OS X Gaming on a Mac

[LuxuryServers]

How is gaming on a Mac? Is it expensive and what about hardware is it strong or powerful?

I just sold a decent lenovo gaming rig and I've been wanting to purchase a Mac but I do like to game from time to time.. So should I stick to windows or move on to Mac? It's not like I will be using it for gaming all the time but I will do work on it like programming and managing servers.

 

[G51989]

How is gaming on a Mac? Is it expensive and what about hardware is it strong or powerful?

I just sold a decent lenovo gaming rig and I've been wanting to purchase a Mac but I do like to game from time to time.. So should I stick to windows or move on to Mac? It's not like I will be using it for gaming all the time but I will do work on it like programming and managing servers.

Well, Gaming on a Mac Normally means Bootcamp with Windows, for whatever reason. Most games are not optimized for OSX and run far better on Windows even on the same hardware.

You should have kept your gaming rig and just bought a mac, then you would have had a machine for each.

 

[Kaspersky]

No DirectX and outdated Open GL, no games on ...

 

[thejadedmonkey]

There's nothing good about gaming on OS X. The best you could hope for is to have a lot of disposable income and buy a maxed out iMac. Even the maxed out MBP only has a midrange GPU, and it's a $2600 computer.

 

[insoc]

Coming from someone (me) that has a powerful PC for gaming and working (two GTX 780 cards on SLI, latest i7 processor, etc ,etc)) and for everything else uses Apple products (iPhone, iPod, iPad Mini, iPad 4) my gold advise is: Keep your wonderful Mac and buy a PS4. It's ultra cheap comparing to a high end gaming PC, more portable, more energy efficient and with basically the same AAA games and more you could have on the PC.

 

[MPL]

What kind of games do you play? If you're always looking for the latest buzz then probably a Apple computer won't be the best choice ; if you only play a couple of games (MMORPGs, MOBAs, etc) then I'm sure you can check their performance for the computer model you're interested.

I bought the latest MBA and I've been playing mostly Guild Wars 2 in it, with a mix of low and medium settings. I know it's not the best visual experience that the game can offer, but I'm fine with that compromise.

The user experience outside of gaming makes up for it.

 

[josh.b]

Coming from someone (me) that has a powerful PC for gaming and working (two GTX 780 cards on SLI, latest i7 processor, etc ,etc)) and for everything else uses Apple products (iPhone, iPod, iPad Mini, iPad 4) my gold advise is: Keep your wonderful Mac and buy a PS4. It's ultra cheap comparing to a high end gaming PC, more portable, more energy efficient and with basically the same AAA games and more you could have on the PC.

this is exactly my way. I love working on os x and can't justify having a massively expensive PC gaming rig(just for playing games) when I can play console games on a couch on a very well priced console (comparing to the pc rig) with a vast selection of titles that are optimised perfectly for the console. Also the fact that you can get a good 10 years out of a console before the next one outdates it

 

[N19h7m4r3]

I game every day on my Mac, I enjoy myself and I can't say I have an issue with OS X at all. ( hardly outdated OpenGL anymore, and there's plenty of games.)

For the odd game that I want to play there's PLayOnMac, and Wine.

With Steam, Desura, GoG, HumbleStore, IndieRoyal, MacgamesStore, GameAgent, MAC, and manre more there are a seriously large amount of games go the Mac, especially compared to even 2 years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/user/N19h7m4r3/featured

I have a rather old Mac Pro, and my GTX660 is hardly top of the line, and I have no issues playing games.
At the moment the new iMac with GTX780m, and the rMBP15" are great for games.

Sure if you Want a super top of the line gaming system go for it, I use to have them and I loved building, water-cooling, and over clocking them as well. I just don't see the need for them as I spent 99.999% of my time in OSX, and play all the games I enjoy, and new ones in it without issue.

I personally wouldn't recommend a console, but that's me personally I don't like the controllers except for a tiny amount of games, and don't see that many games on them I'd even play. Last one I owned was the PS2, and it was mostly for Final Fantasy, and beat-em-ups.

