OS Neutral Mac Gamers, Can you live without Windows?

[MichalM.Mac]

Yes. I wiped my bootcamp partition month ago. I haven't used it for year or so.
That might change with Witcher 3 (since port of Witcher 2 is not very good).

 

[Huntn]

Interesting I have completely the opposite experience. Windows is something that has to be endured as a necessary evil when I have something to do that is Windows only.

Edwin

As you may know, I've been a MacOS fan since my first Mac. The source of this current frustration is poor performance with MacOSX I am experiencing on my MBP. After two MacOS upgrades 08 and 09, my impression is that there is nothing wrong other than maybe not enough RAM and hopefully when I upgrade the RAM maybe the situation will correct itself. I started a "too many spinning balls" in the MacOS forum a while back. Of course when I'm home doing serious work, I swallow the subpar performance because I really only trust the MacOS for serious work and Windows only for surfing forums like this and gaming.

 

[dwbattle]

I always wanted a Mac but stuck with Windows for a long time because of poor game support. In 2009 I finally gave in and bought a Mac Pro, 4,1. I haven't owned a Windows PC since and I have not used Windows via bootcamp or any other method. The thing that made the switch possible for me was that I realized that I bought a lot of games but a really spent >95% of my time playing a small handful of games: Civilization (and its many clones/variations), a few Fantasy RPGs, and Chess. Versions of these games are all readily available for Mac OS X. Meanwhile, game support for the Mac has greatly improved.

 

[cal6n]

I've got a Boot Camp partition but the only thing I seem to do in it these days is run the monthly update. The last Windows game I played was some Civ 5 while a tech support issue on the Mac side was being debugged/resolved.

The state of the gaming industry has changed so much over the last couple of years that Mac-only gaming is virtually stress free and full of choice. Feral and Aspyr carried the torch for a long time but it's been since Valve and Steam embraced diversity that I've really felt no need to use any other platform.

I realise that there are Windows exclusive games, but it seems there are less of those each year. I just ignore them completely and give my money only to companies that are cross-platform.

 

[VI™]

I made a decision about 10 years ago not to be a PC gamer after watching my brother spend a fortune on keeping his PC cutting edge. Basically, you spend your time constantly playing catch up with graphics cards, memory, software updates for drivers, etc. So I decided I'd just play console games - overall it's cheaper, they're designed for the system in question, and without all the pressures on your PC hardware to be top notch you can keep your PCs longer. So, several consoles later I still think it makes sense. So, yes I can live without windows, and just play the odd OSX game here and there.

That may have been true 10 years ago, but not so much anymore. My Wintel computer is about 4-5 years old and I've only upgrade the GPU once. It's running most games at 2560x1600 on a 30" monitor on high settings with no real issue. Not to mention, graphics look so much better. I'm playing Skyrim on my rMBP and the graphics are soooooo much better than on the Xbox or PS3.

 

[kitsunestudios]

I haven't gone into boot camp in a couple months now. I still have a number of Windows-only games like Mass Effect, Skyrim and Blood Bowl, but a lot of the games I've ben into lately are Mac Compatable on steam, and don't really suffer for the FPS hit on the Mac (XCOM, Civ V, FTL, SimCity)

 

[saotomefirst]

I haven't gone into boot camp in a couple months now. I still have a number of Windows-only games like Mass Effect, Skyrim and Blood Bowl, but a lot of the games I've ben into lately are Mac Compatable on steam, and don't really suffer for the FPS hit on the Mac (XCOM, Civ V, FTL, SimCity)

Same here. I got Win 7 prior to purchase my Macbook Pro, afraid to have little gaming options for OSX. But thanks to Steam I don't really have any reasons to bootcamp anymore. Most of the games I play run fine in OSX, and the few ones that doesn't aren't that interesting to make me switch just to play them for an hour.

And ofc with the growing popularity of OSX, it's probable that more and more titles will eventually find their way to the Mac, making me an even happier player

 

[whitedragon101]

Valve are pushing very hard for games to be made for Linux. This will be awesome as it will mean you can dual boot OSX and Linux and drop paying for Windows all together

It might take a while but if the steam box takes off so will the availability of linux games (steam box runs custom linux)

 

[Solomani]

Yes, I do gaming, and I currently don't have a Windows machine (I gave away my old Vista gaming machine to my parents). Last time I checked, I'm alive. So I can "live without it".

