Stability, Gaming and other ramblings

by Anand Lal Shimpi on 2/18/2004 2:57 AM EST
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  • BZ - Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - link

    Just wanted to say (to all, but mostly Anand) I have never read your site but since this G5Blog I have been coming back to check it out.

    As a long time Mac user (and PC user/Admin/geek at work) I think you are doing a great job of pointing out the fair pros and cons. It will be interesting to see what you have to say in 6 months or a year or when the next person asks what type of computer they should get.

    Keep blogging...
    BZ
  • xozlh - Monday, February 23, 2004 - link

    Anand,
    10.3 comes with Full Keyboard Access enabled by default, opening up a huge world of keyboard shortcut possibilities. As far as getting to the terminal quickly and easily, you can Apple-Tab to the Finder, Shift-Apple-U to the Utilities Folder, start typing 'Terminal', and press Apple-O. You can also press Control-D and have immediate keyboard access to the Dock. And Terminal is in your Dock, right?
  • Damien Sorresso - Thursday, February 19, 2004 - link

    Unbelievable as it may sound, Apple, who have over $4 billion in cash, don't have a Dolby Digital license. That's right. They can't stand the thought of forking over the cash so that their applications can actually decode DD streams and shove them out through discrete analogue outputs, like the ones the Revolution 7.1 has.

    That's why Panther's DVD player only supports 5.1 DD via pass through. Apple don't have a license to decode the streams in the OS, so all they can do is pass the streams on to something that does have a license, like the decoder built into the Logitech Z-680's.

    From what I understand, there's uncertainty as to which API to use for Mac gaming surround sound. EAX, as I understand, it strictly Windows-only with no chance of ever making it to the Mac. The M-Audio guys were pushing for Circle Surround Sound II over the feature-lacking OpenAL. Apple wants people to use CoreAudio, but apparently Apple's CoreAudio documentation blows, and it's a bitch to write for on top of that. The surround audio situation on the Mac definitely sucks more than anything else I can think of.
  • Flatlyna - Thursday, February 19, 2004 - link

    @a2daj - now thats a comprehensive reply!
    Thanks for the info.

    Its a shame that there isn't a more definitive solution at this point even if M-Audio has capable hardware. I think its good that the G5 has a digital optical out, but afaik it doesn't do realtime Dolby Digital encoding like the nForce chipsets so surround is gonna just be limited to DVD playback with AC3 output.

    For everyday computer use 3d audio doesn't do much for you, but I guess that there are pc users that would find the lack of options odd given that the majority of pc motherboards offer it as standard.

    I suppose it might not be important to most people's gaming on the Mac (perhaps because they'v e never experienced it) but I've found it enhances my pc gaming pleasure no end.
  • maxplanar - Thursday, February 19, 2004 - link

    Anand,

    To see the standard text during BSD boot, simply hold down Command-V upon boot. The blue screen is replaced by normal unix-land, until it goes away that is... ;-)
  • a2daj - Thursday, February 19, 2004 - link

    The SE in Radeon 9800 Pro Mac SE stands for Special Edition. It seems SE in the PC world stands for Slow/Sucky Edition...

    There are a few reasons for no 3D audio in Mac games.

    Part of the reason is due to legacy code. Back in the OS 9 days, games handled sound via the Sound Manager, which, no matter what, spit out sound in stereo, which is why the OS 9 DVD player couldn't output anything more than stereo regardless of your audio hardware setup. This essentially crippled the one consumer card that was eventually released that could have helped bring 3D sound to Mac games, the infamous Mac SoundBlaster Live. With the SBL sound was still processed via the Sound Manager so the SBL could only essentially add EAX reverb, which worked great in the few games that were compatible with it (Deus Ex, Rune, Rogue Spear after one of the patches, Diablo II, and maybe 2 or 3 others). However, if developers used OpenAL, then supposedly, one would be able to skip the Sound Manager and offload sound processing to the SBL. That never happened. No game was released with OpenAL support. Based on comments from a few developers, OpenAL and 3D positional audionever worked properly in OS 9, there were several issues with the implementation that frustrated a lot of programmers, and development on it was dead with no support from Creative Labs or whoever was maintaining the Mac version. The SBL died a slow and painful death after one driver update quietly released more than a year after the product shipped with major bugs still left to fix. No OS X drivers to save the day. Some open source drivers were attempted, but they seemed to die after some controversy and the release of the Revolution 7.1. Sound Manager is available in OS X but still converts everything to stereo.

    Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) apparently has improved 3D audio support in CoreAudio, the Apple preferred API for audio code. I'm not sure what major additions were added between the new version of CoreAudio and older versions, but based on what I've read from others, developers can use CoreAudio as a 3D API now. I believe World of Warcraft is using an internal Blizzard 3D audio library based on CoreAudio. However, I believe it's only supported through digital audio outs, like those in G5s, and possibly the Revolution 7.1. We'll see once WoW is released.

    OpenAL is available in OS X and was used in the original OS X port for Unreal Tournament. But at the time, development wasn't very active. Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast and Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy both use OpenAL but I'm not sure if the work Brad Oliver did to get OpenAL usuable was rolled into the main source tree. Ryan Gordon recently rolled his own version of OS X OpenAL built on top of CoreAudio for Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004 but it's pretty much tuned for those games at the moment. OS X OpenAL doesn't have 3D support as far as I've seen.

    The Miles audio library is available for Macs in both OS 9 and OS X. However, they do not support 3D audio as far as I can tell. If they do, no Mac developer is taking advantage of the capabilities. They may support encoding sound into a Dolby Surround format, but I'm not sure if it really can, and that wouldn't be true 3D sound anyway.

    Which leads to another reason for lack of 3D audio games... not many people have the machines to handle it. As mentioned before the SBL failed in various ways. Until the G5s rolled out, all built-in sound out was handled through a stereo connection unless one had a 3rd party audio card. Until the Revolution 7.1, multichannel sound outputs were only available on relatively expensive sound card. The SBL doesn't count since it never handled multichannel sound to begin with.

    M-Audio brings the potential of 3D audio support to the Mac platform with a consumer level card Revolution 7.1. However, M-Audio doesn't know which API to use for 3D support, OpenAL, CoreAudio, etc, but their card currently does support descrete audio channels.

  • Lucian - Thursday, February 19, 2004 - link

    I cringe at the thought of Creative Labs making another Mac product ever again. Their first "product" was a half-assed job, which they will surely use as "evidence" that a market for consumer sound cards does not exist on the Mac. From conversations I have had with various people at Creative, they see very little interest in even marketing their speaker products towards Mac users (even though it would take a simple "Mac-compatible" sticker). I have a M-Audio Revolution and while the drivers aren't perfect, the hardware is good and so is the sound.
  • Flatlyna - Thursday, February 19, 2004 - link

    As a database developer and regular reader of your site, I'm delighted that you're treating the Mac with respect and approaching it with an open mind. Despite my day job, the Mac is my preferred platform and adding a Mac section to here is a fantastic idea. Platform advocacy has its place, yet hopefully that can be for somewhere else than here because it been done to death already. An unbiased appraisal of the platform in your current style will be appreciated by many I'm sure.

    As a suggestions for content, I'd like to see a "software equivalents" listing or database to aid those people looking for alternatives to their pc utilities etc. As others have mentioned, a forum would be welcome too.

    If you've got any contacts with Creative Labs, I'd be interested to know why they made a bit of a mess of bringing SB Live to the Mac... I'd have thought that Audigy might be good for 3d audio in Mac gaming?

    Keep up the good work Anand!
  • Michael - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Maximized windows are the work of the devil -- or Bill Gates, whichever. But, some applications implement maximize as a secondary function of the zoom window when holding down the shift key.
  • Scot Walker - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    You can run UT2K4 in a window on OS X and see your other applications. It's just the "Full Screen" option in the settings of the game.

    Anand, does the fan on the video card shut off when the Mac goes to sleep? How loud is it? Much louder than the G5's fans?

    Thanks
  • Jeff - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    I echo the sentiment of #31. Very nice job man!! Can't wait to see some kind of AnandMac™ section!
  • ViRGE - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Aye, so let me get this straight: ATI has a 9800 Pro Retail, a 9800 Pro, and a 9800 Pro SE. But unlike the (current) PC world, the OEM card is lower clocked than the retail card, but the SE card is >= the Pro card, and is overall better!? Somebody please smack ATI's CEO next time, these crazy SE naming schemes are getting out of hand, someone needs to decide if a SE card is supposed to be a good card or a bad card.

