Is an iMac any good for games using Windows 7 on Bootcamp?

[Lorrin]

Thinking of buying an iMac in the next couple of months and want to know know if anyone has experience of running games on Windows 7 under Bootcamp?

Do they run ok? I know it depends what sort of game you are playing so I usually play MMO's & FPS.

I will be using OSX for all non gaming stuff but if the gaming under Windows 7 is not that good I may just buy a Macbook for my OSX stuff and buy a seperate PC just for gaming.

Any experiences appreciated.

Thanks

Richard

 

[pt0016]

Yup

I just received my refurb 21.5" 1920x1080 4670HD iMac.

I installed Windows 7 on it, and it plays L4D2, FlatOut2, Battlefield 2, COD MW1&2 all with the settings tuned to the highest - native res, antialiasing and all.

GTA IV, it plays with the native res with textures set to low, and other settings set to Medium, although you have to install a few patches etc. Anistropic filter set to 8x. It runs and looks great, especially the motion blur =)

Crysis runs on all medium with 2x antialising, with textures and objects turned to Very High. Native res. Runs smooth as.

Gaming on it is nice, the iMac gets nice and toasty, but I guess it cools it quite well because I haven't heard the fans yet.

If you get the 27" iMac with the 4670, I don't think it would play so well, only because of the crazy resolution.

Edit: Battlefield "2", not modern warfare as some might think.

 

[UltimaLink]

I wouldn't recommend gaming on an iMac, but whatever.

I'd assume it performs well, they're pretty up on this gen technology. I've never gamed on a Mac before though.

 

[TMRaven]

If you're looking into gaming on an iMac, I'd get the 27 inch version with the mobility 4850. It'll play all of today's games at native resolution and high-ultra settings no problem, come a couple years down the line, you'll probably have to sac some resolution or have graphics settings down to medium.

 

[Lorrin]

Thanks for the info

 

[pt0016]

To be honest, I was very surprised when the games above worked so well, as it has only 256mb VRAM. It performs almost as well as a 9800GT, which handled the games at about the same settings.

 

[zaffle]

If you're looking into gaming on an iMac, I'd get the 27 inch version with the mobility 4850. It'll play all of today's games at native resolution and high-ultra settings no problem, come a couple years down the line, you'll probably have to sac some resolution or have graphics settings down to medium.

not entirely true in my experience. playing HL2 at native res with all settings at their highest results in some frame rate drops in areas with exceeding draw distance (to be honest i only noticed this in episode two). the bonus with the giant screen is that you don't really need the anti-aliasing that much since it'll look pretty magnificent regardless, although i think you can get away with 2x if you reeeaalllyyy want it. any higher than that and you'll be having performance issues. 2560x1440 is an insane resolution to expect to play games at, but if you can get it to work, it looks bloody ace.

most other games will look great and perform well at 1080p with a bit of anti-aliasing, so don't fret about that.

 

[TMRaven]

not entirely true in my experience. playing HL2 at native res with all settings at their highest results in some frame rate drops in areas with exceeding draw distance

Is that under windows or osx?

 

[zaffle]

Is that under windows or osx?

both. god bless steamplay.