Are Macs Good for Gaming?

[slughead]

Thanks for your response. Do you know this from personal experience or hearsay? I ask because I have heard different opinions thrown around regarding this issue. There's no way I'm dropping a few grand on a computer that can't run the latest and greatest games at the highest settings.

If you like the Mac OS and you want to play "the latest and greatest games" on good settings, I strongly consider buying a Mac Mini and a KVM. THen home-build your own PC to run windows. You will be much happier, I assure you.

The new Mac Pro is an especially bad choice for gaming as it uses workstation graphics cards and can't be upgraded. At best (with dual firepro W9000), it'll run as fast as Two Radeon 7970 in Crossfire, and cost 9 times as much. You'd save money (> 30%) buying Two titan cards or two GTX 690's, which would blow it away. This is not even mentioning the other aspects of the New Mac Pro, like that it's a Xeon (i7 is cheaper and better for games).

 

[Tesselator]

Can I ask, whats considered "good" then?

Good, as in best, as in snappy quick, as in no lagging, as in 1.5 to 2 times as fast in both CPU and GPU performance, as in a system that handles any high performance gaming card yet costs the same or less than a MacMini, as in after flipping the on switch it comes up natively ready to install and play over ten or twenty times the number of titles available for OS X, as in several other reasons too long to be explained in a few short words appearing after an "as in" clause.

 

[slughead]

Good, as in best, as in snappy quick, as in no lagging, as in 1.5 to 2 times as fast in both CPU and GPU performance, as in a system that handles any high performance gaming card yet costs the same or less than a MacMini, as in after flipping the on switch it comes up natively ready to install and play over ten or twenty times the number of titles available for OS X, as in several other reasons too long to be explained in a few short words appearing after an "as in" clause.

This! But don't forget the driver support (as in: Mac has almost none by comparison)!

 

[sonicrobby]

Good, as in best, as in snappy quick, as in no lagging, as in 1.5 to 2 times as fast in both CPU and GPU performance, as in a system that handles any high performance gaming card yet costs the same or less than a MacMini, as in after flipping the on switch it comes up natively ready to install and play over ten or twenty times the number of titles available for OS X, as in several other reasons too long to be explained in a few short words appearing after an "as in" clause.

why is that "good" though? What you describe sounds like "great" or "superior". But to me good is being able to play the games at high resolution with no lag.

I wouldnt consider money part of something being "good" or not. "good for the price" maybe, but not just "good".

Its all objective anyway. If the OP wants the best of the best, he should go with a PC definitely. But if hes alright playing the games in high resolution with no lag on a mac, why say its no good?

 

[GermanyChris]

Yes, I do so I wouldn't have to game in Bootcamp. The only reason I game in Bootcamp is for games that have crappy or no Mac ports.

Some people know how to keep their drivers update, we're not all like you.

OSX only has old drivers..you can't update them

 

[GermanyChris]

Can I ask, whats considered "good" then?

Here's 2 minutes through Newegg, and it'll run OSX..I kept it about $2200 like an iMac with a 680MX

 

[jonnymo5]

Games made for the Mac run great. The issue I always ran into was that the games would come out and be PC only and VMWare wasn't good enough so some of the controls would be screwy. Games are coming out faster for Mac now but I couldn't recommend anyone looking for a gaming rig to get a Mac. If you love OSX then get a Mac and enjoy the games when they come. Otherwise get a PC or a Playstation.

 

[theSeb]

Here's 2 minutes through Newegg, and it'll run OSX..I kept it about $2200 like an iMac with a 680MX

You need to include a 2560x1440 27" monitor. If you don't, then it's a pointless comparison.

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Games made for the Mac run great. The issue I always ran into was that the games would come out and be PC only and VMWare wasn't good enough so some of the controls would be screwy. Games are coming out faster for Mac now but I couldn't recommend anyone looking for a gaming rig to get a Mac. If you love OSX then get a Mac and enjoy the games when they come. Otherwise get a PC or a Playstation.

Trying to run games on a virtual machine is a silly idea.

 

[sonicrobby]

Here's 2 minutes through Newegg, and it'll run OSX..I kept it about $2200 like an iMac with a 680MX

That helps me not. I just want to know, What is the threshold between good and bad?

Can a pc with the internals of the imac play games "good" or not? I want to know on its own, not compared to whats out there, not compared to other pcs. I just want to know if it can play games "good"? and how do you determine that?

 

[GermanyChris]

That helps me not. I just want to know, What is the threshold between good and bad?

Can a pc with the internals of the imac play games "good" or not? I want to know on its own, not compared to whats out there, not compared to other pcs. I just want to know if it can play games "good"? and how do you determine that?

No

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You need to include a 2560x1440 27" monitor. If you don't, then it's a pointless comparison.

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Trying to run games on a virtual machine is a silly idea.

No I don't in gaming I neither want nor need a 1440p IPS. I'll take 2 faster 1080's TN's in portrait particularly if they can be overclocked a bit.

 

[GermanyChris]

Here's an x79 build so you can have all the PCI lanes naty, no plex..

 

[ihuman:D]

No

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No I don't in gaming I neither want nor need a 1440p IPS. I'll take 2 faster 1080's TN's in portrait particularly if they can be overclocked a bit.

