What Mac would run bootcamp windows games the best?

[nmaxcom]

Whether virtualized (I'm guessing no?) or using Bootcamp. I have a powerful PC but only to play games from time to time, everything else I do is macOS, could I get rid of it?

Is there any Mac device that would run any windows games with high performance?

EDIT:

Just to update: I finally decided to get a windows laptop. It's an XPS 17 and I'm loving it. It runs everything smoothly of course, including all the essentials I had in my MBP, although Windows 11 is just ugly. But we knew that already...

After almost 10 years of happy MBP, I go back to Windows to be just a tiny bit happier (or a bit less miserable; happy is not a state, it's just a silly social construct).
This is goodbye to Mac and to you fine people.

Everyone that wrote here, I've read and appreciated every post.
I wasn't known or even very active here, but still, every time I needed help you people replied with a wealth of useful information.

Best support forum I've ever seen or been in.

Thank you and good luck to everybody.

 

[andrewv69]

I had a similar situation to you, my solution was buying a 2019 16" Macbook Pro with a 2.3Ghz i9, 5500M 8GB, 32GB RAM, and 2TB SSD. From my research it seems even the base model with i7 and 5300M 4GB would be pretty decent at games. IMO it's the obvious choice since it's portable, supports Bootcamp, has a great screen and speakers, decent battery life, and importantly does not have the godawful butterfly keyboard. Especially now that the prices are falling, a good example can be had for ~1500 USD on eBay, maybe less. I'd try to get one with 32GB of RAM since it's non-upgradeable and it seems to benefit some games pretty well (ex Escape From Tarkov), the 8GB of VRAM on the 5500M is just to be safe since more and more games need 4GB or more of VRAM to play smoothly. There is a 5600M option, though even with current pricing they're ~3000 USD, which is too expensive to justify IMO. Just keep in mind that whatever option you pick, the 16" is NOT a dedicated gaming laptop so don't expect 4k60 ultra settings by any means. It seems to mostly be 1080p60, maybe 1440p60 in some games. Think of it as a macbook that can also play games pretty well.

Just make sure to use MacsFanControl or TGPro to manage thermals, and for best game performance try using bootcampdrivers. I haven't received and tested mine yet, but as long as you game with headphones the fan noise isn't really a problem.

Personally I had a windows laptop with an i7 and GTX 1650Ti 2GB, which was ok at gaming, and a trashcan Mac Pro with Xeon 6 core and dual D300s, which turned out to suck at most games because the dual GPU drivers don't play nice anymore. From what I've seen online, the 2019 16 inch has more power than both, and consolidates all of my systems into one. Hope this was helpful!

edit: there's definitely a better desktop option as maccheetah suggests in the post below, though obviously that's a desktop and not portable like a laptop. if you don't need a laptop form factor then that's probably a better option. also, apple silicon m1 pro/max is not really a viable option IMO since crossover gives very mixed results from what i've heard, and the general lack of/waiting for optimization for AS is not worth it right now for me

References (kind of old but still relevant):
https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/f2pf5s https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/ev83gc https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/gq90ph

5500M vs 5600M

 

[MacCheetah3]

Your request is vague and subjective (i.e. which games, what in-game resolution, what do you consider high-performance?)

Nonetheless...

The best you’ll probably get is the:

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020) - Technical Specifications - Apple Support

support.apple.com

The problem is this model was recently discontinued (as of the Mac Studio launch) and the higher end GPU options were CTO.

Specifically, I was thinking:

UserBenchmark: AMD RX 5700

UserBenchmark: AMD RX 5700 vs Nvidia GTX 1070

UserBenchmark: AMD RX 5700 vs Nvidia RTX 2060

I do not foresee Boot Camp ever being a feature for M-based Macs. Therefore, presumably, you’d have no choices in upcoming Macs.

