Plan for David Myers
by Dave Myers · 01/17/2003 (10:37 am) · 24 comments
The three founders of 21-6 went on a significant road trip from Jan 4th - 14th. We're not talking short airplane rides and top-notch hotels here - we went indie all the way.
Heading to San Francisco
I live in St. Louis, and Justin and Ryan live in Denver, so the first thing we had to do is get me to where they were. That was an eleven hour drive across arguably one of the most boring states in terms of scenery - Kansas. Sorry Kansas residents, no offense. ;)
I arrived on Saturday, spent the night, and then we all three loaded up into Ryan's SUV and headed out to San Francisco.
We played it smart and stopped in Winnemucca, Nevada Sunday night - twelve hours out and not too bad. Then we drove the remaining six hours to San Francisco on Monday and checked into the hotel. In case you haven't ever been to San Francisco, they have lots of bridges. An odd sight when you are heading into the city is old bridges, new bridges, bridges under construction, and bridges off in the distance.
The Hotel
Ah, yes, the hotel. The Renoir Hotel, in fact. Our room had a particularly fetid odor emanating somewhere near the couch. Near the pullout couch that I slept on for the first couple of nights I might add. Needless to say, we endured that until we could endure it no longer - then moved downstairs to a bit better existence.
Touch the Magic
Walking the streets of San Francisco near our hotel was also an interesting experience. Across the street from the hotel we were encouraged to See the Beauty - Touch the Magic. If you can't tell it from the pic - that's a nudie bar, complete with booths.
We didn't Touch the Magic, but we were lucky enough to see a lot of interesting and downright crazy people on our daily walk from the hotel to the conference center.
MacWorld
After checking into the hotel on Monday, we immediately headed down to the conference center to help Jay Moore set up the arcade station that Marble Blast and Orbz were to be shown on.
There is nothing cooler than watching players sit down in front of your game and start it up. Of course, no one reads help for games, even casual gamers, so it was fun to watch people sit down and try to figure out the controls and the goal of each game. You could actually see the wheels turning in their heads.
Justin ended up being our "booth babe" for the bulk of the conference - we couldn't pull him away. John Quigley was on-hand to help out some, too. MacWorld is a very consumer-oriented conference, but we still made a good number of contacts during the conference, from game developers to GGers to potential GGers to hardware vendors to software retailers. Good stuff.
We actually were lucky enough to spend a lot of time with John. John escorted us to a few interesting locations in San Francisco for food and drink - very cool indeed. I particularly liked the "biker bar" we went to. Biker as in messenger bikes. Only in San Francisco. ;)
We Want Games
21-6 is not fully-versed in the Mac community, so part of the reason for our trip to MacWorld was to pick up on what it is all about. I would say that the most significant thing that we learned is that the Mac community wants games - badly. Most AAA titles either don't ship for the Mac or ship much later for the Mac. The Mac definitely looks like a good opportunity for indies, which Jeff T. has been advocating for a while now. Shipping your game first on the Mac and making some PR saying so could get you some good Mac community support and won't alienate the Windows community one iota. Good advice from Jeff T. there I believe.
MacWorld ended on Friday and we were all pretty tired of standing for hours on end, so it was nice to have one last night of celebration before we left town. We teamed up with Jay Moore and John Quigley for a night on the town. Let's just say that we ate some very good food and drank entirely too many very good drinks before it was all said and done. It was a good week, and we really enjoyed the time we spent with Jay and John.
Heading to Eugene
Now that we had finished MacWorld, we wanted to take a special trip up to Eugene, Oregon and spend a little time talking shop with Bravetree and GarageGames. I wish I had taken some pics on our way up there. The scenery on the drive up was quite beautiful.
We spent an afternoon with Bravetree and an evening with GarageGames. We are working hard to make our little indie studio a success, and getting advice and talking shop with those guys was very important to us. Look for some interesting announcements in the not-too-distant future from 21-6. It is going to be a very interesting 2003 for all of us.
