Brandon Member Posts: 594 From: Kansas City, Mo, USA Registered: 02-02-2004 |
I'm thinking about getting an iMac. I was wondering if anyone here used Macs? ------------------ |
CobraA1 Member Posts: 926 From: MN Registered: 02-19-2001 |
No, but IMO they're good machines. I wouldn't mind owning one. Your choice of games will be a bit limited, though: Most of today's games are designed for PCs. ------------------ Switch Mayhem now available! Get it here |
D-SIPL Moderator Posts: 1345 From: Maesteg, Wales Registered: 07-21-2001 |
I use a G5 in the church office, which we have Adobe Creative Suite on. We do all of our flyers, magazines and promo dvd's on it. We also do some of the website in Go Live, because it integrates with InDesign pretty well. I think they are ok for media stuff, but I wouldn't use one for day to day use. --D-SIPL ------------------ |
outcast Member Posts: 40 From: Guatemala City, Guatemala Registered: 12-08-2004 |
Great choice man, get one! I own the top of the line G5. Its a dream to use. And the new iMacs are incredible. As for old ones there good too. I only got my G5 this year and before that I used an iMac. You can do anything on a Mac and they are easy to keep running. If you have any questions about them I would be happy to answer them. Also you can email or IM me. As for games, yah we are a bit behind the PC but we get most of the good ones. And the gaming industry is going to be totally cross platform in a few years any way. Just look at the companies of tomorrow like Destiner and Wide-load. Or those that already exist like Blizzard. If you are interested in Mac game creation info I can find you some articles. Don't take the PC users opinion that Macs are only for Graphics and multimedia. Sure we are the leaders of the Pro Graphics, and Pro Audio worlds, but macs will do all the normal stuff and in a more elegant way. Everything just works, and thats worth a ton. Sure we don't have 10,000 programs. Instead of 50 that do the same thing we have 1 or 2 and they do the job far better than one of the 50. We are a tighter nit community which can help you with game creation or anything else, and if you reales games for Mac, and Linux operating systems they will be noticed by the community, they will be more public, because we get less games. Well I'll shut up now ------------------ |
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Brandon Member Posts: 594 From: Kansas City, Mo, USA Registered: 02-02-2004 |
Thanks for the comments guys. The main reason that I'm considering getting one is to design games for that platform, along side with PC, and possibly Linux. If I understand correctly, C++ is available through XTools for the Mac OS X, and OpenGL\OpenAL are compatible too. I've also read that Microsoft Office runs on the Macs as well. Another thing that I love about the iMac is it's design. It would make my office *cough* bedroom Thanks for the info outcast, you might be hearing from me soon. Welcome to the boards btw! ------------------ |
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outcast Member Posts: 40 From: Guatemala City, Guatemala Registered: 12-08-2004 |
Yah no problem man. Happy to help whenever. I look at platforms like language groups of the world. The bible should be in all languages. Our games should run on all platforms. And thanks. Jeff P.S. Yes you can use C++ in the free Xcode developers tools. And there are a lot of Open source Game Engine SDKs you can get. Open GL and AL are there too so you can make things cross platform easily. ------------------ |
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Kickaha Junior Member Posts: 3 From: Cambridge UK Registered: 12-12-2004 |
I'm very happy with the G5 iMac I'm currently using. I use it for email, surfing, Java, and web development. Not a lot to add to Outcast's comments - no grey hairs from worrying about viruses, or what installers do to your registry. I used Runtime Revolution (Hypercard descendant) to do a small cross-platform Adventure gamelet. It is quite practical to develop on a Mac and release on PC / Mac - some minor points to consider of course like gamma correction for images. Apple support OpenGL and OpenAL. Mac OSX gives you a friendly GUI but you also have the benefit of Unix tools which run on the FreeBSD underpinnings. Microsoft Office does run on OSX - depending on what you need there may be alternatives. |
bennythebear Member Posts: 1225 From: kentucky,usa Registered: 12-13-2003 |
