Macintosh

Normally I try to avoid being doom & gloomy as much as possible, but in all seriousness this is probably very bad news.

https://www.transgaming.com/news/nvidia-acquire-transgaming-s-cross-platform-portability-technology?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TransGaming+%28TransGaming+Inc.%29

NVIDIA has purchased the Cider division from Transgaming. Cider is the technology used to allow the EVE Online client, which is Windows/DirectX-only, to run on the Mac.

http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2015/06/11/nvidia-gameworks-studio/

NVIDIA's short announcement on the matter states that they will use the acquisition to "enrich our GameWorks effort."

Nothing is said about continuing Cider, and while it's unlikely that NVIDIA will immediately discontinue it, the writing is on the wall. In the short-term CCP should have a contract with Transgaming/NVIIDA that requires whoever owns Cider to continue delivering updates through the length of the contract. However in the long-term there's no reason for NVIDIA to continue developing Cider as they don't need to be in this market, they aren't even in the latest generation Macs, and they clearly have other plans for the technology.

Of course we'll have to see what CCP does. But without easy access to a decent Windows/DX wrapper, I fear this is the end for the official EVE Mac client.

maybe, just maybe, we will see some kind of statement from CCP

... yes, that's bad news.

The good news is that it's not just EVE that runs on Cider, so this announcement creates a void that someone else can fill. After all, Cider is based on WINE, and WINE isn't going anywhere.

Since Swift and Metal are the latest language and tool by Apple, it requires a COMPLETELY re-engineering of the game codes and graphic engine so CCP will never do it.

Eve is programmed in Python so converting all that to Swift would be a massive undertaking and one I seriously doubt CCP would ever take given that they haven't even given any idea if they'd ever look at properly coding for the Mac.

Cider is a half-arsed way of getting DirectX games to other platforms and one that could easily be rectified by coding for OpenGL instead. Sure OpenGL might not be as flash as DirectX on paper but development time for other platforms would be much shorter and require much less effort.

But Windows games developers are all about the graphics because they are shallow fools. ;-) I'd much rather slightly less pretty graphics for a client that doesn't suck any day of the week. But until the ditch DirectX for OpenGL that's all we'll ever get, a lame as client that isn't actually a port.

Related News on this: https://gametreemac.com/error_message.php?access_denied&id=78

It is rumored that this has to do with the sale of transgamings key-technology to NVIDIA.
No more Mac-Games on their own Platform...

News-Article about it (in german): http://www.mactechnews.de/news/article/Spiele-Plattform-GameTree-Mac-schliesst-161806.html

@CCP: any statement on EVE for the Mac soon?

In one respect we have had one comment from CCP that is loud and clear:
Since the announcement, very Eve update and patch had had a Mac version, without fail.
The future? A dev could come in here, make a comment, then, an hour later, go to a meeting where a new decision is made.

Makes me wonder if they can take the opportunity to building something internally. Whatever happens I’d like to the client be able to take advantage of things like Metal for Mac, that alone would provide a massive boost in not only performance, but stability also.