What is the current status of MacOS X migration?

[MouseBert]

I haven't seen anything recently about the migration of CM to MacOS X and I was wondering about its status. I see that DropTeam requires at least a 1.2GHz G4, 50% faster than the 800 MHz I am currently using. It appears that a major clock speed increase is needed to support the upcoming releases.

If I were a developer, the dropping of full RAVE support and now the switch to Intel would frustrate me. (It must be a lot easier to write for an OS that does change over 5 to 6 years, versus all the changes Apple pulls.) Given the current news about Boot Camp and VMWare , I wonder if MacOS X native support is economically viable. It looks like I am going to have to upgrade to play and the a Intel Mac can run the game under XP, so what is the advantage for BTS to continue development for PPC MacOS X or even Intel Macs? I am hoping that BTS has some good reasons to continue with development – like “Mac users don’t suck up our time with support issues.”

[carlsefni]

I too have been been wondering about what's up with CM for OS X (from my lurking space on the sidelines). I was hooked by originalCM when it was still beta, and ordered it as soon as it came out -- which I've never done for any other game! In fact, I've barely played any games since my Classic-running G3 finally died :/

It's nice to see that DropTeam will support OS X, but it's real-time and I want my good ol' turned-based CM back! Admittedly, I don't know that I would buy an XP license just to play CM .... I mean, what else do I need XP for? But I would buy CM for OS X in a heartbeat! One good reason to continue development might just be "Mac-users would buy the game"

I remember that I signed up to some Battlefront.com email list in hopes of hearing more about progress on CM for OS X, but little news has been forthcoming .... :/

[Schrullenhaft]

To my knowledge there is no work being done to port the CMx1 series to OS X. One huge reason is that this would require re-programming all of the graphical routines in OpenGL rather than RAVE. That's a lot of work for a single programmer. So I doubt that there'll be work on this because performing that much work for an older product just isn't financially feasible for BFC.

CMx2 (CM:SF being the first title) will also not have a Mac-port initially due to some compiler issues for the Mac. I can't recall exactly what these compiler issues are and if they're related to the Intel-code for OS X or what. However a port is definitely planned for OS X for the CMx2 series. It will just be delayed after (most likely at this point) CM:SF is released for the PC/Windows.

[MouseBert]

Originally posted by Schrullenhaft:

To my knowledge there is no work being done to port the CMx1 series to OS X. One huge reason is that this would require re-programming all of the graphical routines in OpenGL rather than RAVE. That's a lot of work for a single programmer. So I doubt that there'll be work on this because performing that much work for an older product just isn't financially feasible for BFC.

CMx2 (CM:SF being the first title) will also not have a Mac-port initially due to some compiler issues for the Mac. I can't recall exactly what these compiler issues are and if they're related to the Intel-code for OS X or what. However a port is definitely planned for OS X for the CMx2 series. It will just be delayed after (most likely at this point) CM:SF is released for the PC/Windows.

I always understood that CM I was not going to be ported, but I am still wondering about CM II. Any news?

[Schrullenhaft]

Steve has made comments on the main CMSF forum about a Mac version being planned. The problem though is that he hasn't been very detailed as to whether this will be an Intel-Mac only port for OS X or whether it will also be compiled/available for PPC-Macs. My guess at this point is that eventually an Intel-Mac version for OS X will be released sometime after CMSF is initially available. I doubt that a PPC-Mac version will be created, but it would definitely be nice if BTS pursues this path since there are still plenty of Mac users out there with G4s and some G5s.

[carlsefni]

Originally posted by Schrullenhaft:

My guess at this point is that eventually an Intel-Mac version for OS X will be released sometime after CMSF is initially available. I doubt that a PPC-Mac version will be created, but it would definitely be nice if BTS pursues this path since there are still plenty of Mac users out there with G4s and some G5s.

I don't have an Intel Mac, but I probably will by the time any version of CM is available for OS X. But even if Intel-only CM came out tomorrow, I wouldn't weep. I've been waiting to play some version of CM again ever since I upgraded to OS X back when 10.0 came out (!) and

could probably survive until I had to upgrade from my G4 to a new Intel machine anyway.

But original CM was good enough to keep me watching for any OS version of it to appear. I guess I've got more waiting to do ....

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Schrullenhaft:

Steve has made comments on the main CMSF forum about a Mac version being planned. The problem though is that he hasn't been very detailed as to whether this will be an Intel-Mac only port for OS X or whether it will also be compiled/available for PPC-Macs. My guess at this point is that eventually an Intel-Mac version for OS X will be released sometime after CMSF is initially available. I doubt that a PPC-Mac version will be created, but it would definitely be nice if BTS pursues this path since there are still plenty of Mac users out there with G4s and some G5s.

No, once you port to MacOS X, it is only a minor effort to port from i386 to PowerPC, if any at all.

If there's a Mac version, it'll probably be there for both. It doesn't make any sense to go through all the MacOS X trouble and then cut out half of the customers for a very minor effort saving.