77 replies to this topic

[DirtyHarry50]

Hey, somebody had to do it. I mean, derailing a 10 year old necro thread is just not right. I think. Maybe it is.

Anyway, Aspyr has been catching hell now since 2005 on and mostly off so time for Apple to have a turn.

Let the thread of lamentation begin!

Or else, just delete this foolishness.

[DirtyHarry50]

I am annoyed that Apple refuses to make a tricked out desktop gaming rig with a cool case that has flaming apples on the sides and a special version of OS X where NOTHING is flat. I'd like this system to be a small tower but big enough to accommodate a full sized GPU card. The system should feature easy access for upgrades and repairs. The system specs should feature top end components selected with gaming in mind. It should come with 3 years of AppleCare standard. I would prefer it to be priced just slightly over the Mac Mini line. Apple has more money than they know what to do with. It is time that they gave back to the community, the neglected gaming community in particular.

I am a reasonable man. I only want what is fair.

[BifBologna]

DirtyHarry50, on 15 May 2015 - 05:25 PM, said:

I am annoyed that Apple refuses to make a tricked out desktop gaming rig with a cool case that has flaming apples on the sides and a special version of OS X where NOTHING is flat. I'd like this system to be a small tower but big enough to accommodate a full sized GPU card. The system should feature easy access for upgrades and repairs. The system specs should feature top end components selected with gaming in mind. It should come with 3 years of AppleCare standard. I would prefer it to be priced just slightly over the Mac Mini line. Apple has more money than they know what to do with. It is time that they gave back to the community, the neglected gaming community in particular.

I am a reasonable man. I only want what is fair.

I pictured this. Minus the optical drive, of course.





Yes?

[Frigidman™]

* Price comparable to a PC game rig running hackintosh.

[ipickert55]

Actual complaint about apple incoming...

Is it just me, or is gaming under Yosemite a lot worse than Mavericks? I can't get 60fps in ANY game, despite having a 3GB graphics card... on Mavericks though, things just seemed a lot smoother in terms of fps.

[DirtyHarry50]

BifBologna, on 15 May 2015 - 05:36 PM, said:

I pictured this. Minus the optical drive, of course.





Yes?

A fine bit of engineering there. My brother had (maybe he still does) one of those. If Apple made one of them today for gaming no doubt it would feature a proprietary GPU that is full size but folded in half to fit inside with a specially curved (at midpoint) GPU card which naturally costs over twice what the same GPU in terms of performance for a PC costs and is fused to the motherboard somehow such that it is not user serviceable or upgradable just like everything else in the box. Still, this design simply made taller could be quite nice if only they wouldn't seal it so that only a specially trained engineer with the correct special solvent and a heat gun could disassemble the thing for servicing. Optional upgrades must be anticipated and purchased at full proprietary prices at time of original sale. Opening this Pandora's box voids your warranty even if by some miracle you can figure out how to do anything with it once apart. For the intrepid do it yourselfers, please note that leftover parts are to be expected after putting one of these back together and are not a cause for concern. The redundant component design of the Apple GameBox is such that multiple lost parts can occur before system failure will. This feature was implemented to account for 3rd party technicians working for Apple who are "specially trained and certified" to perform on-site repairs and sometimes are not sure where the extra leftover stuff was supposed to go.

In yet another example of Apple leading the way, if you buy the optional hotplate attachment for the top of this machine you can warm up something good without having to leave your desk. Pair that with a specially designed matching Keurig brewer and game on for many hours at a time uninterrupted by such distractions as lesser (PC) gamers must contend with. If you can afford it, you may find the Apple Thunderbolt 3 Microwave Oven option on the top end model along with the USB 4 powered Refrigerator/Freezer makes for the truly ultimate user experience in gaming. These beautiful appliances were designed by Jony Ive just for Mac gamers. Dishes, utensils and cookware not included. See your dealer or www.apple.com/gameon for more details.

