WOW to work on Intel Macs

By Tom Bramwell Published 16 January, 2006

Soon, too.

We don't follow Macs much around here, but even we were interested in Apple's new range of Intel-powered ones. We're not actually sure why, it just seems somehow safer, like wearing kneepads when you go skydiving, maybe. I dunno.

Anyway, one of the less publicised things about the recent Macworld Intel revelations was the confirmation that World of Warcraft will work on Intel-powered Macs. Not right now, but very soon. Ars Technica reports that Blizzard had a little booth tucked away in a corner running a version of the game on the new Intel Macs.

Better still for those of you who've spent lots of money on an Intel Mac in the last few days, the WOW update required to play on Intel Macs will be released within three weeks or so.

Reports from Macworld suggest that the game loaded very quickly and the frame rate was fab. Ars Technica has some photos of it and everything.

Obviously we'll be getting The Brass to fund the purchase of a new PowerBook so we can check it out [Not bloody likely - The Brass].

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (19) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Japanpie #1 6 years ago

    Safe as Fcuk?

  • WhiteSaturn #2 6 years ago

    Erm, the PowerBook uses the G4s still. It's the new crappier named MacBook Pro that's got the super new dual core Intel chips.

  • WhiteSaturn #3 6 years ago

    rdexter: I got a new iMac less than 2 weeks ago, am gutted!

  • lucky_jim #4 6 years ago

    Don't be gutted, everyone who buys Apple computers knows it makes sense to wait until the 2nd generation of any hardware, as it takes that long to iron out the more serious quirks. You'll still get years of use out of your G5 iMacs and G4 PBs anyway, I'll gladly leave the early-adopters to struggle through the inevitable early problems thanks!

    On a more general note, it'll be interesting to see what effect the intel Macs have on the Mac gaming scene. My layman's theory is that it'll make it easier for PC games to be ported over, perhaps even released on the same disc, and the new Macs will be able to run them much better. If developers can just bung a few extra files on the DVD and make their game New-Mac-compatible, Mac gaming might actually take off (relatively). I'm no expert though so if any coder-types can enlighten me then I'm all ears (er I mean all eyes I guess, this being a text-based medium. You know what I mean).

  • Freki #5 6 years ago

    The problem with the new macs is that because they now use the same chips as Windows PCs it will allow an easier comparison in performance. People may then start to wonder why they are paying 2-3 times more for prettier hardware.

    Of coruse Apple didnt really have all that much choice as MS went and bought all the PowerPC chips!

  • Freki #6 6 years ago

    It is about twice the price of the new Epson Laptop with pretty much the same specs. Pretty sure a Dell would be even cheaper.

    Macs may be stylish, but they certainly aren't reasonably priced.

  • boardski #7 6 years ago

    Actually Freki the "macs are more expensive" argument just became alot more blurry.

    http://mikemchargue.com/2006/01/price- deathmatch-apple-macbook-pro-vs.html

    This is a pretty good side by side comparison. of course there are still a bunch more games avilable for the pc, but hopefully "real-time" emulation wont be that far away for the new macs and it would be interesting to see if the macs can pull of something like call of duty 2 without to much of a perfomrance hit.

    I have Macs and PC's at home but would love to be able to just use my macs, the PC's really are just there for games these days and I'd be willing to take the performance hit to get rid of them..

  • potatoes #8 6 years ago

    the intel macs also run windows, so you dont really need to port games anymore

  • joephish #9 6 years ago

    Erm, isn't the main problem with porting games to mac simply that directx doesn't exist for mac? Generally any C-code could be recompiled... it's just assembly and external libraries.

    In summary, will there REALLY be more games for the Mac just because they're using Intel now?

  • Sorb #10 6 years ago

    "the intel macs also run windows, so you dont really need to port games anymore"

    Not true, they canīt run Windows.

  • firm3d #11 6 years ago

    lucky_jim,

    It won't be that much easier to port games to Mac because what takes the time is writing the game to work with the software that's already there, like OpenGL, CoreAudio and (from 10.4) CoreImage. This would be simple if Microsoft didn't pimp DirectX so hard, since writing games to use OpenGL would bypass a lot of the work, but OpenGL has some stigma surrounding it (don't ask me if it's warranted).

    What will cheer you up, though, is that the processor would allow (with a firmware hack here and there) you to have a dual-boot system; use a Mac running Mac OS X for most things, but reboot into Vista for PC only games ... and if you find yourself missing viruses;)

  • Freki #12 6 years ago

    iPod and Xbox are somewhat an indication for that. Both are somewhat overprized, yet sell like warm bread.
    I really don't understand why the iPod sells so well, there are much better MP3 players out there for less money. iRiver and Creative would be my choice there. They also support more music formats. Style sheep the lot of them!
    but reboot into Vista for PC only games ... and if you find yourself missing viruses
    You know that Macs aren't actually any more secure than Windows machines don't you? (As the recent QT foul up shows) The only reason you don't get as many viruses on a Mac as opposed to a Windows PC is that not enough people have them to make it worthwhile for the virus writers. If you wanted to rob a house would you make the key that opens 1 door or the one that opens 19?

