Games for OS X

[Grockel]

My first iMac (27", GTX680MX) will hopefully be dispatched shortly, to replace a prehistoric windows PC (2004). Being both unfamiliar with apple and 5+years out of date with games.....I could do with some help with the following 'basic' newbie questions :

(i) Which games run fluently in OSX on new iMacs (which ones don't) ?

(ii) Where are the best places for a UK resident to download OSX games from ? (Am I restricted to EU sites ?)

If (i) is too open a question, I'm particularly interested in strategy and fantasy RPG games - so Civ IV (complete edition) and Starcraft 2 might be a starting point. Any recommendations for a really good OSX RPG?

[comatory]

Originally Posted by Grockel

My first iMac (27", GTX680MX) will hopefully be dispatched shortly, to replace a prehistoric windows PC (2004). Being both unfamiliar with apple and 5+years out of date with games.....I could do with some help with the following 'basic' newbie questions :

(i) Which games run fluently in OSX on new iMacs (which ones don't) ?

(ii) Where are the best places for a UK resident to download OSX games from ? (Am I restricted to EU sites ?)

If (i) is too open a question, I'm particularly interested in strategy and fantasy RPG games - so Civ IV (complete edition) and Starcraft 2 might be a starting point. Any recommendations for a really good OSX RPG?

i/ since you have the newest iMac - all of them, that have OS X 10.8 support

ii/ built-in App Store, Steam (GOG.com if you like old games) - all of them are Mac compatible

Baldurs Gate Enhance Edition should come out for OS X right after the new year, Witcher 1 and 2 are both on OS X, Borderlands 2 is supposed to be good too (though not too heavy on RPG). Legend of Grimrock is supposed to come out on OS X, depends what your definition of "good RPG" - you can play newest Diablo if you want to.

[Snarl]

Some I'm playing that run Great in OS-X;

LOTRO
Diablo III
Doom 3
Borderlands 2
HIARCS Chess Explorer

Steam has some excellent Mac support as well as GOG and Blizzard. Check out the Steam Site, as well as developers Aspyr and Feral Interactive sites.

Just a few I know of off hand, Mac gaming seems to be coming along fine

[janisar]

As the others said already mentioned Steam and GoG are great for Mac games, and most of the time they have better prices than the App Store. Blizzard sell their games only their site (or in retail), and some of Aspyrs or Feral Interactives ports are not available on steam, even though the windows versions of the games are available there.
You can also get the humble indie bundle 7 right now, you pay as much as you want and you can even activate the games on steam.

As for the games, Witcher 1 and 2 are one of the best fantasy RPGs out there. So is Deus Ex Human Revolution one of the best scifi RPGs. Diablo 3 is also pretty good, if you like that kind of experience, Torchlight 1 is pretty much a good Diablo clone, only much cheaper (I guess Torchlight 2 will be ported soon).
Borderlands 2 is a great first person shooter with quite a bit RPG elements.
I'm no expert on strategy games, but you can't go wrong with Starcraft 2 or the newest Civ.
If you want to try other genres, Valve has a Mac version of all of their games (Portal 1&2, Half Life 2 etc.). Telltale has some great adventure games (Walking Dead, Monkey Island etc.). And there are a lot of great indie games like Bastion, Trine 1 & 2.

[bflowers]

I'm playing Civ V, which I got on Steam, but you could buy it outright. I've only purchased two games on Steam, and they are fine, but I have had a few issues with Steam errors. Also, I would rather not have a persistent internet connection running while playing a game like Civ. If I hadn't gotten Civ on sale for about $8, I probably wouldn't have used Steam. I have also been running the demo version of Starcraft II. Debating buying it, but I'm not sure I like how they are milking it for the money by releasing it in three parts, with game console pricing for each part.

[jedolley]

Originally Posted by comatory

Legend of Grimrock is supposed to come out on OS X

It's already available on OSX... Got it through steam for $3.49 the other day.

Originally Posted by obsoletepower

If I were you I would not buy any Mac games and instead create a Bootcamp partition just for games. You will lose a lot of performance running OpenGL games.

This statement is so much garbage. Performance difference usually ends up being numerical and almost imperceptible. IMO the only people that should care about this is multiplayer FPSers. Running a Mac native game with an iMac is just fine especially for most of the RPGs listed. The only time I would recommend bootcamp is for games not available on OSX. I would rather do bootcamp than a DIY port (I add the DIY part in there because I realize some "native" OSX games are ports, but done by "experts").

As for Mac RPG suggestions... I don't believe Dragon Age has been mentioned (I apologize if it has). Both DA 1 & 2 are available for the Mac. Also, in addition to the stores mentioned so far (Mac App Store, Steam, and GoG), Amazon has a Mac game store. Probably not as robust as some of the others, but definitely another option.

http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=vg_nav_gd_mac?ie=UTF8&node=2899771011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=browse&pf_rd_r=0GGARXGX85MGZ H48KDNR&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1447631522&pf_rd_i=979455011

[Dduval]

Mac RPGs suggestion...

