Mac's, then.
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Beginners Area/Mac's, then.
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| Okay, so let's say I'm mildly - *mildly* - interested in one of those horrifically designed (c'mon, show me a more cliched interpretation of "style" if you can) "iApple" thingies. One of the continual concerns with this train of thought is the disparity between the hefty wonga outlay and the superficially weedy specifications on the (equally horrendous, doubtless) packaging. So, in real terms, what's a G4/5's equivilent in the PC realm? What kind of GFX grunt do they arrive, so preposterously coloured and curved, a-boasting? What sort of performance level are they at? I'm thinking games-wise here, obviously; whenever I've touched a Napple it's always been business-related, so I've very little sense of what they can do. Apart from look pretentious, of course. Sell me the idea someone, because I'm almost there. |
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| They only have one mouse button? |
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| I don't think I'd buy a Mac just for BlitzMax unless there was sommat like a £20,000 games contract lying on the table that said I had to get one. |
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| It's getting near time to upgrade and I'm feeling a bit tired of the PC... not enough to retire it completely (too much good, cheap software) but certainly enough to investigate the alternatives. Well, let's face it, THE alternative. They ARE a bit doshy though, hence me trying to get to the bottom of why people actually buy 'em. There must be a reason beyond "it comes in blue." Darn, if only my old Quadra would run 'Max :) (Or just run, full stop.) |
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| I know absolutely sod-all about Macs, tbh. My usual computer retailers don't even stock them so it seems I'd have to go to PC World (which I'm actually barred from). |
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| I'd have to go to PC World (which I'm actually barred from) I daren't ask. |
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| I daren't ask. I dare. Who'd ya headbutt, GFK? :-) |
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| <off topic> I went in to buy a new mouse, saw one with a price of £9.99 on the shelf. Got to checkout with it, £39.99! Told them it said it was £9.99 on the shelf, then left without it. This exact same thing happens WAY more often than it should in PC World, and if you were buying a few items at the same time then you might not even notice that they weren't charging you the price you thought you were going to pay. Went back 30 mins later and they STILL had the same item on sale, advertised at £9.99 - including the one I'd previously taken to the checkouts, so somebody had obviously been there to put it back. I asked to see the manager and he refused to sell it to me for the marked price. So I said "fine, shove it then. I'll see trading standards" and lobbed it back on the shelf. He kicked off about how I was "damaging stock" and how the shop was protected by CCTV blah blah blah and went "would you like me to call the police sir?". "Do WTF you like, I'm off", says I. So I set off towards the door and he followed me, taunting. As I got near the door, I snapped. Turned around and right in his face said "Get the **** out of my face while you're in front". "Is that a threat, sir?" "Yeah, its a threat. If you wanna talk some more I'll see you in the car park". I was really ready to nail his face to a wall at this point. I went home after that. As I drove away I saw him poke his head out of the door and scribble my car number plate down (I assume) on a bit of paper. So I guess I'm unofficially banned. Not that I care too much. Only go to PC World when all the decent PC shops are shut, anyway. :) </off topic> |
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| Funny story. Radio Shack is just as bad. |
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| Bah, that's typical of a Dixons Group company. It's amazing how they manage to staff every branch with exactly the same type of slimy, snide tosspot. I wouldn't blame ya if you'd Plugged N' Play'ed that mouse where he'd have needed a proctologist to change the batteries. Anyway, sorry for leading the thread off topic.. back to Macs.. |
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| To be fair, GFK's escapades are much more interesting. I recommend a fake beard and a heavy Russian accent for future visits. |
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| he should right a book, then record a charming video of him in a soft focused smoking jacket reading out loud by an oak lit fire, gently smiling to himself. |
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| I wouldn't blame ya if you'd Plugged N' Play'ed that mouse where he'd have needed a proctologist to change the batteries. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" GFK, my giod thats some good stuff. he deserved that sh*t... nice one.! |
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| I don't know Sledge, it certainly sounds to me like you have a pretty deep-seated loathing for Macs. Considering your post is littered with adjectives like horrendous, horrific, preposterous, and weedy, I'm thinking maybe you don't want to buy a Mac. Although I know a lot of people who seem to love hating their computer (all of whom, come to think of it, are PC users.) "They only have one mouse button" Oh for the love of Pete... I'm using a scroll-wheel mouse right now on my Powerbook. With any computer often the first thing I do is order a new mouse anyway, so it wasn't any issue that the first thing I did when I got this computer is hit buy.com to order a Pocketmouse. GFK, that kind of treatment from store managers always pisses me off. Whatever happened to store personnel being nice to customers? All I see these days (at least in big chains) is a markedly antagonistic attitude toward people in the store. And people wonder why I only shop online: let's see, it's fast to browse, the stuff is cheaper, there's wider selection, it's easier to get reliable information about the product, the stuff is delivered straight to my front door, and I don't have to deal with hostile 'sales' people. The only disadvantage is having to wait for my stuff to arrive, and even that is usually only a couple days for delivery. I guess it's a big hassle to return anything, but with half the stuff I buy retail stores don't accept returns anyway, and for the other half of stuff I order from the websites of retail stores so that I can do my returns at the store. |