Back to Denver
Needless to say, we were pretty worn out when it came time to head back to Denver. We decided to pull an all-nighter and drive straight through with no hotel stop. Ooh, boy, was THAT a mistake. High winds, torrential rain showers, and having to drive nearly the entire width of Oregon (man that state is wide) really took a lot out of us. We were pretty much hallucinating by the time we actually arrived in Denver. And then I had another 800 miles to go. Ouch.
In all, the three of us travelled over 3000 miles together and I added another 1600 miles on top of that between St. Louis and Denver. Now tell me - is that hardcore indie or what? ;)
Quality time
The best part of the whole trip was getting an opportunity to really spend some good time with Justin and Ryan. We spent a lot of time discussing the future of 21-6 and how to get better at what we do and produce better titles. I would give much to have us all in the same city in our own offices, but we have to still build to that for now. In the meantime, we will keep cranking as best we can from afar.
Heading to San Francisco
I live in St. Louis, and Justin and Ryan live in Denver, so the first thing we had to do is get me to where they were. That was an eleven hour drive across arguably one of the most boring states in terms of scenery - Kansas. Sorry Kansas residents, no offense. ;)
I arrived on Saturday, spent the night, and then we all three loaded up into Ryan's SUV and headed out to San Francisco.
We played it smart and stopped in Winnemucca, Nevada Sunday night - twelve hours out and not too bad. Then we drove the remaining six hours to San Francisco on Monday and checked into the hotel. In case you haven't ever been to San Francisco, they have lots of bridges. An odd sight when you are heading into the city is old bridges, new bridges, bridges under construction, and bridges off in the distance.
The Hotel
Ah, yes, the hotel. The Renoir Hotel, in fact. Our room had a particularly fetid odor emanating somewhere near the couch. Near the pullout couch that I slept on for the first couple of nights I might add. Needless to say, we endured that until we could endure it no longer - then moved downstairs to a bit better existence.
Touch the Magic
Walking the streets of San Francisco near our hotel was also an interesting experience. Across the street from the hotel we were encouraged to See the Beauty - Touch the Magic. If you can't tell it from the pic - that's a nudie bar, complete with booths.
We didn't Touch the Magic, but we were lucky enough to see a lot of interesting and downright crazy people on our daily walk from the hotel to the conference center.
MacWorld
After checking into the hotel on Monday, we immediately headed down to the conference center to help Jay Moore set up the arcade station that Marble Blast and Orbz were to be shown on.
There is nothing cooler than watching players sit down in front of your game and start it up. Of course, no one reads help for games, even casual gamers, so it was fun to watch people sit down and try to figure out the controls and the goal of each game. You could actually see the wheels turning in their heads.
Justin ended up being our "booth babe" for the bulk of the conference - we couldn't pull him away. John Quigley was on-hand to help out some, too. MacWorld is a very consumer-oriented conference, but we still made a good number of contacts during the conference, from game developers to GGers to potential GGers to hardware vendors to software retailers. Good stuff.
We actually were lucky enough to spend a lot of time with John. John escorted us to a few interesting locations in San Francisco for food and drink - very cool indeed. I particularly liked the "biker bar" we went to. Biker as in messenger bikes. Only in San Francisco. ;)
We Want Games
21-6 is not fully-versed in the Mac community, so part of the reason for our trip to MacWorld was to pick up on what it is all about. I would say that the most significant thing that we learned is that the Mac community wants games - badly. Most AAA titles either don't ship for the Mac or ship much later for the Mac. The Mac definitely looks like a good opportunity for indies, which Jeff T. has been advocating for a while now. Shipping your game first on the Mac and making some PR saying so could get you some good Mac community support and won't alienate the Windows community one iota. Good advice from Jeff T. there I believe.
MacWorld ended on Friday and we were all pretty tired of standing for hours on end, so it was nice to have one last night of celebration before we left town. We teamed up with Jay Moore and John Quigley for a night on the town. Let's just say that we ate some very good food and drank entirely too many very good drinks before it was all said and done. It was a good week, and we really enjoyed the time we spent with Jay and John.
