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Calling all Gamers: Which app for Windows and Running online games smoothly.

K

Kabir8

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 3, 2010
156
17
LA
Hey all.

Powermac G5 Dual 1.8 owner here. Just returned my iMac 27 i7 for a replacement that should arrive within a week.

During my three days with the iMac, I installed VMware Fusion and installed my dusty copy of Half-Life 2 so I can get back to playing counterstrike after 5 years.

After googling for hours, my head was spinning.
People recommended different programs, Bootcamp, Parallels, VMWare, something with a C _ _ _? (Edit: Crossover!)

I went ahead and installed in through VMWare, upped my RAM usage to 4GB (out of 10GB) and used 2 out of 4 cores to run it.
Used Windows 7 Ultimate..

Counterstrike had some issues, but gameplay was ok besides having messed up graphics on weapons and certain maps, etc. Lag was present due to being on wireless of course, but I lowered all the graphics optioned for better gameplay, but that got me thinking.

With a new quadcore mac (iMac in this case) with plenty of RAM and drive space and a pretty good GPU, what am I doing wrong here?
Is this a problem with Counterstrike or will I run into this will Call of Duty, etc?

I upgraded my DirectX too, I just was not sure what else I needed to do to supplement my experience and have my PC gaming experience run smoothly on my Mac.

Thanks for any help you can offer!:apple:
 
You don't want to use a virtual machine for gaming. Get a copy of Windows and install it on directly to run games natively.
 
Eidorian said:
You don't want to use a virtual machine for gaming. Get a copy of Windows and install it on directly to run games natively.
Click to expand...

Wait, get a PC you mean or am I missing your suggestion here?
Either way, I am looking for solutions besides getting a PC running windows for $800 to run a couple of games smoothly.
 
Kabir8 said:
Wait, get a PC you mean or am I missing your suggestion here?
Either way, I am looking for solutions besides getting a PC running windows for $800 to run a couple of games smoothly.
Click to expand...
When you get your iMac back just install Windows via Boot Camp. You do not want to use a virtual machine for gaming.

At no point did I suggest getting another computer.
 
You can install Windows via Bootcamp and switch between OSX and Windows to do your gaming.
 
Ok. Thanks.
For some reason I was thinking Bootcamp was the same thing, but it surely is not. :eek:

I have heard some mixed reviews of Bootcamp though. Is the general consensus going to recommend Bootcamp over all else?

Also does this require partitioning a portion of the HD to permanently be a fixed amount allocated to the Windows OS or is that number changeable or is all the memory "shared," for lack of a better term?
 
Yes you will have to partition part of the hard drive for windows. But this is a far more reasonable way of doing what you want to do than buying another box just for a few games. I have never had any performance issues with boot camp.
 
I manage to live with all of my current games in under 180 GB of space. You'll have more than enough to partition off from OS X to use for Windows.
 
I'm not sure you'll be able to resize the Windows partition.

Solution? Grab an external HDD and attach via external enclosure. Preferably FW800, but those enclosures are pretty expensive. Generally the cheapest option (though decreased read/write) is a dedicated Windows partition.

Not to mention Steam is pretty nice these days.
 
Kabir8 said:
I have heard some mixed reviews of Bootcamp though. Is the general consensus going to recommend Bootcamp over all else?
Click to expand...

Never heard bad reviews for Boot Camp.

Boot Camp is the total exact same thing as running a real PC.
 
I highly suggest Crossover Games over Boot Camp. Restarting your Mac is a massive pain in the ass every time you want to play a quick game. Crossover Games does a great job of maintaining high frame rates on the Mac OS just like they would natively in Windows. It doesn't run perfect and it has its ups and downs as well but I think you will be satisfied with it. Half Life 2 will run like a dream on it without having to fiddle around with Windows, partitioning, drivers and the like.
 
greg400 said:
I highly suggest Crossover Games over Boot Camp. Restarting your Mac is a massive pain in the ass every time you want to play a quick game. Crossover Games does a great job of maintaining high frame rates on the Mac OS just like they would natively in Windows. It doesn't run perfect and it has its ups and downs as well but I think you will be satisfied with it. Half Life 2 will run like a dream on it without having to fiddle around with Windows, partitioning, drivers and the like.
Click to expand...

I do like Crossover Games, and I own it, but the only games I've had it reliably work on are Valve games. I use Boot Camp because Crossover is generally unreliable. Games will usually run, they'll just usually have some horrible glitch that makes them not enjoyable.
 
Another vote for Boot Camp here, it's hands down the most efficient and best way of getting all the horsepower out of your system and into decent frame rates.

Virtualisation is fine for windows applications that are not dependent on frame rates and snappy 3d performance. Otherwise, Boot Camp all the way.
 
I vote for Boot Camp as well. None of the other solutions are really adequate for gaming.
 
Boot Camp for the best experience. My Mac Pro runs games in Boot Camp without a single hiccup. I get 60fps constantly in all my games.
 
Ok, so I guess Bootcamp it is.
Thanks for the responses guys.

The one thing I think I remember reading about Bootcamp is that something with audio playback, or audio recording can lead to crashes or something (I can't remember the specifics). But either way, I would record any audio using OSX.

Now its time for me to try and figure out what games I want to get out there.
Since I got my PPC G5 I just STOPPED gaming completely after being a very avid PC gamer prior to my Apple conversion.

Any suggestions on great newer games to get my hands on? :)
 
Kabir8 said:
The one thing I think I remember reading about Bootcamp is that something with audio playback, or audio recording can lead to crashes or something (I can't remember the specifics). But either way, I would record any audio using OSX.
Click to expand...
That's going to depend more so on the logic board and drivers than anything else.

Kabir8 said:
Any suggestions on great newer games to get my hands on? :)
Click to expand...
What genres do you like?
 
I'm eagerly awaiting Diablo 3.

But I'm into shooters like Tribes, Quake 3 Arena, Counterstrike (which I have), Call of Duty, etc.
I also love Age of Empires, Red Alert and other RTS games.

Basically I'm out of touch with computer gaming, so I don't know what the "Must Have Titles" are right now.

I have been hearing things about Bioshock 2, and some other games, but not sure what direction to go in or where to start.:confused:
 
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