Why Apple is breaking my heart.

[deadwulfe]

Whilst it might be using a mobile GPU it's far from a bad GPU.
A buddy of mine has the desktop version of my iMacs card and before he overclocked it (something I wouldn't risk doing on a desktop PC let alone Mac), the performance was the same.
Core i5, i7, 6970M... mobile and desktop chips are slowly merging into a single line.

Do you think your iMac isn't being as restrictive on power and can manage heat better to get more performance out of the mobile chip, compared to the same thing in a notebook? I was thinking about that the other day, but have no experience with any iMac.

 

[Killery96]

Don't you guys get it? People buy Macs because the MacOS is superior. They may not be the fastest computers on the planet, but they can handle games perfectly well, and people don't want to buy 2 computers when they can buy one that does it all.

Probably the most sensible comment so far? I don't think this guy is looking to brag about benchmarks here... ...some people just wanna play games... ...At the present generation, any Mac out there can handle a game such as CoD4, SC2, and whatever. I was at a sleepover with several friends (4), and each one's windows laptop was running with a great amount of problems, including start-up issues, driver problems, RAM terminals melting, high temperatures, grease puddles accumulating in the keys cause of the heat. One of us had to spend about twenty minutes to get his computer to run in a mode other than safe mode. The two apple computers were really, if u think about it, the fastest ones in there, mine being the new one with the AMD 6750m... ...I mean, really peeps. These things are pricy, but not that bad for gaming. Maybe I get less frames per second or shadows in my games, (actually, I play SC2 and CoD maxed out at 1680x1050, they run decent to say the least), but I swear, I have a tenth of the gamer's problems. GTX 560M, if our grill outside isn't working well, we know where to bring the sausage.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I seriously do not get why you stay on this site just to troll about Mac's gaming capabilities? NO ONE CARES! We all know how Mac's run games, we know PC's are better, but is anyone asking for your opinion on Mac's being bad for gaming? No, so please just stop.

And just who exactly is asking YOUR opinion, guy????????

And do NOT say "no one cares" when you don't know WTF you're talking about! I care so that disproves your ridiculous absolute statement. Give me a freaking break.

God, I hate it when arrogant fanboys act like their opinion is the only valid one and proceed to talk for everyone on the planet. Get over yourself.

And stop calling people trolls just because their opinion doesn't agree with yours. It's downright pathetic.

 

[JackAxe]

Probably the most sensible comment so far? I don't know if this guy is looking to brag about benchmarks here... ...some people just wanna play games... ...At the present generation, any Mac out there can handle a game such as CoD4, SC2, and whatever. I was at a sleepover with several friends (4), and each one's windows laptop was running with a great amount of problems, including start-up issues, driver problems, RAM terminals melting, high temperatures, grease puddles accumulating in the keys cause of the heat. One of us had to spend about twenty minutes to get his computer to run in a mode other than safe mode. The two apple computers were really, if u think about it, the fastest ones in there, mine being the new one with the AMD 6750m... ...I mean, really peeps. These things are pricy, but not that bad for gaming. Maybe I get less frames per second or shadows in my games, (actually, I play SC2 and CoD maxed out at 1680x1050, they run decent to say the least), but I swear, I have a tenth of the gamer's problems. GTX 560M, if our grill outside isn't working well, we know where to bring the sausage.

I suppose we all live in our own niches, where things always go our way and favor our opinions and expectations of reality.

 

[Huntn]

I have a feeling you're being sarcastic here?

I'm serious dude! (What did you think was sarcastic? jc) I travel. My Mac just works. On W7 I usually have to take extra steps to get it to hook up the local network I'm on. The only reason I'm using Windows is to play several games such as SWTOR and Vampire the Mascaraed. I constantly have to worry about viruses, and pc tuneups that I don't have to on my Mac. I would never ever want to have a pc laptop as my only computer on a trip. Yes I am biased, but much of that is based on 15 years of pc usage. If I'm going to drag a computer with me, it's going to only be one and it's going to be a Mac.

