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Will the new iMac be any good for gaming?
- Thread starter ksolano
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I agree with you up to a point. I hardly play games at max settings, and I don't need the best GPU. However, the 2400 is a very weak offering, even for people who are not hardcore gamers. 1024x768 is not an outrageous rez these days and the 2400 scores behind the previous X1600 consistently. Not only in Prey that was released last Jan. for the mac, but in the upcoming Battlefield 2142. You can look here:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=859&model2=737&chart=275
The previous 7600GT BTO wuups the 2400 and only the 2600XT which Apple does not offer is close to equivelant. This is why people feel its a step back. These are value cards, not midrange cards for a midrange system.
To be fair to Apple, TomsHardware has an article that suggests there are no good middle of the road cards, especially from ATI.
From:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/24/hd_2600_and_geforce_8600/page10.html
So are you a big Sims player?
An iMac is a consumer machine, gaming is (mostly) a consumer activity. I should not need pro hardware to run games well, not fantastic but well. I should not have to buy an iMac every 2 years in order to upgrade the video card.
I signed onto the forums specifically to post this reply.
CNet has, from what I can tell, the first hands-on review of the new imac's graphics capabilities. From TFA:
"Despite its new ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro graphics chip, the iMac still isn't very well suited to playing 3D games. On our Quake 4 test, at a forgiving 1,024x768 resolution, the iMac turned in an only marginally acceptable 39 frames per second. We were surprised by that, since Quake 4 sits on the tail end of what we consider current 3D games. Comparable Windows PCs from Dell and Velocity Micro perform much better. You should be able to play less-advanced 3D games on the iMac, but we're still disappointed that Apple doesn't want to take gaming seriously."
My take on the matter? I'm not easily disappointed, and I consider all other noticable changes to the lineup to be improvements. The 2400 and 2600 graphics cards, however, are bad additions. The imacs deserve better.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3023
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/24/hd_2600_and_geforce_8600/
What I can't stand is misleading arguments. No sane person is arguing for the inclusion of $500 video cards or even a $300 card - in an imac. What I am arguing is that an imac most certainly should include a decent midrange card - which neither of these two options qualify as. They instead qualify as bottom of the barrel solutions - the only modern generation graphics solution which performs worse is the intel GMA.
The really silly thing? Not only do the new models lack any substantial improvements over the aging x1600 - the really silly thing is that the 24" model that came around this time last year seems to have superior capabilities in every respect in the graphics arena - the model with the 7600 in particular would appear to be better equipped to have a better experience playing games then any 24" model available since tuesday.
The other silly thing, is that Apple just barely released a nvidia 8600M GT chipset - in their macbook pro. A better performer and well within the budget video card bracket (merely ~$50 more then a cheap 2600 pro). I thought for sure I would see the same graphics chip in the revised imac line. It would have made all kinds of sense.
Apple, I still love you... but what were you thinking?
CNet has, from what I can tell, the first hands-on review of the new imac's graphics capabilities. From TFA:
"Despite its new ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro graphics chip, the iMac still isn't very well suited to playing 3D games. On our Quake 4 test, at a forgiving 1,024x768 resolution, the iMac turned in an only marginally acceptable 39 frames per second. We were surprised by that, since Quake 4 sits on the tail end of what we consider current 3D games. Comparable Windows PCs from Dell and Velocity Micro perform much better. You should be able to play less-advanced 3D games on the iMac, but we're still disappointed that Apple doesn't want to take gaming seriously."
My take on the matter? I'm not easily disappointed, and I consider all other noticable changes to the lineup to be improvements. The 2400 and 2600 graphics cards, however, are bad additions. The imacs deserve better.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3023
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/24/hd_2600_and_geforce_8600/
What I can't stand is misleading arguments. No sane person is arguing for the inclusion of $500 video cards or even a $300 card - in an imac. What I am arguing is that an imac most certainly should include a decent midrange card - which neither of these two options qualify as. They instead qualify as bottom of the barrel solutions - the only modern generation graphics solution which performs worse is the intel GMA.
The really silly thing? Not only do the new models lack any substantial improvements over the aging x1600 - the really silly thing is that the 24" model that came around this time last year seems to have superior capabilities in every respect in the graphics arena - the model with the 7600 in particular would appear to be better equipped to have a better experience playing games then any 24" model available since tuesday.
The other silly thing, is that Apple just barely released a nvidia 8600M GT chipset - in their macbook pro. A better performer and well within the budget video card bracket (merely ~$50 more then a cheap 2600 pro). I thought for sure I would see the same graphics chip in the revised imac line. It would have made all kinds of sense.
Apple, I still love you... but what were you thinking?
