Looking at a Quad Core iMac in the bedroom for some hardcore gaming, can it play games at max specs? The graphics card is amazing and the 1GB onboard for it is very tempting. Probably going to wait until the latest update but what are your experiences with it guys?
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iMac Quad Core - Latest Games
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iMac and hardcore gaming are not words one usually associates with one another.
Seriously, I love my iMac and do play games on it (Boot Camp) but the GPU is relatively average (generally Apple use mobile variants in the iMac due to heat limitations) and would struggle with maxed out settings on the most modern games. Don't get me wrong, your iMac will play most of these games if you sacrifice settings whilst older games you can go pretty high in settings (although I avoid anti-aliasing settings altogether). For a casual gamer, like myself, the iMac is fine but that's about it.
If gaming is your priority (and I thought I'd never hear myself say this) then save yourself a wad of cash and avoid an iMac, for around half the price you could get yourself a PC which would out perform the iMac (in gaming terms) and, more importantly for a gamer, allow you to upgrade the GPU at a later date.
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I can't be sure but I have a feeling it's not as simple as that - it may be a kind of "hybrid" especially for Apple or even a mobile version. It gets kind of complicated as Apple also sometimes under clock the GPU's to keep temperatures down. I'll hand over to someone with more knowledge on this particular GPU in the current iMac.
Which, if I'm not mistaken, only really gives a bump of a maximum of 10% in performance over the previous ATI Radeon Mobility 4850 in the 2008/2009 top end iMac's.
If GPU performance is important to you (which as a "hardcore gamer" it will be) then the iMac is definitely not the set up for you. Apple always seems to be a lagging at least a generation behind in the GPU's it installs in the iMac.
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The mobility 5850 does a decent job at starcraft, even at the iMac's high resolution. You should get the mac pro though, if you must game and have a mac.
Really if it were me though, I'd invest 800-1000 on a gaming tower and just get some decent monitor to go with it. It's not like owning a windows machine is the plague anyways. (If you should know, starcraft2 performs better on windows than osx)
Really if it were me though, I'd invest 800-1000 on a gaming tower and just get some decent monitor to go with it. It's not like owning a windows machine is the plague anyways. (If you should know, starcraft2 performs better on windows than osx)
Inclined to agree.
Although more games are coming out for the Mac I always game on the PC side due to wider choice, games often perform better than Apple ported versions and more likely to pick up a deal on PC games as opposed to the Apple versions.
I can run Crysis on High and 1080p over Windows 7 64 Bit (Bootcamp) at 30fps.
(late 2009 27" i5 iMac with 8GBRam)
-> I would call that "more than just suited" for Gaming.
(late 2009 27" i5 iMac with 8GBRam)
-> I would call that "more than just suited" for Gaming.
Coincidentally I'm currently playing Crysis on a similar set-up (late 2009, i7, 8GB RAM, 4850 GPU). As a casual gamer I'm happy how it performs, however there is a noticeable frame rate drop the more on screen action there is and I do get random freezes every now and again. I honestly don't think anyone can regard the iMac GPU as being in anyway geared towards gaming.
I think though it's the difference between what a casual gamer and hard core gamer regard as acceptable which are two very different things.
Im returning it because I have a Quad Core i5 2.8 with 5750 coming, but under windows SC2 runs at a mix of medium and high at arund 40-50FPS at 2560x1440, on the 27" i3 5670 512MB gpu pretty good. New GPU should give me a solid 10 more fps, or a bump to all high.
I found out that when playing Crysis on 64 bit Windows you gain another 5 to 10 fps depending on the situation. Freezes i never encountered at all...
Who knows what causes the freezes, such are the delights of Windows 7. Out of curiosity what GPU driver version are you running on the Windows side?
I dont quite remember as i tried several drivers for the 4850 HD and it was some 4 Months ago, but since it is really a different card i found the latest drivers and installed them successfully...with slight improvements.
Edit: Isn't it a Mobility HD 4870 or something in reality? No wait its a "Mobility" HD 4850...
Edit2: Win7 tells me its a HD 4850 with driver date 6th of July 2010
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It would be great if you could give me the driver version - if I recall right mouse click>screen resolution>advanced - I can't remember the rest - when I get home I'll post the full/correct path to get the info.
Cheers
Its definitely a Desktop Driver, Version 8.753.0.0
But I will update to the newest now.
Edit: So after the update it kinda recognized on its own that it is a mobility and i cant install Desktop anymore...
Edit2: Changed back to the old drivers, the mobility drivers suck balls. I dropped 25fps in SC2 from 30fps with the Desktop drivers to <5 with the mobility.
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In that case we're running the same driver. Took me a while and a certain amount of messing around before I settled on one that I was happy with. The Apple Bootcamp supplied driver was useless and gave strange banding on the colours.
Can I ask where you guys got the 8.753.0.0 driver? How exactly did you go about "back-dating" your driver to this one?
I'm also on the 4850 (2009 iMac) and noticed recently that the desktop ATI app wasn't working anymore and that I had to use the mobile one to update. I haven't tried gaming on it, but it seems this driver is crap, so how do I go to the one you guys are using?
Thanks.
I'm also on the 4850 (2009 iMac) and noticed recently that the desktop ATI app wasn't working anymore and that I had to use the mobile one to update. I haven't tried gaming on it, but it seems this driver is crap, so how do I go to the one you guys are using?
Thanks.
I did it so long ago I honestly can't remember as it seemed to require a bit of back and forth between drivers. I know that at the time I installed the ATI Catalyst driver which, if I recall, allowed me to install that particular GPU driver but can't for the life of me recall the whole process. Sorry I can't be any more help.
On the ATI Driver site you choose what driver you need, and the Operating System. Then it will redirect you on a black page where the downloads are. There you scroll down,... on the bottom is a link called "Previews Drivers", where you can choose A LOT.
Dont forget to remove the newer drivers from your system before trying to install the downloaded one.