 

[Sambo110]

And just who exactly is asking YOUR opinion, guy????????

And do NOT say "no one cares" when you don't know WTF you're talking about! I care so that disproves your ridiculous absolute statement. Give me a freaking break.

God, I hate it when arrogant fanboys act like their opinion is the only valid one and proceed to talk for everyone on the planet. Get over yourself.

And stop calling people trolls just because their opinion doesn't agree with yours. It's downright pathetic.

Have you seen his posts? Just about all of them are insulting Mac's gaming capabilities and telling people to buy a PC. It just gets old quickly, and there's no need for it. He's only on this site to tell people Mac's can't play games.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

It's worth pointing out that Apple has scampered up the sales charts for years now despite not offering the proverbial $1200 gaming PC that certain people continue to complain about. Those same people forecast doom and gloom for Apple if they don't shape up and start selling the proverbial $1200 gaming PC, but I see no evidence to support those predictions.

Frankly, I'm content to let the gamers keep building their $1200 gaming PCs, or buying them from Dell. I don't think Apple's design philosophy is in any way compatible with that of the stereotypical LAN Party tinkerer. To each his or her own.

 

[JackAxe]

I'm serious dude! (What did you think was sarcastic? jc) I travel. My Mac just works. On W7 I usually have to take extra steps to get it to hook up the local network I'm on. The only reason I'm using Windows is to play several games such as SWTOR and Vampire the Mascaraed. I constantly have to worry about viruses, and pc tuneups that I don't have to on my Mac. I would never ever want to have a pc laptop as my only computer on a trip. Yes I am biased, but much of that is based on 15 years of pc usage. If I'm going to drag a computer with me, it's going to only be one and it's going to be a Mac.

Nothing wrong with that, as it fits your needs, but it doesn't fit mine and I can say the same for others in this thread. So to say that people want, is purely subjective, as it's what you want. It came off as sarcastic, because it was so one sided and didn't allow for diversity/exceptions. AND when I'm being sarcastic, I've started some of my comments with don't you people no...

Anyways, to all their own, but being a Mac nut and avid gamer, I've never found one platform that was truly a one size fits all yet and with Apple and even Microsoft's current direction, I'm rather pessimistic about it ever becoming a true reality.

I've been using/owned PCs since the eighties and Macs since the nineties. I've tried on two occasions to abandon PCs in favor of my Macs and for my needs/wants it just never panned out.

I'm competent enough with all my computers, that I don't have to constantly worry about viruses and so on. I find OS X's indexing just as annoying as Window's defraging, speaking of tune-ups.

And here's a bit of irony, the last virus I had was on a Mac under System 8. It was the sparkle(Think this was the name?) virus back in 98. It exploited the Quicktime autorun from what I recall. My only other virus I've had was the monkey virus under DOS and this is a name I will not forget for obvious reasons.

And I can't believe you said, the Mac just works. Are you being sarcastic... It's 2011 and even PCs just work. Windows has been a rock solid OS for years, as much so as my Macs. I haven't had networking headaches since the early XP days and both platforms pretty much maintain themselves. I mostly worry about dust control and cable management on my various platforms now days.

 

[Irishman]

Maybe someone can give me some perspective here.

I recently bought the new top spec Air as my day to day main system, it's a great machine, apart from two things. Viewing angles and graphics. I'm not complaining about these things really (well maybe the viewing angles a bit) because I knew what I was getting involved with. This idea was that I get the new thunderbolt display to go alongside it and that would be a sweet setup.

Then I started thinking to myself, "But what if I want to game?". I just about never game, but knowing that the Air is so graphically weak, suddenly makes me miss insane poly pushing power. Go figure.

So, I though the Mac Mini would be the answer to my desires. I could just switch the external display between laptop and mini and game away. But it turns out the mini is pretty weak in graphics as well. At least, it is weak enough to turn me off spending a fair bit of cash on it for only a reasonable upgrade from the Air. Why does it have to be so weak anyway? It's not like heat, space or battery life is a problem with the mini. They could have given the option of serious graphics option like in the iMac surely.

