Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => The Theory of Everything => Topic started by: 551262 on December 09, 2014, 12:22:55 AM

Title: Differences: Mac version vs PC issue
Post by: 551262 on December 09, 2014, 12:22:55 AM

Today I want to showcase some of the differences between the Mac version and the PC version of SMAC. SMAC-X in the Mac version tends to retain the same properties as the main SMAC binary. I should probably say that on Windows I have the plain un-updated version straight off the CD under Windows 7 x86. Straight from the factory.

Let's get started. I am limited to five attachments per post, as I have 21 images on hand, this will be interesting.

This is Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. It was in service as Apple's current OS for a long time. I like it. Some features of 10.5 I do like, like where you can preview a document just by selecting it and then pressing the space bar. But as I'm running this on a PowerPC G4 7450 at 800MHz, this is about the most it can handle. A PowerPC G4 is about equivalent to a higher end Pentium III or M, maybe a mid-range Pentium 4.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=898)

Let's reboot into Mac OS 9 to show what this game probably would have been played like in 1999 or 2000. Mac OS 9 has some advantages over OS X, and also quite a few disadvantages. It has no CLI, multi-tasking isn't as good as OS X, stability is not quite as good (you need 10.2.8 to be stable though, anything earlier is dicey), programs tend to be 1995 vintage and other minor to moderate issues. It does have the advantage of speed, file sharing is superior over OS X as a server to old Macs, memory demand isn't that much (~45MB for the OS is typical), can play older games and programs better than the Classic Environment can emulate, and other things. To reboot into OS 9, you can hold down the Option/alt key after a reboot (by the way, that *bong* sound Macs make is a indication that POST has been successful) or use the Startup Disk control pane inside OS X, like as you see here.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=912)

Mac OS 9, for those who've never seen it before. It may look archaic, but remember this came out in 1998/1999 and was basically an extension of Mac OS 8.5/8.6. A lot of legacy code and operation principles was still present. Practically analogous in overall function to Windows 98SE or perhaps Windows 2000. Here, you can see a little neat feature where you can drag the title bar of a window to the bottom edge of the screen, and it can "stay there" for quick and easy access. I believe this was a merit inherited from NeXTSTEP or OpenSTEP.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=911)

This is the SMAC CD. I also have the SMAC-X CD that is sitting in an external USB CD drive. The Extras and QuickTime Installer folders are open.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=910)

The Movies and Data folders.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=897)

Let's install the game. Not that different from regular installer programs.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=894)
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=908)

Here's the product after a fresh install. SMAC 1.4.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=907)

The contents of the application root folder. Any not shown are empty.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=903)

A Get Info window on the program. Equivalent to the Windows' Properties... selection.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=904)

Dear goodness! 65MB of RAM? ... Oh perhaps I should explain. Prior to Mac OS X, you could use a window like this one to designate how much RAM a program is allocated. Because of the way the memory stack in Classic Mac OS worked it wasn't totally usual to have to play with this a little bit (reduce it if you're low on memory, increase it if you have more and want ... the possibility of smoother operation). The system requirements say a PowerPC 603e was the minimum requirement, with System 7.5.3, but I think that is laughable considering how much lag I get with a CPU and platform at least 4x faster than any 603e Power Macintosh ever made. As for memory, there is 768MB installed, VM is totally unnecessary and so it can have as much as it wants. (73MB is used up by the RAM Disk. Also this model will take up to 1GB of RAM. In OS X, memory is managed completely differently.)
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=900)

Let's start up the program. On the surface, it looks and operates pretty much the same way as ... SMAC normally plays like.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=893)

If you load a save game or scenario, you get this dialog box. On OS X, you see the desktop background and a standard Open window. Good time for a crash, too. There's no built-in directory browser like you get on Windows.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=913)

This is a game I started sometime last year, to fiddle with the Believers. I think it's Small map, Talent difficulty. This was also the game where Lal begged me for 0 credits to satisfy his followers. I don't think I've finished it yet, though I do have a game on my ThinkPad whereby I'm playing Huge MoP as the Believers. On this particular base here, I'm trying to get a fungal pop before the other bases finish their tree farms.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=891)

In this build window you'll note that you see "Combat", "Assault", "Defense" as part of the unit classification. Curiously, those tags don't show up with SMAC-X, neither with SMAC Carbon or SMAC-X Carbon (when played within OS X).
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=901)

Another thing I noticed versus the Windows binary is that when you pull up a Faction Profile (commlink, right click their name. On Mac OS 9, because it doesn't understand right-clicks, you use a Control+click), you get to see what Social Engineering settings they're using. It's handy.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=892)

Let's inspect SMAC-X, starting with the CD.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=909)

Some other folders. GameRanger was a program that people used back in the day to find game servers and hook up to them, and there were many different games that it handled. I personally used it for playing Ghost Recon back in the day.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=899)

Here's SMAC-X showing the build window. Yes I just used the scenario editor to grant myself some tech. The concept is the same. Note how the unit tags aren't the same as SMAC.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=906)

Let's reboot back into OS X real quick. Here's the Startup Disk CDEV.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=905)

Here's the Classic Environment starting up in OS X. You only get it if you have 10.4 or earlier, and it only runs on PowerPC processor machines. The Intel machines use Rosetta, a PowerPC emulation environment. Because SMAC Carbon and SMAC-X Carbon is PPC only, you have to use it with Rosetta. Having used it on a Mac mini, it works okay. But since the installer for SMAC is a Mac OS 9 and earlier program, it can get a little interesting to install it on a machine with an Intel processor.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=902)

The Classic Environment starts up like a regular virtual machine, but once it has finished "booting" then it goes in the background and behaves more like an application rather than showing up as a window with an OS like what you get with something like SheepShaver. I've never tried using SMAC within SheepShaver. I did note that running SMAC and SMAC-X on a Intel Mac mini I had was about as slow as this iMac G4. Pfft. On my X200, the game flies no problem.

More tidbits: There is no "live music" or "action-responsive music" like you get with the Windows version. Instead you just get a continuously looping MP3 background music. There's no sound response to building a base, combat or any such musical effects associated with those activities. Psi combat is interesting: instead of ramping up in pitch as the fight is extended, it merely just goes like "eeEeEEeEEEEEEE ... PEASH!" for something pitiful like a larval mass mindworm but for something like a great boil then it just goes like "eeEeEEeEEEEE ... eeEeEEeEEEEE ... PEASH!". The pitch remains the same.

Oh yeah all the Control key sequences are remapped to the Command key, so to call up the scenario editor you would use Command + k rather than Control + k. This is because the control key is used to right-click on Macs, which don't always have two or three button mice.

What else can I think of...Oh maybe I should clarify what "Carbon" means. Carbon usually applies to a certain range of Mac OS programs that have some Mac OS X code in them, so they can run natively. Carbon programs will run in OS X and OS 9 just fine, ... trying to think of a Windows equivalent ... ugh yeah all I can say is that it's basically one of the ways that people tried to make stuff compatible with both OS X and OS 8/9 back in the transition days.

Other than those, yeah that's all I can think of for now.

Title: Re: Differences: Mac version vs PC issue
Post by: 551262 on December 12, 2014, 04:58:22 PM

0 replies, 20 views?

I was told that curiosity killed the cat, but I'll pretend it was napping this time instead, so it still lived for another day. ;)

Title: Re: Differences: Mac version vs PC issue
Post by: Buster's Uncle on December 12, 2014, 04:59:11 PM

I don't have anything to say...

Uh, meow?