Back to Apple after 20+ years....

[CyberPrey]

yes, the title say's it all. My last Macintosh was a 1984 128k model.

After using a PC for years and years, I have finally ordered a Mac Pro. Unfortunatly, I am a gamer. I sit down at a computer and spend 15 minutes doing the household budget, catching up on work email, and then for the next 7 hours World of Warcraft kicks in.... sometimes its guild wars... Quake... Doom.... Starcraft.. diablo... you get the idea....

Anyway, my current PC is specced like so..

Asus A8N32-SLIDeluxe nForce4 SLI Mainboard
AMD 64x2 4400 CPU
4gb Corsair RAM
2) Asus EN7800GTX256 Vid Card in SLi
4) Seagate SATA-2 250gb Hard Drives
Creative Labs Soundblaster Audigy 4
Acer 20" Widescreen LCD monitor
Winbloz.. er.. Windows XP SP2

Now, I really do not have any complaints about the computer itself. But the OS... well, I can't really say what I feel. I'm sick of installing and reinstalling.. and to top it all off, after the 4th time of reinstalling, now I have to call microshaft... er.. Microsoft everytime I install to 'authorize' the install.. I can't do it over the internet anymore now that i've re-done it so much. I loose files.. I loose financial records... I loose my music collection.... And heaven forbid I have to reinstall my games again. (LOL!!!!) I finally pulled my head out of my posterior and set up a SECOND PC (Running Ubuntu Linux) to use as a backup... so now at least I make a dump of all my valuable files/programs to this every other day...

But... I shouldn't have to...

And now, Apple came out with the Mac Pro.. It was like love at first sight, and I ordered one... just the basic model (1mb RAM, 7300GT vid card) but added in the bluetooth for the nice keyboard/mouse combo....

I'm truly excited. I actually called and begged them to ship early (mine goes on the 16th, delvery soon after).

I only have ONE concern. Games.

The computer itself im not even worried about. As usual, the Mac Pro looks solidly built, and the specs look very nice.

I am interested in hearing from other pc->mac people who are also gamers. How are you doing? Are you happy? did you keep your pc and use it to game with?

Am I going to be 100% happy with my choice to switch? I know my wife and kids are thrilled, as kids use Mac's at school and my wife works for the state who is primarily Mac based as well.

To be honest, I think I would die if I had to unplug myself from World of Warcraft heh heh

 

[quigleybc]

Good choice, welcome back!



you might get a better reponse over in the "games" section on here.

 

[eenu]

well you should have changed the Gcard to the Radeon if your a gamer

 

[CyberPrey]

well you should have changed the Gcard to the Radeon if your a gamer

I really wanted to.. but money was a bit tight. I was hoping to limp by and then upgrade to it at a later date....

Plus, in all honesty... when I saw the 5-6 week delay in ship time.. I just felt I >HAD< to get the new toy NOW...

 

[eenu]

I really wanted to.. but money was a bit tight. I was hoping to limp by and then upgrade to it at a later date....

Plus, in all honesty... when I saw the 5-6 week delay in ship time.. I just felt I >HAD< to get the new toy NOW...

You probably wont be able to game that well on that card.....but yeah if you upgrade it in the future it will be a lovely machine for games. I will be buying one soonish for an all round machine inc games

 

[bowens]

To be honest, I think I would die if I had to unplug myself from World of Warcraft heh heh

I think World of Warcraft will play just fine or your new machine. Congratulations.

 

[blodwyn]

Heck, when my son and his pals have a LAN party, he takes his G4 Mac Mini and plays WOW on that. It's not spectacular but it's tolerable. If you can't run it on your MP then I'll swap you

 

[funkychunkz]

just the basic model (1mb RAM, 7300GT vid card) but added in the bluetooth for the nice keyboard/mouse combo....

Um I know you last used a mac twenty years ago, but macs support a little more ram then they used to.

OS X loves RAM, so remember to feed it lots. I'm curious, is that the BT Mighty mouse you ordered? I've heard that the MM isn't good for gaming largely due to the fact that it doesn't have a real scroll wheel. I use mine endlessly and I'm not even a hardcore gamer like yourself. Also I'm curious to hear your say on the value/pricing of the mac pro, does it compare better than non-apple boxes?

I think that the mac pro will be viewed more and more as a gaming rig, especially if the last few hit games end up ported to mac. I suppose this was your view?

 

[Sun Baked]

If you switch to the ATI card, the ship time will increase.

Apple has the ATI card available as an OEM kit at the Apple Store ... if you decide you need it later.

Anyhow, people will find a way to hack the PC cards for the Mac Pro -- and what is needed to plug in the Cards Power Adapter to the Apple Aux connector next to slots.

 

[seenew]

You're a PC-switcher, you have Windows already. Just download Apple's Bootcamp and install Windows alongside OS X. You'll have the best of both worlds-- Windows for games, OS X for everything else.

Repost this thread in the Games forum here https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/18/

Lots of knowledgable mac gamers there.

 

[sikkinixx]

i hate to sound negative but... that gaming rig you have is more than enough for most games (with the exception of Crysis, whihc is gonna need DX10 to run perfect and all) but anyway, you may have been better off getting an iMac for OSX etc. and just using your PC as your gaming rig, or even playing WOW on the iMac. You just spend a bucket load of money on a system (albeit a wicked system) that will probably not satisfy your gaming needs without that x1900xt, the 7300GT is a weak card, even with 2 of them. But, i am jealous of your Mac Pro...

 

[gman71882]

Every game you mentioned is made for MAC, and now with the Advent of Parrallels Virtualization software along with VMware working on 3D Support specificaly for people like you, the Future of Gaming on the MAC looks VERY NICE.
I foresee in the next 2 years the porting of Games to mac should increase due to the ease of modifying it to run either under Parrallels with 3D support or some other types of Virtualization that will run Native Windows games directly within OS X.
Ill be right there with you Gaming on my next Mac Pro, if i can ever afford one

 

[sikkinixx]

Every game you mentioned is made for MAC, and now with the Advent of Parrallels Virtualization software along with VMware working on 3D Support specificaly for people like you, the Future of Gaming on the MAC looks VERY NICE.
I foresee in the next 2 years the porting of Games to mac should increase due to the ease of modifying it to run either under Parrallels with 3D support or some other types of Virtualization that will run Native Windows games directly within OS X.
Ill be right there with you Gaming on my next Mac Pro, if i can ever afford one

The future looks good because Macs can run Windows now! lol but gaming on a Mac is still very impractical as a gaming PC is MUCH less expensive than a Mac (cept maybe an iMac) Sure MP's have tons of Processing power, but no GFX power unless you wanna fork over big bucks for a soon-to-be-outdated piece of hardware in the x1900xt (7950 GF2 is mega power)