So, I think maybe the iMac is the way to go. The top of the range iMac has some pretty serious power in it (although still 'M' series chipsets), enough for me, I can game on the iMac, and still use target display mode to hook the laptop up to the screen. Except, target display mode doesn't carry over any of the ports on the iMac, thus destroying the beauty of docking station approach given by the external thunderbolt display, and rendering my Air essentially portless.

The price is ever increasing.

I look at the Mac Pro, and choke on it's price, and discover it won't even work the external thunderbolt display. I don't want to spend entry level 2 grand on something that's going to depreciate furiously anyway.

So I consider getting both iMac and external display. Hey, I can hook the external display to the iMac and have double monitor going on. I can run keyboard and mouse etc from external display, which should be picked up by both iMac and laptop when i switch thunderbolt cable. Expensive and totally unnecessary for my needs but quite cool! Except the alignment between iMac screen and external screen doesn't even match up. And that would just drive me crazy considering the thing would bankrupt me.

Finally, with great frustration I consider getting a PC for gaming and rigging that to external thunderbolt display. I could live with Windows for gaming. More choice after all. But gaming PC's all seem large, noisy, ugly, and don't even have thunderbolt yet (and won't for months to come).

So I'm **** out of luck, and frustrated and upset that there seems to be no perfect solution to my problem, despite the fact I'm willing to throw a fair bit of cash at it.

I don't expect there to be a clean solution to the "external graphics card over thunderbolt" option to arrive anytime soon, and when it does, I doubt it would work cleanly with external display to carry ports over the thunderbolt etc.

I don't know what to do really. Meh.

I am hearing classic buyer's remorse. You've plunked a ton of your hard-earned cash on a new Mac and all of a sudden you're focusing on that one thing that it doesn't as well as some other Macs that cost a little more.

I hear ya.

One main question - when you have played games in the past, what titles were they? And a follow-up : how long ago was that?

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Anyways, to all their own, but being a Mac nut and avid gamer, I've never found one platform that was truly a one size fits all yet and with Apple and even Microsoft's current direction, I'm rather pessimistic about it ever becoming a true reality.

Apple just doesn't seem to care about gaming on the Mac. It seems like the gaming companies actually want to increase their prescence, but it just seems like Apple doesn't really want to support them in terms of keeping OpenGL up-to-date and offering actual gaming-orientated hardware and GPUs.

I never wanted a Windows machine period. I used to be an Amiga guy until 1999 (long after Commodore went out of business), but it was obvious that the platform was dead by then and I did eventually need a faster computer. I didn't even look into Macs until long after OSX matured. OS9 and earlier never interested me due to the way it operated (from cooperative multi-tasking to no command line options, etc. to high prices).

I've been using/owned PCs since the eighties and Macs since the nineties. I've tried on two occasions to abandon PCs in favor of my Macs and for my needs/wants it just never panned out.

I was hoping to ditch Windows myself. I don't use it most of the time, but I do keep a PC around for gaming (it needs replaced soon too, though). I'm thinking of trying a Hackintosh so I can meet both needs on one hardware, at least. I've got four computers right now. It's a bit much.

I'm competent enough with all my computers, that I don't have to constantly worry about viruses and so on. I find OS X's indexing just as annoying as Window's defraging, speaking of tune-ups.

The difference is that you can shut indexing off. It has nothing to do with organizing the information on the hard drive. It's just a database file to find your files faster (I think Windows uses something similar these days). The disk system doesn't need defragged on OSX. It's one of the prime advantages OSX still has over Windows, IMO (along with FAR less spyware/malware). Whereas if you don't defrag with Windows (less so with NTFS compared to the Fat32 days, but still there), it will get slower. The registry will also slow the machine as you keep adding programs (I don't think Win7/Vista fixed that, but I haven't used anything newer than XP SP3) except on friends' computers.

