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Valve drops VR support for macOS

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Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#271

Post by jay_kyburz »

mattbee wrote: post #196
jay_kyburz wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While Apple Arcade was a nice idea, its clear now that is has been out a while they they are still not taking gaming seriously. New game releases are slow and the games are very shallow. There are very few games in the Arcade that you would play for more than a day or two.

Do you not suspect that the marketplace for "shallow" games is a lot bigger and more valuable than whatever section of the market you think they're missing?

We don't need to guess the market. Lets use App Annie to tell what games are going well in the App Store.

Top Grossing seems to me to be about 50/50 casual / core games.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#272

Post by throwaway3563 »

rajlego wrote: post #188
llarsson wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not a technical problem, but a legal one. It is that they do not want to expose themselves by violating agreements with Apple. Do you want to be the genius that saved a few dollars on hardware with a Hackintosh only to get the company sued?

I hadn’t considered this at all mainly because I haven’t heard of apple taking legal actions against people promoting hackintosh related things and methods. Though I guess it could become a problem for a company.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psystar_Corporation

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#273

Post by mrtksn »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #271
mattbee wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not suspect that the marketplace for "shallow" games is a lot bigger and more valuable than whatever section of the market you think they're missing?

We don't need to guess the market. Lets use App Annie to tell what games are going well in the App Store. Top Grossing seems to me to be about 50/50 casual / core games.

You are right but it doesn't have anything to do with the abilities of the hardware or software they provide.

The medium is more approachable, therefore attracts more casual gamers and many of these casual games have stunning graphics, physics and gameplay.

There are also games that require more serious skills, games like Pubg Mobile and to be honest, I like the mobile version more than the desktop version.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#274

Post by ironmagma »

mekanicalsyncop wrote: post #61

Everyone's talking about the slower hardware. IMO the biggest hurdle to gaming is Mac OS's baked in mouse acceleration and whatever else makes 100% of mice feel absolutely terrible on a Mac. Even the magic mouse feels janky. I followed a bunch of online guides to do everything I can to disable the acceleration and everything else, but for some reason when I try to play a game it still feels terrible. Even when the ga…

This is definitely subjective. While you find mouse acceleration on Macs miserable, I find mouse acceleration on anything _but_ Macs miserable (looking at you especially, Linux/Mutter).

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#275

Post by wtallis »

pjmlp wrote: post #267
rleigh wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So long as the API works, I really don't care about the implementation details. I also don't care about Microsoft's UWP and sandboxing stuff. They might have a desire to take the platform in that direction. But I have no obligation to follow, and if they want to retain application developers they won't be able to simply cut us off. We've always got the option of abandoning Windows entirely if they make it too inconve…

Yes they will, Windows 10X only allows for sandboxed software. "How Windows 10X runs UWP and Win32 apps" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztrmrIlgbIc&list=PLWZJrkeLOr... MSIX https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/msix/overview > Apps that are packaged using MSIX run in a lightweight app container. Yes, Win32 can still choose between both models in current versions, depending on Windows 10X reception, I bet it might…

It's way to early for 10X to be influencing anyone's plans. It's still in the middle of transitioning from a pile of Microsoft's pipe dreams to a product that may or may not bear much resemblance to those original ideas.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#276

Post by pjmlp »

wtallis wrote: post #275
pjmlp wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they will, Windows 10X only allows for sandboxed software. "How Windows 10X runs UWP and Win32 apps" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztrmrIlgbIc&list=PLWZJrkeLOr... MSIX https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/msix/overview > Apps that are packaged using MSIX run in a lightweight app container. Yes, Win32 can still choose between both models in current versions, depending on Windows 10X reception, I bet it might…

It's way to early for 10X to be influencing anyone's plans. It's still in the middle of transitioning from a pile of Microsoft's pipe dreams to a product that may or may not bear much resemblance to those original ideas.

