Aspyr Game Agent

To be honest, my G3 is 17 months old. It was the last laptop in the line, and for certain is a G3 900. I cannot upgrade my video card, as it is a laptop... hence, 7500 is what I have for a video card. I didn't see this application around when I bought my laptop at the end of 2003. As that is the case, I'm going to take a guess that this application concept was put into production when everything was a G4 on the market. Due to that, and the cost in time that testing costs, it is likely that Aspyr only tests on G4 and G5 these days, making it quite reasonable why the 'required' specs are G4 on so many games. Besides this, the majority of apple computer lines aren't powermac, therefore are not video card upgradeable. For that reason, it also makes sense of Aspyr's apparent decision to concentrate on G4 testing. Also, whatever problems Aspyr runs into during testing, they are obliged to fix, which means more programming hours, longer production time, less time on the sellable market, creating a loss of funds that could be quite substantial. While I agree it would be nice if Aspyr bought a single G3 powermac and maxed out the video card and ram for a single testing machine, their apparent choice to concentrate on G4s makes the most business sense. Yes, I like my G3 notebook... but I'll acknowledge that from a business standpoint in the gaming arena, and the current market share of the mac, and the projected potential market share due to the mini still makes the G4 the primary processor to have the majority of games tested on to ensure compatability and gleam the highest profit in the area. And to take the extra effort to make sure the power users who likely have the most money anyway with their dual 64 bit processors are not dissappointed as they are a current and a future clientel. The simple fact is that the G3s are the 10 or 20 percent of the gamers...the extra man hours to cater to the G3 clientel on a gaming level beyond child educational/gaming software is simply overly expensive compared to profit that is made currently on the mac platform... that's just all there is to it. That Aspyr is putting some money into the mac platform... that is investing... I'm thrilled about myself, even if my G3 processor is shunned. This Game Agent is an example of a gaming company investing in a platform in order to reap a potential profit. And I hope they reap that profit. While Blizzard does win out in that they have their cds at every store mac/win anyway(Every store that sells your game is as convenient as it gets), making Blizzard simply the most convenient for mac gamers, Aspyr is trying to create a convenience to mac customers that no one else has... through this standalone software product. While I would prefer that aspyr would make all their software include mac/win versions, the fact that aspyr makes for mac second is no secret, and while it gets them on the market longer for windows sales, it's something mac users have grown to accept in games in general. ~~ end of market ramble... lol

Ok, his english was really poor, but this software totally sucks. I'm on a 2x2.5 G5 with 2 Gigs of ram and this little gem of freeware goodness tells me that my machine isn't capable of running any of the stuff. Quite hilarious in that I run about 2/3 of the new release titles at full tilt.

I have to agree. I don't see the point in this application at all. The out-of-the-box specs for Macs are readily available so any new games should be written with those specs in mind (as best as time allows). The only way those specs change is if you get new parts for your computer and those are always better. I mean, who puts in a slower videocard or takes out Ram?