G-Force 3.5, older hardware compatibility, and beyond

[andy55]

G-Force 3.5 is a significant leap forward in the history of the product. Finally being able to use OpenGL to offload a lot of the intense computation from the system CPU onto the graphics card's GPU has been something we've all been looking forward to for a long time. The new OpenGL engine provides a powerful platform for G-Force and other products currently in development, so we're very excited about the future.

Advances in technology don't come without consequences. In G-Force's case, although we tried to make it as compatible as possible with older hardware, the 3.5 release showed that there were still a few users with older Apple hardware that doesn't support OpenGL (or a particular OpenGL extension). We are trying to address this issue, but there is only so much we can do and not be stuck developing for older hardware instead of bringing next-generation visuals to reality.

Before you throw your hands up in the air with frustration, consider this: how many of today's modern 3D games run well on hardware that's 2 years old? How about 3 or 4 years old? The answer to the last question, especially, is very few. While we'd love to support every OS and hardware configuration possible going back a few years, it's simply not feasible if we want to take G-Force to the next level.

That said, we're working hard on G-Force updates which will support more of the older Apple hardware. In the meanwhile, (and if you simply don't have a somewhat recent OpenGL graphics card on your Mac), you can download the previous 3.1.3 release, which is now displayed on your "download purchased products" page after you log in with your license code. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

Andy