812 replies to this topic

[Jan]

Darksiders 2 (or 1 as a 'Legends' title)

alternatively

Sleeping Dogs / Hitman Absolution -- Feral is on a roll with huge Square Enix games!

[NostalgiaLane]

Jan, on 28 April 2013 - 11:13 AM, said:

Darksiders 2 (or 1 as a 'Legends' title)

alternatively

Sleeping Dogs / Hitman Absolution -- Feral is on a roll with huge Square Enix games!

Oh man, SD or HA would be incredible.

[tcrown]

I can't believe Feral or Aspyr haven't done Sleeping Dogs yet, it seems like all the DLC that was planned for release has been released so maybe Feral will do it, alternatively it seems that Aspyr is now doing ports and releasing as Steamplay.
Either way I bought Sleeping Dogs + DLC on PS3 so no Mac buy if it ever hits Mac, but if someone would have announced that it was coming to Mac I would have held off getting the PS3 release, sadly no such announcement.

Indie Devs on Kickstarter are all releasing cross platform Mac/PC/Linux and seeing the financial gains, yet mainstream publishers continue to stubbornly stumble around in the dark with their outdated business models, especially Bethesda.

[Frost]

Jan, on 28 April 2013 - 02:54 AM, said:

To be honest, I don't mind if a Mac version of a game doesn't come directly from a developer or the original publisher. Feral does a hell of a job developing native Mac versions of games. I wouldn't even call them ports. Edwin has stated several times that Feral takes the best bits of codes and assets from the console or PC versions to create a well-made product. And they deliver. For me, Feral's 'ports' are the most refined computer versions of games you can find out there. Amazing gamepad support, usually all the DLCs included and a fair price. Compared to most of the popsnizzlety PS3 versions (or Xbox ports) I've played in the last couple of years, Aspyr and Feral are light-years ahead.

Don't get me wrong, I love Aspyr and what they've done for Mac gaming, but I've always been disappointed in their ability to optimize a game for the Mac. It's why I'd always rejoice when I heard that a game was coming via MacSoft, because that usually meant as good or sometimes even better performance (in the case of Mac Halo for example) than the PC version. I still buy Aspyr games but they still have that characteristic HUGE performance hit vs. the PC version (for example, id's RAGE, which runs horribly slowly compared to the PC version).

I think Feral has kind of picked up that torch of doing a really, really quality port that impresses your socks off and I love them for that and they've got all my support.

[MGregory666]

Guys, quickly, here's a video review for Xcom by Feral.

[Eric5h5]

Frost, on 28 April 2013 - 02:56 PM, said:

I still buy Aspyr games but they still have that characteristic HUGE performance hit vs. the PC version (for example, id's RAGE, which runs horribly slowly compared to the PC version).

Sure about that?  The Rage topic here seemed to think it was equal or better than the PC version.

--Eric

[jeannot]

Rage runs pretty well on my 2006 Mac Pro with a radeon 4870 (30 fps most of the time with everything maxed out, including AA at 1680*1050, Vsync on) . In my experience, Aspyr and Feral do better jobs than developers that make both Mac and PC versions (e.g. Valve and UbiSoft, not mentioning Cider ports by many others...).

[iRolley]

Rage run incredibly well on my Mac (iMac i3 - 5670). I think this is a good example of game that automatically scales its graphics based on available resources. There aren't quite as many graphics settings as in other games, but it runs magically well on my Mac, and it looks beautiful.

It's frustrating to find a game that runs this well and is not quite enjoyable to play. Or that we don't have any other games based on that engine.

I am very happy that Aspyr is doing Bioshock Infinite. Although I am sure Aspyr and Feral do an equal job at optimization, for some reasons Aspyr games tend to run particularly well on my iMac (I think of COD4, Rage, Black Ops).

Anyway Feral and Aspyr are doing a fantastic job!

[Eric5h5]

jeannot, on 28 April 2013 - 11:37 PM, said:

In my experience, Aspyr and Feral do better jobs than developers that make both Mac and PC versions (e.g. Valve and UbiSoft, not mentioning Cider ports by many others...).

Valve's ports are pretty much flawless from what I remember, but UbiSoft not so much....

--Eric

[Frost]

Eric5h5, on 28 April 2013 - 06:49 PM, said:

Sure about that?  The Rage topic here seemed to think it was equal or better than the PC version.

--Eric

Well I can't debate others' experiences without having been there, but between my Early 2008 MBP, an Early 2011 MBP, an Early 2009 Mac Pro, and my cousin's new 2012 27" iMac with 3.4/680MX, Mac RAGE has run very noticeably slower on the latter three and not at all on the first. As of last weekend, running at 2560x1440 on the iMac with everything maxed, RAGE has occasional stutters and has frame rate drops under OSX, and is smooth as a sheet of fresh glass under Windows 7.

Although perhaps this is less Aspyr and more OSX's GPU drivers being crappy. I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt. But it did match my past experience with Aspyr Unreal Engine 2 games versus MacSoft on the same. I'll always remember Raven Shield having terrible performance on OSX. Well below comparable PC hardware, compared to UT2004, which did as well as comparable PC hardware. And C&C Generals, until the UB ran WAY worse than the PC version.

[Jan]

I've got the same iMac (Late 2012) at home: Core i7, 3.4 GHz, 680MX with 2GB VRAM.

All Feral games run perfectly smooth on this machine with everything maxed and VSYNC on.
I tried BioShock, Batman AA, Deus Ex, Sonic Racing and Dirt 2.

I'm curious how well BioShock Infinite will play on this machine.

[Janichsan]

Frost, on 29 April 2013 - 01:18 AM, said:

Well I can't debate others' experiences without having been there, but between my Early 2008 MBP, an Early 2011 MBP, an Early 2009 Mac Pro, and my cousin's new 2012 27" iMac with 3.4/680MX, Mac RAGE has run very noticeably slower on the latter three and not at all on the first. ...

I do agree that Rage doesn't run as well as it could on my Retina MBP. There are visible slowdowns in outdoor areas, even on resolutions such as 1440x900 and 1280x800. Indoors, I get solid 60 fps, though.

I do think, though, that this is really a driver issue. I seem to remember that the trouble started with 10.8.1 or 10.8.2 for me. (On that regard, it would be interesting to know which versions of OS X the Macs you mentioned were running.)

Quote

But it did match my past experience with Aspyr Unreal Engine 2 games versus MacSoft on the same. I'll always remember Raven Shield having terrible performance on OSX. Well below comparable PC hardware, compared to UT2004, which did as well as comparable PC hardware. And C&C Generals, until the UB ran WAY worse than the PC version.

I would say that this cannot be generalised. There are Aspyr ports that do not run very well for me (Civ V especially seems to require an unproportionally more powerful Mac to run smoothly than other games, NWN 2 also runs far from smooth, despite its age), and there are some that simply run fantastically, like Borderlands 2. On the other hand, there are also Feral ports that could run better (Borderlands 1 with enabled realtime shadows, for instance).

[MGregory666]

Jan, on 29 April 2013 - 03:29 AM, said:

I've got the same iMac (Late 2012) at home: Core i7, 3.4 GHz, 680MX with 2GB VRAM.

All Feral games run perfectly smooth on this machine with everything maxed and VSYNC on.
I tried BioShock, Batman AA, Deus Ex, Sonic Racing and Dirt 2.

I'm curious how well BioShock Infinite will play on this machine.

Jan, you won't have a problem running that machine as the PC benchmarks were like 4GB RAM and 512MB GPU. So you I would be suprised if you can't run that at all settings and get like 60FPS.