My 13 year old son wants a laptop, he still plays a lot of roblox but his friends are getting into Valorant and Fortnite. He will eventually get into PC gaming but, he wants a mac m3 pro laptop for the ease of use. I've tried explaining to him that macs don't have many games. What would you do? He has a nice gaming PC at my place but he's over at his mom's more.
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Mac Pro Laptop Good for Gaming?
- Thread starter unWoke_inLA
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It's kind of a complicated topic honestly. Apple Silicon Macs are absolutely fantastic for games... When the games are optimised for the Macs in question, which most games are not. Some will run, but poorly, most won't run at all. But games that run well, run very very well. Battery life, fan noise while gaming, both best in class. Performance is great for the form factor and even price and speakers and compatibility with game controllers and the like is very good too.
But yeah, selection is small. And getting some games to run requires a lot of tinkering and they'll never run well (talking about Windows games running through translation layers or old Mac games not optimised for Apple Silicon).
I would advise looking into Andrew Tsai on YouTube. He does a lot of Mac gaming content, showing off performance as well as how to get certain games to run and optimise their performance.
You can of course also listen to the MacGameCast podcast (shameless plug), where my co-hosts and I discuss this sort of thing on a regular basis.
If gaming is the primary or sole purpose of the machine, the Mac is probably a bad choice. But for a computer with mixed use where gaming is also something one wants to do, but it is not ultra important to get to play *all games* just some; The Mac can be a great choice
But yeah, selection is small. And getting some games to run requires a lot of tinkering and they'll never run well (talking about Windows games running through translation layers or old Mac games not optimised for Apple Silicon).
I would advise looking into Andrew Tsai on YouTube. He does a lot of Mac gaming content, showing off performance as well as how to get certain games to run and optimise their performance.
You can of course also listen to the MacGameCast podcast (shameless plug), where my co-hosts and I discuss this sort of thing on a regular basis.
If gaming is the primary or sole purpose of the machine, the Mac is probably a bad choice. But for a computer with mixed use where gaming is also something one wants to do, but it is not ultra important to get to play *all games* just some; The Mac can be a great choice
My $2400, 2012 Intel MBP with a dedicated gpu, and Bootcamp was good as an all purpose computer and for gaming on the road, but for home and gaming, it has to be a PC. Two things happened, prices for the equivalent MBP jacked up to $3000 and I retired. I’m now using a 2016 MBP $2000 model with integrated graphics for everything but gaming. 🤔
Apple Silicon Mac's are at best described as being in their infancy with gaming and Apple has little interest. Save your money, it will just be a frustrating experience unless the games are optimised for Apple Silicon or at very least run under Rosetta 2.
As your son's taste in games changes the MBP will gather dust as it simply wont be capable of playing the vast majority Windows titles without jumping through hoops if at all even possible. Developers & Publishers wont bring many titles to the Mac as they have little to no incentive.
FWIW I have Apple Silicon & Intel Mac's and PC's. I do occasionally play games on the Mx Mac, however they are older titles that I'm more interested in getting to run than anything else and as has been said require a level of knowledge to do so. If I'm going to game I use one of the PC's as it simply makes more sense.
As a father I'd just say no and explain why the answer is no. If you want to spend, go for a Windows gaming notebook from a reputable company.
Q-6
As your son's taste in games changes the MBP will gather dust as it simply wont be capable of playing the vast majority Windows titles without jumping through hoops if at all even possible. Developers & Publishers wont bring many titles to the Mac as they have little to no incentive.
FWIW I have Apple Silicon & Intel Mac's and PC's. I do occasionally play games on the Mx Mac, however they are older titles that I'm more interested in getting to run than anything else and as has been said require a level of knowledge to do so. If I'm going to game I use one of the PC's as it simply makes more sense.
As a father I'd just say no and explain why the answer is no. If you want to spend, go for a Windows gaming notebook from a reputable company.