Really?
So you can't play a game "good" on these specs: 32gb 1600MHz DDR3 RAM, 3.4GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 with TurboBoost to 3.9GHz and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2GB GDDR5?

 

[sonicrobby]

Really?
So you can't play a game "good" on these specs: 32gb 1600MHz DDR3 RAM, 3.4GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 with TurboBoost to 3.9GHz and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2GB GDDR5?

Oh hell yeah, thats good. Ive played games great on my gaming laptop with lesser specs.

 

[snarfquest]

I use a MacPro3,1 with 16gb memory, 2x 2.8 Quad Xeons, and an ATI 7970 3GB DDR5 video card.

It runs Skyrim, Two Worlds II, WoW and Everquest all on Max settings without issue or lag.

 

[ihuman:D]

Oh hell yeah, thats good. Ive played games great on my gaming laptop with lesser specs.

That was my point.

 

[GermanyChris]

Really?
So you can't play a game "good" on these specs: 32gb 1600MHz DDR3 RAM, 3.4GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 with TurboBoost to 3.9GHz and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2GB GDDR5?

Nope, the quantity of RAM does nothing

It’s an i7 3770 nothing much special about it

If you play at 1440p your going to run out of RAM quite quickly with your slowish mobile GPU

 

[theSeb]

Really?
So you can't play a game "good" on these specs: 32gb 1600MHz DDR3 RAM, 3.4GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 with TurboBoost to 3.9GHz and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2GB GDDR5?

I don't know what playing a game good means, but the iMac with the 680MX can easily handle current games at ultra high and 1080p. Can you buy a PC that can do the same thing for cheaper? Yes.

 

[marzer]

I'm just kidding myself!! All these years when I thought I was playing games on my Mac's...Ghost Recon, Age of Empires series, Call of Duty series, Assassins Creed series, Starcraft 2 (to name just a few)...lies, all lies!! Shadow puppets on the wall

 

[theSeb]

Nope, the quantity of RAM does nothing

It’s an i7 3770 nothing nuch special about it

If you play at 1440p your going to run out of RAM quite quickly with your slowish mobile GPU

The 680MX is not slowish and you will not run out of VRAM at 1440p.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-680MX.83519.0.html

 

[GermanyChris]

I'm just kidding myself!! All these years when I thought I was playing games on my Mac's...Ghost Recon, Age of Empires series, Call of Duty series, Assassins Creed series, Starcraft 2 (to name just a few)...lies, all lies!! Shadow puppets on the wall

View attachment 418585

you are.

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The 680MX is not slowish and you will not run out of VRAM at 1440p.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-680MX.83519.0.html

It’s slower than a 660ti and it will run out at 1440p

 

[theSeb]

you are.

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It’s slower than a 660ti and it will run out at 1440p

It's faster than a 580 and I am not sure where you get your information from about the video memory. This topic should not upset you this much. The fact of the matter is that the top of the range iMac handles games quite well, whether you like it or not is not really the point of the OP's question.

 

[GermanyChris]

It's faster than a 580 and I am not sure where you get your information from about the video memory. This topic should not upset you this much. The fact of the matter is that the top of the range iMac handles games quite well, whether you like it or not is not really the point of the OP's question.

It doesn't upset me at all, but we need to be realistic. The 27" iMac will play games but not "good". If gaming is your thing you will be greatly disappointed in your iMac purchase.

If you turn the AA up in most modern games at 1440p your going to eat through 2GB of VRAM quickly, if you tome it down to 1200p or 1080p and keep the AA light your not going to have the issue. To me this is not "good" it's just playing the game.

If you want a general purpose computer and want to play some games while the wife's out with the girls you'll be fine.

 

[marzer]

you are.

I was going to fire up MW3 that I've been rolling on for a bit, but realized it was just the toaster in the kitchen

 

[goMac]

The new Mac Pro is an especially bad choice for gaming as it uses workstation graphics cards and can't be upgraded. At best (with dual firepro W9000), it'll run as fast as Two Radeon 7970 in Crossfire, and cost 9 times as much. You'd save money (> 30%) buying Two titan cards or two GTX 690's, which would blow it away. This is not even mentioning the other aspects of the New Mac Pro, like that it's a Xeon (i7 is cheaper and better for games).

Again, no one knows what the BTO graphics card options is or prices. This is all speculation with no evidence.

For all you know, a 7970 will be an option, or WILL be the FirePro. People are noting that in 10.9 7970s are suddenly being considered FirePros.

 

[GraniteTheWolf]

My old 2008 mac pro games beautifully. See the specifications in my signature.

The last session I had, I was hosting a livestream in boot-camp (windows 7 64bit Pro) of Dead Space 3, graphics MAXED out. livestream was also recording to my hard drive as we played (unknowingly) along with that I was on a Skype call with the person I was playing co-op with, had all my messengers up, and I have a dual monitor setup so I had task manager running to keep an eye on things

The damages of all that at once? My average cpu usage was 40-45% used, and out of my 14gb ram I had 7gb free yet. The game never slowed down.

Are macs good for gaming? To me, HELL YES.... long as you can upgrade the graphics card as I have done (GTX570 superclocked) Id like to upgrade to a 680 when they come down a bit in price.