Refurbished 27-inch iMac 3.8GHz 8-core Intel Core i7 with Retina 5K display

Originally released August 2020 27-inch (diagonal) Retina 5K display; 5120-by-2880 resolution with support for one billion colors True Tone technology 32GB of 2666MHz DDR4 memory 4TB SSD1 1080p FaceTime HD camera Radeon Pro 5700 XT with 16GB of GDDR6 memory

www.apple.com

Not currently available via the refurbished section, though the listing gives you a retail-ish price estimate. Of course, the used markets will vary. Although, because the 27-inch was recently discontinued, you probably won’t find many for sale or at a bargain cost for a few months at least.

 

[andrewv69]

Specifically, I was thinking:

UserBenchmark: AMD RX 5700

UserBenchmark: AMD RX 5700 vs Nvidia GTX 1070

UserBenchmark: AMD RX 5700 vs Nvidia RTX 2060

the 5k imac could definitely be a good option of portability is not a requirement. just stay away from userbenchmark lol, they're well known for heavily favoring intel over amd and other shenanigans
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/s42vpf

 

[allan.nyholm]

Any Mac that doesn't have too high a screen resolution and too little graphics memory - you have to, IMO, go above 4GB graphics memory as the iMac with 2GB graphics memory is really just capable of having enough memory to give the full 5120x2880 resolution. You won't have much left to start any games and keep playing them

As an example; my Late iMac 2015 with an AMD Radeon R9 M380 2 GB can't run any modern games in Windows.
I tried a racing game; Forza Horizon (one of the later ones - I forget which one) .. I could play around 10 minutes in total before my iMac ran out of graphics memory in Windows 10.

Be careful with choosing too old an Intel iMac if you go that route. Go for one that has 4GB and especially 8GB of graphics memory. Then up the regular RAM too to at least 16GB and preferably 32GB if you can.

There's no reason you shouldn't just max out the RAM on all parameters. Then an i7 Intel Mac on top that.

I don't more than around 380MB of available graphics card memory when all process are loaded and a few regular apps are opened on my Mac with macOS Monterey.
For a modern shooter or racing game in Windows 10 you will be in a similar situation.

A Mac mini isn't on my suggestionlist - However, a powerful enough MacBook Pro could be.
Seeing the monitor screen resolution is way lower than that of a 27" Retina iMac that carries 5120x2880 as its resolution(scaling is sometimes the answer to get a more responsive Mac - and I do that quite often)

Windows of course has scaling options too, so you could try experimenting with a lower graphics car memory iMac and scale down your monitor resolution to that of a non hi-dpi one in Windows 10 - if you're hell bent on buying an iMac similar to mine.

PS.. I'm not a gamer. I love a racing game as one of the only gamestyles. I'm not doing much of that anymore since Steam isn't working on macOS Monterey. GRID and GRID2 worked fine on macOS Mojave. So it could just be optimization issues overall that was better on the Mac than on Windows. Forza Horizon is a much more taxing racing game.

 

[Pakaku]

Bootcamp has no future as long as Windows won't run on AS CPUs. So unless you buy an intel Mac, an alternative to consider might be some sort of WINE implementation. Crossover is a paid version (paying to help support the development of WINE), but you can probably set up something for free if you don't mind tinkering. I'd definitely go the WINE route if it means avoiding paying for a Windows liscence (and dealing with all of Windows' issues), and have been doing so on a Linux OS for a while.

If using WINE works out, you'll probably get a lot more mileage out of an AS CPU's performance in the long term. On the other hand, there might be the caveat of how well WINE is supported on Apple Silicon at the moment, which isn't something I'm sure about

 

[nmaxcom]

Thank you everybody, I didn't understand everything but I read it all.

I do not foresee Boot Camp ever being a feature for M-based Macs. Therefore, presumably, you’d have no choices in upcoming Macs.

Bootcamp has no future as long as Windows won't run on AS CPUs.

Damn, I had no idea. I just upgraded to an M1 laptop, and although I need it anyway, this was not a pleasant surprise. Maybe I can make do with Parallels for now...

What a sad situation, this whole mac vs pc feudalism life decision is getting so old.

I barely touch games but from time to time why not, and the issue arose when thinking about going from laptop to desktop form and can't deal with much hassle, I needed something that just works. Given the situation, I may leave mac systems in the rearview mirror after ten years, which I'm not looking for.