Q-6
There are 45,661 Mac games only on Steam. 4,648 have native ports for Apple Silicon. Most of the other 64-bit games also work through Rosetta. Only 32-bit ones don't. There are also many games on Mac App Store that are not on Steam, like Resident Evil Village, RE 4 Remake and Death Stranding. Last year 5,498 new Mac games were relesed but it all comes down to what your son wants to play. Nobody have time for 45,000 games anyway. Casual users would be fine with a Mac. Many Windows games can also be played with Crossover or other solutions. If gaming is all he cares about go for a PC.
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Macs are great for a lot of things (creative work and software development, for example), but they're not so great for gaming. Only a handful of popular games run natively on Apple Silicon: games like Baldur's Gate 3, No Man's Sky, Resident Evil Village, and some other single-player titles.
Fortnite and Valorant, however, are PC only. If you get him a Mac, he's going to have to find some other use for it besides online gaming. 😅
(technically, you can sort of get around it by using a cloud gaming solution like GeForce Now, but that costs $10 to $20 a month and it doesn't support Valorant)
Fortnite and Valorant, however, are PC only. If you get him a Mac, he's going to have to find some other use for it besides online gaming. 😅
(technically, you can sort of get around it by using a cloud gaming solution like GeForce Now, but that costs $10 to $20 a month and it doesn't support Valorant)
Unless you are a retro gamer, mostly what matters is when you look at the latest releases and see what big games are Mac compatible or not. As a person who likes my Mac (see signature), I'm not happy with this list. And even back in the 1990s when I had a Mac Tower, and a PC both with identical graphic cards, playing Unreal Tournament, the PC would crank out twice as many frames as my Mac...it's because of the way most games are developed.
- Starfield- NO
- Cyberpunk 2077- NO
- Smite/Smite 2- NO
- Hogwarts Legacy- NO
- Homeworld 3- NO
- World of Warships- NO
- Fallout 76- NO (even Fallout 4- NO)
- ARK: Survival Evolved/Ascended- NO
- Conan Exiles- NO
- Call of Duty Warzone- NO
- etc
- etc
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We all know you're not a casual gamer. You have 13 threads only on the first page in this forum and even you got tired of Starfield so I think we can remove that from your list.
Said to @Huntn he should have played No Man's Sky LOL...We all know you're not a casual gamer. You have 13 threads only on the first page in this forum and even you got tired of Starfield so I think we can remove that from your list.
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Q-6
You are so right! Completely empty. They are relying on ancient character interaction mechanisms as if that’s good enough for today. 😡 “I’m so excited to see you!!” followed by a blank stare… I’m really looking forward to competant AI to make an appearance in the near future.We all know you're not a casual gamer. You have 13 threads only on the first page in this forum and even you got tired of Starfield so I think we can remove that from your list.
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I know I’m repeating myself, do that a lot, but I said Night City was so impressive I almost thought I could stop anyone on the street and strike up a conversation. Nope! And Starfield, Christ, I got tired of “Hi boss, how goes it?” Blank stare. But if I actually stopped to talk, they’d have nothing to say. Just like my companion Andreja, “It’s so good to be back on our ship!“ Blank stare. WHAT-EVER…. And Sue Morgan, I accidentally killed a good guy, and she runs screaming towards the horizon, “I CAN’T TAKE THIS!!” (Emotional breakdown). 🙄 Give me Cait any day.
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I may look at it again, but when I first played it, I was bored, and the Space Station left a lot to be desired. From a structure standpoint, Starfield runs circles around it, at least it did when I played NMS. 🤔
So in short I suggest to give a look on Whisky.
Naturally games build for Mac will work way better that porting like this or CrossOver where translating from x86 or x64 into Mac has always penalty of performance.
But for instance mentioned in this thread Homeworld 3 game runs well with little to no artifacts...
Installation:
docs.getwhisky.app
Thread about games:
github.com
But keep in mind some online games could ban for not using native OS they are build for.
I was surprised but Whisky app allowed me to play on M3 Max the Windows Steam games with ease (just have to follow installation of ”bottle’’ and then installing Steam from steam.exe out of Steam website downloader, the rest is just via Steam app). Can also install Heroic app and run games in Whisky.
But yeah, for all this money there might be better devices than Macs if gaming is first priority
Naturally games build for Mac will work way better that porting like this or CrossOver where translating from x86 or x64 into Mac has always penalty of performance.