It's fair to note that 4x AA and 8x AF were used in the test, two settings which are bound to drop FPS considerably and that most casual gamers aren't going to turn on. That being said, it's fair to estimate that the new iMac will probably pump out 50-60 fps at a resolution of, say, 1280 x 1024, which would put its performance ahead of the 8600gt MacBook Pros but just below the performance of the 7600GT iMac. Not terrible. Still thankful I have an Xbox 360 :-D.
Fps
lets all remember that fps numbers dont need to be terribly high. film (movies) are still filmed at 29fps. why? because the human brain doesnt discern much of a difference at anything higher than 29fps. bottom line... we all can agree that a game is totally playable at 30 fps, but the problem is we cant go to work and brag about getting 100fps in quake 4 or UT. just my 2 cents
lets all remember that fps numbers dont need to be terribly high. film (movies) are still filmed at 29fps. why? because the human brain doesnt discern much of a difference at anything higher than 29fps. bottom line... we all can agree that a game is totally playable at 30 fps, but the problem is we cant go to work and brag about getting 100fps in quake 4 or UT. just my 2 cents
Agreed; As long as a game stays at 30 FPS, I'm more than satisfied. The number that CNet gave is only disappointing if read as a barometer of the staying power of the new iMac's GPU. That is, if it plays yesterday's games at 40 FPS what can we expect from tomorrow's?
Haoshiro Eidorian is right, the HD 2600 Pro is not a mobile GPU. You have been misleading people with your thread.
It's true the iMac was never a hardcore gaming machine but i think a lot of people were hyped up because of WWDC and the appearance of EA and John Carmack and thought that soemthing special was going to happen.
Even though iMac aern't really for gaming it certainly doesn't deserve a sub $100 GPU. You are paying top dollar and getting a sub $100 card? Does it make sense to you?
I've seen the frame rates of the HD2600 Pro they are horrible. What's the point of having a DX10 card, if you can't run any of them with the eye candy?
It's true the iMac was never a hardcore gaming machine but i think a lot of people were hyped up because of WWDC and the appearance of EA and John Carmack and thought that soemthing special was going to happen.
Even though iMac aern't really for gaming it certainly doesn't deserve a sub $100 GPU. You are paying top dollar and getting a sub $100 card? Does it make sense to you?
I've seen the frame rates of the HD2600 Pro they are horrible. What's the point of having a DX10 card, if you can't run any of them with the eye candy?
Apples what? Do you have a link to this? I've never been able to replace Apple machines with out them having HEAPs of stuck or dead pixels.
The point with 30FPS is correct, but remember Quake 2/3? You could only do special "trick jumps" at high FPS AFAIK and these jumps may saved you from getting fragged. The same thing was in CS 1.x, which usally is locked to 75FPS but some trick jumps only work at 90FPS. Also these 30FPS averge are a problem if you get more things going in the game as in the test, like test was with 10 players, but you play online with 16 and boom, you get a performance drop, so in worst case scenario you may get only half the FPS.
AA is maybe not so important IF (!) you can run games at high res (over 1280x1024) but AF is important, as adaptive AA/transparent AA is VERY important for graphic quality and experience, especially because most new games have lots of transparent textures and they look ugly without AAA/TAA and both options drain a lot of FPS, but the graphics are much better.
AA is maybe not so important IF (!) you can run games at high res (over 1280x1024) but AF is important, as adaptive AA/transparent AA is VERY important for graphic quality and experience, especially because most new games have lots of transparent textures and they look ugly without AAA/TAA and both options drain a lot of FPS, but the graphics are much better.
So I understand that these cards are terrible...blah..blah..blah. Don't you think apple would have consulted EA who have promised mac games regarding this video card? Would EA not take this video card into account when releasing mac games and atleast attempt to make them run half decently on the imac's hardware? There's no way EA would exclude all of the Imac Macbook Pro users from their new releases. If mac games are going to be only released for the mac pro then I personally can't see many ported games coming out basically ever.....
There's a lot of scare talk going around. Don't worry; any game EA might release WILL run on these iMacs. You simply might not be able to max out the settings.
Sure, low settings at native resolution.
Medium at 1280 or 1024 res (4:3 ratio) on a widescreen! OMG.
Medium at 1280 or 1024 res (4:3 ratio) on a widescreen! OMG.
Apple consult EA? Maybe the other way around.
This from Tuncer's Blog at IMG about asking EA about their titles...
I don't know sounds like EA was kissing steve's chimichanga!
Yeah right. It all depends if you want full resolution, full options, everything on. The thing is I know plenty of people who play recent games on 2 to 3 year old graphics boards, and do really well at them.
The HD 2600 should be decent enough, though I agree it won't last as long as the most expensive cards. But that's kind of a given.
In the end, if you really want the best of the best for gaming, you either get a Mac Pro or a pc with a really expensive card. As for me, I'll enjoy gaming with a $150 videocard more than with one that costs > $400.
