of vendor-specific hardware features. On the other hand, if DirectX doesn't support those hardware features you want to use, you're screwed anyway.
Blizzard's decision to support Mac natively has paid for itself many times over. I saw a guy in a Starbucks the other day playing WoW on his white Macbook. (which is now possible since Apple finally made OpenGL multithreaded) ... the same might or might not be true for Eve, but the Mac user base would probably take to it in good numbers, I'm guessing. I think it'd be cool to see people playing Eve instead of WoW on cheap $1000 Apple notebooks.
At what volume does CCP need Mac subscribers to justify a real port? I'm curious about that. 500? 500 * $20 = $10000/mo gross, which should be enough to at least hire a dedicated Mac developer. I would like CCP to comment on that cost structure in their development.
I'd hazard a guess the Cider route was pretty cheap, and I wonder if they've outsourced QA of the Cider client to Transgaming as well. That way the Mac client is really _nothing_ they have to do themselves, they still focus on making the Windows/DirectX client, have a rev-share deal with Transgaming on every subscription (Transgaming gets a %), and Transgaming takes care of the rest. I'm making the assumption that Transgaming wants to do the QA here because it's too expensive otherwise at low volume.
|