TransGaming Inc.

[Suicide machine 53]

Well, today (actually, that would be yesterday, already), I added James Bond 007: Nightfire. Since wiki said, it was ported to Mac by TransGaming, I obviously added that information. Later on, I decided to create a typical developer page, like we usually do - skipping the fact, the page, doesn't show a Mac port, even though - it should, I did some digging to get a little more information about mentioned company. Turns out they've been around for quite a long amount of time. Anyway, we have 3 pages that refer to them:

- James Bond 007: Nightfire (which should be alright - they ported it to Mac)

- Jade Empire (which states they're responsible for OS X distribution)

- Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (which lists them as OSX porter)

 

The thing is, I did some digging, because I wanted to get some kind of a list of games, they've ported to Mac /OS X. However, I came across a technology they use called Cider, instead. They apparently use constantly in porting games from Windows to Mac / OS X - or do they even port? Because it's not that clear, now.

 

What is Cider?

Ciderâ„¢ is an extremely powerful technology that allows games to be released day and date with their PC counter-parts giving publishers significant upside revenue potential and leveraging marketing and branding initiatives. Cider also allows publishers to release either dedicated Mac versions of their games or PC/Mac hybrid versions (i.e. both versions of the game in a single box).

 

How does Cider work?

TransGaming's Ciderâ„¢ Portability Engine is a proprietary technology that allows PC games to be enabled on Apple's Intel Macs without the traditionally expensive and arduous need to redevelop a game from the ground-up. Cider acts as a "wrapper" around the PC game dynamically translating PC API calls to the Mac OS X operating system. As such, games can be enabled with Cider in a matter of days to weeks as opposed to the typical man years that traditional development takes.

Cider works by directly loading a Windows program into memory on an Intel Mac system and linking it to an optimized version of the Win32 APIs. TransGaming's Cider implements common multimedia Windows APIs such as Direct3D, DirectInput, DirectSound and many others by mapping them to Mac equivalents. This allows games to run with equivalent game play and performance but without the typical brute force porting effort typically required to bring games to Mac.

 

(...)

 

Who's using Cider?

TransGaming currently has signed agreements with top tier publishers for some of the largest gaming franchises in the world. See the Cider homepage to see who's using Cider and check out a list of Cider Powered Games. Many Cider Powered games are available to purchase as a digital download at www.gametreemac.com or by visiting the Apple store.

 

As for the list, it can be found under:

http://transgaming.com/cider/games

 

Then, I got to some newses:

• TransGaming to Develop EA Titles for MAC OS X
• Mature-Rated “The Darkness II†Now Available for Mac OS X
• Grand Theft Auto trilogy hits the Mac

And I'm quite lost. So, the questions would be - are they actually porting games, or just developing a wrapper (how different is this to, let's say - Wine?), that is then shipped with a game? This kind of matters, if we want to list them as OS X / Mac porters and because of that - it would be nice to figure it out - how much is done by them and how much is done by original developer. I'm guessing, if it turns out - they only develop a wrapper, which is only then adjusted in some way by original game developer - then, there is completely no point in listing them as OS X / Mac porter on any of the pages, is that right? Anyone wants to loose some time on breaking this down? Or maybe understands how it works better and outright say whatever we should list them or not.

[Andytizer 269]

I suppose that whilst they are not really 'porting' (not in the way that we would find acceptable) they are the company responsible for that version of the game, which is kind of what that section of the Infobox is for. TransGaming is where you would go to for support and you might find common fixes for their ports (especially as they use the same method each time).

[Suicide machine 53]

I suppose that whilst they are not really 'porting' (not in the way that we would find acceptable) they are the company responsible for that version of the game, which is kind of what that section of the Infobox is for. TransGaming is where you would go to for support and you might find common fixes for their ports (especially as they use the same method each time).

Does that mean, we can list them as them for games like Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, GTA 3, GTA San Andreas and a lot of others? :P