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Can I game on a Mac? Be honest please...

M

morgothaod

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 26, 2009
188
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Edit: I found the list of games on a mac on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Macintosh_games but I would still like to hear comments regarding if I can have an enjoyable gaming experience on a Mac.

I'm torn between buying the Asus G51VX-RX05 and the Macbook Pro (the 13-inch: 2.26GHz and I'll upgrade the memory to 4gig). I'm a fan of the portability of the Mac and its long battery life. I'm also annoyed with blue screens, error messages, and other frustrations of using Windows. However, I want to be able to play games on my laptop and I don't know if the Macbook Pro will be good enough for me.

The games I like are not current. They include Quake 3 Arena, Diablo 2, and Soldiers of Fortune 2. I'm a big fan of first person shooters and I want to be able to play those games without it being slow. Having said that, I would like to know all of the games that are available for Mac. Is there such a list out there?
If I can search the games through type: First person shooter, RPG, etc. that would be wonderful and helpful in determining my decision of which laptop to buy.

Will I also be able to open excel files (.xls) and .pdf files on a Mac?
 
The thing about the games you mentioned is that they were made for Macs with PPC processors, there aren't universal patches for them (except Quake 3?) to make them work that well on Intel Macs. Diablo 2 should work quite nicely though.

But Quake Live runs great so you could play that instead of 3 :) Of course, Excel and PDF files will open on Mac, .xls files require an office program like Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice.org. PDF's run straight out of the box, no need to download any acrobat reader.

But seriously if you are a real gamer, and you know yourself if you are one, Mac isn't really for you. You can install Windows on it and play through that, but then it's almost the same as if you bought a PC laptop instead. There really are not many Mac versions of popular PC games, for example in the RPG department the latest I can think of is Neverwinter Nights 2 and no expansions for it are available. I am playing Fallout 3 and such through Windows.
 
I'll go talk to the Mac guy at Best Buy. But before I do, can anyone else comment on my thread?
 
morgothaod said:
I'll go talk to the Mac guy at Best Buy. But before I do, can anyone else comment on my thread?
Click to expand...

What will you use the computer for ? If it's primarily for gaming, save some money and get a PC (or better yet a console).

Go to an Apple Store if you can. I would only go to Best Buy if you know what you are getting and don't have questions.
 
Best Buy people may not be the best to ask about Macs unless they have an Apple specialist at the "store within a store" (there are threads about this on the forum.)

The Mac you are looking at will play pretty much any modern FPS if you also install Windows and dual boot. You will need to reduce the settings for some games, especially crisis to get acceptable frame rates. Also, what performance are you looking for? If you absolutely need 60 fps on all your games, you will need a much larger computer with a beefier graphics card (and a shorter battery life.)
 
Don't laugh but the primary purpose of the laptop is for viewing porn. I'll also want to be able to play a game or two and watch tv shows from Hulu.com. I'm not up to date with the latest games, so I'll just be playing Quake Live, Soldiers of Fortune 2, Diablo 2, and maybe even Unreal Tournament 2004. I may even play Tribes (if people still play that) or Tribes 2. I'll probably play some free MMORPG's as well (I don't know any titles off the top of my head though). As for specific performance or frames per second, I don't know. I just want to be able to enjoy the games without it being choppy or slow (ie unplayable!). Basically, I don't have to be the top fragger in the room but I would like a shot at being in the top 5.

My Best Buy does have an Apple rep in the store.
 
Wow, you get an "A+" for honesty! :eek:

Well, my experience is it all depends what games you're looking at. As many have mentioned the hardward is more than capable, but a lot of times the games simply won't run on Mac.

I know I would love to get Battlefield running on my MBP or Mini but Direct X drivers aren't supported, so it is a no go (unless I use bootcamp).
 
The Asus has a GTX 260M. The MacBook has a 9400M.

The difference is so vast... well, let's say that if you want to play games on your computer you absolutely want the GTX 260M.
 
