[Jan]

Here's the official confirmation: Red Alert 3 is coming to the Mac in late march via GameTree Online.
You can pre-order the game for $29,95:


http://www.gametreeo...ea/red-alert-3/

[Pegasus]

Wow. Only thirty bucks? I actually may give it a try then.

[Jan]

Pegasus, on February 3rd 2009, 06:09 PM, said:

Wow. Only thirty bucks? I actually may give it a try then.

Yeah, true. In Germany, Red Alert 3 costs around €55 at amazon as a boxed product.
$30 seems a real bargain, even for a ciderised product.

[Janichsan]

Wow, that's actually cheap. I'm surprised, but still rather in doubt about the quality of the port to be expected.

[ltcommander.data]

It's great that EA is continuing to support Mac, but I'm not optimistic about the performance either. C&C 3 for Mac didn't exactly fly and while Cider has improved over those early ports, Red Alert 3 is also quite a bit more graphically complex, and if I'm not mistaken doesn't look very good at all when forced to low settings. I think the version of Cider used for C&C 3 for Mac didn't have DX9.0c (SM3.0) support which was why max settings on Mac looked worse than on PC since it could only use SM2.0 at best. SM3.0 support should have been added to Cider with the version that shipped with Spore, but whether the performance is decent enough in that mode with high settings is questionable.

I wonder if this makes it more or less likely that Kane's Wrath will come to Mac now that EA has moved on to Red Alert 3?

[alldaveallen]

ltcommander.data, on February 3rd 2009, 03:27 PM, said:

It's great that EA is continuing to support Mac, but I'm not optimistic about the performance either. C&C 3 for Mac didn't exactly fly and while Cider has improved over those early ports, Red Alert 3 is also quite a bit more graphically complex, and if I'm not mistaken doesn't look very good at all when forced to low settings. I think the version of Cider used for C&C 3 for Mac didn't have DX9.0c (SM3.0) support which was why max settings on Mac looked worse than on PC since it could only use SM2.0 at best. SM3.0 support should have been added to Cider with the version that shipped with Spore, but whether the performance is decent enough in that mode with high settings is questionable.

I wonder if this makes it more or less likely that Kane's Wrath will come to Mac now that EA has moved on to Red Alert 3?

I really had no problem with C&C 3 at all, and I have a pretty much plain vanilla 2-year-old iMac. This is great news!

[EDIT] Oh, no it's not. I see it's Leopard-only, and I'm still on 10.4.11, and must remain so. Sigh.

[Janichsan]

ltcommander.data, on February 4th 2009, 12:27 AM, said:

I wonder if this makes it more or less likely that Kane's Wrath will come to Mac now that EA has moved on to Red Alert 3?

I'm wondering more if EA will offer the upcoming Red Alert 3 expansion for Mac. So far, none of the ciderised EA games except for Spore got any expansion.

[BenRoethig]

Too bad they couldn't get the right to do the expansion for C&C3 as well. At $30, Red Alert 3 is definitely on my list.

[The Liberator]

The Leopard exclusive decision makes me think: how much more work would be involved in making it so that it would run under Tiger also, as the system requirements might actually be low enough for the computers that were not shipped with Leopard. Hmmm…

…Oh well, there is probably a good reason for what they did.

Liberator.

[Janichsan]

I assume that has a lot to do with Leopard's more capable graphic drivers. RA3 is very effect laden.

[jackdawsson]

Though I have 10.5, I don't understand the logic behind not supporting Tiger. Surely any problem with Tiger's drivers wouldn't be that great an obstacle to overcome? A pity really, as otherwise this game will run fine on all Intel Macs with discrete video cards.

From Macworld: "System requirements will call for Mac OS X 10.5.6 or later, Intel Core Duo Processor, 1024MB RAM, ATI X1600 or Nvidia 7300GT or better 3D card, and 10GB hard disk space."

[Janichsan]

jackdawsson, on February 6th 2009, 02:26 PM, said:

Though I have 10.5, I don't understand the logic behind not supporting Tiger. Surely any problem with Tiger's drivers wouldn't be that great an obstacle to overcome?

They surely can be grave enough. Often it's just one single OpenGL function that is not supported. And remember: this is a lazy man's Cider "port", so they don't implement any workaround just to overcome such missing features. This might be different if it were a native port, but it isn't.

[jackdawsson]

I guess sometimes it's hard to gauge whether the glass is half-full or half-empty with Cider. No such hiccups with a glass of proper port. - I'll go & get my coat.

[BenRoethig]

jackdawsson, on February 6th 2009, 12:03 PM, said:

I guess sometimes it's hard to gauge whether the glass is half-full or half-empty with Cider. No such hiccups with a glass of proper port. - I'll go & get my coat.

There are many hiccups in proper ports. Truth is, unless something is designed from the get go with the Mac in mind, there will be hiccups. Ports try to get things to work as well as possible as cheaply as possible.

[teflon]

with Cider, the OS compatibility is only really dependent on a single line in one of the internal preference files. As demonstrated by people getting Spore to run on 10.4.11....
BUT, it wont run as well, wont be supported, and theres the outside chance that it will be using an OGL effect which isnt available in 10.4.

[Vulpine]

It looks like RA3 is getting a retail box release, too: http://www.amazon.co...c/dp/B001PTGTDC

[Pegasus]

So, has anyone tried this game yet? I've been considering giving it a shot. Guess I'd have to wait though, since I just noticed something quite peculiar on the Gametree site, such as:



Now how did they manage to "sell out" of digital downloads? Hmmm.

[Eric5h5]

Pegasus, on March 30th 2009, 02:07 AM, said:

Now how did they manage to "sell out" of digital downloads?

Teh Internets ran out of bits. In fact I'm only able to write this message 'cause of using the hoard of bits I've been stashing under my pillow.

--Eric

[teflon]

no no, those are your teeth.
Its just that your parents told you to put them there, without establishing the whole tooth fairy thing before hand, and without realising just how mangy and horrible they were. A quick peek during the night and they couldnt bear to touch them.. So they told you they were internet bits, and youve believed them ever since.

and just to plug the plot hole, theyre from the future or something, so they already knew about the internet before it was invented.

[the Battle Cat]

teflon, on March 30th 2009, 06:28 AM, said:

and just to plug the plot hole, theyre from the future or something, so they already knew about the internet before it was invented.

No, if they were from the future they would have see how he turned out and would have used his pillow to suffocate him before he could be turned loose on humanity. I think those bits are actually rolled up nose nuggets that he's saved all these years under his pillow.

And Pegasus, they probably ran out of license codes and need to re-contract for more.