Practical, Cheap Mac Testing

[Phil Steinmeyer]

On the PC, as a reasonable bare minimum, you need to test your game on Win XP, 2000 and Win 98 if you support it. To be more robust, you should probably test on the different service packs, but I doubt many in the indie space do that. Certainly, there is a non-trivial chance that a game that works in XP won't in 98, or vice versa, but the chances of OS-related issues within major releases (i.e. across service packs) is low.

So, for the Mac, what is a reasonable, low cost testing standard for an OS-X 2D game (using SDL). Just test in the latest version (10.3.9 or 10.4), or test in 10.2, 10.1, and/or 10.0 as well? If the latter, then is there an easy way to test short of getting several different Macs to test on - like maybe some way to partition your drive and install a few versions of OS-X?

Any other thoughts/tips

[PoV]

I could be loony, but I'd think acquiring the latest and oldest MacOS X you can would be sufficent, and a Mac for each. The next MacOS X update should be showing up soon (which is why I havn't bought a MacMini yet), so I suggest waiting for that. Something significant mouse related (I think) was added to an earlier version of MacOS X (10.1 or 10.2... I can't remember). I also can't remember exactly what that was (scroll button support or multiple buttons?)... so yeah, I'm no help.

[Gnatinator]

...like maybe some way to partition your drive and install a few versions of OS-X? Any other thoughts/tips

I do exactly that. It works very well. My hardrive is partitioned like this (I dont have 10.2, if I did, it would be on here too):

[10.3.9 Development/Testing Partition]

[10.3.1 (or whatever the initial release was) testing partition]

[10.1 testing partition (dont use much at all because anything predating 10.2 was crap and wont run any of the libs I use)]

[OS 9 Gaming partition (I dont use it for testing because my libs dont support pre-osx, but this is great to have for old games)]


And there you have it folks, the indie mans solution for testing your mac ports

[Sillysoft]

Yeah, I also have my hard drive partitioned for multiple OS versions. To do it you boot the mac off of the install CD that came with it, and then select Disk Utility from one of the menus. You can then configure the partitions of the built-in HD. I currently have partitions for 10.2 and 10.3, and will continue to support both of them when 10.4 comes out (in a week or so). Right now 10.2 users account for about 15% of my mac peeps.

[Phil Steinmeyer]

What's the easy way to get ahold of old versions of Mac OS-X? Buy 'em on E-Bay, developer program, or what?

And do you guys run into compat issues for games between 10.0, .1, .2, .3, etc.?

[Red Marble Games]

I haven't had many compatibility issues; it has been more making sure that I don't use zippy new features from new OS releases until that version is widely adopted. 10.2 is a safe minimum target at this point, I think, but I wouldn't include anything that is 10.3 or 10.4 only yet -- unless you want to slice an already small market even more thinly!

[GrahamGoring]

I haven't had many compatibility issues; it has been more making sure that I don't use zippy new features from new OS releases until that version is widely adopted. 10.2 is a safe minimum target at this point, I think, but I wouldn't include anything that is 10.3 or 10.4 only yet -- unless you want to slice an already small market even more thinly!

So how do you know what's a 10.2 feature and what's a 10.3 or 10.4 as a primarily PC developer? Is there a nice list which says where OpenGL comes into the timeline, etc?

Thanks,

[Diodor Bitan]

And do you guys run into compat issues for games between 10.0, .1, .2, .3, etc.?

I had a most amusing issue with my key code entering message box. The rounded edit boxes this message box used were introduced in OSX 10.3, so all my 10.2 customers found out that after buying the game they had no place to enter their code and unlock the game.

Half way through implementing the message box using the in-game interface I was pointed in the right direction: the X-Code interface builder will issue compatibility warnings.

[Richard]

Okay here's a dumb question, what would you guys recommend machine wise for the multiple partition approach. We have plenty of Mac beta testers but I have been considering picking up a machine to do some additional testing.

Plus since I am a Unix guy by my original trade, I have been on the fence for some time about buying a machine.

[Sillysoft]

what would you guys recommend machine wise for the multiple partition approach.

Pretty much any mac with a 30+ GB drive can handle such partitioning. If you just want it for testing then get something cheap like a mac mini or an eMac. If you're considering using it for other purposes then you might want to get something better. Personally I think all of Apple's laptop models are awesome. I use a mac as my primary machine and I'm on my second iteration of 15" powerbooks. I see myself continuing with them for a long time. They're incredible laptops with everything a mac and unix head could desire - and it all just works. The newest ones are great, but you could also get some good deals on the last generation models from ebay.

[Codemattic]

So how do you know what's a 10.2 feature and what's a 10.3 or 10.4 as a primarily PC developer? Is there a nice list which says where OpenGL comes into the timeline, etc?

Arreksu has put together a pretty comprehensive list of what OpenGL features are available in which cards and which OS X versions:

http://homepage.mac.com/arekkusu/bugs/GLInfo.html