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Mac Retina CMFI: smooth, awesome!


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I have to say we LOVED the timing of the new Retina laptops and OS 10.8. It was so nice to have them come out at almost the exact same time as we launched Italy, thereby giving us almost no chance to test on either before releasing. Not that it would have made much difference from the display side since none of us have Retina displays :D

Steve

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Just checking in here to say that the shader fix is gorgeous as well!

Although you could say that it's obvious if you upgrade your machine you will get a better experience, I am nonetheless still blown away by just how much nicer this all is now.

If I was allowed to have a Mac-specific wish, I'd wish for gesture support, so that I don't have to keep two-finger-pressing to rotate the camera etc (I quite often am in a situation where I don't have a mouse available for my laptop... like playing while in bed :D ).

There is one other thing that slightly offends the programmer in me, which is finding that on the Mac the user files (Mods, Game files) are in the app package. That's kinda naughty, right? I dunno, maybe historically this is how it was done, but looking at MacOS from a completely newbie point of view it seems that the app package should be considered read-only. Anyhow, who really cares? It's just a small annoyance to not be able to arrow key into the folders, instead having to do "show package contents" :)

I'm thinking that with Windows forcing the game files into the User's folder area, maybe Mac will follow.

Anyhow... blah blah ... if you ask people for suggestions they'll give them :D But really: it's great. You guys should get a retina :)

GaJ

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Yeah the new MAC is a nice laptop but it is waaay to overpriced for a computer these days. The price of it reminds me of high end PC prices during the 90s. Even with the new retina display it is still a laptop PC under the hood, same components are used to build MACs and PCs.

You can buy two high end gaming PC laptops for the price of one MAC..

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Just checking in here to say that the shader fix is gorgeous as well!

Great, glad to hear it!

If I was allowed to have a Mac-specific wish, I'd wish for gesture support, so that I don't have to keep two-finger-pressing to rotate the camera etc (I quite often am in a situation where I don't have a mouse available for my laptop... like playing while in bed :D ).

Gesture support is unlikely. It may come some day, but it's nowhere on my todo list at the moment. I tend to rotate the camera using the arrow keys when mouse use is... inconvenient.

There is one other thing that slightly offends the programmer in me, which is finding that on the Mac the user files (Mods, Game files) are in the app package. That's kinda naughty, right? I dunno, maybe historically this is how it was done, but looking at MacOS from a completely newbie point of view it seems that the app package should be considered read-only. Anyhow, who really cares? It's just a small annoyance to not be able to arrow key into the folders, instead having to do "show package contents" :)

I'm thinking that with Windows forcing the game files into the User's folder area, maybe Mac will follow.

It's fairly naughty, yeah. And yes, it will change. The App Store version is already fully Apple-compliant. Coming up with something that works nicely on 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8 will be a bit more of a challenge for a non-App-Store version (seeing as all three OSes have different hilarious permissions quirks that make a unified approach difficult), but I'm working on it.

Yeah the new MAC is a nice laptop but it is waaay to overpriced for a computer these days. The price of it reminds me of high end PC prices during the 90s. Even with the new retina display it is still a laptop PC under the hood, same components are used to build MACs and PCs.

You can buy two high end gaming PC laptops for the price of one MAC..

It's actually fairly comparable if you're talking about other high end laptops. A Lenovo X220 with the same specs as my Macbook Air costs roughly the same, if not more, unless I catch an employee discount sale. And while a 220 is great (I've got a 200 that goes with me pretty much everywhere) it's no Macbook Air.

I'm not sure where you're finding your high-end gaming laptops, but if they're out there with comparable features (high-cap SSDs, high-end Intel processors, good video cards, and super-high-resolution screens) and someone told me they're getting two for the price of one Retina Mac, I'd be wondering which truck they bought them out the back of. :) There's an Apple markup, absolutely, but it's not 100%.

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It's fairly naughty, yeah. And yes, it will change. The App Store version is already fully Apple-compliant. Coming up with something that works nicely on 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8 will be a bit more of a challenge for a non-App-Store version (seeing as all three OSes have different hilarious permissions quirks that make a unified approach difficult), but I'm working on it.