Just got the mac version of witcher 2 enhanced edition from www.gog.com for $12.00 (DRM free). Playing just fine here on 1080 resolution on my 2011 27" imac. Once I deleted the user.ini file, it ran even better...great game.

[skyenet]

Originally Posted by comatory

i/ since you have the newest iMac - all of them, that have OS X 10.8 support

Despite have the top of the range 2012 i7 iMac with GTX 680MX, 32Gb of RAM I still have to play about with the rendering and other settings in X-Plane 10 (64bit) to get acceptable FPS. There are plenty settings still at quite low options. Had hoped I would have been able to dial in higher settings but frame rate drops with some of the more intense settings. Never mind though, its a lot better than on my 2009 iMac and still got a lot of experimenting to do with it.

Nearly forgot I bought Call of Duty - Modern Warfare a few months ago, must give it a bash as I am sure it will look, and run, great on my new iMac.

[torana355]

Originally Posted by skyenet

Despite have the top of the range 2012 i7 iMac with GTX 680MX, 32Gb of RAM I still have to play about with the rendering and other settings in X-Plane 10 (64bit) to get acceptable FPS. There are plenty settings still at quite low options. Had hoped I would have been able to dial in higher settings but frame rate drops with some of the more intense settings. Never mind though, its a lot better than on my 2009 iMac and still got a lot of experimenting to do with it.

Nearly forgot I bought Call of Duty - Modern Warfare a few months ago, must give it a bash as I am sure it will look, and run, great on my new iMac.

X-Plane brings purpose built gaming rigs with SLI and Crossfire setups to their knees

[TweakOnline]

Unfortunately OS X hasn't much games available...

You could try to install bootcamp on your iMac?

I wish I had Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty MW3 on my Mac, but I had to install Windows 7 for it to let it run.

Does anyone know how to install Windows 7 on the 3TB Fusion Drive?
Or could someone post a link where I can find it?

[bflowers]

Originally Posted by TweakOnline

Unfortunately OS X hasn't much games available...

You could try to install bootcamp on your iMac?

I wish I had Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty MW3 on my Mac, but I had to install Windows 7 for it to let it run.

Does anyone know how to install Windows 7 on the 3TB Fusion Drive?
Or could someone post a link where I can find it?

Do a search for it, there are several threads. Effectively, you have to split your drive into 4 partitions (recovery, Mac OS, Bootcamp, Mac Data) with the first three partitions in the first 2.2 Gigs of space on the drive. Then you effectively loose the fusion benefits, because you are back to managing data between the Mac partitions. Search works great, by the way.

[forty2j]

Originally Posted by bflowers

I'm playing Civ V, which I got on Steam, but you could buy it outright. I've only purchased two games on Steam, and they are fine, but I have had a few issues with Steam errors. Also, I would rather not have a persistent internet connection running while playing a game like Civ. If I hadn't gotten Civ on sale for about $8, I probably wouldn't have used Steam.

Unless you purchase from the Mac App Store (no Internet multiplayer, slower to patch & get DLC), every copy of Civ V is a Steam copy. Whether you buy it from Steam or not really depends on how much you like cardboard boxes; you still need to install Steam, register your copy, and download the game anyway. The version on the disc is far out of date, and you kinda have to trick the installation to get it to use the disc instead of downloading from Steam... after which, you'll download a about a GB of patches.

However, Steam does have an offline mode, and after you've run the game successfully once you don't need the Internet connection to play single player.

[Abazigal]

Or just get a copy of windows, and all your existing library of PC games all port over.

[Grockel]

Thank you everyone....gives me somewhere to start.

'Just' have to wait for the iMac to arrive now.

Have a great Xmas.

[obsoletepower]

If I were you I would not buy any Mac games and instead create a Bootcamp partition just for games. You will lose a lot of performance running OpenGL games.

[vkd]

Originally Posted by obsoletepower

If I were you I would not buy any Mac games and instead create a Bootcamp partition just for games. You will lose a lot of performance running OpenGL games.

My great advice is to not even think about bootcamp. Create a 2nd partition, yes, but use it for making a safety backup copy of your system with SuperDuper or the like.

If you need Windows for anything, install vmWare Fusion and run a copy in a virtual machine; they suspend and reopen amazingly fast, and you don't lose your Mac OS desktop use at the same time. Latest version 5 runs your progs/apps/games perfectly as if native. Not lag perceivable, I'm saying this from my May 2011 iMac 27" i5 2700 so with latest Dec 2012 model even more so. All power to the VM!

