26 replies to this topic

[IMG News]

Aspyr Media has announced a partnership with 2K Games and Irrational Games to bring BioShock Infinite to Macs in the Summer of 2013. Developed by Irrational Games and brought to the Mac by Aspyr, BioShock Infinite introduces an "entirely new narrative experience that lifts players out of the familiar confines of Rapture and rockets them to Columbia, an immense city in the sky."

"We are incredibly excited to bring the latest version of BioShock, one of the industry's most critically acclaimed and beloved franchises, to the Mac." said Michael Rogers, president of Aspyr Media. "We pride ourselves on bringing the very best in gaming to the Mac, and that’s exactly what Mac owners will get with Irrational Games’ masterfully-crafted BioShock Infinite."

Set in 1912, players assume the role of former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt, sent to the lost city to rescue Elizabeth, a young woman imprisoned there since childhood. During their daring escape, Booker and Elizabeth form a powerful bond – one that lets Booker augment his own abilities with her world-altering control over the environment. Together, they fight foes in high-speed Sky-Line battles, engage in combat both indoors and amongst the clouds, and harness the power of dozens of new weapons and abilities.

With the original BioShock, Irrational Games won "Game of the Year" awards from Game Informer, IGN, G4's X-Play, and BAFTA and redefined what players expect from a first-person shooter. Bioshock Infinite has won over 75 editorial awards, including the Game Critics Awards’ Best of Show during E3 2011.

For more information about the game follow the links below.

Return to Full Article - InsideMacGames News

[UmarOMC1]

Eyes. Scanning. For. Pre-Order...

[Numberon]

That's exciting! And with Aspyr at the helm, hopefully it will have some reasonable system requirements. Nothing over the top or requiring insane processor speeds or GPU performance.

[star-affinity]

Numberon, on 22 March 2013 - 05:03 PM, said:

That's exciting! And with Aspyr at the helm, hopefully it will have some reasonable system requirements. Nothing over the top or requiring insane processor speeds or GPU performance.

You mean that the other two Bioshock titles ported by Feral has been bad? I fully agree. That includes the first Borderlands which was also released for OS X by Feral. In my opinion all these games underperform in OS X even with quite hefty hardware. The frame rate is quite bad (especially if you turn on shadows in Borderlands) and it always feel like the game ”lags behind” your movement when looking around with the mouse.

I hope Aspyr can do a better job. I guess there's a reason for this Bioshock game being converted to OS X by Aspyr instead of Feral?

[mattw]

star-affinity, on 24 March 2013 - 03:28 PM, said:

That includes the first Borderlands which was also released for OS X by Feral. In my opinion all these games underperform in OS X even with quite hefty hardware. The frame rate is quite bad (especially if you turn on shadows in Borderlands) and it always feel like the game ”lags behind” your movement

I found shadows had a big impact in Borderlands (performances with these off and everything else maxed was excellent), however, on reading around the gearbox forums this is the same on the PC - people were complaining how high end video cards and overclocked CPUs still struggled with shadows.

[Eric5h5]

Bioshock 1 and 2 run extremely smooth here at max settings, no problems with the ports at all.

--Eric

[UmarOMC1]

Using the Havok Engine helped a lot because of its taking advantage of multicore CPU rendering.

[Eric5h5]

Actually Bioshock used a modified Unreal Engine 2.5 for rendering, and Havok was used for physics.  Although I'm sure multicore physics helps too.

--Eric

[UmarOMC1]

Oh yeah, you're right, but it helped tremendously. Once I found out about it and implemented it for my 4-core CPU (default value is 2) I was able to max out the graphics on Bioshock and still run smoother.

[Jan]

Eric5h5, on 24 March 2013 - 03:50 PM, said:

Bioshock 1 and 2 run extremely smooth here at max settings, no problems with the ports at all.

--Eric

Agreed. Played the demo on my iMac, it runs perfectly smooth with the highest settings and VSYNC on. Great port.

[Janichsan]

star-affinity, on 24 March 2013 - 03:28 PM, said:

You mean that the other two Bioshock titles ported by Feral has been bad? I fully agree. That includes the first Borderlands which was also released for OS X by Feral. In my opinion all these games underperform in OS X even with quite hefty hardware. The frame rate is quite bad (especially if you turn on shadows in Borderlands) and it always feel like the game ”lags behind” your movement when looking around with the mouse.

It's funny to see how the general opinion changes with the time. It's not too long ago that Aspyr's ports were decried as being badly optimised and generally crap while Feral ruled supreme and now it's apparently the other way round (once more). It's even more funny when the same games are used as examples for both opinions.

I agree that Borderlands 1 performs worse than Borderlands 2 — especially with dynamic shadows — but Bioshock 1 and 2 always ran perfectly fine for me, even on far less powerful Macs than my current MBP, as did many other Feral ports, like Deus EX HR, Dirt 2 (although I can only vouch for the demo here), Battlestations Pacific or Batman Arkham Asylum. On the other hand I also know Aspyr ports that simply do not work particularly well, not matter how powerful the Mac is. Prime example would be Civ V, which probably will only be playable on maximum settings on high-end Macs coming out in 2016.