Heading to Eugene
Now that we had finished MacWorld, we wanted to take a special trip up to Eugene, Oregon and spend a little time talking shop with Bravetree and GarageGames. I wish I had taken some pics on our way up there. The scenery on the drive up was quite beautiful.
We spent an afternoon with Bravetree and an evening with GarageGames. We are working hard to make our little indie studio a success, and getting advice and talking shop with those guys was very important to us. Look for some interesting announcements in the not-too-distant future from 21-6. It is going to be a very interesting 2003 for all of us.
Back to Denver
Needless to say, we were pretty worn out when it came time to head back to Denver. We decided to pull an all-nighter and drive straight through with no hotel stop. Ooh, boy, was THAT a mistake. High winds, torrential rain showers, and having to drive nearly the entire width of Oregon (man that state is wide) really took a lot out of us. We were pretty much hallucinating by the time we actually arrived in Denver. And then I had another 800 miles to go. Ouch.
In all, the three of us travelled over 3000 miles together and I added another 1600 miles on top of that between St. Louis and Denver. Now tell me - is that hardcore indie or what? ;)
Quality time
The best part of the whole trip was getting an opportunity to really spend some good time with Justin and Ryan. We spent a lot of time discussing the future of 21-6 and how to get better at what we do and produce better titles. I would give much to have us all in the same city in our own offices, but we have to still build to that for now. In the meantime, we will keep cranking as best we can from afar.
About the author
Considerable experience developing with Torque-based technologies and produced the first third-party game using any Torque technology (Orbz). Game designer, programmer, and producer, and credits include the innovative title Orbz and the colorful BuggOut.
#2
Right on, glad it worked out...
Keep up the good work
01/17/2003 (11:09 am)
Cool, looks like you guys had a blast.. 8pRight on, glad it worked out...
Keep up the good work
#3
01/17/2003 (2:12 pm)
Sorry I missed you guys when you were in Eugene. That looks like a lot of driving :)
#4
I can't imagine a drive like that across half the country.... that's some kind of indie crazy... :)
01/17/2003 (2:37 pm)
That's a hard core road trip, when the three of us at rainfall studios drove down for the igc ( from about the tip of the black Eugene arrow to the point where the yellow line starts headding directly east out of eugene ) we decided that the drive was too long and that we'd probably fly next year. I can't imagine a drive like that across half the country.... that's some kind of indie crazy... :)
#5
01/17/2003 (3:24 pm)
Yeah, we missed you and Rick that night Tim. We'll catch up with you guys next time for sure.
#6
Its like the garagegames own pilgrimage :D I hope you bowed to the screaming coder wall for 20 minutes :D
01/17/2003 (6:04 pm)
Heading to Eugene Its like the garagegames own pilgrimage :D I hope you bowed to the screaming coder wall for 20 minutes :D
#7
Kansas has NOTHING interesting to look at for the most part. When you hit the Kansas - Nebraska border near Colorado (as in, within 20 miles of the border) it's cool cause of all the hills. Same goes for a section on the route from Wichita to KC. Otherwise Kansas is flat. Insanely flat. Anything else that isn't FLAT is off of the beaten path, with no major roads going through it.
Did I mention it's FLAT?
01/17/2003 (9:12 pm)
As a long time Kansas resident...Kansas has NOTHING interesting to look at for the most part. When you hit the Kansas - Nebraska border near Colorado (as in, within 20 miles of the border) it's cool cause of all the hills. Same goes for a section on the route from Wichita to KC. Otherwise Kansas is flat. Insanely flat. Anything else that isn't FLAT is off of the beaten path, with no major roads going through it.
Did I mention it's FLAT?
#8
What does it take to get into the Mac side of the game biz? You know - the required hardware and development tools to do the job up right? And of course, what mindsets and such are you up against in the gaming community on the Mac side?