 

[dr-zoidberg]

I got the new 27inch iMac with the 780M graphics card and game via bootcamp windows 8.1 and for everything else I use Mac OS.
I didn`t want a huge gaming PC cluttering up my home office but didn't want to miss out on the occational Skyrim or BF 4 session.

gaming on os x was not really an option for me because very many games are never released for os x and even those which are available are often graphically inferior (e.g. bioshock).

 

[Huntn]

Well, Gaming on a Mac Normally means Bootcamp with Windows, for whatever reason. Most games are not optimized for OSX and run far better on Windows even on the same hardware.

You should have kept your gaming rig and just bought a mac, then you would have had a machine for each.

I agree. For the OP, not to rub it in, but if your PC was still functional for games, it would have been good to keep it. The MacOS is a super OS, great as a platform for most computer based tasks, but due to a variety of reasons, not number one for gaming. However gamers on Mac who don't want to be limited by a lesser number of MacOSX native titles and MacOS lesser gaming performance, will jump into Bootcamp/Windows. I am one of them and it should be noted I recently built a PC rig just for gaming. However if you travel a lot, the MacBookPro makes a decent mobile gaming platform if you can stomach the price spike in the latest top end model which is required for dedicated graphics.

No DirectX and outdated Open GL, no games on ...

There are good native games available and bootcamp is always an option. When the Mac Rumors Guides come back (disrupted due to the forum security breech), check out some of the Mac Gaming Links.

 

[Dirtyharry50]

Coming from someone (me) that has a powerful PC for gaming and working (two GTX 780 cards on SLI, latest i7 processor, etc ,etc)) and for everything else uses Apple products (iPhone, iPod, iPad Mini, iPad 4) my gold advise is: Keep your wonderful Mac and buy a PS4. It's ultra cheap comparing to a high end gaming PC, more portable, more energy efficient and with basically the same AAA games and more you could have on the PC.

Sounds like a plan to me except that I would add there is actually a boatload of games that are great on Macs, depending on the games and which Mac you play them on, etc. but then that is kinda like PCs too. Not everybody is playing on high end PCs by any stretch.

Between stuff from Blizzard, Feral, Aspyr, Virtual Programming, EA and others not to mention tons of indies, etc. I currently own over 400 games that will all play well on my mid-2011 27" iMac with a 6970m GPU and more keep coming out. I can live with that. As time goes by and newer games become more demanding, a PS4 will do very nicely for those ones and prolong the lifetime of use I get from my iMac. Meantime, I have one hell of a backlog don't I?

I bring that up because so often I see negativity here of all places about gaming on Mac when actually it is really good unless you have a need for a bleeding edge PC gaming rig playing the very latest games at 1440p and ultra everything. That's fine if you can afford that. I'm not knocking it but it definitely is a minority group that really does that. It isn't really fair to compare Mac gaming to that yardstick when it isn't even the normal yardstick for the typical PC gamer. For years and years when I owned PCs I never had better than a midrange rig and the best GPU upgrades I'd buy would be one step down from the current best for substantial savings because I am not made of money as much as I love my toys. This is also why personally, I need a machine that does double duty - gaming and everything else. I can have one and I want that one to run OS X.

That's just my perspective on the issue. If money is no object what the hell, buy a maxed out PC for a couple grand or more (I mean the real deal - maxed) and buy whatever Mac does what you want to with it, assuming you've got the space for all this stuff as well. I just don't think blanket statements about Mac gaming sucks, go Windows apply to all by any means. A lot of people such as myself enjoy gaming on Mac just fine.

I forgot to mention, I own quite a lot of great classic games from GOG.com as well that would all work great on just about any Mac. In fact, they just released a bunch more the other day there.

If I could only have one or the other for a computer, I could not imagine giving up my iMac and OS X for any Windows box however powerful because the OS would still suck in my opinion and of course for me, my opinion is all that matters for this. ;-)

 

[Rossatron]

that kinda depends on the game. from my experience:

lego games (harry potter, lotro) runs good on rmbp, didn't feel any difference in comparison to a pc.
civ v- yeah, the graphics is a bit behind what you can get on a pc
lotto online - no noticeable difference.
tropic 4 - only played on mac, but no complaints.

all this is based on playing on an i7, 8GB, geforce 555m 1GB laptop.