 

[MajorFubar]

What a sad situation, this whole mac vs pc feudalism life decision is getting so old.

On this occasion it's nothing to do with feudalism. Apple's new processors aren't directly compatible with Intel. Windows is written to run on Intel (and compatible) processors. At some point, Microsoft may licence an ARM version which will run on M-series processors. But no sign of that currently.

I get it that you want to rationalise your hardware. But if you buy 2 seater sports car you don't expect it to do the job of a 4x4. For a while Mac users have been able to have both, but to be fair the Windows experience was never as good as using a real Windows computer, especially for high-end games.

Personally I grew out of playing games round about the same time my facial hair started to sprout, so it's never been a concern at any point during my adult life. Of course I'm not insinuating gamers are immature, but it's all about what's important to you.

If playing PC games is important, you can't beat playing them on a PC. So even if there was an ARM version of Windows, PC games on an an ARM Mac would still be cr-p.

 

[nmaxcom]

That's fair. I haven't played this year at all yet, and last year maybe 40h but not having the option adds up to other variables. Slowly moving away from development and other stuff while still going through the pain of incompatibility (some software I need that only runs on win or linux) I'm realizing now that what I don't need is macOS.
But because it's been a long time using these and I've grown to be super comfortable it's been clouding what I perceive my options are.
Back to the drawing board.

 

[madeirabhoy]

Thank you everybody, I didn't understand everything but I read it all.


Damn, I had no idea. I just upgraded to an M1 laptop, and although I need it anyway, this was not a pleasant surprise. Maybe I can make do with Parallels for now...

What a sad situation, this whole mac vs pc feudalism life decision is getting so old.

I barely touch games but from time to time why not, and the issue arose when thinking about going from laptop to desktop form and can't deal with much hassle, I needed something that just works. Given the situation, I may leave mac systems in the rearview mirror after ten years, which I'm not looking for.

to be fair, your M1 laptop will let you play games, just maybe not all the games you want to play. Since its only for occasional play why not consider an Xbox Series S? or even a cheap PS4?

 

[nmaxcom]

to be fair, your M1 laptop will let you play games, just maybe not all the games you want to play. Since its only for occasional play why not consider an Xbox Series S? or even a cheap PS4?

The idea of putting my laptop aside and then grabbing and starting up a console of which I don't anything about... I'm too lazy for that.

I am researching which windows laptop to get and I feel like I am going in the right direction. Just saw this:

It's crazy, when I got into Mac computers, Windows laptops were way behind.

 

[throAU]

Whether virtualized (I'm guessing no?) or using Bootcamp. I have a powerful PC but only to play games from time to time, everything else I do is macOS, could I get rid of it?

Is there any Mac device that would run any windows games with high performance?

A 2019 Mac Pro with Nvidia GPU in a slot

 

[saudor]

what are the specs of your PC? I turned my "PC" into a hackintosh and use it 90% of the time in macOS. Can easily reboot into windows for the occasional game

 

[MajorFubar]

what are the specs of your PC? I turned my "PC" into a hackintosh and use it 90% of the time in macOS. Can easily reboot into windows for the occasional game

Your days of doing that are numbered...there will come a time soon when the latest MacOS will only run on M-series Macs.
Mind you, here am I typing this on a 2011 iMac running High Sierra which hasn't been supported for god knows how long...so, yeah.

 

[MacCheetah3]

The idea is the same for portability, the latest/last Intel MBP, for example:

Refurbished 16 inch MacBook Pro 2.4GHz 8 core Intel Core i9 with Retina display Space Gray - Apple

Apple Store Search Results

www.apple.com

https://www.reddit.com/r/bootcamp/comments/ean3vt

I am researching which windows laptop to get and I feel like I am going in the right direction.
[...]
It's crazy, when I got into Mac computers, Windows laptops were way behind.

Recommendations will depend on your workload (e.g. “office”, graphics/image editing, video) and which type of games you prefer (e.g. shooter, sim, MMORPG, adventure). Generally speaking: a Core i7/Ryzen 7 with 16/32GB, RTX 3060/3070 / Radeon 6700/6800, QHD display should conquer most demands within a budget of ~$2k.