I know - those 'simple' questions are enough for a long essay, but, I'd love to hear what 21-6 has learned, so that hopefully I could utilize the same thing ;-) (I'd love to do a Mac version of Trajectory Zone at launch time - but, don't have the money to lay down for the hardware and software, unluckly. Maybe a nice post PC release... :-/
01/17/2003 (9:18 pm)
Jokes as aside (thus the reason I'm putting this in a separate post, so it doesn't get overlooked ;-)...What does it take to get into the Mac side of the game biz? You know - the required hardware and development tools to do the job up right? And of course, what mindsets and such are you up against in the gaming community on the Mac side?
I know - those 'simple' questions are enough for a long essay, but, I'd love to hear what 21-6 has learned, so that hopefully I could utilize the same thing ;-) (I'd love to do a Mac version of Trajectory Zone at launch time - but, don't have the money to lay down for the hardware and software, unluckly. Maybe a nice post PC release... :-/
#9
1- Buying some Apple hw, and developing with their free development tools (or buy CodeWarrior). You don't have to buy the latest hardware, as you can guess, but I'd buy something from the current Apple line-up rather than getting a refurbished Mac. That's my my opinion, and nothing more.
2- Do what 21-6 did and get help from the community : David Chait and I have been helping them, and Torque is already running pretty nicely on Macs. I think this solution is in lots of ways the way to go for Indie, unless you can afford to buy some Apple hardware (which I think it's totally worth to do, as OS X is one heck of a nice OS to use ;)). At the moment, we might not be that numerous in this community that use Macs for TGE development. Even rarer, is finding someone with the level of knowledge David Chait has of both the TGE codebase and Mac/PC development issues. I know I'm not there yet :)
You can also do a combo of both, even without buying Mac hardware, as nothing is stopping you from writing code on your PC, albeit building and compiling might be a bit harder. For info on the Mac dev side of things, you can go to developer.apple.com. That site contains all the publically available info on developping for the Mac.
If you start to tinker with the platform directly, ie on an actual mac, you should get at least the free developer registration that will give you access to software that is not available from the site above. Go to connect.apple.com to register.
As for the business side of things, you'll realize very fast that Mac users are very, very hungry for quality and reasonably priced games (a lot of AAA PC ports start with a higher price than the PC version, and stay at that price for a lot longer :( ).
As we're Indie, and using a crossplatform engine (unless you code in platform specific stuff in a non portable way), you don't have to port your game, or have it done by a 3rd party. Also, with the GG publishing, you stay in charge of your product support, which lots of mac gamers will really appreciate, as too often, the port team is not allowed to provide support on the mac version because of contract clauses.
And GG is certainly starting to have a very nice web of contacts in the Mac side of things, made even better by their presence at MWSF, and will get better as more mac gamers become aware of the existence of GG and the community built around it.
If you want to discuss this further, feel free to email me (check my profile)
Here is a recap of ressources, centered on MacOS X support, as I think that supporting MacOS 9 is a matter of per project decision, depending on target hardware, market, etc.
But the way the mac platform is set up in TGE atm makes it really easy to support it.
You will most likely need to get the full version of CodeWarrior 8 for Mac to do so, 'though.
Tools :
Project Builder and other Mac tool from Apple, available free of charge :
To get the most recent developer tools, once you have your Mac,
go to connect.apple.com, free reg necessary.
For info on ProjectBuilder, etc. : go developer.apple.com
PB info page : developer.apple.com/tools/projectbuilder/
Metrowerks tools (there is a special deal for CW8, but that's the version for MacOS X only. You don't need it, as you already have PB for free, albeit it seems that it builds faster, etc. The full version if quite more expensive, but includes support for MacOS 9 and previous versions of MacOS) :
www.metrowerks.com/MW/Develop/Desktop/Macintosh/Default.htm
Info on Mac development (all at the developer.apple.com site)
Game dev info page : developer.apple.com/games/index.html
MacOS X dev info page : developer.apple.com/macosx/index.html
That's it for now, and again, feel free to contact me :)
Have a nice weekend all,
N.
