Last night, Apple released a “Snow Leopard Graphics Update” through the system updater. It’s version 1.0. and it comes in at 69.2 MB. Not a big deal on the surface, but when you look at the actual patch notes they directly reference bug fixes for Portal, Team Fortress 2, StarCraft II, as well as their own Aperture.
What’s interesting is that Apple’s taking the time to figure out bugs with 3rd party game companies, and then patching them through software update. Now, the problems could have been on Apple’s end to begin with, so it’d make sense that these updates come from them, but I can’t remember the last time Apple patched graphics problems. A quick check on Google revealed a Leopard Graphics Update back in February of 2008, but the patch notes are so cryptic that I have no idea what it was for at that time.
Gaming’s a big deal, and as more students turn to Macs, and as iOS gets Game Center, we have to wonder if there’s more to come on the desktop and laptop fronts. A lot of people have been waiting a very long time for better games on OS X.
That being said, there are tons of independent and professional games available on the platform already. It’d just be nice if OS X was taken a little more seriously by the big development houses.
If you want to patch your machine open up Software Update.