    Anyhow, getting back to the topic at hand, another thing that might be worth taking a look at on the Mac side with UT2K4 is audio. Software wise, the Mac platform doesn't have something as tightly integrated as DirectSound/EAX, instead using the more *nix-standard OpenAL. On the hardware side in turn, support from Creative is non-existant, so the SoundBlaster Live Mac-edition is stuck in Classic-land, leaving the M Audio Revolution as the only other discrete sound card out there that's even close to being gaming related. The G5's integrated audio is said to be >= Nvidia's SoundStorm in terms of quality, but I haven't seen any empirical evidence to back that up, and more importantly.

    The point of all of this being however is that for one of your future Mac articles(a Mac Date or a full article), you might want to take a look at audio on the Mac as it relates to gaming. Just how good are the different Mac solutions out there, and why don't we have any sort of 3D audio support in the year 2004? These are questions even as a Mac user I don't know the answer to, and something that would make for a good article.

    PS I Nth the Mac forum request, it's definately something worth having, even before the DB redesign
  • GL - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Anand,

    I don't have a specific suggestion for the Mac article but I'll tell you one thing I observed at another web site that I thought was tremendously cool. A few of the forum members at Ars Technica's Macintosh Achaia benchmarked LAME (the MP3 encoder) on their Macs and realized it was a poor performer relative to x86 machines. They then took it upon themselves to tweak LAME with Altivec optimizations that led to tremendous performance gains. The thread in question is here - http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&am... - and is, IMHO, just fascinating. All those people talking about Mac users as if they're mentally incapable of using multi-button mice should check it out.

    Maybe if you could profile in the AT Mac section some other open source tools that are under-performant on the Mac platform, then that would lead to more community-led efforts to resolve the situation.
  • Patrick - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Hmm... I must say that to have someone of your stature in the PC world open up to Apple with such an intelligent and non-biased approach is truly a thing of beauty.

    You have instantly made me a loyal fan and I eagerly await your Mac section.

    Thank you Anand.
  • SmurfTower - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Have you tired OmniWeb browser?.
    http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/...
  • Anonymous - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    http://www.macosxhints.com :)
  • robg1701 - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    heh, woops, refresh reposted that comment somehow :P
  • Damien Sorresso - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Anand: To start off the Mac section, I'd suggest posting an article detailing how to make a transition to OS X easier. If there are other x86 users like you who are interested in switching to, or have to work with OS X for whatever reason, your guide can serve as a handy reference point for workflow migration tips and software suggestions.

    It won't be an article meant to plug for Apple, but something more along the lines of "So you've decided to give Macs a shot."

    Also, if you haven't found it already, check out www.macosxhints.com.
  • robg1701 - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Oh, and I agree with #4, turning off the 2nd display seems like a crude method to me. I have a tri-monitor setup of 19+22+19" (imminently becoming quad screens with the 28"WS TV) and I never turn the secondarys off anymore. I mostly play at desktop resolution, but there are a few games I have which simply dont support resolutions that high. For those i either reposition the monitors supposed locations, or simply get on with it and put up with a little reorganisation going on whilst its loading ;)

    The only game ive ever turned them off for was splinter cell, which whilst playable with them on, did show slight graphical glitches unles they were off (but i think we can all agree it had more than its fair share of those ;P).
  • joe - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    One last comment from the article. I think Apple has it right.

    Focusing on that stuff misses the whole point anyway. GarageBand is absolutely unique and will revolutionize desktop music. Not because of its features, but because of the miraculous ways that these features have been combined into a tool that -- just like iMovie -- delivers incredible expressive power to people who have more creativity and enthusiasm than specific technical skill.

    The snarky way to finish this column would be to say that the thousands of untrained auteurs who produce their own porno films with iMovie and iDVD can at long last create completely original and creatively-appropriate soundtracks for them as well.

    But in truth, GarageBand is one of those extremely rare apps that changes the entire creative landscape. This year, a film that swept the Sundance festival was made with iMovie for less than $200. This time next year, who can say how many great works will owe their creation to GarageBand?

