Dragon/DDI content for the Macintosh crowd?

[thedungeondelver]

It's unlikely that an emulator could be fast enough to run 3d graphics.

That's wholly dependent on how the "emulator" works. For example, vThere (which runs on top of Parallels) does not emulate a whole system, rather, it runs a sort of hypervisor for the local CPU and relies on local hardware for DX calls. IOW if you have a GeForce 8800 in your system, vThere "sees" an 8800 and acts appropriately. This is the PC version I'm talking about but as its underlying engine is Parallels, I'd wager the same thing applies.

Now VPC? Yeah, that's a whole-computer emulation, and I think you get a whopping 4mb Trident 3d card emulated - not exactly the target GPU for DX9.c, I can guarantee.

Here's some helpful links:

http://www.iemulator.com/

http://bochs.sourceforge.net/

http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/features/

http://www.vmware.com/products/

HTH.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

As has been stated previously, it wouldn't have cost much more at all if they'd just decided, from the start, to be system neutral.

A large company producing a Web application in 2008 that can't run on a Macintosh is embarrassing at best.

We already had a directx engine that had been in development for a while.

Not using it and going with something new would have delayed the project a long time.

 

[sinecure]

As has been stated previously, it wouldn't have cost much more at all if they'd just decided, from the start, to be system neutral.

A large company producing a Web application in 2008 that can't run on a Macintosh is embarrassing at best.

To back up Wizards here, they are making the right choice with DDi by making it DirectX. A large reason for why PC compatibles have such a fast upgrade cycle is computer gaming. Macs just aren't built for gaming in the same way. Most anyone who is going to buy a Mac already knows this.

The reason computer gaming companies can support Macs (when they choose to) is because they sell a software product installed directly to the machine. It might use the web, but it isn't web-based. DirectX is the premier protocol if your going to be using software on the internet to play games. I highly doubt Wizards ever planned a product requiring a multiple gig download as a support product to D&D.

Be happy most of what they are building is gaming system neutral and stop complaining. Someone somewhere will find an emulator that will work sooner or later. Either in house or out.

 

[wayne62682]

They should have just used OpenGL instead of DirectX, since OpenGL runs on all platforms, not just one. Either Wizards IT department is incompetent and think the world revolves around Windows (making them a rather poor IT department), or the programmers (I assume programming is outsourced?) were just plain lazy.

Here's hoping an OpenGL version is in the works. I recently purchased a MacBook when my old laptop started to overheat constantly and freeze up, so it's a shame that I can no longer use most of the online tools.

 

[Family]

Either Wizards IT department is incompetent or...the programmers were just plain lazy.

I like the ads, the attitude I could do without though.

 

[Rackhir]

You don't need an x86 based mac to use VirtualPC, vmware, or just about any other Win* emulator.

Some of the speedier Gx family of processors should be more than able to emulate an x86 machine capable of booting XP so you can use DI stuff. Note, should be. IANAMU.

While there were Windows emulation packages for pre-intel macs. They were much slower than the current generation of intel mac emulators and had little or no support for any sort of 3d graphics. Most of the current intel mac emulators have at best weak support for 3d graphics/direct x and they have far better access to hardware than the older emulators.

Only the fastest G5s would have a prayer of even coming close to the intel Macs and most of them had weak 3d graphics cards.

Basically if you want to do windows 3d games on a mac, boot camp on an intel Mac is your only real choice.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

At least the Mac users can feel a little better since the PC users don't have the programs yet either.

 

[Ghaerdon Fain]

Inexcusable

It is inexcusable that in 2008 a company like WotC hasn't the foresight to create a "web 2.0" App for all platforms/OS' to play nice.

For them to leave out the OS X crowd and for that matter Linux is a blatant display of short sightedness. I love 4E, had a blast last night with character creation, but if DDI is going to just cater to one platform then they have issues and they might have lost my $14.99 per month; and for those about to slam me for not having Boot Camp or Paralels/VMWare... I have them... with a bought copy of Vista... I simply hate it and don't want to use it. In 6 months I have booted into Windows 3x, once was yesterday to see if IE/Firefox ran anything new in DDI.

Inexcusable!

 

[thedungeondelver]

Basically if you want to do windows 3d games on a mac, boot camp on an intel Mac is your only real choice.

Oh, wait - I thought we were talking about D&D, you meant a computer game. My bad.

 

[Kesh]

You don't need an x86 based mac to use VirtualPC, vmware, or just about any other Win* emulator.

Some of the speedier Gx family of processors should be more than able to emulate an x86 machine capable of booting XP so you can use DI stuff. Note, should be. IANAMU.

The last version of VirtualPC for Mac does not support 3D graphics.