I'd like to note that Carbon apps will simply need a few tweaks and a recomplie... Carbon is still supported on OS X86. Oh, and Carbon apps can be emulated, fact Steve Jobs at WWDC showed off big Carbon apps like Photoshop and Word 2004 running under Rosetta quite nicely.
Also, these chips WILL be X86. Steve Jobs did a demo on stage at WWDC of OS X running on a Pentium 4, it doesn't get more X86 than that...
This post has been edited by Ragashingo : 03 July 2005 - 10:46 PM
There's a lot of misinformation here.
Rosetta will run ALL current OSX-Native PPC programs. That means carbon apps and un-ported Cocoa apps. However, Rosetta only emulates a G3. So Altavec is out, as is 64bit G5-optimized code. These programs may or may not work, It depends how they're written.
I'm sure Nova will run on Rosetta as it is. It will probably be unpayable however and I can't see ASW spending much time porting a game that will be quite old by that point.
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'd like to note that Carbon apps will simply need a few tweaks and a recomplie... Carbon is still supported on OS X86. Oh, and Carbon apps can be emulated, fact Steve Jobs at WWDC showed off big Carbon apps like Photoshop and Word 2004 running under Rosetta quite nicely.
I'm very skeptical as to the performance of Rosette. Steve was using a very powerful Intel machine (I've heard it was a quad-processor Pentium 4 3.6GHz, but I'm not sure), and he only started up few select applications. And it's bound to need gigs of Ram to work.
I'm also skeptical about Apple's estimates for porting code. Well-written cocoa should port fine, but carbon? That's whole new can of worms, especially if it wasn't developed in XCode. CodeWarrior is effectively abandoned as far as the Mac is concerned, and there will be no Intel version.
This is all academic of course, until Apple starts churning out Intel Macs and we get a crack at porting code. There's no point fretting over it until then 
This post has been edited by tycho61uk : 04 July 2005 - 04:12 AM
It was a single processor machine. Rosetta certainly isn't a performance product, but since Nova runs just fine on my 90 MHz PowerMac 7200/90 (!!), I don't think Rosetta will struggle to run Nova at an acceptable speed.
You can, of course, expect upcoming ASW titles to work natively on both architectures... because they're just that kind of company! 
best always,
Dave @ ATMOS
For you people who weren't here back then (I wasn't, either, but I read all about it), I suggest you to read all the old Ambrosia Times issues, especially the first who deal with... 68k to PowerPC. Especially, as, say, Apeiron and Maelstrom were meant to run well on even lower-end machines, they ran at good speed under emulation (ironically, both have been rewritten from 68k assembly to C(++) since...), so the same applies for Nova.
Nova may not ever run natively on Intel Macs. But have you ever had a problem running Maelstrom all these years? I don't think so.
My first computer that ran Nova was identical, except my monitor had to be greyscale- the 'red' beam had burnt out. My 333 mhz G3 upgraded PM8500/180 also runs Nova fine.
Wasn't there originally a 68k version that wasn't completed/released?
pipeline, on Jul 4 2005, 03:25 AM, said:
It was a single processor machine. Rosetta certainly isn't a performance product, but since Nova runs just fine on my 90 MHz PowerMac 7200/90 (!!), I don't think Rosetta will struggle to run Nova at an acceptable speed.
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Oops.
This post has been edited by orcaloverbri9 : 04 July 2005 - 08:15 AM
Ragashingo, on Jul 3 2005, 10:27 PM, said:
I'd like to note that Carbon apps will simply need a few tweaks and a recomplie... Carbon is still supported on OS X86. Oh, and Carbon apps can be emulated, fact Steve Jobs at WWDC showed off big Carbon apps like Photoshop and Word 2004 running under Rosetta quite nicely.
Hmm...that's what I get for not doing as much research as I should've. :unsure:
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Also, these chips WILL be X86. Steve Jobs did a demo on stage at WWDC of OS X running on a Pentium 4, it doesn't get more X86 than that...
Dude, that was the demo. That means the actual product could be very different. Intel is working on several different chipsets, which Apple will be using. However, these are not yet available, so Apple is stuck with Pentium 4s.
tycho61uk, on Jul 4 2005, 04:10 AM, said:
I'm sure Nova will run on Rosetta as it is. It will probably be unpayable however and I can't see ASW spending much time porting a game that will be quite old by that point.
