Mac OS X versions popularity

[Jack Norton]

Does anyone (maybe Cas with his tracking system) have some *reliable* data on the various Mac OS that are commonly used nowadays?
I ask because I tried a few of the new games with the "supposed universal" binaries, and 70-80% crashes after few minutes on my ibook, running 10.3.5 (I never ran apple update again, after I had to reinstall everything because it corrupted Xcode).
So far my only solution was to make 2 builds, one for 10.4+ and one for 10.3.9 and below. But I'm wondering if maybe the percentage of Mac users without 10.4+ is becoming very very small... ?

[mot]

This is from my database, continuously updated:

Mac OS X10.1 1
Mac OS X10.3 4
Mac OS X10.3.4 4
Mac OS X10.3.5 2
Mac OS X10.3.8 1
Mac OS X10.3.9 640
Mac OS X10.4 32
Mac OS X10.4.2 26
Mac OS X10.4.3 27
Mac OS X10.4.4 15
Mac OS X10.4.5 26
Mac OS X10.4.6 88
Mac OS X10.4.7 184
Mac OS X10.4.8 3075
Mac OS X10.4.9 9
Mac OS X10.5 2

[Emmanuel]

The only reliable way to have a game that works fine on both OS X < 10.3.9 (ie. 10.2, 10.3, 10.3.5) on PPC, and OS X >= 10.4 on Intel, seems to be to compile the same code twice, once with XCode 1.5 on ppc, once with XCode 2.0 on Intel, and then glue the two executables with lipo. Building the game once for both ppc and intel on an Intel machine with XCode produces an executable that only works on OS X 10.3.9 and up. Both Mystic Inn and Atlantis Sky Patrol are built as Universal binaries this way, and they ship with the proper frameworks (ie. OpenAL); do try them and let me know if they have any issue on your 10.3.5 Mac. God only knows what we will have to do to maintain compatibility when Leopard comes out.

Best regards,
Emmanuel

[Ryan Clark]

That's very strange... we haven't had any problems getting our games to work on 10.3 and 10.4 (they work on 10.2, as well). We just followed Apple's instructions on how to create a universal binary, and it worked perfectly.

Perhaps the difference is that we're using SDL? I'm really not sure.

[Arthur]

That's very strange... we haven't had any problems getting our games to work on 10.3 and 10.4 (they work on 10.2, as well). We just followed Apple's instructions on how to create a universal binary, and it worked perfectly.

Perhaps the difference is that we're using SDL? I'm really not sure.

Could it be related to PTK, Emmanuel? We have experienced exactly what you described.

[Jack Norton]

Just FYI, the games that crashes on my ibook are made with Torque Gamebuilder.

[Ryan Clark]

It might be related to OpenGL, as I believe both PTK and Torque use it. We use straight SDL (no OpenGL) and have had no problems.

I've got 3 different Mac test machines, a G3 with 10.2, a G4 with 10.3, and a Core Duo with 10.4. Our games work on all 3, just building a universal binary from Xcode. No lipo needed.

I hope this helps, in some way.

[Emmanuel]

That's very well possible (that it's ptk or OpenGL related). We found a reliable way to make it work everywhere while offering a single download to the customer so we're happy, but it's interesting to know that it's not purely as XCode-related as I thought.

Best regards,
Emmanuel