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Mac Gaming News - TransGaming Promises Faster Mac Game Ports With Cider

by , 10:15 AM EDT, August 3rd, 2006

TransGaming, Inc. on Thursday introduced Cider, technology that promises to convert Windows games to Mac OS X on Intel processors without the need for the long porting process traditionally required to bring titles to the platform. The company said that it has already forged agreements "with a number of the top tier video game publishers" to bring many of their titles to Intel-based Macs "in the next few months."

Cider isn't aimed at end-users, unlike TransGaming's Linux technology Cedega, but the company said that it doesn't require any modifications to the original Windows code when running a game on the Mac. It loads the software into memory and links it to Mac equivalents of various Windows APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). TransGaming said that it will work with publishers to make sure their games run properly, a process that it said will take somewhere between hours and a few days. Currently, porting a game to the Mac is a months-long affair.

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Close Name:Bookman Posts: 543 Joined: 22 Apr 2002
Thu Aug 03, 2006 1:30 pm Subject:

Whoa, sounds pretty cool.


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Close Name:macmikey Posts: 22 Joined: 18 Feb 2005
Thu Aug 03, 2006 2:18 pm Subject: Okay...

...so how is this different than virtualization? So you don't need to load Windows itself. There's still a layer in between the app and the O.S. I could see how things would be faster, but not how they could promise to be Windows equivalents.


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Close Name:Mikuro Posts: 457 Joined: 15 Jun 2002
Thu Aug 03, 2006 8:13 pm Subject:

Quote
macmikey wrote:
...so how is this different than virtualization? So you don't need to load Windows itself. There's still a layer in between the app and the O.S. I could see how things would be faster, but not how they could promise to be Windows equivalents.

This sounds more like WINE on crack than a VM or emulator. It delivers performance like a VM (i.e., very good) without the drawbacks (excessive memory usage, load time, etc.). WINE is very good when it works, but its compatibility isn't so hot, especially for games.

It sounds promising.


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