Whether it was through neglect or indifference or a market focus elsewhere, certain kinds of gaming have long been a PC-dominant endeavor. iPhone game app sales likely helped draw some attention to Mac users' game lust. So it was a pretty big deal when Valve announced Steam was coming to Mac users everywhere. Now according to a Valve employee, those desires are going to be stoked even higher.
It's the dirty little secret of every Mac gamer, that performance just isn't as great for gaming purposes. As flagged by 9to5Mac, in response to a thread of complaints entitled "Abysmal Performance" about how Macs represent in Steam games, a Valve employee gives hopeful news.
Image Source: 9to5Mac. (Wanna get shot? Here's our tips.)
"Performance is going to improve as drivers are updated," rbarris writes. "I would expect modest improvements in short term and larger ones in longer term. No, I can't put dates on them.
We are making a lot of progress is [sic] identifying specific issues that need work inside the game and inside OpenGL and drivers. Apple, ATI and NVIDIA are all involved."
With that set of names taking a crack at resolving graphics and processing issues, it's a sure bet that Steam and other kinds of gaming will improve on the Mac platform. While rbarris was explicit in stating that there's no calendar on the improvements users are likely to see, that he points to drivers is a good sign. It's a lot easier to get tiny software packages into users' hands than updated chipsets. So while Portal 2 might be getting pushed back to 2011, it's likely users will have seen improvements even before that glorious day arrives.