And I can't believe you said, the Mac just works. Are you being sarcastic... It's 2011 and even PCs just work. Windows has been a rock solid OS for

I think some Mac users haven't looked at a PC since the Dos or Win98 days.

 

[JackAxe]

@ MagnusVonMagnum,

Yeah, Apple has always been wish washy about their game support and even when they showed any interest, it didn't seem sincere, but just a ploy to sell the latest Mac with its exclusive GPU.

I've always had sooo much respect for Amiga -- not their stealth marketing though -- and to say the least, drooled over my friend's system. We never had one, but did have a few C64s, which is my favorite nostalgic computer, even though it wasn't the first.

I've always like Apple's computers, but mainly because I was always a huge fan of digital art -- one of the reasons I've always admired Amigas. It wasn't until the nineties, that I finally was able to buy one and that's only because it ran more of the programs I needed and in some cases hands down better than the PCs. And speaking of cost, a good friend of mine still has his IIFX, which he paid an arm an a leg for not including his first born for the video card.

Yep, true about defraging. I'm just in euphoria, I guess, because since moving full time to Win 7, it's been an overal better experience(with some annoyances) than with XP64 -- which was the first Windows OS I really liked. And just like I want my PC to perform well, I do appreciate faster searching under OS X -- which is why I allow it to index. But I completely agree that it's not critical like defraging, it just annoys when it's being done.

And I've had that same thought, that it's been years since some Mac guys touched PCs and still have those bad memories, which I can understand.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

With Steve Jobs stepping down, I wonder if we'll see a resurgence in traditional Macs in time, maybe even that mid-range tower that Jobs appeared to personally loathe the very suggestion of, given his obsession with thin thin thin.

 

[Huntn]

And I can't believe you said, the Mac just works. Are you being sarcastic... It's 2011 and even PCs just work. Windows has been a rock solid OS for years, as much so as my Macs.

Allow me to clarify. I have no headaches when running MacOS. I can't say that with Windows, even Windows7. I came off a trip today to my home network and had to futz with Windows to get it online. It irritates the hell out of me.

 

[wywern209]

build.a.pc.
no other way around it.gaming power can't be crammed into a space as small as the air or the mini.

 

[Akula971]

Shuttle

If want a small form factor PC for gaming, not too noisy, quite small. Then consider a Shuttle, you can buy either a full system or a barebones chassis and put your kit in.

 

[whooleytoo]

I've always thought the reason Apple don't have a mid-range expandable desktop Mac (ideal for gaming) is it would cannibalise their Power Mac sales. But consider Power Mac sales are such a small part of their business now, you'd think they would have little to lose and a lot to gain by bringing out a cheaper, expandable Mac.

(Probably highly unlikely, if it's outside Apple's core business, they're not interested.)

 

[bluebomberman]

Yeesh. Gamers don't seem to want to admit that a lot of what we want or demand runs directly counter to Apple's philosophies.

1. We demand expandability (where's my xMac?) from a company that does away with expandable storage and replaceable batteries on most of what they sell.

2. We demand the latest graphics tech, even if it melts a hole through the chassis, kills battery life, and adds a pound of thermal paste to the computer for absolutely no benefit for non-gamers.

3. We demand better graphics drivers even though installing updated drivers on Windows can be ludicrously painful and frustrating. (Install AMD Catalyst. Auto-detect. What do you mean, device not found? Okay, install drivers manually. How do I do that? Argh, why does my system hang now? Now it boots in 640 x 480 and 256 colors.)