I'd like to note that ASW almost definitely has or will soon have a developer's preview Intel-based Mac to work on. This means they can get Nova working on Intel-based Macs long before said Intel-based Macs are actually available.
This post has been edited by orcaloverbri9 : 04 July 2005 - 08:16 AM
Zacha Pedro, on Jul 4 2005, 11:53 AM, said:
Nova may not ever run natively on Intel Macs. But have you ever had a problem running Maelstrom all these years? I don't think so.
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The differences between 68k and PPC are small when compared to the differences between PPC and x86. It's pretty amazing, but I can run old B+W mac games from 1984 with Panther (under Classic, of course) provided they were well written :blink:
Comparing Maelstrom with EV Nova is like comparing Pong with Unreal Tournament (OK, maybe that's too strong!). PPC programs running on Intel via Rosetta are being translated on the fly, from one instruction set to another. It's not the same thing as simulating a 68LC040 as is the case in the PPC running 68k apps. Plus, unlike the venerable 68040 of lore, the IBM 740 which Rosetta simulates (aka. the G3) is not top-of-the range anyway.
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Rosetta certainly isn't a performance product, but since Nova runs just fine on my 90 MHz PowerMac 7200/90 (!!), I don't think Rosetta will struggle to run Nova at an acceptable speed.
That's very true! But I'd wager it was hogging the CPU and running under OS8.x or 9. OSX requires a VAST amount of CPU time and memory for all it's magical effects, and it won't let single applications hog the CPU. And that's before we add the cost of on-the-fly code translation and the memory that Rosetta will undoubtedly gobble-up.
This is the age of bloatware people 
orcaloverbri9, on Jul 4 2005, 11:15 PM, said:
Dude, that was the demo. That means the actual product could be very different. Intel is working on several different chipsets, which Apple will be using. However, these are not yet available, so Apple is stuck with Pentium 4s.View Post
Uh, no, that's what we in the business call wrong. Whatever is produced by intel for Apple will be using the x86 architecture, because that's the architecture that Apple has asked it's developers to target.
They might be producing a different variant of an x86 chip for Apple (say, a Pentium M chip), but it will still be an x86 instruction set chip.
Dave @ ATMOS
tycho61uk, on Jul 5 2005, 12:16 AM, said:
That's very true! But I'd wager it was hogging the CPU and running under OS8.x or 9. OSX requires a VAST amount of CPU time and memory for all it's magical effects, and it won't let single applications hog the CPU. And that's before we add the cost of on-the-fly code translation and the memory that Rosetta will undoubtedly gobble-up.
This is the age of bloatware people
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Also wrong. Mac OS X allows any process as much CPU time as it can give. If you're running no background services (like filesharing), and no other applications are doing anything, Mac OS X will give nearly 100% CPU to whatever process needs it. In my case, I've seen my copy of LightWave 7.5 chew up nearly 193% of my total CPU of 200% (dual-proc G4). It couldn't use any more than that, due to inherent inefficiencies in splitting a task across multiple execution units. A small percentage of the rest of the CPU was used for IO and system tasks.
Remember that Mac OS X on Intel will be native!! In fact, it already is! Rosetta won't need to touch Mac OS X, since it's all already Intel code. All it needs to look at is Nova. Assuming a 3GHz P4 (which is not unreasonable), and assuming that Rosetta runs three times slower than an equivalent set of native "Carbon for Intel" code, that'll still mean Nova will be running on a 1GHz P4. Sorry, mate, but that's more than enough to run Nova, and run it comfortably.
Even if Rosetta turns out to be gluggy as hell, and I mean ultra gluggy, it'll still be fine. I mean, let's say that our 3GHz P4 is reduced to a 300MHz one, equivalent speed. That's a ten-fold speed decrease, something I find highly unlikely. Well, Nova runs perfectly well on a 233MHz G3 Rev B iMac.
I think we'll be fine.
Sorry for ranting, but I hate disinformation.