01/18/2003 (11:52 am)
Davis, you can go two ways about this : 1- Buying some Apple hw, and developing with their free development tools (or buy CodeWarrior). You don't have to buy the latest hardware, as you can guess, but I'd buy something from the current Apple line-up rather than getting a refurbished Mac. That's my my opinion, and nothing more.
2- Do what 21-6 did and get help from the community : David Chait and I have been helping them, and Torque is already running pretty nicely on Macs. I think this solution is in lots of ways the way to go for Indie, unless you can afford to buy some Apple hardware (which I think it's totally worth to do, as OS X is one heck of a nice OS to use ;)). At the moment, we might not be that numerous in this community that use Macs for TGE development. Even rarer, is finding someone with the level of knowledge David Chait has of both the TGE codebase and Mac/PC development issues. I know I'm not there yet :)
You can also do a combo of both, even without buying Mac hardware, as nothing is stopping you from writing code on your PC, albeit building and compiling might be a bit harder. For info on the Mac dev side of things, you can go to developer.apple.com. That site contains all the publically available info on developping for the Mac.
If you start to tinker with the platform directly, ie on an actual mac, you should get at least the free developer registration that will give you access to software that is not available from the site above. Go to connect.apple.com to register.
As for the business side of things, you'll realize very fast that Mac users are very, very hungry for quality and reasonably priced games (a lot of AAA PC ports start with a higher price than the PC version, and stay at that price for a lot longer :( ).
As we're Indie, and using a crossplatform engine (unless you code in platform specific stuff in a non portable way), you don't have to port your game, or have it done by a 3rd party. Also, with the GG publishing, you stay in charge of your product support, which lots of mac gamers will really appreciate, as too often, the port team is not allowed to provide support on the mac version because of contract clauses.
And GG is certainly starting to have a very nice web of contacts in the Mac side of things, made even better by their presence at MWSF, and will get better as more mac gamers become aware of the existence of GG and the community built around it.
If you want to discuss this further, feel free to email me (check my profile)
Here is a recap of ressources, centered on MacOS X support, as I think that supporting MacOS 9 is a matter of per project decision, depending on target hardware, market, etc.
But the way the mac platform is set up in TGE atm makes it really easy to support it.
You will most likely need to get the full version of CodeWarrior 8 for Mac to do so, 'though.
Tools :
Project Builder and other Mac tool from Apple, available free of charge :
To get the most recent developer tools, once you have your Mac,
go to connect.apple.com, free reg necessary.
For info on ProjectBuilder, etc. : go developer.apple.com
PB info page : developer.apple.com/tools/projectbuilder/
Metrowerks tools (there is a special deal for CW8, but that's the version for MacOS X only. You don't need it, as you already have PB for free, albeit it seems that it builds faster, etc. The full version if quite more expensive, but includes support for MacOS 9 and previous versions of MacOS) :
www.metrowerks.com/MW/Develop/Desktop/Macintosh/Default.htm
Info on Mac development (all at the developer.apple.com site)
Game dev info page : developer.apple.com/games/index.html
MacOS X dev info page : developer.apple.com/macosx/index.html
That's it for now, and again, feel free to contact me :)
Have a nice weekend all,
N.
#10
Thanks for all the info, Nicolas. I'll probably email ya' a bit later with some more questions.
01/18/2003 (12:33 pm)
If I were plannin' for support right now, it would have to be MacOS X. I was just at CompUSA today dooling over a Mac with MacOS X on it. Damn those are sweet looking, and feel very fluid. If I had $4k to spend, I'd have me a complete Mac setup at my house.Thanks for all the info, Nicolas. I'll probably email ya' a bit later with some more questions.
#11
01/18/2003 (2:37 pm)
I asked Nicolas and David to respond here with some info (thanks Nicolas) once I saw your request Davis. To be honest, we're still a little wet behind the ears on Mac, but as we proceed with Mac versions (and Linux for that matter) of our products, we'll make sure and let everyone know what we've learned.