But for instance mentioned in this thread Homeworld 3 game runs well with little to no artifacts...
Installation:
Guide - Whisky Documentation
docs.getwhisky.app
Thread about games:
Game List · Whisky-App · Discussion #348
Is there a place where users can find information about games and also to add reports of how games work? Something similar to https://www.protondb.com/ This thread could be a good starting point, s...
github.com
But keep in mind some online games could ban for not using native OS they are build for.
I was surprised but Whisky app allowed me to play on M3 Max the Windows Steam games with ease (just have to follow installation of ”bottle’’ and then installing Steam from steam.exe out of Steam website downloader, the rest is just via Steam app). Can also install Heroic app and run games in Whisky.
But yeah, for all this money there might be better devices than Macs if gaming is first priority
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I've been playing on the Steam Deck for over a year and the top 20 games each month have very little interest for me.We all know you're not a casual gamer. You have 13 threads only on the first page in this forum and even you got tired of Starfield so I think we can remove that from your list.
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I look at a lot of the games available for Mac and they have very little interest for me.
Some decent games that have arrived on Android and iOS versions, also have Windows versions but no Mac versions. You'd think that Apple could train developers to migrate those iOS versions to iPadOS and finally, to macOS.
Some older Mac games work through Rosetta 2, even though they're 32-bit.
There are a lot of casual games available, but you might as well put the money into a Steam Deck because it can play quite a few games, even though it can't handle the performance hogs very well.
As other folks, if the primary purpose of the laptop is game playing your son will be a lot better off with a windows laptop.
First is the game selection, as @Huntn mentioned you have a higher and better selection of games. The last thing you want is a laptop that cannot play the same games that your son's friends are playing. Just spouting number of games doen't really paint the full picture. Many AAA titles do not run on Macs, pure and simple.
Secondly you can get a decent gaming laptop with better specs then a MBP for less money
First is the game selection, as @Huntn mentioned you have a higher and better selection of games. The last thing you want is a laptop that cannot play the same games that your son's friends are playing. Just spouting number of games doen't really paint the full picture. Many AAA titles do not run on Macs, pure and simple.
Secondly you can get a decent gaming laptop with better specs then a MBP for less money
It's a Bethesda game. I could've told you it would be like this before it was announced
NMS is a slow starter, just be mindful of the scale of the game. More to the point the game is in constant development with ever more content being added. So what you played in the past is not representative of NMS today. Starfield your stuck with Bethesda's vacuous storyline & mechanisms, No Man Sky you forge your own...
Q-6
I beg to differ. The Pippin is the best Apple gaming device. Well, realistically speaking the Apple II is probably better in terms of the amount of games developed with it in mind, but the Pippin was very game-focused…The best gaming device by Apple is the iPad.
There are far more games for iPad than Mac. Connect an xbox controller and you'll have a fab time gaming at 60-120fps. No need to faff with parallel desktop or emulators.
I don't think his son is looking to play asset flip 74. Most of the big titles people have actually heard of and care about don't exist on Mac. I think casual gamers are more likely to want big name titles like Call of Duty, FIFA etc. and stuff their friends are playing like Fortnite.
I'd have the kid write down a list of what games he's looking to play and then have him check what's available on Mac and he'll understand pretty quick why it's not a good fit.
Re: Starfield, from Fallout 4 they’ve improved everything which was a sweet spot for its time, except for character interaction. With AI, I’m expecting something significantly better, eventually. 🤔It's a Bethesda game. I could've told you it would be like this before it was announced
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Since he is an avid youtuber, we will get a MB Air 15" 1TB for now and then get a cheap $1,000 gaming laptop PeeCeee when he is ready. thanks for all of your suggestions. At least he doesnt want the Vision Goggles anymore.
MacBook Air 15-inch, M3, 2024
Apple M3 (8-Core CPU / 10-Core GPU / 24GB RAM)
hmm he def wants the 24gb ram but none will be available for awhile - beginning of June. Im guessing because they are fresh off production with the new m3 cpu?