It's not that they actively hate PC gaming, it's that supporting PC gaming more robustly means making all sorts of design decisions that run counter to what they really want to do. Yeah, the Macbook Air has a lame graphics chip. But it's blazing fast, really cheap for an ultraportable, and has stellar battery life. Not a coincidence.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

You're talking high-end gaming. Macs don't even do low-end gaming well. A normal PC can handle a non-SLI decent mid-range desktop card without melting the case. Macs don't even offer desktop GPU cards except in the Mac Pro and the Mac Pro cards always seem to be 3 years out of date (a far cry from your prototype-like card spiel) so even the Mac Pro is only useful for gaming about once every three years when it gets a refresh and then forget about just upgrading the GPU even though it's removable since there's never any support for newer cards for another 2-3 years and half the time they don't work in previous model Mac Pros (completely destroying the entire point of expandability in them).

The point is Apple could do a hell of a lot better without venturing into dual-SLI bleeding edge space heater gaming boxes. How about a normal desktop machine with a mid to high-end regular graphics card in it that can be replaced every year or two with something better without having to buy an entirely new computer for $1500+ that is already out of date for gaming the day you buy it.

Apple could easily design a compact, but gaming-capable desktop. No, it wouldn't be the size of a drink coaster like the Mac Mini, but it could still be plenty small compared to most desktops and still have a decent GPU with a card connector and door panel to remove it with extra ventilation. It could be the size of a dinner plate, still look relatively thin and even have some kind of designer case (crystal-ware Macs on a rebound?) But they offer nothing for gamers. They purposely shove anyone who wants to game (whether under OSX or Windows with boot camp) to a Hackintosh. Apple doesn't give a crap.

 

[Ravaroo]

The point is Apple could do a hell of a lot better without venturing into dual-SLI bleeding edge space heater gaming boxes. How about a normal desktop machine with a mid to high-end regular graphics card in it that can be replaced every year or two with something better without having to buy an entirely new computer for $1500+ that is already out of date for gaming the day you buy it.

+1
for a company that has thrived on giving the consumer "what they want" they sure have ignored an entire demographic..one that is typically very brand loyal if you can deliver the goods

gaming & bluray.. really missing the boat Apple

 

[MasterTick]

+1
for a company that has thrived on giving the consumer "what they want" they sure have ignored an entire demographic..one that is typically very brand loyal if you can deliver the goods

gaming & bluray.. really missing the boat Apple

Just get a gaming PC!

 

[Mr.C]

Just get a gaming PC!

That's all very well. The point is one shouldn't have to. If Apple had included 1 GB of VRAM in the Mini and more importantly made a standard "headless" desktop which had decent component options and was user upgradable we wouldn't need to have this discussion. I can understand integrated GPU's in the MacBook Airs but they should also have included discrete GPU's in the 13" MacBook Pros with at least 512 MB of VRAM. At the very least these should be BTO options.

Not to mention for an innovative and forward thinking company leaving out and not supporting blue ray is beyond comprehension and unforgivable. There is no excuse or valid reason for that. I seriously doubt including blue ray would cannibalise sales from the iTunes store.

 

[MasterTick]

That's all very well. The point is one shouldn't have to. If Apple had included 1 GB of VRAM in the Mini and more importantly made a standard "headless" desktop which had decent component options and was user upgradable we wouldn't need to have this discussion. I can understand integrated GPU's in the MacBook Airs but they should also have included discrete GPU's in the 13" MacBook Pros with at least 512 MB of VRAM. At the very least these should be BTO options.

Not to mention for an innovative and forward thinking company leaving out and not supporting blue ray is beyond comprehension and unforgivable. There is no excuse or valid reason for that. I seriously doubt including blue ray would cannibalise sales from the iTunes store.

You shouldn't have to, but if you want to game or have choice of hardware then PC is your only option.

 

[Killery96]

You're talking high-end gaming. Macs don't even do low-end gaming well. A normal PC can handle a non-SLI decent mid-range desktop card without melting the case. Macs don't even offer desktop GPU cards except in the Mac Pro and the Mac Pro cards always seem to be 3 years out of date (a far cry from your prototype-like card spiel) so even the Mac Pro is only useful for gaming about once every three years when it gets a refresh and then forget about just upgrading the GPU even though it's removable since there's never any support for newer cards for another 2-3 years and half the time they don't work in previous model Mac Pros (completely destroying the entire point of expandability in them).