#12
01/19/2003 (12:07 am)
Thanks, David - it's really appreciated!
#13
Can someone give me a rough price for a Mac G4 with a gig of Ram and a 21 inch monitor? its only got a 450 mhz processor tho I think.
I'm going to an auction on wednesday and want to put a bid in for it (I think it'd be nice to have the capability to basically build ALL platforms myself).
Phil.
01/19/2003 (7:22 am)
Hi Guys,Can someone give me a rough price for a Mac G4 with a gig of Ram and a 21 inch monitor? its only got a 450 mhz processor tho I think.
I'm going to an auction on wednesday and want to put a bid in for it (I think it'd be nice to have the capability to basically build ALL platforms myself).
Phil.
#14
As Phil is about to try and do, picking up some cheap secondhand hardware helps. However, as Nic pointed out, having someone like me around who has the cross-platform development background makes things a bit easier.
People can do it themselves. At least, at the basic level. Optimizing for the Mac is a little tougher than the PC -- the PC code has a lot of custom-tuned code already. Also, MacOSX has its own issues, and the Mac platform probably has a much wider range of machines (and GPUs) to support, all of which you need to know about.
And then there's supporting the release. You may have seen me posting around the Marble posts when a Mac question pops up, as anything dealing with my core code I feel a responsibility to help solve.
I'm currently working with RW, Bravetree, and 21-6, on Mac platform support and custom code enhancements where necessary. At some point, I won't be the only person helping out, but the reality of the world is that Windows coders aren't going to turn into Mac experts overnight (I've been programming on the Mac for something like 15 years, on and off), and any given Mac expert doesn't necessarily have all the answers... ;)
Soooo:
- you can find someone like myself or Nic who is willing to spend the time to get your Mac version running, stable, and performing, and packaged for a release.
- you can buy a brand new mac, maybe a unit no longer in production, but still come in under $2K. Without shopping around, the Apple online store has eMacs starting at $1099, LCD iMac's start at $1199, towers starting at $1699, iBook starting at $999 (yes, that's correct), powerbooks start at $1799 (the cool new 12" model), and old iMac (nonLCD) at $799. If you shop around, I'm sure you can find even better prices every now and then at a local store or at MacConnection, et al. But go back and read those prices, and remember all the software that comes with the machine, etc., and Apple still is very competitive with the name-brand PC world.
- you can pick up a refurb or auctioned mac or ebay'd mac for easily < $500. but at that point, you have decided to spend money, might as well grab an iBook or iMac.
- Project builder is free, but only builds for OSX.
- Codewarrior is not free, but builds for OS9/OSX hybrid (Carbon), OSX native (MachO), and if you pay a little extra you can cross-compile (or native compile) Windows as well. And it is MUCH faster than PB (or VisStudio). I mean MUCH MUCH faster. ;)
Much of the Mac world still isn't wholly on OSX. For any number of reasons. I'm still supporting 8.6, but that's going to likely erode to 9.0 in my custom code for some projects... general thinking being that anyone who doesn't have at least OS9 probably doesn't have a 'big enough machine' to run stuff. That's not wholly true, but a starting guideline.
- David Chait
01/19/2003 (8:30 am)
Davis -As Phil is about to try and do, picking up some cheap secondhand hardware helps. However, as Nic pointed out, having someone like me around who has the cross-platform development background makes things a bit easier.
People can do it themselves. At least, at the basic level. Optimizing for the Mac is a little tougher than the PC -- the PC code has a lot of custom-tuned code already. Also, MacOSX has its own issues, and the Mac platform probably has a much wider range of machines (and GPUs) to support, all of which you need to know about.
And then there's supporting the release. You may have seen me posting around the Marble posts when a Mac question pops up, as anything dealing with my core code I feel a responsibility to help solve.
