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Running OSX on Next Gen Consoles?

post #1 of 8
5/22/05 at 2:51pm
Thread Starter 
Since both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 use Power PC chips/derivatives would it be possible to do what has been done with Linux and the xbox and install OSX on one of them. I'm not hugely familiar with OSX hardware, but I don't see any reason why you couldn't run OSX on an Xbox 360.

Any thoughts?
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post #2 of 8
5/22/05 at 6:04pm
The chips are based on the Power architecture, but they are not PowerPC chips. They're scaled down and designed for just a few specific things whereas PowerPC chips are designed to be more broad as far as what they do.

It would require recompiling OS X to run on these processors.

However, once they figure out how to get Linux running on these machines, there's no reason you can't port PearPC to them and get OS X running that way. If the PearPC port supports multiple processors you might even get OS X running at near native speeds.
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post #3 of 8
5/23/05 at 4:57pm
Thread Starter 
That makes sense

Running OSX (or anything else) through linux would be pretty neat, as it is I'm prolly gonna end up getting a next gen console (either PS3 or Xbox 360), but if I could get an OS (especially OSX if its through PearPC and linux) running on one that would definately tip the balance in that consoles favour, and the idea of getting OSX to run (well) on a piece of microsoft hardware appeals to me for some reason.
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post #4 of 8
5/25/05 at 12:12am
kakaze,
r u referring to the Cell chip designed in conjunction w/ Sony or the MS G5? the xbox chip is noted as a tweaked G5, not just a ppc derivative. and given that the development kits have been dual Powermacs, i'd say the likelihood of an OS X port is much more likely for the xbox 360 than the PS3 Cell based system is. the main difference i've seen thus far for the xbox 360 chips is the 1MB cache vs. the 512MB cache for Apple's G5s. otherwise specs r very similar from what i've been able to catch. it would definitely be a case of irony if MS had the most powerful "Mac" available. triple core 3.2Ghz G5s w/ a yet to be realized desktop GPU iteration from ATI? if the 360 sells for < $500 and u could have an "xbox2" system that could dual boot into OS X on Powermac hardware, who wouldn't have a go at it?
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post #5 of 8
5/25/05 at 1:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by triadone
kakaze,
r u referring to the Cell chip designed in conjunction w/ Sony or the MS G5? the xbox chip is noted as a tweaked G5, not just a ppc derivative. and given that the development kits have been dual Powermacs, i'd say the likelihood of an OS X port is much more likely for the xbox 360 than the PS3 Cell based system is. the main difference i've seen thus far for the xbox 360 chips is the 1MB cache vs. the 512MB cache for Apple's G5s. otherwise specs r very similar from what i've been able to catch. it would definitely be a case of irony if MS had the most powerful "Mac" available. triple core 3.2Ghz G5s w/ a yet to be realized desktop GPU iteration from ATI? if the 360 sells for < $500 and u could have an "xbox2" system that could dual boot into OS X on Powermac hardware, who wouldn't have a go at it?

The chips in the XBOX aren't just tweaked G5s. They're specifically built just for Microsoft based on the Power architecture, and they are very similar to G5s, but nothing built for one will work on the other.

The reason the dev kits for XBOX are G5 PowerMacs are because the chips are similar enough to make early development easier to do before true dev kits with the right hardware come out. All those games built on the PowerMac dev kits are going to have to be tweaked and recompiled once true XBOX dev kits come out, and once that happens good luck getting one of the games to run on a PowerMac without using some kind of emulation.
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post #6 of 8
5/25/05 at 2:15am
true. as noted in anandtech's E3 comments, the 360 demos are running pared down a bit on Powermac rigs. arguably the main reason they are pared down is that the desktop graphics card aren't able yet to render the graphics in the way the would need to be on the actual 360 hardware. ( i think anand actually mentions this) i'm sure MS will do what it can to abstract their system from Apple's development kits for the sake of propriety. the question i have is in re: to how the "dev kits" have been used. my assumption is that it would be easier to have the xbox software running off it's own boot instead of in an emulation in OS X. in other words, Powermac hardware is likely more capable of doing "raw" gaming if OS X is not in the way, so to speak. if the development was in a proprietary xbox OS rather than within an emulation in OS X, it seems it'd be pretty hard to get the resulting apples, no pun intended, to fall too far from the hardware tree. but i'm not an expert in programming. but, can i/we at least fantasize? if dual cores are around the corner for apple, as well as whatever nextgen GPUs come out from ATI and nVidia, i'd be kinda stoked about a quad core uber GPU Powermac to play w/ an OS X or an xbox OS port. or as noted, OS X on said xbox HW.
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post #7 of 8
5/25/05 at 12:11pm
I don't know anything about the PowerMac dev kits, so I have no idea if they're running on OS X or if they're using a proprietary OS to more accurately simulate the XBOX environment. I'd like to think they're running OS X, but more than likely they're running on the XBOX OS—possibly in a dual boot setup so the devs can jump into OS X whenever they need to write some code.
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post #8 of 8
5/25/05 at 6:04pm
Thread Starter 
That sounds most likley. OSX dosen't handle Gaming well because of the way it handles the Open GL api right. And the Xbox360 may be using DirectX or something (being a Microsoft Product) which definately wouldn't run in OSX (actually googling it it does - but its a third party solution).

Maybe some uberprogrammer could build an Xbox OS for Powermacs but I don't think thats very likely (and prolly breaking some copyright law somewhere)
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