The point is Apple could do a hell of a lot better without venturing into dual-SLI bleeding edge space heater gaming boxes. How about a normal desktop machine with a mid to high-end regular graphics card in it that can be replaced every year or two with something better without having to buy an entirely new computer for $1500+ that is already out of date for gaming the day you buy it.

Apple could easily design a compact, but gaming-capable desktop. No, it wouldn't be the size of a drink coaster like the Mac Mini, but it could still be plenty small compared to most desktops and still have a decent GPU with a card connector and door panel to remove it with extra ventilation. It could be the size of a dinner plate, still look relatively thin and even have some kind of designer case (crystal-ware Macs on a rebound?) But they offer nothing for gamers. They purposely shove anyone who wants to game (whether under OSX or Windows with boot camp) to a Hackintosh. Apple doesn't give a crap.

Watch apple release their next Mac Pro with an AMD 6970 or 6990. Seriously doubtful, but really. My mac can do "low end gaming". Low end gaming my 13" computer from 2 years ago could do. Try and find the price and conveniences of a macintosh laptop on a gaming laptop manufactured for Windows 7. You won't. People are good at making things like this appear, however they rarely differ from Apple in the price to quality relationship. Despite the fact that Apple doesn't cater to people who want a desktop GPU in a desktop that is supposed to be low-power consumption, skinny, and unobtrusive on the desktop, you can still game fine on an apple computer. I have new age video games running very well on my Macbook Pro from this year, and in terms of getting the computer to work and boot up, and give me a crisp response time, I am the best-equipped of my ten or so friends, one of which is an iMac user. I've a friend with a GTS 450m, supposed to be far superior to my graphics card, and he runs video games and plays with me just fine. I think his AF on Borderlands is like 16x whereas mine is 4x. If these differences are what constitute people writing hateful comments about apple that imply their stupidity and ignorance in the world of how COMPUTERS REALLY TICK and that CLOCK SPEED AND FPS is not what makes a reliable machine, then something's seriously wrong.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I've a friend with a GTS 450m, supposed to be far superior to my graphics card, and he runs video games and plays with me just fine. I think his AF on Borderlands is like 16x whereas mine is 4x. If these differences are what constitute people writing hateful comments about apple that imply their stupidity and ignorance in the world of how COMPUTERS REALLY TICK and that CLOCK SPEED AND FPS is not what makes a reliable machine, then something's seriously wrong.

Their stupidity and ignorance? WTF are you going on about? What does reliability have to do with mobile versus desktop GPUs?

Your friend has a 450m. M as in MOBILE. Try running a real game on the thing in high resolution with the detail settings way up and watch it crumble. Take a real desktop with a high-end desktop GPU with something like SLI and it'll be 4x-8x faster frame rates. Instead of getting 15fps, you'll get 120fps. Two years later and Apple's new mobile GPU (which you will have to trade in your entire computer to get) will then be getting 25-30fps on the same game, while the previous desktop is still getting 120fps and newer cards are doing 240fps. But two years later newer games will be out with even steeper requirements, putting even the newest mobile GPU into obsolete territory once again.

The bottom line is if you enjoy playing two year old games or newer games at very low detail/resolution settings, you won't mind a Mac for gaming. If you are using a PC with a mobile card, you aren't much better off than the Mac (but most games will still run faster since OSX games are usually very un-optimized as are their drivers).

One game example doesn't constitute the scope of gaming you will find out there. There are plenty of cutting edge (and yes sometimes poorly programmed) games that are barely smooth even on the best hardware. Those games will be completely unplayable on mobile hardware.

Hey, I love my MBP, but it's no gaming rig. Being able to play some games is not the same thing.

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

Get a secondhand Mac Pro or a gaming PC, both will be about the same price. Any old PC graphics card should work in the Mac Pro in Boot Camp.