I'm currently working with RW, Bravetree, and 21-6, on Mac platform support and custom code enhancements where necessary. At some point, I won't be the only person helping out, but the reality of the world is that Windows coders aren't going to turn into Mac experts overnight (I've been programming on the Mac for something like 15 years, on and off), and any given Mac expert doesn't necessarily have all the answers... ;)
Soooo:
- you can find someone like myself or Nic who is willing to spend the time to get your Mac version running, stable, and performing, and packaged for a release.
- you can buy a brand new mac, maybe a unit no longer in production, but still come in under $2K. Without shopping around, the Apple online store has eMacs starting at $1099, LCD iMac's start at $1199, towers starting at $1699, iBook starting at $999 (yes, that's correct), powerbooks start at $1799 (the cool new 12" model), and old iMac (nonLCD) at $799. If you shop around, I'm sure you can find even better prices every now and then at a local store or at MacConnection, et al. But go back and read those prices, and remember all the software that comes with the machine, etc., and Apple still is very competitive with the name-brand PC world.
- you can pick up a refurb or auctioned mac or ebay'd mac for easily < $500. but at that point, you have decided to spend money, might as well grab an iBook or iMac.
- Project builder is free, but only builds for OSX.
- Codewarrior is not free, but builds for OS9/OSX hybrid (Carbon), OSX native (MachO), and if you pay a little extra you can cross-compile (or native compile) Windows as well. And it is MUCH faster than PB (or VisStudio). I mean MUCH MUCH faster. ;)
Much of the Mac world still isn't wholly on OSX. For any number of reasons. I'm still supporting 8.6, but that's going to likely erode to 9.0 in my custom code for some projects... general thinking being that anyone who doesn't have at least OS9 probably doesn't have a 'big enough machine' to run stuff. That's not wholly true, but a starting guideline.
- David Chait
#15
Mac Select membership is $500/yr. Go to the apple site and see all that you get for that price. I'm considering seeing if maybe Apple would give some TGE owners a slightly discounted membership.
BUT, in any case, Select members get one hardware discount purchase per year. eMacs and old iMacs are 12% discount. iBooks are 15% discount. all other newer machines are generally 20% discount. That means that if you are planning to buy a $1500+ Mac, it's worth joining. In fact, if you're going to buy a $2000 mac, it pays itself off immediately. ;)
d
01/19/2003 (9:08 am)
ONE OTHER THING.Mac Select membership is $500/yr. Go to the apple site and see all that you get for that price. I'm considering seeing if maybe Apple would give some TGE owners a slightly discounted membership.
BUT, in any case, Select members get one hardware discount purchase per year. eMacs and old iMacs are 12% discount. iBooks are 15% discount. all other newer machines are generally 20% discount. That means that if you are planning to buy a $1500+ Mac, it's worth joining. In fact, if you're going to buy a $2000 mac, it pays itself off immediately. ;)
d
#16
01/19/2003 (9:31 am)
Good point David. I think i'll get the membership before I buy the dual G4 :)
#17
I'm a total mac newbie.
Phil.
01/19/2003 (10:59 am)
Hey Guys, Sorry for being a bit dumb, but is a Mac G4 a reasonably new machine? i.e. will it compile and run Torque? will it compile for older platforms?I'm a total mac newbie.
Phil.
#18
Of course, you could always upgrade the viccard with a PCI Radeon, Mac model of course, so usually a tad more expensive and a lot harder to find than its PC counterpart.
Also, if you buy a new Mac, I would recommend not ordering any additional RAM from the Apple Store, and get the rest from another online store, for greaty reduced prices, even for the portables : Apple is really greedy on the RAM prices...
Also, as far as nvidia hw is concerned, on Mac, Apple controls everything, from the card making to the drivers, etc. So you can't shop for that GF4 ti, alas
Same with monitors : unless you're full of cash, don't buy it from Apple, and just use one of your spare PC one, or buy a new regular monitor : all new Macs come with standard VGA connectors nowadays. That can save you quite a lot.
Hope that helps,
n.