  • Lucian - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Anand,,

    The retail Mac Radeon 9800 Pro has DVI, VGA, and S-video out connectors and is physically identical to the PC board. It is compatible with G4s _and_ G5s. (I was able to dig up the installation instructions ATI posted on their site.) You're right, it's not the best option for running dual digital displays, but as i mentioned earlier, it does support the ATI OpenGL Overrides. If you want to compare FSAA and AF in games that don't support those options via the in-game menus, then you might want to (re)consider.

    Also, the Mac Radeon 9800 Pro SE is clocked identically to the Radeon 9800 Pro. For the OEM and SE boards that don't have the external power connector, I believe the extra power is drawn from the same source that supplies power to the ADC.

    Lastly, it's highly unlikely you'll see a dual ADC video card because the cost to the consumer would be prohibitively high. Only a minute number of Mac users could need and afford such a product. I found it surprising enough that ATI chose to introduce an expensive, G5-only video card (the SE) before a midrange, mainstream card like the 9600 Pro.

    In any case, I can't wait to read your article.
  • joe - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Did I say not to miss GarageBand. Quote from the Chicago Times review:

    t's addictive and compelling. It makes all kinds of brain-sauces slosh around in approving ways and it quickly puts you under some sort of delightful hoodoo trance. Last night I fired it up, intending only to create a couple of screenshots to possibly illustrate this column.

    It was ten minutes' work, tops, but the last thing I remember was harmlessly plugging a mic into my PowerBook's sound-in jack and tuning up my ukulele. Then I was looking at a ten-track recording of "Amazing Grace" featuring two uke parts, four vocal parts, and a harmonica, organ, upright bass and acoustic guitar.

    And it was six o'clock in the freaking morning.

    Yes. It's Tetris, reincarnated. It encourages you to play with it and the moment you pick up the mouse you become submerged in a creative challenge. By the time you come back up for air, your significant other has committed a series of infidelities and your plants aren't doing too well, either.

  • joe - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    I waiting to hear your comments on GarageBand. It is the digital age. Steve Jobs says 1/3 of everyone has or will play a musical instrument. Look at the big picture of where Apple is going with there platform of hardware and software and digital integration. Intel makes chips. Microsoft makes software. Other software and hardware vendors make other products. Dell gathers them up and puts them all in a box. Here is another glowing review of GarageBand. It should be huge for Apple and plays right into the IPOD strength.
    http://www.suntimes.com/output/worktech/cst-fin-an...
  • lookmark - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Oh, as for maximizing a window (as opposed to he default zoom behavior, which maximizes the window to its content)... unfortunately, there's no OS-level standard for this. Some apps treat an shift-click to the green Zoom button as Maximize (OmniWeb is one), but many others won't.

    This behavior could definitely use a rethink, and a good deal of improvement.
  • lookmark - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    As mentioned in an earlier post, Apple provides a way to assign custom keyboard shortcuts in System preferences/Keyboard & Mouse/Keyboard Shortcuts.

    Personally, though, I find that it's a pretty clunky, bare-bones interface for doing such things, and if you're serious about creating your own macros, I recommend a third-party utility such as iKey, Keyboard Maestro, HotApp, Butler, or LaunchBar. There's a few freeware hot key / macro apps out there as well.

    Enjoy!
  • robg1701 - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Oh, and I agree with #4, turning off the 2nd display seems like a crude method to me. I have a tri-monitor setup of 19+22+19" (imminently becoming quad screens with the 28"WS TV) and I never turn the secondarys off anymore. I mostly play at desktop resolution, but there are a few games I have which simply dont support resolutions that high. For those i either reposition the monitors supposed locations, or simply get on with it and put up with a little reorganisation going on whilst its loading ;)

    The only game ive ever turned them off for was splinter cell, which whilst playable with them on, did show slight graphical glitches unles they were off (but i think we can all agree it had more than its fair share of those ;P).
  • robg1701 - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Anand, you can get round the secondary monitors windows/icons resizing/moving in non-desktop-resolution gaming on the PC by locating your secondary monitor on the left of the primary, as locations are derived from the left edge of the primry monitor.

