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iMac i7 for gaming..
- Thread starter Mark1122
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All that achieves is envy on my end.
I refuse to run Windows. I'll survive at 1920x1080 at medium/high settings. Indeed, particuarly at the price apple are currently offering the upgrade at. I'd only recommend it to someone to whom money isn't a concern at the moment.
Your potential iMac will be able to run Civ5 via BootCamp and Windows. My recently acquired refurb 27" i7 will run it. (Don't tell the wife, but the upcoming release is one of the reasons we needed to get the iMac).
Fortunately for me, I couldn't care less about running with all the graphics settings maxed. This game doesn't need the eye candy to be good -- in fact, in some cases it distracts from the flow of gameplay. There were tonnes of complaints to this effect when CivIV came out, and the community was frustrated that developers had focused on detailed visuals, stressing the GPUs of older machines. As a turn-based strategy game, the whole series is based around highly complex math computations happening thousands of times per turn. If anything, the stress should be on the processor.
But I digress. Again, you will be able to run Civ5 via BootCamp. On your new iMac, likely on high settings or better. But you'll have to decide for yourself what's bearable. Finally, I fully expect we'll see a Mac version down the line, if you want to hold off for it.
Fortunately for me, I couldn't care less about running with all the graphics settings maxed. This game doesn't need the eye candy to be good -- in fact, in some cases it distracts from the flow of gameplay. There were tonnes of complaints to this effect when CivIV came out, and the community was frustrated that developers had focused on detailed visuals, stressing the GPUs of older machines. As a turn-based strategy game, the whole series is based around highly complex math computations happening thousands of times per turn. If anything, the stress should be on the processor.
But I digress. Again, you will be able to run Civ5 via BootCamp. On your new iMac, likely on high settings or better. But you'll have to decide for yourself what's bearable. Finally, I fully expect we'll see a Mac version down the line, if you want to hold off for it.
GPU is more important than the CPU in this case.
The Radeon will run out of juice before the i7. You'd be best with the i5.
The Radeon will run out of juice before the i7. You'd be best with the i5.
Even with shaders to ultra instead of high, the game still plays natively with 30+ fps on stacraft2 with mobiiity 5850--especially if it were overclocked 10% to be a mobility 5870. Setting shaders to high gives leeway for 4-8 player games with lots of armies at once (100+ units)
Cant get it working. The drivers install fine. But I cant access the catalyst settings (if I right click on the desktop and click the Catalyst link there for example). And it is still maxed out at 1920×1440.
It runs fine in Parallels though. On any resolutions. But if I switch between Boot Camp and Parallels I need to re-activate Windows. Which might make it sad and lock me out. Rumors has it Ultimate does not require this (I currently run professional). I might upgrade. But for the time being I will stay in Parallels. Only need Windows for Monkey Island at the moment anyway. (And my girlfriend need it for poker). Just bothers me that the drivers won't install.
Has anyone been successful? Did you do anything special?