Quake 4 for Macintosh released

Austin (TX) - Aspyr Media today released Quake 4 game for both PowerPC and Intel powered Macintosh computers. Just like in the original version for PC and the Xbox, player assume the role of space marine Mathew Kane, who is on a mission to destroy a race of alien cyborgs called the Strogg.

Duane Johnson, Senior Software Engineer for Aspyr Media, told TG Daily that the Macintosh version will be faithful to the original game. Users can expect similar graphics and framerates ; a future patch will bring optimizations that, according to Johnson, will "provide a nice boost when running at lower screen resolutions".

One would think that converting a PC Windows game like Quake 4 to the Macintosh OS X operating system would be quite a challenge, but Johnson told us thet the OpenGL-based game engine simplified the port. "The ID rendering engines traditionally are built using OpenGL, so we die not have have to convert from Direct X to OpenGL, which was a big help," Johnson said.

Aspyr Media has converted numerous PC games to Macintosh platforms over the past ten years. Recently, the company has expanded into new segments and has begun releasing games straight to PCs and mobile phones.

Quake 4 for Macintosh carries a suggested retail price of $50 and is available now.