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Is the iMac's graphics dated?
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You paly FEAR on fullIt's a 256mb card right? My 128 struggles with FSAA turned on
I think that's what you call a generous exaggeration.
I'm willing to bet what he really means "stays between 10 and 30fps most of the time on medium-low settings with no AA and at 1024 resolution."
i don't really know why people make claims like this...
anyway, to OP, the truth is there is a long and storied history of Apple not servicing those of us who want a good graphics card with reasonable options. Even though they've built several Core technologies that can leverage the power of modern graphics cards, they insist on only offering cards that are at LEAST a full generation behind the PC world, and to add insult to injury, they charge you 50-100% more for those slower, older cards!
We've been complaining about it for years, basically since graphics cards became an issue. We will probably keep complaining about it for years, because Steve Jobs doesn't like games unless they're 5 dollars to develop and/or buy-out and have an iphone interface.
The sad thing is that there are games available for Mac right now that came out months ago on PC that the fastest iMac cannot play above medium settings at its native resolution. I have given up telling my friends about how they can buy a Mac and still play windows games, because it isn't really true. Yes, you can run windows. Yes, you can run Half Life 2. But guess what? HL2 ran well on a 700mhz P3 with a geforce 4200. I doubt you could get a solid 10 fps in Crysis with Boot Camp on any shipping Mac other than on the Mac Pro with the X1900 unless you turned the graphics settings basically 'off.' And that might be pushing it.
So in summary, welcome to the club. be prepared for a bunch of fanbois to tell you how their mac mini plays all the best games at 1080p "smooth as butter."
you get used to it after a while.
I love it. I hope the games they are talking about are their Nintendo 64 and PS1 games that they are playing through an emulator.... ha.
ok... well
so theres absolutely no way to increase graphics performance??
btw... i have boot camp, with crysis, and on lowest graphics it runs fine (25-30 fps) also COD4 i can set my res up to full, and still get a 40fps. its not terrible, but im not gonna be able to run anything in 2 years time! or shorter!
so theres absolutely no way to increase graphics performance??
btw... i have boot camp, with crysis, and on lowest graphics it runs fine (25-30 fps) also COD4 i can set my res up to full, and still get a 40fps. its not terrible, but im not gonna be able to run anything in 2 years time! or shorter!
Plenty of RAM and HDD space? I don't know. Start playing Strategy games instead of more graphic intensive games.
Well, yeah.
There are no external options and I was agreeing that the card cannot be changed. The card in his iMac is soldered on, so it can't be upgraded. He wants an option without having to buy a new computer, and there isn't one.
The fact that the monitors are bigger probably compounds the porblem somewhat, since the video cards are still not powerful enough, but with bigger screen sizes, you're forced to play on a higher native resolution, which is going to be slower.
I'm planning to get a 24' 2.4ghz iMac in a few weeks (depending on if there's an internal upgrade after MW) and my #1 hope is that there's a video card upgrade, though I doubt it will happen. I'll probably be bootcamping it anyway, since as I understand DirectX 9 support isn't so great on Parallels and VMWare?
I'm planning to get a 24' 2.4ghz iMac in a few weeks (depending on if there's an internal upgrade after MW) and my #1 hope is that there's a video card upgrade, though I doubt it will happen. I'll probably be bootcamping it anyway, since as I understand DirectX 9 support isn't so great on Parallels and VMWare?
dont get an imac! direct x 9 is over!
listen, dont make the same mistake i did by buying an iMac. Even if the video cards are upgradable in the 24' model, how much space is there for a graphics card? the more powerful cards are getting bigger and bigger, and its unlikely that there will be space for a good card. One of my friends recently bought the nvidia 8800gts for his pc, and it takes up 2 graphics cards slots. Wait until apple introduces direct x 10 cards into their computers or rather buy a MacPro which you can upgrade cards in, because direct X9 is allready becoming outdated and in two years time, you may not be able to run any new games.
listen, dont make the same mistake i did by buying an iMac. Even if the video cards are upgradable in the 24' model, how much space is there for a graphics card? the more powerful cards are getting bigger and bigger, and its unlikely that there will be space for a good card. One of my friends recently bought the nvidia 8800gts for his pc, and it takes up 2 graphics cards slots. Wait until apple introduces direct x 10 cards into their computers or rather buy a MacPro which you can upgrade cards in, because direct X9 is allready becoming outdated and in two years time, you may not be able to run any new games.
dont get parallels either
oh and btw, parallels is terrible, unless you got a truck load of ram, it runs slowly and cant run any new games. Boot camp is way better.
oh and btw, parallels is terrible, unless you got a truck load of ram, it runs slowly and cant run any new games. Boot camp is way better.
I didn't think you could run games through Parallels. I have a Macbook Pro with 2.16 GHz Intel processor and 2GB of RAM and Parallels works fine for me. I do programming using Visual Studio 2005 and I backup my DVDs on there and I've never had real speed issues. It doesn't go as fast as it would if you were using Bootcamp, but I like running both OS's at the same time... it's quicker.