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| enough to investigate the alternatives. Well, let's face it, THE alternative Why not linux? |
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| Apple computers rocks hard. I have an iBook and can say that it is extremely robust, stable, and without any doubts MacOSX is the most user-friendly operating system I have ever used. |
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| Why was it released for Macs first anyway? |
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| Apple computers rocks hard. I have an iBook and can say that it is extremely robust, stable, and without any doubts MacOSX is the most user-friendly operating system I have ever used. I have a powerbook and I greatly agree. OS X is by far the main reason to buy a mac. If anyone truly wants reasons to support buying a mac I suggest you google it. I don't enter into these discussions as the majority of times people are closed minded to begin with - shown to be true here by a few instances of posts "littered with adjectives like horrendous, horrific, preposterous, and weedy" as said above. Everyone should use what they're comfortable with, but at the same time people should not pass judgement on others when they are completely uninformed. |
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| Why was it released for Macs first anyway? From the newsletter : Why has BlitzMax been released for Mac first? The Mac version of BlitzMax has been released first so as to try and ensure a smooth roll-out of BlitzMax. By offering the product to the smaller user base first, if any problems arise we can then fix these before offering the program to the larger user base of PC owners. Anyway, afaik as Mac's go, no clue here, havent touched any good ones since PC's took over the schools, but even back then, the older Mac OS's were much more stable then Win98.....not to mention the more recent releases of the OS are much nicer looking, not to mention run faster, or at least from what I've seen in from the Mac's on display at the local FutureShop.... Anyway, wasnt there a thread in the OT forum where someone posted a link to a budget Mac which was good for see'in if you even like the machine or not? |
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| Personally, I like the idea behind these Macs. I'm not really all into messing with my computer ... just my code. Sure I change GFX Card and RAM but if I didn't have to because the PC hardware changes so much then I'd be happier. I also like the style of Macs ... they are much more aesthetically pleasing than PC's. BlitzMax is really just the icing on the cake. Also the fact that Garage Games sells 60% of it's games to Mac and only 33% to Windows even though the Windows market is so so much bigger. |
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| I don't know Sledge, it certainly sounds to me like you have a pretty deep-seated loathing for Macs. Considering your post is littered with adjectives like horrendous, horrific, preposterous, and weedy, I find them aesthetically asinine - all my perjorative terms relate to Apple's "style", not the Mac range's performance as functional items (which is what comuters are, ultimately). I don't want to pay extra purely for a look I don't like, and that's what makes the (comparatively) "weedy" specs a worry... I'd like to think the performance stood up because of elegant design but I'm reliant on people who have some experience to fill me in. Knowing at what general level a G4 and G5 were in terms of PC gaming performance would be helpful. Why not linux? Tried it and really didn't get on with the OS. For general home computer use it's not really an option (is it?) and it doesn't have the Mac's shareware market advantage. It neither dazzles nor excites. |
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| Bah, I love Linux, but I like you Sledge seem to find it getting old, there needs to be some new and exciting tech to play with, maybe Cellphone games or something? Id love to be able to develope for a console system, but who can afford 10,000 for a development kit and license? |
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| Well, in terms of gaming performance I don't really know (the games I've played on Mac work great, but I've never compared a game running on Mac to the same one on PC,) but I can tell you that graphics performance in general is excellent on Macs. Indeed, that is the main hardware advantage of Macs over PCs. They have from the get-go been designed for working with high-end graphics and are the standard choice for computer artists. Raw clock speed numbers are misleading because of differences in the underlying chip technology. A given clock speed on a Mac is about doubled for the equivalent on PC; thus, the highest PowerPC speeds are about equivalent to the highest Pentium speeds. Also, a large part of the higher price of Macs is that Apple includes all kinds of pricey gadgetry standard (stuff that is optional on PCs.) This is of course still a downside if you don't need all that stuff, but knowing this tendency of theirs fills in a lot of the price differential. |
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