Gaming on the iMac

[Ubundows]

How good/bad does the HD2600 pro in the imac play games?

I'm not really an intense gamer, but I'd like the ability to install windows and use buy some games for it in future and be able to install them without too many problems.

I know that it's not top-of-the-range, but would it be able to play a game like crysis or the latest COD on medium settings or at a lower resolution?

 

[customisbetter]

the 2600 will play games "decently". It will max COD4 at 1280 x 800. If you are using a higher resolution, you will have to turn the settings down alot.
CRYSIS would worth with medium low settings with a low res for the first level. After that, the game is unplayable on that card, no matter how low you turn the settings.

It will play Halflife2 pretty well, prebably max settings for your resolution.
I would recommend the 8800GS though. Its worth it.

Just to let you know, i own both cards in seperate computers. My 2600 is overclocked to XT clocks, and it is still not enough.

 

[MyDesktopBroke]

I've read that Crisis on full settings taxes the 8800, so if you wanted it on the 2600 you would need to turn the settings down.

 

[Namnorkimo]

The demo of Crysis runs very well with my ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 XT.

 

[Tesseract]

I ran some benchmarks with Crysis on the 2600. It may answer your question:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/577110/

Without overclocking your GPU, Crysis is very playable on Medium at a lower resolution (around 1280x800). You'll get around 25 fps.
My first run through Crysis, I ran at 1680x1050, with most settings at high, a few at medium, but shaders and shadows on low. It also ran at around 25 fps.
The 2600 doesn't seem to handle smoke and fog effects very well though (in any game). Whenever those are near your camera, it will more than half your fps.

All in all, the 2600 does fairly well with games. Just don't expect to be maxing your settings on any of the "next-gen" games. And make SURE you have 4 gigs of ram. Also, if you're running games in Windows, getting the latest driver updates from ATI is a must. You'll have to read up on how to do that, since it can be a bit tricky at first with the 2600.

 

[Luap]

I play UT3 (Via windows XP) on my 2.4ghz iMac, which has the 2600 XT 256mb gfx card. + 2gb ram. Plays it surprisingly well.. Fps is usually 30-50 depending on map. Not the best, but plenty playable and smooth enough. And thats with pretty much maxed settings too. Along with full res on my 20" screen.

 

[AlexisV]

The drivers for the Radeon have really come on over the last year. Crysis now runs very well with everything set on medium under DirectX 9.

All the reviews on the internet seem to be from around June 07, when it first appeared. ATI are notorious for bringing out lame drivers for every new card and it takes them a few months to ramp up the performance.

2gigs of RAM is enough for me though I find.

CRYSIS would worth with medium low settings with a low res for the first level. After that, the game is unplayable on that card, no matter how low you turn the settings.

Sorry mate, but that's completely incorrect.

 

[Namnorkimo]

To get a impression of Crysis with the iMac and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 XT, I made a short video from the demo of Crysis, running on my iMac at 1024 x 768. In the lower right corner you see the fps counter:

sample mov video, 42 mbytes