[Wrao]

I've always used macs, I've grown up playing a lot of classic old games now considered abandonware. It was a significant blow to the keepers of nostalgia when OS X came around and caused many snags with playing old pre OS 9 games. Classic mode runs many games decently, but also many games wig out and are unplayable too.

I'm wondering what will happen after the intel switch? Will the abandonware mac game market essentially die out because games won't be playable anymore? Does that even really matter? I don't know the fine points surrounding it all, so hopefully some more knowledgeable folk can clue me in.

[staph]

Presumably some of the 68k and PPC emulators will be ported to OS X (Intel). Perhaps not as easy as Classic, but almost certainly fast enough to be OK.

Actually, a port of PearPC to Mac OS might be just about all that is needed, although I'm not sure if they'd need any modifications to support the Mac ROM (or is that not an issue if they're emulating New World machines anyway?)

[Wrao]

Well, that would be 'acceptable' I suppose, better than nothing, but like, already many of these games glitch out while running in classic(though, the latest version of OS X have improved this somewhat)

There are few things worse than playing a really fun game of pirates gold!, Master of orion(1 or 2) or Colonization and have it suddenly flip out on you before you've gotten a chance to safe recently.

Fortunately, many of these games had auto-save functions, but still, I hate glitchy games!

Well, here's hoping for the best. It would really be swell if there was some way some company could scoop up the rights to many of these old games and port them to OS X(and OS X x86) But, From what I understand that's not as easy as it may sound

[Brad]

Well, there's already the open-sourced Basilisk II emulator that emulates 68k machines and runs up to Mac OS 8.1. I imagine it would be plenty possible to port it to Mac OS X on Intel since it already runs on *nixes under X11.

[staph]

Yeah, but a PearPC port would be good for non-68k classic only games (like UT). Of course, you'd have to ask the question of whether it wouldn't be easier to run them through WINE rather than a PPC emulator…

[jer2eydevil88]

:-) Maybe we will see the inception of a VirtualMAC from Apple using the same system Microsoft uses with Virtual PC

[Brad]

Originally Posted by jer2eydevil88 Maybe we will see the inception of a VirtualMAC from Apple using the same system Microsoft uses with Virtual PC

I don't think you know much about emulation. There's no such "system" that Microsoft has that Apple could use. Emulators vary widely across processors and implementations, each having its own advantages and disadvantages.

[curiousuburb]

Depends how old the games we're talking about are... still calling Sound Manager is bad... games which try to install QuickTime 3 in their master installer are bad. Games which demand resolutions that OS X hates are bad.

These are just a few examples of headaches that emulation folk must fix. Older stuff can be even harder...

I still can't get any of the old games at http://virtualapple.com to load on the Apple ][ emulator Warning: audio surprise

[BlueRabbit]

Originally Posted by curiousuburb I still can't get any of the old games at http://virtualapple.com to load on the Apple ][ emulator Warning: audio surprise

Ha...I actually have that song in my iTunes library.

[switchr92]

Will games for macs be just as bad as they are now after the intel switch, or will the fact that the PC version and the mac version both using intel hardware make for a smoother port, hence better mac games? Just curious, oh, and which is a better Graphics card, the NVIDIA GeForce 6600 256MB SDRAM or the 256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) nVidia GeForce 6800? again, just curious. Luca, come on, I know you know. Thanx guys.

[709]

Originally Posted by curiousuburb Warning: audio surprise

Jesus. That scared the hell out of me.

*note to self: Read the fine print.*

[jer2eydevil88]

Originally Posted by Brad I don't think you know much about emulation. There's no such "system" that Microsoft has that Apple could use. Emulators vary widely across processors and implementations, each having its own advantages and disadvantages.

Microsofts "system" of emulation is to emulate an entire platform including virtual hardware using a software package called Virtual PC that they bought from Connectix in 2003. Emulators can vary in what exactly they emulate but my comment was directed toward the emulation of an entire system, it was meant as a joke because obviously they intend to use Rosetta to emulate a PPC environment.

I guess the humor wasn't as apparent as I had originally hoped.