Maybe, lets see.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#277

Post by pjmlp »

wtallis wrote: post #100
CountSessine wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Games helped to drive and define the Apple II and Macintosh successes Apple II, but Macintosh? I'm not sure I agree with that. I think a lot of Jobs' opinions about personal computers gelled in the 80's. Back then, with the various Sinclair machines, the Ataris, the C64, and the Amiga, there were a lot of people who said that games actually harmed those platforms. In North America at least, having a large library of…

> You're a serious business man wearing a serious business suit, running a serious business, and you need computers from a serious business computer company that can run serious business software! You need an IBM! To be fair, that mindset predates the use of personal computers to do serious graphics business. The Mac is largely responsible for making that mindset obsolete with things like desktop publishing and Photo…

In Europe most serious graphics business during DOS-era PCs, was done in Amiga and Atari STs.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#278

Post by jsgo »

bangonkeyboard wrote: post #20
jsgo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since after High Sierra (Mojave I think?), Apple eliminated the ability to use non-metal drivers on macOS wholesale. Nvidia’s drivers weren’t developed in Metal and there’s zero reason for them to do so (only way to use Nvidia is intentionally either as an addon to a Mac Pro or as an eGPU, which they don’t see a large market for it) and Apple has a long history of killing off support of something on their platforms,…

> only way to use Nvidia is intentionally either as an addon to a Mac Pro or as an eGPU, which they don’t see a large market for it Not quite. From Nvidia: "Apple fully control drivers for Mac OS. But if Apple allows, our engineers are ready and eager to help Apple deliver great drivers for Mac OS 10.14 (Mojave)...Unfortunately, Nvidia currently cannot release a driver unless it is approved by Apple." — https://en.wi…

Which means if Apple allows them to use non-metal drivers. Historically, there’s little reason to think Apple would waiver (wish they would) and the value for Nvidia to write their drivers using Metal is minimal.

I’m kind of curious though: what value do their web drivers have to them now that they couldn’t just release them as OSS and allow a determined group to rewrite them as Metal.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#279

Post by bangonkeyboard »

jsgo wrote: post #278
bangonkeyboard wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> only way to use Nvidia is intentionally either as an addon to a Mac Pro or as an eGPU, which they don’t see a large market for it Not quite. From Nvidia: "Apple fully control drivers for Mac OS. But if Apple allows, our engineers are ready and eager to help Apple deliver great drivers for Mac OS 10.14 (Mojave)...Unfortunately, Nvidia currently cannot release a driver unless it is approved by Apple." — https://en.wi…

Which means if Apple allows them to use non-metal drivers. Historically, there’s little reason to think Apple would waiver (wish they would) and the value for Nvidia to write their drivers using Metal is minimal. I’m kind of curious though: what value do their web drivers have to them now that they couldn’t just release them as OSS and allow a determined group to rewrite them as Metal.

No, you've misunderstood again.

Nvidia's eGPU web drivers already supported Metal in High Sierra [0]. Apple refuses to sign their drivers for Mojave and up. Without Apple's signature, GPU drivers will not run on macOS, OSS or not.

[0] https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/uploads/monthly_2020_03/84...

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#280

Post by mekanicalsyncop »

ironmagma wrote: post #274
mekanicalsyncop wrote: post #61

Everyone's talking about the slower hardware. IMO the biggest hurdle to gaming is Mac OS's baked in mouse acceleration and whatever else makes 100% of mice feel absolutely terrible on a Mac. Even the magic mouse feels janky. I followed a bunch of online guides to do everything I can to disable the acceleration and everything else, but for some reason when I try to play a game it still feels terrible. Even when the ga…

This is definitely subjective. While you find mouse acceleration on Macs miserable, I find mouse acceleration on anything _but_ Macs miserable (looking at you especially, Linux/Mutter).

I'm mostly commenting on acceleration in gaming. The acceleration alone doesn't bother me for productivity. However, for gaming it doesn't matter what platform you are on acceleration sucks. Technically a subjective opinion but its pretty close to a consensus for anyone that plays 3d action games where you control the camera and/or your crosshairs with a mouse.
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