The best gaming laptops to buy right now

Winter’s coming; better buy all of them.

www.theverge.com

One thing that really needs to be front and center: “gaming” laptops will run hot and loud under many workloads. In fact, it’s best to think of them as easy transport rather than mobile (i.e. expect to use them on a desk or similar connected to a power outlet 95%+ of the time).

what are the specs of your PC? I turned my "PC" into a hackintosh and use it 90% of the time in macOS. Can easily reboot into windows for the occasional game

Not a terrible idea if it’s a desktop because you can swap out incompatible or add compatible components. However, as far as I am aware, Hackintosh laptops typically have a lot of functionality compromises.

the 5k imac could definitely be a good option of portability is not a requirement. just stay away from userbenchmark lol, they're well known for heavily favoring intel over amd and other shenanigans
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/s42vpf

I guess, fair gripe, if you read and take stock in the summaries — which, from the few I have read, come off like movie descriptions by biased, low-brow reviewers. Additionally, of course, the raw benchmark and otherwise compared data is not relevant to every scenario. Lastly, Intel has frequently rode the top of performance charts (especially gaming) because they tend to set higher default boost/turbo frequencies. In other words, there are few apps that effectively utilize more than a half-dozen threads.

A 2019 Mac Pro with Nvidia GPU in a slot

Feasible hacked drivers might exist, but native support is… Well… antiquated:

Using an Nvidia GPU on a MacOS later than 10.13 (High Sierra)

Hey All,

www.daz3d.com

 

[ahurst]

The idea of putting my laptop aside and then grabbing and starting up a console of which I don't anything about... I'm too lazy for that.

I am researching which windows laptop to get and I feel like I am going in the right direction. Just saw this:

View attachment 1986697

It's crazy, when I got into Mac computers, Windows laptops were way behind.

You realize that's an Intel marketing graph, right? They're defining "performance" on their own terms with their own select benchmarks. In real-world testing the Alder Lake laptop chips are fast and keep pace pretty well with the M1 Pro, but they're by no means significantly faster and they have to throttle really hard when not plugged into a wall to provide any reasonable length of battery life.

Some of the most impressive high-intensity benchmarks on the M1 Pro were people running heavy workloads and noticing they were exactly as fast on battery as they were connected to AC power. That's pretty much unheard of in high-end laptops, though it may not matter much for your use case.

Anyway, keeping a PC around for occasional games has always been your best bet with a Mac (even with Bootcamp, you need to shut down everything you're doing to restart), but Crossover and Parallels + Windows-on-ARM have been showing impressive results for a lot of games on the new M1 Macs. There are some pretty large Apple Silicon game compatibility databases, so you can try looking up the games you're hoping to play and see how well they run.

 

[saudor]

Your days of doing that are numbered...there will come a time soon when the latest MacOS will only run on M-series Macs.
Mind you, here am I typing this on a 2011 iMac running High Sierra which hasn't been supported for god knows how long...so, yeah.

Yep but if OP already has a compatible system, it's a no-cost quick fix and would make better use of a hardware that's just basically sitting.

Even if hackintosh ended today, there's still 2 years worth of security updates. So it's a good way to ride out the M1 transition and wait for wider/better adoption of it.

 

[throAU]

Feasible hacked drivers might exist, but native support is… Well… antiquated:

He said for boot-camp, macOS drivers are irrelevant (put the card in a second slot, and use the existing AMD GPU in macOS.

 

[pmiles]

Consoles take getting used to. Some people prefer keyboard and mouse to that of a controller.

One thing you might consider is going old school... prior to bootcamp I had two computers using the same monitor, keyboard and mouse. Used a KVM switch to quickly switch from one to the other. When bootcamp became a thing, I ditched the PC. For all intents and purposes, bootcamp was a pseudo KVM switch... you could dual boot yes, but you couldn't just hit a button and be instantly in one OS or the other. You just didn't need two computers anymore and the additional cabling.

Today people have so many additional monitors hooked up to the same computer, that I think the notion of two computers and a KVM switch is probably going to make a comeback.