Dave @ ATMOS
Good job pipeline
I do sorta worry about emulating Nova on Intel though. For instance will Nova's weird screen drawing be emulated at the same level of weirdness or might it be even worse. Look at old games such as Harry and Ares + Classic emulation = unplayable...
I used to get 11 FPS on my 7200 with all of the optional effects, and not really that much more on my 333mhz. I can see frankly any speed of modern intel running Nova more than acceptably. Only in major battles do I ever have any real trouble, or when I have more than one big (Kemet big, not a puny Leviathan) ship in system do I really have ubertrouble.
pipeline, on Jul 4 2005, 11:30 PM, said:
Sorry for ranting, but I hate disinformation.
Dave @ ATMOS
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Well I stand corrected!
This 7200 of yours; was it a standard configuration? I used to run Nova on my Radius 81/110 (256mb Ram with a G3 250mhz upgrade) and it was almost unplayable. Very choppy. Granted, this was an upgraded Nubus machine but the G3 made it pretty snappy in most other apps.
My 7200/90 was indeed a standard Apple configuration, but a very good one. It had absolutely maxxed out L2 cache RAM (which was on the motherboard in those days... all 256K of it), 1MB of VRAM, which gave me a full 64 bit path direct from my processor to video memory (made for very fast graphics for the day), and 256MB of RAM.
All in all, for a little 90MHz machine, it ran like stink. Most of Nova's early development was done on it.
I think Nova in it's final incarnation runs a little slow with all options on, but having so much RAM makes it really quite acceptable. Nova loves RAM.
best always,
Dave @ ATMOS
pipeline, on Jul 4 2005, 06:21 PM, said:
Uh, no, that's what we in the business call wrong. Whatever is produced by intel for Apple will be using the x86 architecture, because that's the architecture that Apple has asked it's developers to target.
They might be producing a different variant of an x86 chip for Apple (say, a Pentium M chip), but it will still be an x86 instruction set chip.
Dave @ ATMOS
So I've heard. I really shouldn't repeat stuff I read randomly on the internet. :mellow:
pipeline, on Jul 5 2005, 10:01 AM, said:
My 7200/90 was indeed a standard Apple configuration, but a very good one. It had absolutely maxxed out L2 cache RAM (which was on the motherboard in those days... all 256K of it), 1MB of VRAM, which gave me a full 64 bit path direct from my processor to video memory (made for very fast graphics for the day), and 256MB of RAM.
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Hmm...I think we must have different ideas of what "running a little" slow entails. My Radius 81/110 (basically an 8100/110 - a very fine machine, but sadly now dead) had a 512kb backside cache on the G3 card (and 256kb of L2 RAM although I think the G3 disabled it) and 4MB or VRAM on a 64-bit PDS graphics card. I think it actually had more than 256Mb of RAM too - I just sunk all my 72pin RAM into into. OS 8.6.
At 1024x768, Nova was playable, but jerky as soon as the action hotted up. And loading took an age.
That Mac was much more stable than my USB iBook running OS9...
This post has been edited by tycho61uk : 06 July 2005 - 06:55 PM
tycho61uk, on Jul 6 2005, 07:24 PM, said:
Hmm...I think we must have different ideas of what "running a little" slow entails. My Radius 81/110 (basically an 8100/110 - a very fine machine, bad sadly now dead) had a 512kb backside cache on the G3 card (and 256kb of L2 RAM although I think the G3 disabled it) and 4MB or VRAM on a 64-bit PDS graphics card. I think it actually had more than 256Mb of RAM too - I just sunk all my 72pin RAM into into. OS 8.6.
At 1024x768, Nova was playable, but jerky as soon as the action hotted up. And loading took an age.
That Mac was a much more stable than my USB iBook running OS9...
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I ran at 800x600. And trust me on this, the NuBus architecture wouldn't have benefitted much from the G3. Nova would probably not have touched it.
Dave @ ATMOS
pipeline, on Jul 6 2005, 09:33 AM, said:
And trust me on this, the NuBus architecture wouldn't have benefitted much from the G3. Nova would probably not have touched it.
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Adding the G3 had a huge effect on the computers speed. It easily doubled performance if not more.
But I know when I'm beat - I'll just shut up now
This post has been edited by tycho61uk : 06 July 2005 - 07:04 AM
