Fu_k PCs and all their games! I'm getting a Powermac G5!

Apollo · Post by **Apollo** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 10:38 pm

And I'm getting panther too.
just watch this (all of it) and you'll understand.
edit: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/wwdc03/

the above URL is new and working. Don't choose ignorance like most of the world, watch this video. (quicktime 6.1 or later is required)

Post by **BreakmanX** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 4:05 pm

That link didn't work for me.

RurouniQ · Post by **RurouniQ** » Wed Jun 25, 2003 12:15 pm

Yeah, I'm gonna get a G5 myself. Also, Panther will be coming with X11 so it'll be able to run most Unix software as well. That'll help with the Mac compability problems a little.

Evilmagicpirate · Post by **Evilmagicpirate** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 12:01 am

Apple == False Advertising.

AMD's 64-bit Opteron (which also supports 8gb+ of ram) beat the G5 to the market by 2 months. G5 isnt the worlds first first 64-bit desktop machine.

The Benchmarks Apple provide are bogus. They are testing a the brand-new G5 verse an 8 month old P4 3ghz with disabled Hyperthreading. (Intels current fastest chip is a P4 @3.2ghtz with Hyperthreading). Not to mention the numerous other unfair optimizations that Apple made, outlined here, suxh as forcing the Intel machine to run on purposly unoptimized benchmarking software.

Also, the price.. Who has a spare $2999?

Post by **BreakmanX** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 12:06 am

Doesn't this all happen everything Apple has a new G system?

RurouniQ · Post by **RurouniQ** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 10:55 am

I was disheartened by this as well, but Apple responded with this:
Greg Joswiak, vice president of hardware product marketing at Apple, in a phone interview today, defended Apple's performance claims for its upcoming Power Mac G5, after they came under fire in the wake of yesterday's announcement. Read on for the details.
Joswiak went over the points in turn, but first said that they set out from the beginning to do a fair and even comparison, which is why they used an independent lab and provided full disclosure of the methods used in the tests, which would be "a silly way to do things" if Apple were intending to be deceptive.

He said Veritest used gcc for both platforms, instead of Intel's compiler, simply because the benchmarks measure two things at the same time: compiler, and hardware. To test the hardware alone, you must normalize the compiler out of the equation -- using the same version and similar settings -- and, if anything, Joswiak said, gcc has been available on the Intel platform for a lot longer and is more optimized for Intel than for PowerPC.

He conceded readily that the Dell numbers would be higher with the Intel compiler, but that the Apple numbers could be higher with a different compiler too.

Joswiak added that in the Intel modifications for the tests, they chose the option that provided higher scores for the Intel machine, not lower. The scores were higher under Linux than under Windows, and in the rate test, the scores were higher with hyperthreading disabled than enabled. He also said they would be happy to do the tests on Windows and with hyperthreading enabled, if people wanted it, as it would only make the G5 look better.

In the G5 modifications, they were made because shipping systems will have those options available. For example, memory read bypass was turned on, for even though it is not on by default in the tested prototypes, it will be on by default for the shipping systems. Software-based prefetching was turned off and a high-performance malloc was used because those options will be available on the shipping systems (Joswiak did not know whether this malloc, which is faster but less memory efficient, will be the default in the shipping systems).

As to not using SSE2, Joswiak said they enabled the correct flags for it, as documented on the gcc web site, so that SSE2 was enabled (the Veritest report lists the options used for each test, which appears to include the appropriate flags).

Post by **BreakmanX** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 11:06 am

So, it is outperforming Intel. Now they need to attract some developers. All that power won't mean anything if you can only play EverQuest 6 months after its initial release. Did they say anything about comparison's to Intel's new core that will be available soon? Or to AMD's 64 bit CPU?

It would be nice to have some competition in the market in the regards of computer gaming. Although, the PC market is so full of different vendors that it is already pretty tough. The obvious one, though, is OS. I say all the power to ya Apple.

Evilmagicpirate · Post by **Evilmagicpirate** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 7:57 pm

BreakmanX wrote:It would be nice to have some competition in the market in the regards of computer gaming.

No! No it wouldnt!!
I already need to buy a PS2, Xbox, Gamecube and PC to enjoy all the current generations of games, I dont want to have to buy a $3000 MAC too.

Also, Apple didnt compare the G5 to an 64-bit AMD optron system.. so its hardly fair to state that they have the fastest desktops in the world.

RurouniQ · Post by **RurouniQ** » Fri Jun 27, 2003 7:37 am

When does the Optron come out anyway? I know the G5s are shipping any day now; they're already taking orders...

Evilmagicpirate · Post by **Evilmagicpirate** » Fri Jun 27, 2003 7:54 pm

RurouniTrelane wrote:When does the Optron come out anyway?

Two Months ago.
A 64-bit version of UT2k3 has also been released.

64 bit UT2K3 means when that when you get killed, you explode into 64 bits. This is a big improvement over the current version where you only explode into 32 bits.

RurouniQ · Post by **RurouniQ** » Sat Jun 28, 2003 10:51 am

Ah. I wonder how come I hadn't even heard of it yet...
And he's got an avatar finally! Good show!

Evilmagicpirate · Post by **Evilmagicpirate** » Sat Jun 28, 2003 6:23 pm

Truthfully, Im not sure if UT2K3-64 has actaully been released.. Epic made a 64-bit version to show-off the Opteron at various trade-shows, etc.. and said it would be released about the same time as the Opteron.. However, I dont think it was every actaully been released -or if it ever will be. Maybe they will just bundle support in to UT2k4 ?

Post by **Richie** » Sun Jun 29, 2003 4:55 pm

Wow, I leave for 2 1/2 weeks and look what happens. New Apple OS, new processor, the news that Apple processors may outperform PC processors. What the fuck is the world coming to?

But the reason you'll find 10 PC gamers for every Mac gamer today is the same as it was 5 years ago: the games. Ok, so Macs may be faster. I don't care if Apple's G5 can run circles around the P4, if Apple still dosen't have the games I want to play, they won't get my business. To Apple's credit, they have made some progress in the gaming field: MOHAA, JKII, Max Payne are all hallmark PC games which were all successfully ported. Unfortunatly, these ports came months after their PC releases. Now I don't know about the rest of you, but patience is small in quantity in my house.

Don't get me wrong: I used to be a hardcore Mac fan, and this news is great. But games like UT and QIII turned me from that path, and I've been glad I switched ever since. When games come out on the Mac as fast as they do on the PC, thats when I'll consider switching.

Evilmagicpirate · Post by **Evilmagicpirate** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 12:48 am

Richie wrote: When games come out on the Mac as fast as they do on the PC, thats when I'll consider switching.

Here Here! It wouldd also be nice to not have to buy a whole new computer everytime I want to upgrade my video card..

Post by **BreakmanX** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 3:10 am

Bungie liked Apple quite a bit. Now, this is crazy thinking, but imagine if Apple would have had the sense Microsoft did, and bought Bungie? Halo as a Mac exclusive should have had some kind of an impact. Granted, not as big of one as it had on the xbox. But, it would be nice for it to have something that wasn't a port on Apple. Seems like all Apple gets is delayed sloppy 2nds.