Going Mac?

[KNau]

Hi,

I am set on porting my games to the Mac platform (and maybe even doing Mac exclusives!) and I'm looking for advice on the system I'm buying. I want to start at the low-end of the Mac spectrum to ensure basic compatibility, here is the (used) system I'm looking at:

iMac DV 400 MHz
192 MB Ram
10GB Hard Drive
4x DVD-ROM
ATI Rage 128
OS X

Is that a good base line for the "average" minimalist Mac system out there? I will be picking up a used G5 probably in November for the upper end.

Also, my PC is hooked up to cable modem, does anyone know if the Mac can share that connection through a router? Sorry, I know absolutely nothing about the Mac platform. Any advice on usage, software or community info sites is much, much appreciated!

Thanks!

[Chris Evans]

I'm fairly new to the Mac world as well, but I can answer your question about sharing connections.

You can indeed share your internet connection with your PC. If you have at least average knowledge of setting up a home network, then you shouldn't have a problem at all doing it yourself. I have two PCs and an I-Mac all going through a single router. Also, I have all three computers networked together, so I can easily share files between them.

[Rainer Deyke]

I managed to compile my latest game on an even lower-end used Mac. As long as it's got OS X, it's usable (for 2D games that target low-end computers).

[Sillysoft]

That computer will work fine, but it probably won't be a joy to use. It will be a little slow, although putting some more RAM in might help that. Normally I would chafe at the 10 GB hard drive. If you want to really use it as a mac test box then I would advise installing both mac os 10.2 and 10.3 on different partitions. That is assuming that your software will support them both (which may not be the case). G5s cannot boot into 10.2, so to test there you will need another machine that can.

[lexaloffle]

I think any machine running OS X which is slower than the machine you specify would be a rarity. I'm developing on a 400MHz G4, which is well fast enough for making Mac builds.

Yes, we have several PCs and a Mac going through the same ADSL router.

[KNau]

Cool, thanks for the info!

[Fish-Guy]

I don't have an Imac, I have a 200MhzPowerMac 6500. I use Carbon for my Mac ports, so I can build the projects and test them (very slowly I might add!). My friends have OSX so they do my Mac testing for me. Good thing is that it runs the Internet OK without any special software.