[Djevlen]

I have no problem playing civ 5 on max settings on my iMac, I haven't had any trouble with ports from Aspyr or Feral.

[Eric5h5]

I don't know about Civ 5, but Civ 4 is definitely sub-optimal.  It was more or less unplayable on my G5 once you got to the modern age, and even on my Mac Pro there is some noticeable lag, though I did discover that periodically restarting the game helps.

--Eric

[star-affinity]

Eric5h5, on 24 March 2013 - 03:50 PM, said:

Bioshock 1 and 2 run extremely smooth here at max settings, no problems with the ports at all.

--Eric

I guess there are two possibilities then: either you and I have very different opinions on what is smooth or there's something wrong on the computers I have tested the games on. What hardware have you been running the games on? When you say ”extremely smooth” you mean what? To me extremely smooth is 60 frames per second and above.

Janichsan, on 25 March 2013 - 08:14 AM, said:

It's funny to see how the general opinion changes with the time. It's not too long ago that Aspyr's ports were decried as being badly optimised and generally crap while Feral ruled supreme and now it's apparently the other way round (once more). It's even more funny when the same games are used as examples for both opinions.

I agree that Borderlands 1 performs worse than Borderlands 2 — especially with dynamic shadows — but Bioshock 1 and 2 always ran perfectly fine for me, even on far less powerful Macs than my current MBP, as did many other Feral ports, like Deus EX HR, Dirt 2 (although I can only vouch for the demo here), Battlestations Pacific or Batman Arkham Asylum. On the other hand I also know Aspyr ports that simply do not work particularly well, not matter how powerful the Mac is. Prime example would be Civ V, which probably will only be playable on maximum settings on high-end Macs coming out in 2016.

Yes, I agree that's funny. Didn't know that was the case. I'm not saying Aspyr is better in every case. I'm just saying that I really don't like the way Borderlands 1 and Bioshock 1 and 2 performs on the computers I've tried then on. I must admit one of them is a Hackintosh – a quite hefty one even if the processor is a few years old now (Core i7 920@2.66 GHz), it also has 12 GB of RAM@1600 GHz and an Nvidia GTX 670 graphics card with 2 GB VRAM. It runs OS X 10.8.3. Should be able to handle all three games maxed out at 1920 x 1080 one would think, no?

Have also been using a MacBook Pro 15-inch (late 2011), the model with ATI 6770M graphics card with 1 GB VRAM. Just tried Borderlands 1 on this one, but remember it felt the same as on the Hackintosh, i.e. only got decent frame rate performance if I turned off shadows, and even then it wasn't optimal.

Djevlen, on 25 March 2013 - 08:31 AM, said:

I have no problem playing civ 5 on max settings on my iMac, I haven't had any trouble with ports from Aspyr or Feral.

What computer do you have and have you got an idea about what the frame rate is?
I think the reason why we have so different opinion on what is performing well and not is because we have different demands.

[Eric5h5]

star-affinity, on 01 April 2013 - 10:55 AM, said:

I guess there are two possibilities then: either you and I have very different opinions on what is smooth or there's something wrong on the computers I have tested the games on. What hardware have you been running the games on? When you say ”extremely smooth” you mean what? To me extremely smooth is 60 frames per second and above.

Mac Pro/5870. I don't know 100% for sure what the framerate actually was, but it felt like around 60fps, and I'm pretty sensitive to fps. (I get annoyed at people who claim nonsense like "the human eye can't see beyond 30fps" and have no problem distinguishing between 120 and 60fps. )

--Eric

[star-affinity]

Eric5h5, on 01 April 2013 - 11:07 AM, said:

Mac Pro/5870. I don't know 100% for sure what the framerate actually was, but it felt like around 60fps, and I'm pretty sensitive to fps. (I get annoyed at people who claim nonsense like "the human eye can't see beyond 30fps" and have no problem distinguishing between 120 and 60fps. )

--Eric

Okay I just tried the Bioshock 1 demo in both OS X 10.8.3 and Windows 8 on my computer. There's a very noticeable difference in Windows 8's favor. The difference between the OS'es is especially big when one view a more complex scene, where I can feel the frame rate drops in OS X while it stays smooth even when looking over areas that slows down in OS X.

For example while this view is smooth (my guess is at least 60 FPS) in OS X:


This view makes the frame rate drop a bit:


In Windows 8 the frame rate doesn't drop at all.

Have you tried to play the game in Windows on your Mac? I think you would notice a difference.

[Eric5h5]

I don't have Windows.

--Eric

[the Battle Cat]

Eric5h5, on 12 April 2013 - 10:57 AM, said:

I don't have Windows.

--Eric

You see Star-Affinity, Eric lives in his parents basement.

[Eric5h5]

No, I live in your basement, or I would if you stopped insisting you didn't have one.  Why don't you have a basement?  You should have a basement, so I can live in it.

--Eric

[Frost]

I'd rather have Eric living in my non-existent basement. He can pay his rent in ammo.