Well, the new GPU upgrades in the macbooks and macbook pros are certainly capable of running some of the most demanding games nicely. There are some nice games for mac, World of Warcraft being one of them ;)! The thing is, if you bootcamp you can run windows games easily on your mac. When windows dies (which it will) you just get rid of the partition! :D

And for porn, safaris private browsing is good for keeping the history clear and you wont get the crappy little viruses downloads that screw windows up :)
 
I screwed up my other computer because of a porn site. So thats honestly the main reason why I'm thinking about buying a Mac. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy other stuff about the Macbook Pro such as long battery life, portability, and its stunning beauty. I heard many times that Macs don't get viruses (or they rarely do) and that I don't need virus protection on it. That makes me feel much better because I do have the fear that I may ruin another windows based machine again (so far I haven't screwed this one up too bad).

As for "the gaming simply won't run on Mac" comment, I'll just buy a Mac game. Or are you saying that even if the game says its for Mac, it may not run? Cause I saw Diablo 2, Quake Live, and Unreal Tournament 2004 for Mac (on the list of mac games in wikipedia) and I'm considering playing those.
 
I don't know how all of that works or what it means. I would think though that having Windows on a Mac defeats the purpose of owning a Mac.
 
Well if thats the case then I can go the PC route and limit my porn viewing to safe sites. Out of these options, what is the best gaming machine for $1500? You all can recommend another one too.

Gateway - FX Edition Laptop with Intel® Centrino® 2 Processor Technology

Model: P-7805u

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9172511&type=product&id=1218043606827

Asus - Laptop with Intel® Centrino® 2 Processor Technology - White/Black

Model: G51VX-RX05

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9366651&type=product&id=1218092150636

Or one of gaming machines from

http://www.xoticpc.com/custom-gaming-laptops-notebooks-gaming-laptops-ct-118_96_98.html
 
morgothaod said:
I don't know how all of that works or what it means. I would think though that having Windows on a Mac defeats the purpose of owning a Mac.
Click to expand...


No it doesn't, mac can be a 2 in one, and boot camp is VERY simple, its just a matter of clicking next a few times and inserting a disk! You don't have to know how it works, it's easy simple and I've done it for a few PC games, crysis being one of them!
 
The Gateway FX notebooks have been a popular choice for the midrange gamer notebook.

They're bloody heavy though but you don't complain for the price. Anand has done a few reviews of them and faced off the dual vs. quad variants.
 
morgothaod said:
As for "the gaming simply won't run on Mac" comment, I'll just buy a Mac game. Or are you saying that even if the game says its for Mac, it may not run? Cause I saw Diablo 2, Quake Live, and Unreal Tournament 2004 for Mac (on the list of mac games in wikipedia) and I'm considering playing those.
Click to expand...

A lot of games won't run on OS X. Many games that do run on OS X, don't run as well as they do on Windows, using the same hardware. Also, even if you install Windows on your Macbook (pro?) Apple has a habit of underclocking the video card to reduce heat.

This may sound very stupid, but why not just keep using your PC, and when you wanna watch porn, use a Linux Live CD and watch using Linux. Linux is free, and also immune from Viruses. It also won't touch your hard drive.
 
thejadedmonkey said:
A lot of games won't run on OS X. Many games that do run on OS X, don't run as well as they do on Windows, using the same hardware. Also, even if you install Windows on your Macbook (pro?) Apple has a habit of underclocking the video card to reduce heat.

This may sound very stupid, but why not just keep using your PC, and when you wanna watch porn, use a Linux Live CD and watch using Linux. Linux is free, and also immune from Viruses. It also won't touch your hard drive.
Click to expand...

Please tell me how to get Linux and how to switch to it before viewing porn. My computer knowledge is quite low.
 
That's what bootcamp is for. The only game I play in OS X is Diablo 2 lol. For everything else it's bootcamp/Windows.

MacOSX handles PDFs natively so you can view them with no problem. In fact you can "print" anything to a PDF file. If you want to create them. For excel files I sure you'll need to get MS Office for Mac.
 
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