I admit to being slightly mystified by the conversation here, but it may touch on something I experienced. I was looking for the Saved Game folder so that I could rename some of my saves, and lo and behold there didn't seem to be one! Remembering the Open Package trick, I eventually found it, but it was kind of a weird feeling there for a couple of minutes.

Michael

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Having the stuff in the App was something I also objected to early on. I was told there were some major reasons for it. I forget what those reasons are, but they were sufficient for me to withdraw my objections and just live with the aliased folders. Basically achieves the same end.

Steve

Thanks for sharing this - when you see something like this and think "geez, what's with that", it's good to know that it's a conscious decision in the face of knowing what's wrong with doing that. I don't need to know the reasons why, just happy to know it was considered :)

Cheers,

GaJ

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How do the fonts stay readable? I assume the whole game is upscaled, or do you have explicit support for it?

It just works. I don't know how. Most of the fonts are generously sized, so the shrinkage doesn't render them too small I guess. I'm a kind of small-fonts guy anyhow - I ran my PC in 1920x1600.

There is one thing that takes a big step backwards: the graphics in the UI panel. Its remarkable how much nicer the game graphics are, contrasting the step backwards in appearance of the GUI. I'll post a screenie as soon as I get a chance.

GaJ

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Thanks for sharing this - when you see something like this and think "geez, what's with that", it's good to know that it's a conscious decision in the face of knowing what's wrong with doing that. I don't need to know the reasons why, just happy to know it was considered :)

Heh, yes, it was a conscious decision. :) As Steve says, it was for reasons we couldn't really get around, but yes, we did know it was wrong. But as I mentioned above, it'll be changed eventually - it's already changed in the App Store version.

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I admit to being slightly mystified by the conversation here, but it may touch on something I experienced. I was looking for the Saved Game folder so that I could rename some of my saves, and lo and behold there didn't seem to be one! Remembering the Open Package trick, I eventually found it, but it was kind of a weird feeling there for a couple of minutes.

Michael

That's exactly the thing - you experienced the reason why it is that what BFC have had to do (for whatever reason) is not what you would normally do: create an app that puts its user data into the app package.

I suspect the reason was something to do with getting commonality across Windows and Mac and trying to find an option that would not get messed up by permissions.

GaJ

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It's actually fairly comparable if you're talking about other high end laptops. A Lenovo X220 with the same specs as my Macbook Air costs roughly the same, if not more, unless I catch an employee discount sale. And while a 220 is great (I've got a 200 that goes with me pretty much everywhere) it's no Macbook Air.

I'm not sure where you're finding your high-end gaming laptops, but if they're out there with comparable features (high-cap SSDs, high-end Intel processors, good video cards, and super-high-resolution screens) and someone told me they're getting two for the price of one Retina Mac, I'd be wondering which truck they bought them out the back of. :) There's an Apple markup, absolutely, but it's not 100%.

I totally agree. In Australia computers are expensive anyhow. I (my company :) ) paid $A3800 for this gorgeous machine. The equivalent Dell laptop was about $800 cheaper, and still not as light and slim.

That's $800 for the pleasure of sitting in front of this beautiful looking appliance for doing my work and play every day for the next 3 years (replacement cycle), and the ease of carrying around with me (which is all the time, everywhere). And seeing CM the way it is meant to be seen. Totally worth it (if you happen to be lucky enough to have an employer who will fork that much cash :) It took me 6 months of arm twisting...) .

GaJ

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That's exactly the thing - you experienced the reason why it is that what BFC have had to do (for whatever reason) is not what you would normally do: create an app that puts its user data into the app package.

Yeah, definitely not ideal. We used an alias on CMBN and CW. It doesn't play nice with Lion and ML though.

I suspect the reason was something to do with getting commonality across Windows and Mac and trying to find an option that would not get messed up by permissions.

Your suspicion is not terribly far off. :)

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There is one thing that takes a big step backwards: the graphics in the UI panel. Its remarkable how much nicer the game graphics are, contrasting the step backwards in appearance of the GUI. I'll post a screenie as soon as I get a chance.

GaJ

I just discovered this is not a retina thing: there's a thread in CMBN describing others with the same problem.

It's kinda quaint actually, I don't mind it :)

GaJ

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