We all know, PC games run best natively under windows. It's the same reason games written for a Mac run better than ports do. Parallels and the like may be able to run games, but not as well as natively within Windows on a non-virtualized system.

If you've only played 40 hours all last year, it sounds like you are less inclined to play games than you think you are. No point in spec'ing out a high performance gaming rig to play once in a blue moon... be it on a Mac or a PC.

Whenever I hear people talk about desktop gaming on a Mac, I roll my eyes. Yes it is possible but unfortunately the games you seek were never written for the Mac platform natively, and as such never play equally as when played on the platform it was actually written for. In other words, desktop gaming on a Mac has always been an afterthought at best. Mac users accepted this shortcoming and eventually forgot that what they were playing was often a far cry from that of the PC version. After all, if you aren't comparing them side by side, you don't notice what's different.

 

[MacCheetah3]

He said for boot-camp, macOS drivers are irrelevant (put the card in a second slot, and use the existing AMD GPU in macOS.

Admittedly, I had a mental stumble/lapse there.

 

[prisoner54]

Whether virtualized (I'm guessing no?) or using Bootcamp. I have a powerful PC but only to play games from time to time, everything else I do is macOS, could I get rid of it?

Is there any Mac device that would run any windows games with high performance?

That's fair. I haven't played this year at all yet, and last year maybe 40h but not having the option adds up to other variables. Slowly moving away from development and other stuff while still going through the pain of incompatibility (some software I need that only runs on win or linux) I'm realizing now that what I don't need is macOS.
But because it's been a long time using these and I've grown to be super comfortable it's been clouding what I perceive my options are.
Back to the drawing board.

I've been in a similar position to you for the past ~15 years. Seriously. I use my Mac laptop every day for work but like to game from time to time, the odd weekend, but then game heavily (i.e. first-person shooters, open-world games). Since Apple went over to Intel from PowerPC (yes, I actually remember that!), gaming got much easier through Bootcamp and I've kind of relied on it, always getting a high-spec MacBook Pro for both 'work' and 'play'.

Right up to the 2019 MBP 16". Which has a discrete Nvidia GPU of course. This is probably the last laptop to be able to reliably dual boot into Windows and actually play AAA games - I've managed to get Cyberpunk 2077 running with reasonable framerates, Control, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Just Cause 3, Far Cry 2 and 3, etc. This is on the lower-tier graphics card with 4GB VRAM. So it's not bad at all. On eBay I've seen these go for closer to $1000. Although Apple are keen to get everyone through the Intel-AS transition, I'd imagine there's a good 4 years of use out of Intel machines before the x86 code gets stripped out of macOS (based on lifecycle of 'supported' then 'obsolete' hardware cycles).

But we're in a really interesting transition period. I've been tempted by the M1 but running games through emulation (Parallels, Crossover etc) seems highly inefficient, and the graphics hardware is optimized for media file conversion rather than 3D modeling as you know. As more people experiment, we may get to see more and better access to AAA games through Apple Silicon. But me, I'm middle-aged and have more and more responsibility at work, so 'retiring' from videogames I think. The lack of availability of current-gen consoles hasn't helped! It's a shame, I used to enjoy cathartic weekend bouts of immersive gameplay, but I don't want my kids to see me blowing bodies up too graphically.

 

[nmaxcom]

Just to update: I finally decided to get a windows laptop. It's an XPS 17 and I'm loving it. It runs everything smoothly of course, including all the essentials I had in my MBP, although Windows 11 is just ugly. But we knew that already...

After almost 10 years of happy MBP, I go back to Windows to be just a tiny bit happier (or a bit less miserable; happy is not a state, it's just a silly social construct).
This is goodbye to Mac and to you fine people.

Everyone that wrote here, I've read and appreciated every post.
I wasn't known or even very active here, but still, every time I needed help you people replied with a wealth of useful information.

Best support forum I've ever seen or been in.

Thank you and good luck to everybody

 

[ken-ken-ken]

considering the resale value, you can easily sell your macbook pro after 3-5 years of use, and the value depreciation is low.
But for PC, it will be hard to find a buyer and the value will drop dramatically.