01/19/2003 (12:59 pm)
It should definitely compile and run it, but the performance will depend on other factors, same as on a PC box. If it's the 450 G4 you mentioned above, this could be one of the first g4 tower. IIRC, they have an ATI Rage 128 vidcard in there, and could even be the PCI G4 tower (the one just before AGP was adopted at Apple). Of course, you could always upgrade the viccard with a PCI Radeon, Mac model of course, so usually a tad more expensive and a lot harder to find than its PC counterpart.
Also, if you buy a new Mac, I would recommend not ordering any additional RAM from the Apple Store, and get the rest from another online store, for greaty reduced prices, even for the portables : Apple is really greedy on the RAM prices...
Also, as far as nvidia hw is concerned, on Mac, Apple controls everything, from the card making to the drivers, etc. So you can't shop for that GF4 ti, alas
Same with monitors : unless you're full of cash, don't buy it from Apple, and just use one of your spare PC one, or buy a new regular monitor : all new Macs come with standard VGA connectors nowadays. That can save you quite a lot.
Hope that helps,
n.
#19
Figure that the G4 is generally benchmarked at somewhat faster than an equivalent Pentium. So a G4 450 is certainly better than a PII 450, probably more like a P3 600 or better. A low end machine, but no slouch. And with Altivec (Apple's SSE/SSE2 equiv, but better ;) ), even more room for improvement.
When I started on Torque stuff about a year and a half back, I was initially coding on a G3 233. ;) I'd generally say that the 450 is a good 'baseline' model for you.
Definitely worth more if it's an AGP machine. :)
Oh, and just a general note: anyone doing in-house Mac work, feel free to drop me emails on Qs on setup, installation, porting, hardware, software, etc. Also, if you're doing a project that you feel is really pushing some new and cool stuff, I can sometimes swing new graphics boards for people (like a Radeon 8500/9000). But, it really has to be something that really leverages the hardware. Just wanted to throw that out there..
Yeah Nic, if you're getting a new machine, definitely join ADC.
d
01/19/2003 (8:00 pm)
Yeah, probably like a 3 year old machine. That sounds about right.Figure that the G4 is generally benchmarked at somewhat faster than an equivalent Pentium. So a G4 450 is certainly better than a PII 450, probably more like a P3 600 or better. A low end machine, but no slouch. And with Altivec (Apple's SSE/SSE2 equiv, but better ;) ), even more room for improvement.
When I started on Torque stuff about a year and a half back, I was initially coding on a G3 233. ;) I'd generally say that the 450 is a good 'baseline' model for you.
Definitely worth more if it's an AGP machine. :)
Oh, and just a general note: anyone doing in-house Mac work, feel free to drop me emails on Qs on setup, installation, porting, hardware, software, etc. Also, if you're doing a project that you feel is really pushing some new and cool stuff, I can sometimes swing new graphics boards for people (like a Radeon 8500/9000). But, it really has to be something that really leverages the hardware. Just wanted to throw that out there..
Yeah Nic, if you're getting a new machine, definitely join ADC.
d
#20
Apple also ships the OpenGL ShaderBuilder and OpenGL Profiler with OSX - see http://developer.apple.com/opengl/jaguar.html - which together with it's free development tools makes for a really nice platform to develop for. And the development tools are free.
Now as for the developer connection - students pay $99 and also get the same hardware discounts as Select members.
01/21/2003 (7:24 am)
AltiVec doesn't bring that much to games. The G4 450 is ok for gaming as long as you equip it witha GeForce2 or anything similiar, a dual 450 or 500 G4 is even nicer for compiling and testing games under OSX and the "older" duals are not as expensive anymore. Apple also ships the OpenGL ShaderBuilder and OpenGL Profiler with OSX - see http://developer.apple.com/opengl/jaguar.html - which together with it's free development tools makes for a really nice platform to develop for. And the development tools are free.
Now as for the developer connection - students pay $99 and also get the same hardware discounts as Select members.
Associate Justin Mette
Default Studio Name