Im not a hardcore gamer, but I do play regularly. From MMOs and RPGs (Diablo3) to more casual indie games. I don't Bootcamp at the moment, but I have entertained the idea. Most (not all) of the games I want to play are already on OSX. Steam's ever-growing library of excellent Mac games is certainly a factor.

 

[Cooee!]

I just wish origin will make their games OS X compatible

 

[N19h7m4r3]

I just wish origin will make their games OS X compatible

Well there's no real excuses bar EA, and money.

Titanfall for instance uses the Source engine, which is behind Portal, and team Fortress 2.

In regards to their other games, the vast majority of code doesn't care what the system is, it's just the set Direct3D that is issues. Even then with Mavericks, it makes it easier to switch that to OpenGL.

With Kingdom Come: Deliverance, even the mighty CryEngine is being used on Mac OSX. Which use to be a 100% Direct3D/X engine. If an indie via kickstarted can do it, there's really no Excuse for EA, and other big boys.

 

[edddeduck]

In regards to their other games, the vast majority of code doesn't care what the system is, it's just the set Direct3D that is issues.

In theory

 

[N19h7m4r3]

In theory

Yup, although with Cryengine even being moved to OpenGL for support on Mac, and Linux, there's plenty good that can be done.
We just need the suits to realise that. Vavle's latest dev days conference shared some amazing OpenGL numbers when it comes to market possibilities.

 

[Gu1b0]

Kotor 2.

 

[Dirtyharry50]

In theory

We know you guys really spend most of your time playing games and just delay stuff to create the illusion that you are working hard.

My theory is that you just have a build engineer add "make openGL" and that's pretty much it while the rest of you are currently racing around in F1 2013!

 

[Irishman]

I think the biggest problem about OS X Gaming is not about gaming performance, but the availability of games. Most games I want right now require windows. I really hope all future games will have OS X compatibility. I really don't want to install windows because it's a waste of space on my ssd.

But I guess I have no choice, I think I will bootcamp windows and install all my games on windows.

I'm not paying for a Windows license on top of the game prices. It's as simple as that for me.

What titles do you want but can't get in OSX?

 

[doh123]

If I can't play it on OSX... I simply don't play it.

 

[Washac]

If I can't play it on OSX... I simply don't play it.

Are you not missing out on a load of good gaming ? Cutting of your nose to spite your face so to speak.

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I'm not paying for a Windows license on top of the game prices. It's as simple as that for me.

What titles do you want but can't get in OSX?

Oblivion
Skyrim
Fallout 3
Fallout New Vegas
Rift
Guild Wars 2

Just to name 6, no NATIVE Mac versions.

Just buy a Windows Home Premium, it's that much, swallow your pride, I did with no regrets, just treat Bootcamp/Windows as your gaming console, I use it for nothing else.

 

[Dirtyharry50]

Are you not missing out on a load of good gaming ? Cutting of your nose to spite your face so to speak.

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Oblivion
Skyrim
Fallout 3
Fallout New Vegas
Rift
Guild Wars 2

Just to name 6, no NATIVE Mac versions.

Just buy a Windows Home Premium, it's that much, swallow your pride, I did with no regrets, just treat Bootcamp/Windows as your gaming console, I use it for nothing else.

I cannot speak for doh123 but for me, I am not missing out on anything I want to play. The problem I have is that I've now accumulated so many Mac games I want to play that I am going to be busy literally for years just with what I already own. Meantime, new ones will continue to release. I only have so much time to play games (and it is a lot btw) so it isn't like I am missing out on gaming because I stick to OS X.

As for the Bethesda RPGs, they can all be played with Wine or on console as desired so I don't personally see that as a problem either. I don't care if they aren't native if they work well which they do.

Guild Wars 2 I will concede is poorly optimized although people still do enjoy it with settings turned down or else on the most current tricked out iMacs. Considering that I play World of Warcraft regularly, I wouldn't have time for this game too so nothing missed for me here.