    Utilities like Ultramon (www.realtimesoft.com) can make shortcuts that will allow custom monitor positioning whilst running an application, so you can use it to 'move' your monitor to the left of primary before running the game, and have it resotre it to its normal righthand position afterwards.
  • Brent S - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    It sounds like you are really trying to stay impartial during this trial, and I commend that. Its really difficult to do this, being that the whole Mac v. PC thing has a nearly inescapable tendency to polarize computer users.

    As far as the 'proper maintenance' issue goes, I am going to have to second an earlier post. This is pretty much a non-issue with OS X. Unless you are installing hacks to modify OS behavior, you can install pretty much whatever the hell you want and remove it by dragging it to the trash without any repercussions. The OS does a great job of isolating the user from the more sensitive areas where damage can be done while maintaining a good level of performance.
  • FreshPrince - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Anand, have you played with su yet?

    osx is pretty much the same as linux, once you get in su, everything you can do with linux distros you can pretty much do with osx, it's pretty sweet. Try it out if you haven't already done so :-)

    -FP
  • Alastair Jardine - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    You mentioned a KB shortcut for terminal? Well, there isn't one that I know of, but I can recommend an application to help you out: Launchbar

    All it does is sit in the background doing not a lot, and you bring it up by pressing command-space, typing the first few letters of the item you want to bring up (e.g. an address, email, document, application, system prefs pane, etc etc etc) and it launches it. It uses zero screen space when not in use, and once you get hooked, you will not be able to be without it again.

    Get it here http://www.obdev.com/

    Enjoy!
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    I'll post about this in the next Macdate but since it was brought up here I'll address it here as well:

    There are three R350/R360 based video cards for Macs: Radeon 9800 Pro ME (retail), Radeon 9800 Pro (OEM) and the Radeon 9800 Pro SE.

    The retail 9800 Pro is made for upgrading G4 systems, it is an AGP 4X card and thus will not work in G5 systems. This card only has a DVI and a VGA connector, so it's not the best option for running dual digital displays. I believe it also has an external power connector.

    The OEM 9800 Pro is made for the G5 as it is an AGP 8X solution and it also has one ADC & one DVI connector. I do not believe it has an external power connector so all power must be supplied by the AGP Pro slot; this may be the reason for the lower clock speeds.

    The Radeon 9800 Pro SE is a higher clocked, 256MB version of the 9800 Pro (128MB). It's also an AGP 8X card and will work in the G5. The card has both ADC and DVI outputs.

    Basically G5 owners can only either purchase the 9800 Pro from Apple while custom building their machine or they can order the SE. I would like to see a dual ADC version of the SE, but I've been wishing for desktop graphics cards on the PC to be dual DVI for years now.

    Thanks for the responses as usual.
  • Tim - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Sure would be nice to have a Mac forum on anand. I think the general trend is for Mac to be regarded on par with the PC world, so a Mac forum here would be nice. It's not needed to balkanize the computing world into camps. It's all good, and some are more good than others. :D
  • Jasenko Blazevic - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Question number 2:
    Another vote for LaunchBar, I would die if somebody force me to remove it from my system. I was never a keyboard nut until I started using this application, now, coupled with full keyboard access (in System Preferences) I hardly ever lift my fingers from the keyboard.
  • GTaudiophile - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Has ATi responded yet to tell you they are sending a Radeon 9800 MAC Edition? It's a great opportunity for ATi to exercise some good will, and I hope they do it. Maybe, they're just waiting to send that card to you along with the R420 sample?
  • Arky - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Hey, Anand,

    It's very odd you weren't able to run faster memory, Im sitting here running 2-3-3-6 OCZ 3200 DDR400 on my G5.

    Perhaps you should do a "memtest" Its a standard unix terminal test, is slow but thorough.
    I noticed that OS X is extremely picky about ram, I had to replace my first module of the ram I have!

    http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14004
  • Hameed - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    "Under OS X, the second display shuts itself off, UT starts on my primary display and then when I'm done both displays return me to my desktop - nothing has moved an inch. I'm happy. It's the simple things that make the platform impressive (e.g. keyboard shortcuts, yes I'm a nut)."
    And under W2K (don't use XP) you can have the same thing, or more!
    Setting Windows to horizontal span results in shutting down the second display once a game starts on the main one and it will turn on once you are out of the game. Now the "more" part, is to set my GeForce to dualview in which case the second display would still be active while I am ingame fragging and I can still see my IRC and trillian chats going on and particiapte while waiting for spawn :-/

    Maybe you can start a "proper" article about gaming with more than one display on a PC before the mac section?
  • Thomas - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    a mac section at AT...

