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Ok, this is a general question and I am sure everyone has a different answer for it.
What is the deal with Mac when it comes to game programing? I am interested in movie making and apple is recomended for editing. But I am afraid that if I purchase a Mac I will have to dump or adujst my game creating skills.

PS. My old computer is almost dead.

Thank you in advance

Mac's can only run OpenGL which means no DirectX games (like anything made DGDK/DP/DBP, and most other modern games). Basically if you buy a Mac you will not be gaming. You are also going to be paying hundreds of dollars extra for what amounts to nothing more than case badge (the hardware you get for the price of a Mac is laughable, it is exactly the same stuff as is in a PC by-the-way).

I'd honestly save the money and build yourself a new Windows 7 PC when W7 comes out.

There's a library called SDL (Simple Direct Layer) that you can find at http://www.libsdl.org that has versions for Windows, Mac and Linux. It's a wrapper for Direct X but it doesn't have a lot of the functionality as GDK. You generally have to use third party libraries for rotating images and probably resizing. You also have to use third party libs for sound.

One interesting feature that it has is an event queue. It essentially detects events as they happen, like mouse clicks, joystick movement or keyboard input and stores them in a queue. The programmer pulls the events from the queue and decides what needs to be done with them. Each event has a type and an associated structure that provides details.

I looked at it for a while and was ready to start developing things with it but found that the integrated sound/music abilities of Dark GDK looked much simpler to do.

The question I'd have about developing on a Mac would be what audience you'd have for your product once it was finished.

Macs. Why would you want to use something that was a stolen idea? Not to mention the pathetic price tag they slap on it, people go "oooh expensive = better" how about not.

The creator of macintosh did steal the idea from gates while they were roomies in college (or at least as far as my knowledge goes) xD



As for programming on a mac, i'm afraid I have no input on the subject, until this thread came along, I figured programming on a mac would be completely alien from programming on a pc, just like it is trying to use one of them.

It's always amusing to see how worked up people get about computer manufacturers and operating systems, it's silly, especially when remarks are unfounded.

Right, to answer the question and offer some advice. If you want a Mac there are solutions for game development, then there are some out there. Your first problem is that anything DirectX will not work for you, because DirectX is a Microsoft product and it seems they won't strike a deal with Apple, which is fair enough as they're competitors. But rightly said Macs use OpenGL for gaming, though Macs aren't marketed for gaming, and only few developers make anything for it, but there are games availible for it, commercial and indie, you can even get Call of Duty 4 for it.

As for programming and development, you can use XCode, which I believe is free, it has C++ and other development tools for MacOS and you can download SDKs that will work with it, like Irrlicht or Ogre, which like DarkGDK are free, but unlike DarkGDK, are capable of using OpenGL and are Mac compatible. Personally out of the two I'd recommend Irrlicht, but check out for yourself, as they're both free you have nothing to lose.

But will your products only run on a Mac? Well, nab Windows XP and use Boot Camp, so you can run two operating systems, but if you don't want the effort of doing that, run Windows under a virtual machine, so you can get the best of both worlds, meaning you can transfer your code and edit where appropriate on the PC version, so you actually get both audiences.

Alternatively, if you don't mind splashing out a bit of cash you could try the Unity3D engine, which is a game engine designed for the Indie game industry and is very well put together and was developed and a for the Apple Mac and only very recently has a Windows version been released (I tried the trial and fell in love with it) and the plus side is, it'll compile your game into the format of your choice, you can compile for the Unity3D web player, MacOSX and Windows and has a good set of quality settings. Download the trial and test it out for yourself, if you do, I'd recommend looking for 'Lerpz Tutorial' as it's a fantastic step by step beginner's tutorial that explains things really well.



If you're buying a Mac only because you're intresting in movie editing, Windows is still good for that purpose and there are applications for it that'll do the job. I should hope there are other reasons for choosing, if you buy one, then well, don't think your game development option is stunted and nor is your audience.

I appreciate the advice. It's given me a great deal to think about.

Thank you!

Actually, the idea of a graphical interface and mouse was first made by Xerox, then Apple, and then finally Microsoft. To say that Apple has stolen Microsoft's ideas is kind of amusing, because I think history will show quite the opposite ( OSX's 'Widget's shortly followed by Vistas 'Gadgets', etc.. )
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_GUI

As far as your question goes, I definitely recommend OpenGL and C++ ( using XCode ). It's quite easy to maintain a cross-platform app with this combination, and the sacrifice in graphics is hardly significant if you make a game worth playing.

iPhone dev.

He never said anything about a GUI... Perhaps asking for a clarification would help you to build a sufficient correction?



Google knows all and sees all, if you want to go brushing up on history. Personally, Roman history is my favorite... but whatever makes your battleship less boyant.



You can fly? TEACH ME O' WISE GURU OF FLIGHT AND STUFF!!!



I completely agree with this. If you're going to shoot for cross platform compatibility, designing the game around OpenGL is going to be your best bet.



I'm going to look into this. Sounds fun.



Nice.