Rift I cannot comment on but again I would not be interested because I play WoW.

So for me anyway, there is no "pride" that needs to be swallowed. I'm doing just fine. I'm guessing doh123 feels the same way.

At this point, each month as I see cool new stuff release on Steam I just wish list it for maybe a sale later because I am so busy already with what I have. So never does it feel to me as if I am suffering with some compromise because I cannot play x game for Windows. I cannot play every shiny thing I see no matter what happens. There is plenty that I like for Mac so life is good.

I think this is what the "You need Windows" crowd sometimes misses. We don't need Windows. You guys do for the stuff you want to play and that's fine too. But it is also just as fine that we do not. For example, I don't care about Titan-whatever it is coming out soon. It ain't for Mac and I'm busy so whatever. But somebody else might be dying to play that. I'm not them though.

What you do for you, is the only way to fly and I respect that. By the same token, it goes both ways. Nobody needs to worry about me missing out on anything. I'll be fine. I'd get a new console before I'd buy Windows ever again but that's just how I roll.

 

[tomvos]

Not since late 2011. Back then, I owned a lot of older Mac games. Starting with OS X Lion 10.7, the forced obsolescence of PPC with loss of Rosetta killed off a fair number of OS X classics for those buying new Macs. Finding that a number of those classics were useless on my latest Mac made me wonder about future OS X releases. Particularly as each new version of OS X tends to cause more incompatibilities for older Mac games. Without developers updating these games, many are of course lost to the Mac gaming catalogue.

Rather than buy an older Mac, I switched to PC for gaming.

I share this opinion. It's a pity that lots of old games don't run any more on newer Macs. To a certain degree I replaced my old favorites with the Windows versions bought cheaply from GOG and other sources. Together with VMware Fusion, Crossover and Boxer many of the old games become playable on the Mac again.
While Bootcamp is not actually a requirement, there are still some old games which work better under a real Windows than in a virtualized environment. That's one of the reasons why I have bootcamp and several virtual Windows solutions on my Mac.

So, can I live without Windows? Sure, I could keep my old Macs and have machines for several generations of older games. But to be honest, Windows does a much better job at keeping compatibility with older games.

 

[N19h7m4r3]

We know you guys really spend most of your time playing games and just delay stuff to create the illusion that you are working hard.

My theory is that you just have a build engineer add "make openGL" and that's pretty much it while the rest of you are currently racing around in F1 2013!

Of course! They just need to take the code, and click compile for Mac! Then they wait while playing games.

If only it was that simple for games written entirely using Direct3d features.

I'm still so amazed of Tomb Raider's port. I simply can't give Feral enough internet cookies! It's one of the reasons I bought it through the MAS, so they can get more.

 

[Washac]

On reading looking through this thread does it not just come down to each to their own, and what suits ?

 

[N19h7m4r3]

On reading looking through this thread does it not just come down to each to their own, and what suits ?

It certainly does! For the very few exemptions I'll run some Windows games through WINE.
Those are extremely rare, and I have more than enough OS X native games to keep me busy.

 

[mintfan7200]

Hopefully in the near future streaming games will solve this problem of having to use windows . When streaming games happens it will not matter what os or video card you have . Playstation 4 is allready going to be streaming ps3 games so it is just a matter of time before it happens with pc games . The only problem is people who do not have decent broadband or the people who dont even have broadband .

 

[Irishman]

Are you not missing out on a load of good gaming ? Cutting of your nose to spite your face so to speak.

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Oblivion
Skyrim
Fallout 3
Fallout New Vegas
Rift
Guild Wars 2

Just to name 6, no NATIVE Mac versions.

Just buy a Windows Home Premium, it's that much, swallow your pride, I did with no regrets, just treat Bootcamp/Windows as your gaming console, I use it for nothing else.

Sooo, it's so far down on the list of things to buy, it's not funny. As soon as this stuff is out of the way, I'll consider it:

Marantz SR5008
Velodyne Impact 12
Blue Yeti
2 TB backup drive
B&W P7
AppleTV
Panamax M5300-PM
Auralex Great Gramma
Logitech Harmony Smart Control