A nice feature of this system is that during the winter months it will heat your entire home. For the summer months, a third party rotary blade airplane engine installed in the game room is advisable to provide adequate airflow and prevent death. Don't forget to also install appropriate ventilation! Genuine Hughes Aircraft Prop engines are recommended and can be found on eBay and similar outlets at reasonable prices or if you want to upgrade to turbines, your local Boeing dealer is a good source. In either case you will want to consider a proper comfortable chair that is bolted to the floor and has a harness to keep you from being blown out of it. Naturally, sound canceling headphones are a necessity in this situation, very good, very expensive ones. Not to worry though, Apple and Beats have you covered here and people wondered why Apple bought them. Well, there you go. You may also want to consider signing up for a water cooler and delivery service as well. Whatever you do, don't let them talk you into those stupid little cone cups. Get real 16 oz. cups and an ice machine while you are at it. You will need them unless you'd rather just go with a pretty visiting nurse to hook you up to an IV with a water, sugar and salt solution running at a constant drip rate to save you from your gaming self. if you go this route, you might want to ask her if she could also mix in caffeine so you can forego the expense and inconvenience of the Keurig coffee maker. Lastly, Pro gamers who cannot be interrupted by bodily functions during various esports tournaments may also want to talk to the nurse about a urinary catheter to assist them in maintaining complete focus for extended periods of time. After all, there is no pause button in tournaments and going to the bathroom is for amateurs and casuals anyway. Real gamers pack the appropriate gear for serious gameplay. This largely applies to MMO gamers as well given the countless hours they spend glued to their systems until they require corrective surgery for repetitive stress injuries of the wrists and sometimes elbows as well. As another example, when playing E:D one must be mindful of the fact that there are no restrooms out in space. People who take their immersion seriously know this and prepare accordingly before setting off to explore the milky way.

Apple regrets to inform you that they cannot be held responsible for destroyed personal relationships, individual, group or family counseling services, death from heat exhaustion, sleep deprivation, dehydration, blood clots in the lower extremities, stroke caused by raging or other causes, legal costs related to divorce, lost time from work, natural disasters caused by your ex-wife after she leaves you, injuries from voodoo or anything else that happens to you as a consequence of purchasing and using a gaming system this incredibly powerful.

[macdude22]

I have 2 cubes in storage lol.

I'd pay the premium I just want the damn option. Give me a Mac Mini Pro that can take a drive or two and a decent size card. Charge me the apple tax for the card, I don't care, just give me the option.

[Sneaky Snake]

ipickert55, on 15 May 2015 - 07:41 PM, said:

Actual complaint about apple incoming...

Is it just me, or is gaming under Yosemite a lot worse than Mavericks? I can't get 60fps in ANY game, despite having a 3GB graphics card... on Mavericks though, things just seemed a lot smoother in terms of fps.

Yosemite is probably technically better at gaming then Mavericks (due to having better OpenGL implementation), but many games probably perform worse since Yosemite probably broke some sort of optimization/compatibility the game had going for it.

My biggest complaint about Apple is their seeming disregard for anything older then 3 years. Backwards compatibility means nothing to them.

[Camper-Hunter]

If I had to change my Mac Pro (2009 seriously tuned), I'd have to build a hackintosh, because the current Apple hardware lineup is so lame, especially the desktops (but not only: the newer MacBook with a single USB port is such a joke).
As for Yosemite, I haven't had such stability issues for more than 10 years; worse OS X release ever.
Oh, and don't get me started on Photos, which I find much less intuitive than iPhoto was (I'm not and probably never will be an iOS user, at least by choice, so maybe that's why I don't get it).

I end up spending most of my computer time (which is also a large chunk of my non work time!) using Windows 8.1, which though not stellar either, isn't so bad. I have more expectations from Windows 10 than OS X 10.11, and although I've been a Mac user for almost 30 years, I wonder how long that will remain the case. Sad, isn't it?

[MichalM.Mac]

Lets see:

• How many new feature have been added to Mac App Store + Gamecenter ecosystem since launch? Those two things are joke.
  
• State of OpenGL in OS X is shamefull for company with gazillion dolars in bank.
  
• I would be ok with new Mac Pro if someone would sell those special form-factor GPUs so it can be upgraded.
  
• iTunes 11 UI is total mess, Photos.app UI doesn't make any sense to me.

I did YoYo clean install on my iMacwhen they released 10.10.3. Only issues I have encountered are contained in Mail.app.

[Thain Esh Kelch]

MichalM.Mac, on 16 May 2015 - 06:17 AM, said:

iTunes 11 UI is total mess

Please upgrade to iTunes 12. You'd remember the iTunes 11 UI in your happy dreams.

But I overall agree. Apple is all iOS stuff now. Heck, Windows 10 beta apparently runs much better on the new retina MB, then Yosemite does.

[macdude22]

iPhoto bogged down on even moderate sized photo libraries it needed put to pasture. I used aperture not because I used any of its features, just because It didn't die on my 40k photo library. Photos handles it well enough but I don't know if it's not optimized or doing a lot of processing or what but whenever I fire it up and it has to sync photos stream photos it PEGS all 8 cores on my Mac Pro for 15-20 minutes. Aperture never did that. The interface does not work well with a mouse, it is defiantly trackpad oriented (I have a Magic Trackpad I have been pulling out just to use Photos)

[MichalM.Mac]

Thain Esh Kelch, on 16 May 2015 - 07:40 AM, said:

Please upgrade to iTunes 12. You'd remember the iTunes 11 UI in your happy dreams.