i want to get a mac to mess with the hardware side of things. even thought about getting the applecare professional training thingy. my question is, what kind of hardware do macs run on? i know the processor are a whole lot different. but do they have pci slots, agp/pci xpress slots, what kind of hard drives do they have? where do you get the parts for them? i have to be a be able to play with it or i won't get it. i'm always reinstalling windows, swapping part between computers, and all that stuff. ------------------ www.gfa.org - Gospel for Asia www.persecution.com - Voice of the Martyrs |
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outcast Member Posts: 40 From: Guatemala City, Guatemala Registered: 12-08-2004 |
PATA SATA PCI PCI-X AGP 1-8X FireWire 400 FireWire 800 USB 1.0 USB 2.0 PCYMCA SCSI Just depends what one you get what hardware you can connect because of the ever evolving computer age. ------------------ |
Simon_Templar Member Posts: 330 From: Eau Claire, WI USA Registered: 10-25-2004 |
I worked a little bit with mac users when I used to do inernet tech support so I have had limited experience with various mac OS's, I really don't know anything about their hardware though.. are they comperable to PC's in the amount of effort needed to crack one open and start tinkering with the guts? easier? harder? [This message has been edited by simon_templar (edited December 16, 2004).] |
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outcast Member Posts: 40 From: Guatemala City, Guatemala Registered: 12-08-2004 |
Well Take my G5 for example. I crack the case by pulling a lever on the back the side panel comes out and I can access all my HDs, PCI cards, AGP cards, and Optical drives. I can remove and install HDs and Optical drives with-ought a screwdriver and all you need is a philips for PCI AGP cards. I'd say its the same or easier for the towers. Note that the all in ones are harder to mess with so if you want something you can mess with hardware get a tower. Jeff ------------------ |
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bennythebear Member Posts: 1225 From: kentucky,usa Registered: 12-13-2003 |
so they're not really different from pc's then? switching from windows to mac os would prob'ly be the hardest part for me. maybe i should just stick with getting scsi drives and controller cards(if i were rich!) so i can swap almost any hardware between them. one other question, is there any way to overclock the cpu of a mac, or the video card(nvidia geforce specifically)? ------------------ www.gfa.org - Gospel for Asia www.persecution.com - Voice of the Martyrs |
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bennythebear Member Posts: 1225 From: kentucky,usa Registered: 12-13-2003 |
speaking of mac os, has anyone heard about the mod you can do to an xbox that will allow you to run os x on one? i want to mod an xbox, but i'm not forking over a hundred dollars for something i'll only use once(i'm not a big console gamer). ------------------ www.gfa.org - Gospel for Asia www.persecution.com - Voice of the Martyrs |
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outcast Member Posts: 40 From: Guatemala City, Guatemala Registered: 12-08-2004 |
Yes you can over-clock the CPT and video cards if you are interested. But like all over-clocks its dangerous. I did over-clock an old blue and white G3 tower last year for fun. And I could over-clock my video card if I felt like it but I have no reason to. As for Mac OS X on the Xbox yes you can do it I'll see if I can dig up the article. Jeff ------------------ |
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bennythebear Member Posts: 1225 From: kentucky,usa Registered: 12-13-2003 |
i seen/read an article on it. modding is the only reason i would buy an xbox. i like overclocking. right now i have a geforce fx 5200 256mb memory overclock ed my %30, on the gpu and memory  .my processor is a p4 2.0ghz overclock by either %37 or %43 ...i think it's 37, because i couldn't get the memory overclock right with the 43. i did have it overclocked my %50 but it froze on the loading screen of nfsu 2 sometimes. i want to get a 3.0ghz or better so i can break 4.0 ghz(theoretically anyway). anyone know a simple benchmarking tool i can use to test it out? i want to benchmark it stock, then overclock everything again and benchmark it, so i can actually see the performance increase i'm getting.------------------ www.gfa.org - Gospel for Asia www.persecution.com - Voice of the Martyrs |
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bennythebear Member Posts: 1225 From: kentucky,usa Registered: 12-13-2003 |
ok...the cpu is overclocked by 45%. ------------------ www.gfa.org - Gospel for Asia www.persecution.com - Voice of the Martyrs |
Jeff
a lot less cluttered... well I guess, cause I'll keep the PC too and develop for both platforms.