EDIT: checking the prices of the Radeon HD 2600 Pro, I do agree it's most likely not a very good card and they should have probably included an XT version instead. Although a lot of people complained about the X1600 XT in the MBP and earlier iMac too, and I got very good gaming results out of those.
This is what Wired Magazine had to say about gaming on the new iMacs...
Good one!
"Say hello to games for Mac"
"Oh well, good bye"
I totally agree, you don't need 150FPS for a game to be playable. However Quake 4 is not a new game. How is the iMac going to fair against games like BioShock? Gears of War? Crysis?
Apple should have included a decent midrange graphics card in their lineup as the iMac is the middle of their lineup. I am not buying this iteration of iMac which is saying something as I've bought the last four models.
i really don't understand why these graphics cards are so terrible. I don't know anything about video cards in the first place but isn't 128MB and 256 MB exactly that? 128 MB and 256MB? or am i not living in reality at this point?
There are a lot of other factors involved in weighing up a graphics card. What sort of onboard support they have for different graphics technologies (OpenGL, DirectX), types of connections, the memory bandwidth, pixel pipelines - and so on.
Weighing cards up just by memory is like looking at a 10MP camera and assuming it's better than a 8MP one. You're leaving out the lens, the processor, the buffer, and so on.
I'm sure someone else can list all the extra things you have to look out for - it confuses the hell out of me too!
If that were true, I would be mighty pleased. Really. I don't want to argue this point to win... I guess I'm just realistic. I see a funky move on apple's part. They can mess up after all, can't they?
I'm guessing your numbers are hopeful prospects. Nothing wrong with that... I just find them a tad unrealistic. A performance boost of that magnitude - all by turning off AA and AF, all while bumping the res up a notch?
Now think about the fact that this is an aging game. And think about the fact that the benchmark used is a resolution that is not just smaller then the native resolution by a wide margin - but is also not the default aspect ratio either. 1280 x 1024 isn't better in that regard (5:4) You can play in windowed mode at that res... do you find this acceptable? I'm being serious, not sarcastic. Do you want to play at the default, widescreen resolution - 1680 x 1050? What would that do to the performance?
I am getting tired of reading "You can play everything perfectly fine unless the settings are maxed all the way out" - this is false and ignorant. I realize that bastards come out of the woodwork every single time some new piece of technology comes around - and I also realize that it is hard for some for other people to be negative about something you want to care so much about, especially something you have looked forward to for a long time (and I certainly have looked forward to these new models - and still hope the benchmarks will turn my conclusions around).
But you shouldn't let this subvert you from the fact that comparatively, these cards are bottom of the barrel - not somewhere in a decent midrange as you might expect them to be. Just look at the graphs and stop reading all these posts. Might not feel good... that's the reality of the situation though.
Wait for barefeats or some other site to lay the matter to rest in a side by side comparison. I'm eager to see how it stacks up. If in some amazing way, the new models can hold their own, it'll be one heck of a pleasant surprise for us all.
IF anyone gets ANYTHING from this post, let it be this:
This is not about playing at max settings, it's about potentially many games being barely playable
Just stick one of these puppies in there, hopefully the drivers for it are already in OS X
so the graphics card and processor can both be upgraded then. sweet. but for some reason i dont think it will be that easy
Agreed, it is really funny. People want HD Movies, HD television, HD Audio but it is ok to play new games - and even old games - on low/medium settings? Games are entertainment too, as movies, series or music. Well, yeah the Nintendo Wii has low graphics but it has a nice special input concept, computers doesn´t. OK, you can pair the WiiMote with your Mac or PC and play games too, but the games do not really support that.
As if we didn't need any more senseless discussions in this thread
Please don't get FPS and the human brain/eye into this, it is a very complex matter and doesn't break down to what you say. Just to give you an example, military combat pilots are run through tests that ask them to identify an object displayed for 1/300th of a second and guess what? They can. In videogames, constant 60 is as smooth as it gets, 30 is good too if its CONSTANT which basically can only be guaranteed on consoles (not even there though) or powerful cards with a 30fps limiter.
The truth is a game is enjoyable when the FPS are constant, its no fun playing a game at 30 but have it dip to 15 and 10 constantly but if the game was runnning at 10 frames 15 frames LOCKED then it would probably be a much more enjoyable experience, take Shadow of the Colossus for example. The truth is its not about how high you can go, its about how low it gets and how often.
But please, don't get the FPS/Human eye subject into this discussion, you only risk confusing people even further and spreading FUD and misinformation about a subject probably no one in this forum knows enough to discuss it properly.
I can definitly feel a difference if I play a FPS on a computer that gets say 100fps+ or one thats getting 40-50. Even on the same graphics settings... The difference is the 'minimum' framerate as it was pointed out earlier by Chone. Also I can tell that the mouse is a little less responsive on a lesser capable machine.