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silverapple

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 9, 2008
1
0
Im pretty much still a n00b with Macs, I just bought a macbook pro for uni because they only use macs there and although I was skeptical at first I am very happy with it, I love the design, it runs fast and the the interface is nice. I am considering buying an imac 3.06 ghz sometime prolly in a few months or something, but I just keep hearing that I'll regret it and it'll be the worst decision of my life for gaming lol...but then I saw a video on youtube with the imac running Crysis on full settings and it was smooth? I mean if a computer can run it that smoothly it must be really capable? With windows on it, can the imac 3.06 play games well? What is your opinions and everything. Thanks!
 
Considering very few games are made for OS X, there isn't a large native selection. Considering that you have one graphics card to choose from in the iMac (per model, not across the line, and sans the 24") and only nine in the Mac Pro (7300, X1900, Q4600, HD 2600, 8800 GT, Q5600, 3870, 4850, and 4870) as opposed to dozens in PCs, and the fact that OS X has no CrossFire or SLI support, and the fact that Windows on a Mac has no SLI support, and the fact that the only computer to support CrossFire has only two external power connectors so you can't use the really beefy cards...

Yes, it's just bias. :rolleyes:
 
Crysis: assasins creed: CoD4: rainbow six

He,

As you can see I have an iMac 24", 3.0 Ghz and an nvidia graphics card. I've played crysis on medium (I could set it on high, but the gameplay would be a little bumpy, a friend of my with kind of a nasa computer only could play it on medium as well). But I play them all on bootcamp without any problems. It's just great, no lag, or anything, it justs plays the game as you expect it, on high or medium settings. I've played crysis, assisins creed, call of duty 4 and rainbow six with my mac, and now problems. The only problem is that if you download a game it's hard to get your package (zip file over 6gb) on your windows partition. because hard drive only supports 4gb max if you want it be compatible with both windows and mac os x. I did it on my network. But if you want to game, it's absolutely no problem. THe only problem is, is that you need a virus scanner (it is windows). I used avg. (however i suggest you buy a console for gaming as the computer gaming industry is dying(probably used the wrong word here, but that's funny) because of pirating, and therefore more games are distributed for consoles).

Good luck with choosing, but I can tell it's really no problem to do anything you do on windows as well on the mac.
 
Well I'd say they are not bad, but not too good either. Most games will run good or great on a 3 ghz iMac with the 8800 card, they even run more than ok on the 2,8 ghz iMac with the 2600 hd I bought a year ago. But I didn't buy this system for gaming. For half of the price of the high end iMac you can get a pc tower that runs games just as good or better, and has an upgradeable gfx card, something that's very important for future gaming.

If gaming is your only issue I recommend to get a pc tower for gaming, and use your mbp for everything else. If you also need your desktop mac for audio/video/graphic design get the iMac and play whatever is possible on it for 2+ years and accept that you will have to turn down some settings in the future.

That said I think almost all games out now should run quite well on your mbp.
 
Forget the fact it's a Mac, you're looking at any old Core2 Duo machine with a GeForce 8600 or a Radeon 2600XT.

So it'll run games as well as any PC with the same specs.

I have the 2.4Ghz Core2Duo iMac with Radeon 2600XT. I can play Call of Duty 4 near full and Crysis on medium (both without anti aliasing).
 
The limitation is basically hardware, since BootCamp solves a lot on the software side.

If Apple ever brings the ATI 4800's to Macs, they will run things just fine. But until then, you're stuck with basically 1 1/2 year old GPU technology (it's hard to believe it's been that long already :eek:)
 
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