Honestly I'm hoping that those super long shot "cheaper Mac Pro / upgradable Mac Mini" wishful thinking rumors are true, because I'd prefer those over an iMac. But, my 6+ year old PC is dying and I really need a new computer before this dies completely, and feel like giving switching a try. PC Gaming isn't a HUGE deal for me nowadays, but I would like to play some of the PC games/Xbox ports I've missed over the last few years (Half Life 2, Psychonauts, Deus Ex 2, KOTOR 2, etc.). Those reports about crappy performance in Guitar Hero are saddening though
I would think at least that kind of game, not super-hardcore in terms of performance, would run well... still, even if there's no video card upgrade, I will probably switch to iMac after MW. Have you tried VMWare Fusion? I feel like there's a lot more positive feedback about that vs. Parallels. I was thinking of trying that either with its own disk image, or sharing the Bootcamp partition. I do plan on upgrading immediately to 4GB of ram for this and other things (Logic).
new question
i have a new question... today my windows partition with boot camp mysteriously vanashed. i can still start up on windows but mac is not detecting the partition (it doesnt appear on the desktop, or on the startup disk menu) maybe i should try this VMWare Fusion thing how much is it?
hmm never heard of upgradable mac minis, and i guess MacPro's are very expensive, and if you just want to play HL2, and other games on that level, iMac is fine, i have half-life 2, which runs with a 40fps on highest graphics, and episode one, which i can run on medium graphics. and also, i looked up the cards on the new iMacs, most of them are direct x10 compatable, but make sure you get the best one possible.
i have a new question... today my windows partition with boot camp mysteriously vanashed. i can still start up on windows but mac is not detecting the partition (it doesnt appear on the desktop, or on the startup disk menu) maybe i should try this VMWare Fusion thing how much is it?
hmm never heard of upgradable mac minis, and i guess MacPro's are very expensive, and if you just want to play HL2, and other games on that level, iMac is fine, i have half-life 2, which runs with a 40fps on highest graphics, and episode one, which i can run on medium graphics. and also, i looked up the cards on the new iMacs, most of them are direct x10 compatable, but make sure you get the best one possible.
I played half life 2 here, and got about 90fps. That's at 1900x1200, with all settings on maximum quality except anti-aliasing which was off, on a 2.8 24".
Seriously, the imacs will handle pretty much all games VERY well, except for the very latest high end games like crysis (which is still very playable on medium - high quality if you turn the resolution down). If a game like guitar hero is running badly, I'd imagine it's either a one-off conflict or a problem with the game. Just make sure you get an imac with the 2600 card - the 2400 is a lot slower.
Seriously, the imacs will handle pretty much all games VERY well, except for the very latest high end games like crysis (which is still very playable on medium - high quality if you turn the resolution down). If a game like guitar hero is running badly, I'd imagine it's either a one-off conflict or a problem with the game. Just make sure you get an imac with the 2600 card - the 2400 is a lot slower.
crysis medium graphics? no ways!
hello, psonice, there is no way you can play crysis on medium or high graphics with a decent framerate. I have a friend with the nvidia 8800GT 512mb card, which is MUCH better than the ATI 2400 and 2600, and he can only set it on medium graphics, my crappy X1600 card gets a 30fps on lowest graphics, 800x600 res. as for half-life, im sure you get a 90fps or whatever, but half-life2 is now quite old and many of us want to play all the new games.
hello, psonice, there is no way you can play crysis on medium or high graphics with a decent framerate. I have a friend with the nvidia 8800GT 512mb card, which is MUCH better than the ATI 2400 and 2600, and he can only set it on medium graphics, my crappy X1600 card gets a 30fps on lowest graphics, 800x600 res. as for half-life, im sure you get a 90fps or whatever, but half-life2 is now quite old and many of us want to play all the new games.
iv seen youtube video's of people playing on Crysis with relatively good performance.. obviously you cant put the graphic settings on MAX but it does play it on Med-High depending on the amount of memory you have (that is on BootCamp I believe)
I know Crysis isn't a strategy game its a first person shooter, however it is a new game and it does run on a iMac
Edit : CEment -- got to it first
I know Crysis isn't a strategy game its a first person shooter, however it is a new game and it does run on a iMac
Edit : CEment -- got to it first
Well, it ran very smoothly on medium settings, at 1024x600. With some settings turned up higher, it was still pretty smooth, but with everything on high it was unplayable. Turning the resolution up made it unplayable too. I've no idea what FPS I was getting as I didn't check, but it was probably 40+ on the medium settings, and perfectly playable.
With these games, there's a big trade-off between resolution and quality - you can have one or the other, but not both without a really high-end system. The imac actually surprised me a bit because the quality was pretty good, while the resolution was at least reasonable.
This is the demo I was playing btw, the game isn't my cup of tea but I like to see some high end graphics now and then.
oh well
hmm maybe i underestimated you card... but anyway, the demo seems to be specially optimised, because when i played it, i could set my graphics on med, with 800x600 res. later on in the game, such as in the alien world, it gets much more graphically demanding. oh well i suppose it must be quite a good card...
but listen!! can anyone tell me why my windows partition has vanashed?!
the other day my windows partition with boot camp mysteriously vanashed. i can still start up on windows but mac is not detecting the partition (it doesnt appear on the desktop, or on the startup disk menu)
hmm maybe i underestimated you card... but anyway, the demo seems to be specially optimised, because when i played it, i could set my graphics on med, with 800x600 res. later on in the game, such as in the alien world, it gets much more graphically demanding. oh well i suppose it must be quite a good card...
but listen!! can anyone tell me why my windows partition has vanashed?!
the other day my windows partition with boot camp mysteriously vanashed. i can still start up on windows but mac is not detecting the partition (it doesnt appear on the desktop, or on the startup disk menu)