On the games front, I cannot believe nobody has mentioned the ruling Tomb Raider. At least for me, I cannot play anything else and with 8 games now in the series plenty to keep me happily occupied. Heavens, I even play them multiple times! I just finished TR2 again n I been playing that game since 1998!!! Now on with TR3 - Windows version in Fusion VM of course - , last finished it in 2003 so 9 years now and still going strong (I know, that game actually came out in '98, I'm just quoting my own personal behind-the-times values here ). There's a new one coming out just around the corner and I didn't get round to playing Legend for 1st time yet!

BTW: What's the obsession with these mass death and slaughter war games? Call of Duty, etc. etc.??? Unless of course you're looking to enroll for a shift over in Afganistan or middle east or somewhere and need to do a bit of home training beforehand. Or perhaps you are on Prozac and looking to hone your shooting skills before displaying mindnumbing idiocy and going down the local primary school to massacre a class of helpless, defenceless infants.

[bflowers]

Originally Posted by forty2j

Unless you purchase from the Mac App Store (no Internet multiplayer, slower to patch & get DLC), every copy of Civ V is a Steam copy. Whether you buy it from Steam or not really depends on how much you like cardboard boxes; you still need to install Steam, register your copy, and download the game anyway. The version on the disc is far out of date, and you kinda have to trick the installation to get it to use the disc instead of downloading from Steam... after which, you'll download a about a GB of patches.

However, Steam does have an offline mode, and after you've run the game successfully once you don't need the Internet connection to play single player.

That's good to know about them all being Steam. I did try running Steam in offline mode, but then the next time I tried playing, I got an error saying I was offline and had to update. It crashed, repeatedly. Even following the online guides to change it to online didn't work, so I just tossed the whole thing and downloaded it fresh. The download amount doesn't really bother me at the moment, but I worry about the future of digital distribution when the ISPs want to throw data caps at us. Thanks for the info though.

----------

Originally Posted by Miguel Cunha

Hello everyone!

I've been playing the Civilization Series, since it came out in early 90s. It's my favourite game, along with Pirates!
In this current iteration Civilization V, specs indicate no support for iGPUs like Intel HD4000 and mandatory discrete GPU.

However, a friend of mine who bought it via Steam is able to play it quite well in his old Toshiba Satellite C660-11 wirh 4GB RAM, intel Pentium 4500T 2.3 GHz CPU - both running at 800 MHz, with it's Intel GMA 4500 with over 1GB of shared memory.

Bottom line: Wiil it be possible to play this game the new Mac Mini, since none of the current models has a discrete GPU?

Mac Game Store App sais that it might run.

Has anyone played this game in a current Mac Mini model?
Can anyone help clear this doubt?

Tank you in advance and by the way,

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Cheers!

I've been playing V from my three year old MacBook. It wasn't fast, and the graphics were set to low, but it runs. The Apple support page says I do have a graphic's card, but it uses shared RAM.

NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory3

[inwe]

Hmm... I don't know why Guild Wars 2 still didn't come out :-). I recommend it

[MacCruiZe]

StarCraft II is the game of choice for me.

Can't wait to play it on the iMac 3.4 i7/ 680MX I have on the way !! Should be about 5x faster than my current 2.16 MBP CoreDuo from 2006. (which does run SCII - but on lowest graphic settings)

[glitch44]

Just wanted to point out there's a whole sub-forum for games:

http://forums.macrumors.com/forumdisplay.php?f=101

[forty2j]

Originally Posted by bflowers

I've been playing V from my three year old MacBook. It wasn't fast, and the graphics were set to low, but it runs. The Apple support page says I do have a graphic's card, but it uses shared RAM.

I'm thinking your problems might be mostly related to your GPU. The 320M isn't supported by Civ V in OS X. (It is supported in bootcamp, and runs like a peg-leg missing his peg.)

Offline mode is a little finicky sometimes, too.

[boy-better-know]

I have been playing WOW on ultra settings with the 680MX. I am getting 120fps. Well impressed. It is important to me becausei am eagerly awaiting Elder Scrolls online, which is being developed for Mac alongside Windows.

[Miguel Cunha]

Hello everyone!

I've been playing the Civilization Series, since it came out in early 90s. It's my favourite game, along with Pirates!
In this current iteration Civilization V, specs indicate no support for iGPUs like Intel HD4000 and mandatory discrete GPU.

However, a friend of mine who bought it via Steam is able to play it quite well in his old Toshiba Satellite C660-11 wirh 4GB RAM, intel Pentium 4500T 2.3 GHz CPU - both running at 800 MHz, with it's Intel GMA 4500 with over 1GB of shared memory.

Bottom line: Wiil it be possible to play this game the new Mac Mini, since none of the current models has a discrete GPU?

Mac Game Store App sais that it might run.

Has anyone played this game in a current Mac Mini model?
Can anyone help clear this doubt?

Tank you in advance and by the way,

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Cheers!

[Plutonius]

As others have mentioned, install steam on your Mac and then you can browse a large selection of OS X games.