  • firm3d #13 6 years ago

    I didn't actually make any comments as to why there are more viruses ... sorry, as to why there are viruses on Windows operating systems, but if you really want to get into it: Microsoft are well known for their Bloatware approach to software writing (something Apple should be careful of these days, admittedly; Universal code makes me cringe) and that bloat means there are more back doors to exploit, and that there is no operating system (out of the countless dozens available) that is less secure or stable. The Unix-based user structure of Mac OS X means that if anything is being installed that can damage the core OS you have to enter an admin password, which makes it more difficult for malicious software to get a foothold.

    Another popular virus-writing habit is to disguise one file type as another, for example "xxximage.jpg.exe" but hide the .exe extension. The Mac equivalent (xxximage.jpg.app) wouldn't work because the OS recognises that you shouldn't be hiding the .app extension when another is evident.

    I could go on (like port access, as regards hackers), but the point I want to make is that the current Mac OS is a lot more secure than the current (or even, at present, the next) Windows OS. That does not mean it's infallible, otherwise there would be no need for the odd Security update I see in Software Update.

    PS
    Don't call iPod owners sheep when your choice of operating system makes a hypocrite of you!

  • firm3d #14 6 years ago

    Came across this at milkandcookies.com: http://www.pis tolwimp.com/media/40718/

  • Freki #15 6 years ago

    Can you actually give me a reason other than "style" why someone would buy an iPod over an iRiver or Creative MP3 player? Even iTunes is more restrictive than most other music download sites.

    My choice of operating system? I use four, which one were you referring to? I primarily use XP at home because of games (no suprise there this being a gaming website), cost (I build my own systems so can pick and choose components, something Apple doesnt allow) and finally because I do some .NET development at home some days. I use various shades of Windows in work as well as Mac OS, Redhat and even JCL. Hats off to anyone that prefers to work with Mac OS, but why do most Mac owners have to be so bloody fanatical about apple? Sure I like Windows but I don't think that BG is the messiah or anything and am certainly well aware of its faults (It is a shame that they haven't used Vista to reduce both the HD and memory footprint of Windows).

    Apple hardware is overpriced and until they adopted Intel chips underperformed other PC hardware. The big areas where Macs shine are Publishing and Image manipulation. Publishing will be Mac for a long while if only due to legacy reasons. Image processing, well until these new Macs came out, a PC was a damn sight faster than a Mac.

    Final thing I like about PCs? When something breaks I can fix it cheaply and easily. The cost of Mac components is frightening.

  • firm3d #16 6 years ago

    The iTunes Music Store isn't the only way to get music into iTunes. Freshly installed, it understands MP3, AIFF (A.K.A. WAV), WMV (the unencrypted, i.e. not DRM, variety), AAC (essentially MP4) and the Apple Lossless codec. If you like, you can download a patch to make it understand Ogg Vorbis files, so the software side of things is not a problem ...

    I personally prefer the iPod because all I have to do to synchronise my music, photos, videos, contacts, to-do lists and calender events is plug it into the computer (I would mention it's usefulness as a backup hard drive, but that would include any MP3 player). If you want to get into the more complicated stuff like installing iPod Linux to run iPod Doom, or use your headphones as a microphone for dictation, then you probably are better off getting another MP3 player for that.

    Fanatical about Apple? If I use a Mac for any bias, it's more against Microsoft than for Apple; while I do like Apple's design ethic, I'm the first to admit they make their share of stupid mistakes (like ditching FireWire support in the iPods for the sake of a millimetre; from instant mounting to "I'll just go make some coffee, 'cause USB 2.0 sucks so bad!";).

    As for cost of repair, I'd say it's much the same (as long as we're not talking Main Logic Board), because the components ARE the same.

  • Bumbuliuz #17 6 years ago

    Itīs strange to hear people saying they are gutted because of the switch to Intel. The thing is Apple annonced mid last year of this switch, so it shouldnt be such a suprise for anyone intrested in Apple products.

  • Bitkari #18 6 years ago

    powerpc is not why games aren't made for mac, nor is the lack of directx.

    the reason is that there is little will from publishers to make games for the mac due to the fact there aren't many mac users, and few of them buy games for their mac anyway.

    the move to intel may make things easier for publishers to make mac ports, but they aren't going to make them unless people actually buy them.

  • firm3d #19 6 years ago

    Bitkari - I was trying to approach the difficulty of porting games to the Mac from a technical stand-point, but the financial viability is probably a far greater factor, you're right.

    rdexter - Anyone buying a Mac within a month of the Expo could have put 2 and 2 together and seen that it would make sense to hang off and see what came out ... that is if they weren't in dire need of a new machine right the hell now (or rather, "then";). Like I told my Mum to hang off on getting herself a 20" iMac until we saw what was announced.