    You can start with a forum for it. ;)
  • Simon - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    I take it you mean "zoom", which is not quite the same as maximize. There is no default keyboard short cut for it, but you can set one in system preferences/Keyboard & Mouse/Keyboard Shortcuts. You add a shortcut to the "All applications" section of Application Keyboard Shortcuts. The only tricky problem is finding a shortcut that is functional and unused in all applications. Zoom functions slightly differently in different applications. I use option z on a Japanese keyboard, but it doesn't work for iTunes where zoom toggles between the controller and the "maximized" view.
  • jeffosx - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Anand
    The degradation in OS from install and uninstall of apps etc over time is something that I havent seen in OSX. I have tried and trashed many apps in the 2.5 years of running the OS and things are the same as always. The only thing I worry about is the 3rd party OS hacks and the subsequent system upgrades as it seems that 1} they break and 2) they break other things.
    I love not having the registry or having to clean it out or worrying about dlls that remain etc. System maintenance is much less as OSX.3 defrags on the fly and upon upgrade (optimisation) and the cron jobs run through the night regularly. Swapfiles get added and deleted as needed also....
    I do repair permissions after installing any MS app and update prebindings however. For some reason they havent quite got the hang of it at the MS Mac BU yet IMO.
  • Lucian - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Anand,

    I would recommend requesting the retail Radeon 9800 Pro from ATI. It's core and memory clock run at the same speed as the PC board, while the OEM board is clocked lower (presumably to keep costs down for Apple). Another important factor to consider is that ATI's OpenGL Overrides control panel, which controls MSAA/SSAA and AF on a per app basis, only works with the retail card and not the OEM card. I understand that you have two ADCs...but...uhh...just plug one in? =)
  • Anonymous - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    "Under OS X, the second display shuts itself off, UT starts on my primary display and then when I'm done both displays return me to my desktop - nothing has moved an inch. I'm happy. It's the simple things that make the platform impressive (e.g. keyboard shortcuts, yes I'm a nut)."

    As a PC user, I sure love to be able to keep an eye on my Email account or watching an interesting eBay auction while playing a game or two ... shutting of the second display just seems a rather crude way to deal with dual display / gaming issues.

    Then again, using two digital TFTs, I don't tend to play at non-native resolutions, so the whole change_window_position-thing isn't much of an issue.
  • Paul - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    I'm not aware of any default way to do a keyboard shortcut for maximize, but a fairly quiet cool feature OS X has is support for ridiculous quantities of scripting. You could write a little Applescript that would maximize the foreground window whenever you executed it, then bind that script to a hotkey with Launchbar or some other app. ;)
  • JoshB - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    [quote]On the PC, you get this .exe file that runs setup, that in turn puts stuff everywhere. On the Mac, you get this one file, which extracts into one icon, which is everything packed in one. No setup, no questions, no clutter in the taskbar etc. Just one icon.[/quote]Puts stuff everywhere? Clutter on the taskbar??

    It puts everything under /UT2004Demo/. Go ahead and drag and drop the folder onto another HDD if you want, just like with a package it won't care.

    The installer is just there to automate extraction from the archive, to put a shortcut into the startmenu for quick launching and to put a reference into add/remove programs (for players who have trouble remembering where they installed to).
  • Judge_Fire - Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - link

    Having just installed both the Mac and PC version of UT2K4, my favorite difference was the setup/install phase.

    On the PC, you get this .exe file that runs setup, that in turn puts stuff everywhere. On the Mac, you get this one file, which extracts into one icon, which is everything packed in one. No setup, no questions, no clutter in the taskbar etc. Just one icon.

    That's the way it should be, a bundle with all the subfolders hidden inside - thanks Epic.

    As for your questions, #2 would be "T". In LaunchBar. (No, we're not getting paid to repeat LaunchBar several times in every post :D)

    On crashes; keep an eye on the Console, a lot of crash related info gets reported there.

    J

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