Games for OS X

[thundersteele]

All Blizzard games: Diablo 3, SC2 (expansion coming in march!), WoW. Older titles might not work with the newest OSX.

Some other games that work:
Skyrim (download wrapper from portingteam, not officially supported)
Guild Wars 2 (official port, but still in beta status)

In most cases, even the native OSX versions of games have worse performance than the Windows versions on comparable hardware. Still in most cases the performance is acceptable for casual gamers.

To get more variety in games, you would have to buy a copy of windows and either install it on a separate partition using bootcamp (best performance), or buy something like Parallels or VMware to run it in a virtual machine (less performance, but no need for reboots!)

A question, if someone reads this: How do you buy a copy of windows 8? When you look on MS website or amazon, most of the time they offer either updates or "system builder" versions, which doesn't seem to be what I want.

[bflowers]

Originally Posted by TweakOnline

So the function of the Fusion Drive will lost when I split the 3TB HDD into 4 partitions?

Effectively, yes. There are two major benefits to the Fusion Drive setup. First, you get SSD like speeds for most of your commonly used data. This includes the OS, your applications and frequently accessed data. Second, the software side of the Fusion drive manages where the data lives, moving blocks of data between the SSD and the HDD automatically, freeing you from having to manage where the data is.

If you split the logical drive into 4 parts, you effectively remove those functions from the partitions that are not located on the SSD. The recovery partition is outside your normal usage. Then you have the Mac OS partition. Assuming you make this large enough that in is part SSD and part HDD, it will work as advertised with Fusion functionality. Next, you will have the Windows partition. It will in all likelihood be located completely on the HDD, so will not benefit from any of the SSD speed. Lastly, at least 1 TB worth will be forced into the 4th partition, located entirely on the HDD.

You will have to manage what data is moved here. It might not be an issue, if you have a large iTunes music and movie library, you could dump it all here, and iTunes will work fine. Also, if you just use iPhoto to store your pictures, it could also be pointed here. Any time you import, those applications will transfer data onto that 4th partition, but it will not benefit at all from the Fusion functionality or speeds.

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Originally Posted by thundersteele

A question, if someone reads this: How do you buy a copy of windows 8? When you look on MS website or amazon, most of the time they offer either updates or "system builder" versions, which doesn't seem to be what I want.

I think you would have to go with the OEM, which I assume you are calling the System Builder version. More or less is. Still, it is a full version, which you can get on a disc... Oh wait. Jonny took out your ODD...

I think I would rather have 7, as the tiles don't appeal to me at all, especially since they are geared for a touch screen. 7 is going to be more stable as it has been out longer, and been patched longer.

[lightz39]

Originally Posted by thundersteele

All Blizzard games: Diablo 3, SC2 (expansion coming in march!), WoW. Older titles might not work with the newest OSX.

Some other games that work:
Skyrim (download wrapper from portingteam, not officially supported)
Guild Wars 2 (official port, but still in beta status)

In most cases, even the native OSX versions of games have worse performance than the Windows versions on comparable hardware. Still in most cases the performance is acceptable for casual gamers.

To get more variety in games, you would have to buy a copy of windows and either install it on a separate partition using bootcamp (best performance), or buy something like Parallels or VMware to run it in a virtual machine (less performance, but no need for reboots!)

A question, if someone reads this: How do you buy a copy of windows 8? When you look on MS website or amazon, most of the time they offer either updates or "system builder" versions, which doesn't seem to be what I want.

Use the upgrade assistant you can download from the microsoft website. When it asks you if you want to save your files or keep nothing pick the keep nothing option. I just went that route and got a full install windows 8 pro.

[Plutonius]

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

[obsoletepower]

Originally Posted by vkd

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.

Virtualization still takes away from the performance and it's not something I am willing to sacrifice over the extra 30 seconds it takes to boot into Windows. Native will always be the best for games and if you spend money on hardware, why sacrifice performance over convenience?

[vkd]

Originally Posted by obsoletepower

Virtualization still takes away from the performance and it's not something I am willing to sacrifice over the extra 30 seconds it takes to boot into Windows. Native will always be the best for games and if you spend money on hardware, why sacrifice performance over convenience?

I would advise to "Suck it and see", perhaps you are speaking theoretically with no practical experience.

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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.

I have run Tomb Raider 2, TR Underworld and Biosphere, all ported for Mac OS. I have previously run the TR games on native Windows platform. I can safely inform that there is absolutely NO performance loss with these games on Mac OS 10.