Mac OS Versions

[MibUK]

I haven't been able to find anything for this online, so thought I'd just ask here and see if anybody had any figures.

Trying to make sure my game will run on a Mac, I borrowed a freinds old iMac, got OSX 10.2 installed and discovered all the existing pkg files for python and stuff only work with Universal installers, Mac OSX 10.4 and above.

That got me thinking, I know next to bugger all about the Mac market, and I wondered what versions most people run. Is it like Windows where there are still a number of people running old versions, or can I assume that everybody has 10.4 and above?

[Musenik]

I build versions that run on Panther and Tiger. I'm using pre-universal 2.4 python and py2app. If you build from Panther, it runs on Panther. My minimum mac requirements are low enough, the games run fine under Rosetta.

[charlie]

10.2 is about 4 years old now. I'd target 10.3.9 and above.

Cheers
Charlie

[Dingo Games]

In my experience supporting old versions of Mac is often difficult (way more difficult than supporting the equivalent year-old Windows system). In general Mac users upgrade their OS more quickly than Windows users do. The numbers that I've seen would suggest that you would still want to at least support 10.3.9.

[Red Marble Games]

Based on my experience (all I sell is Mac games), you definitely will lose sales by requiring 10.4 or above, at least in the casual market that most of us target, maybe less so if your game is more hardcore. A substantial percentage of my customers are still using 10.3.9. I've also got a not insignificant number of people with 10.2, but that's getting really hard to support technology-wise. So I'd say no newer than 10.3.9, as of today, and if you could find a way to support 10.2 you would have a bigger audience for the game.

Mark

[Sillysoft]

I agree with everyone else: You've got to target at least 10.3.9+. Fewer and fewer people have 10.2 systems, and with the universal binary business not fully supported it's becoming more trouble to deal with.

[MibUK]

Great, thanks everyone.

Next mac question, I use python and pygame, just like musenic, and works beautifully on linux and windows. I know that it works on my designers 10.3.9 mac, so that all works. But it took a long time to get my designer to install the right apps to run it out of the box, so I looked at py2app to make it nicely runable.

Getting python to run on 10.2 with pygame seems nigh on impossible. I finally got python from various sources, but pygame and py2app seems really hard. Anyway, getting backing on point, I stopped trying to get all of this working as I wasn't sure how good the forward compatibility is.
If I get pygame, SDL et al in source form, compile it on the dev mac, and then py2app my game, will it run on later 10.3.9, 10.4 versions of MacOSX? And alternately, if I get a shiny macbook, with 10.4 or 10.5 on it and py2app my game,will that run on older machines?
Or in fact, a better answer (as I'm really not that lazy) where can I find this information out from, what python mac dev websites are there that will tell me all of this?
(I feel a blog post coming on... grrr)

[Phil Steinmeyer]

Sorry to interject here, but I've got a Mac issue of a slightly different note, and since there's already a Mac thread going...

I just got an e-mail from a customer using Mac OS-X 10.3 that couldn't run my game - supposedly hangs before it even gets to the main screen.

This makes me a little nervous because I recently updated my Mac build. I tested on my two Mac test systems (10.4.6, 10.2.8), and it works fine on both.

If any Mac users out there could do me a favor and give it a quick whirl (http://www.newcrayon.com/files/Bonnies_Bookstore_Macintosh.dmg) [edit - fixed link], I would very much appreciate it - just need to know if you can get into the game. If you'd like, I'll send you a free reg code for trying - just ping me with an e-mail at psteinmeyer AT newcrayon D0T com. Also, please let me know if you have an Intel Mac or PowerPC (G4/5) Mac.

Thanks,
Phil

[clilian]

If any Mac users out there could do me a favor and give it a quick whirl (http://www.newcrayon.com/files/Bonnies_Bookstore_Macintosh.dmg), I would very much appreciate it - just need to know if you can get into the game. If you'd like, I'll send you a free reg code for trying - just ping me with an e-mail at psteinmeyer AT newcrayon D0T com. Also, please let me know if you have an Intel Mac or PowerPC (G4/5) Mac.

Thanks,
Phil

Don't know if this is the right thread, but heer's my results :
Worked fine here iMac G5 Os X 10.3.9, PPC
Lilian :)

[Musenik]

I just tried Bookstore on our 500MHz G3, iMac running 10.3.9. It hangs during startup when 'New Crayon' drops down. The last three letters are in mid-fall.

Your link to the file didn't work. I downloaded it from your website front page.

Sorry, I can't give more feedback. There was nothing in the console log.

[Drake]

No problems with BB on my G4 running 10.4.8.

[tone]

No problems with BB on my G4 running 10.4.8.

Also fine on my system which seems identical to the above -- Powerbook here

tone