Sorry. That should have been 12 in there :-)

[Matt Diamond]

Camper-Hunter, on 16 May 2015 - 03:12 AM, said:

If I had to change my Mac Pro (2009 seriously tuned), I'd have to build a hackintosh, because the current Apple hardware lineup is so lame

Ditto. I am keeping my 2008 Mac Pro limping along for as long as I can, because I have no idea what to replace it with.  I'm thinking hackintosh but I'd prefer something that just worked without requiring investments of time. I'd pickup a used 2012 Mac Pro if I knew it would be a significant improvement. Though they aren't cheap, probably because lots of other people have the same plan.

I haven't done the math, but it's possible that getting an iMac and replacing it every few years would be no more expensive than paying more for a Mac tower and upgrading components in it, but I am reluctant to go that route.

[Frost]

Thain Esh Kelch, on 16 May 2015 - 07:40 AM, said:

Please upgrade to iTunes 12. You'd remember the iTunes 11 UI in your happy dreams.

But I overall agree. Apple is all iOS stuff now. Heck, Windows 10 beta apparently runs much better on the new retina MB, then Yosemite does.

Oh God, iTunes 12.

Normally I don't advocate people being shot over UI decisions, but...

[macdude22]

Frost, on 16 May 2015 - 04:43 PM, said:

Oh God, iTunes 12.

Normally I don't advocate people being shot over UI decisions, but...

Thankfully since the advent of Spotify and pretty much all necessary sync functions being moved into iCloud I haven't had a need to open iTunes in a long time. I should just nuke my library.

[DirtyHarry50]

I don't mind iTunes myself but then all I do is open it, search the album I want to listen to and play it. Sometimes I peruse the display of them to pick one. I don't think I've ever made a playlist at least not in a recent version.

I do think Photos needs work. iCloud needs work. iMovie sure needs work. Yosemite is ugly in my own opinion. I hope Flavours 2 will help here when it releases. I got the free preview tonight but haven't installed it yet. Changing you AppleID password is one royal pain in the ass breaking stuff left and right until you have logged out and back in with the new password to everything using it. Messages needs work. It still gets screwed up sometimes when it comes to working properly for sending texts to people.

I am unhappy with Apple for dropping SNMP from their routers since you can no longer measure bandwidth usage because of that. I'm still using a 5th generation which is fine for my purposes anyway and that supports it. I use a nice little app called PeakHour to monitor bandwidth here and it works well.

Like everybody else, I wish OpenGL was kept more current via patches. I also do wish they'd invest in making Game Center much better than it currently is.

I agree too about the Mac App store. All this time and no wish list feature? The simplistic layout makes discovery of interesting apps a chore so much so that I rarely window shop for stuff. A little more effort on marketing wouldn't hurt either.

Back to systems, joking aside some form of Mac Pro for the rest of us who could use a nice gaming machine but do not need a graphics workstation would be really nice. Maybe the market for this is just too small still and the reason that they don't do it. I don't know why they had to make the Mac Pro a soda can. If it had some sort of tower case it would be viable for gaming if one bought one on the low end, four cores being plenty, etc.

The idea of a hackintosh is somewhat appealing to me but I worry about compatibility issues, lack of support for an unsupported system when it comes to games, etc. I still may investigate and read up on them anyway when it is time for the next system.

[macdude22]

I think I'm the only one but I liked 10.10 UI from the get go. The flat UI felt like classic OS to me. Maybe I'm drunk 24/7. You'll never know.

The thing about the Mac Pro is gaming does not require xeon processors. The mac trash can is one hell of a machine, but I'm not doing cad work and editing LOTR 47. We'll see what I do when this 2008 finally is too long in the teeth. It's lived a LONG life so I suppose a tricked out iMac at half the price for half the lifetime would be moderately acceptable. At anyrate between boot camp and the basement PC I've got a few years in it yet I'm sure.

[Thain Esh Kelch]

DirtyHarry50, on 16 May 2015 - 08:49 PM, said:

I agree too about the Mac App store. All this time and no wish list feature? The simplistic layout makes discovery of interesting apps a chore so much so that I rarely window shop for stuff. A little more effort on marketing wouldn't hurt either.

I personally use Appshopper.com for my wishlists for both the iOS store and Mac store. Works quite nicely, and you get emails when they drop in price! I've gotten a lot of good deals out of it.. They also had an excellent app for iOS until Apple nuked it. Fortunately, those of us that got it in the old days, can still download it and use it.

[Wumpus]

I'd like to get into this more in length, but at the moment I can only make a short post.

I wouldn't go so far as to say Apple "damages" Mac's. They might damage gaming (maybe that's what you mean) but not Mac's themselves. Apple is both the god of our machine, granting us our glorious Macs, and the bane of Mac gamers everywhere for how they ignore things we need, like an OpenGL update. Basically, they are a cruel god who ignores the prayers of his (or her) followers.