Gaming on a Mac, viable?

[antonis]

Hackintosh, bruh.

Oh how I wished that this option would be really viable, I really did. I even tried to install OS X on my office desktop PC . I finally had to compromise with Linux because, in the end of the day, it proved to be an endless struggle.

Bootcamp it also not a real option as the h/w is just not there (e.g. decent GPUs). I tried it with the best mac available (that was...hm...a 2013 machine, equipped with a 2011-chipset gpu ) and it just wouldn't cut it for some cases.

Regarding the PC sales decline, what was said in a post above is also true. Every chipset/CPU/motherboard generation has a life cycle spanning across a few years. During this time, only GPUs will be upgraded from the majority of the users, since there's no reason to throw away the entire machine. Even the GPUs have their 'ups' and 'downs' depending on the generations. For instance, if I've made my gaming rig 2 years ago and equipped it with a GTX 780, I wouldn't upgrade it just yet as it is still more than capable for AAA gaming.

 

[Dirtyharry50]

Is it less and less PCs are in homes, or people already have PCs of sufficient power that upgrading isn't necessary? Sandy Bridge is still fairly viable today, and Ivy Bridge even more so, and that's going back nearly five years. The install base isn't shrinking, people in general aren't needing to upgrade so frequently. As far as the expansion of PC gaming: look at Steam. In 2007, they had around thirteen million accounts. In 2015 they had nearly ten times that many: over 125 million. If that's a problem to you, then I have a bridge in Siberia that's begging to be bought.

Haha. Consoles. Consoles have two advantages, and they're both very nearly gone: the hardware is relatively cheap, and they're great for getting a bunch of people around the TV for some gaming. For the former, you can build a computer that has better hardware than the PS4 for roughly the same price. You also have a far greater selection of games, better prices, more variety, and with Steam In-Home Streaming, Steam Link, etc, it's getting easier and easier to get games off a computer and onto the TV, if one so prefers.

I will be very surprised if consoles continue two models after the current generation.

Portability and high-end gaming is quite easy to achieve if you skip the prebuilt boxes. If you're willing to be creative, or make some sacrifices, you can fit an i7, a high-end GPU, 16GB of RAM, and an SSD in a space about the size of a lunch box.

Well naturally it is a combination of both less PCs in homes along with people feeling any need to upgrade what is still working for them - few of whom would be gamers because those folks do need to upgrade to access current games.

The number of user accounts on Steam from 2007 to 2015 says nothing about whether PC gaming is approaching or has hit a plateau at this point. You are also assuming apparently that every one of those accounts is in regular active use. I doubt that but if you have some links to recent credible data that addresses that I'm certainly not above learning new things. At any given time when I view stats of people engaged in playing games on steam for one thing most of them are playing Dota 2, TF2, CS:GO, multiple Call of Duty releases and then the numbers fall right off so that's a wee bit less impressive than the 125 million figure that I guess you are assuming means without any doubt the trend will continue unabated despite whatever else is going on in the world.

Your views even if I disagree with them are not a problem for me but snarky remarks about selling me a bridge don't do anything to advance your arguments so it would cool if we could stick to the high road here.

I'm not doing the whole PC vs Consoles cost over time discussion with you although it is clear to me that you are not considering all relevant factors. I just did that elsewhere and do not feel like doing it again. Instead, I'll just say to each their own when it comes to that and good enough.

I'm sorry but you aren't sticking a high end PC into a MacBook Air or even a MacBook Pro form factor. That is not happening. I don't know about your home-brew lunchbox thing but that's a not a notebook or gaming laptop PC so I'm not sure why you point that out as if it is a reasonable option.
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Source for that? PCs have a much larger range of available hardware, it's not as if you can fit a 980 Ti or a Fury X into the nMP.

In fairness, it is not as if that is the common everyday GPU the average gamer is running with. Source? Please see the Steam Hardware survey results for further info. I didn't even bother to look but I will bet I was right just now.

Just one more thing I want to be sure I am clear about. I do not disagree with you at all about PC gaming doing very well now. Steam has been a huge thing for PC gaming that is for sure. I wouldn't disagree with you about the power of PCs either. Really where I think I differ mostly with you is in that I feel you are looking at what you enjoy yourself in something of a vacuum that is not taking into enough consideration all other trends also in play right now and going forward. I think you are tending to be very dismissive of anything that doesn't fit in with what you want to believe as someone who I am just guessing very much enjoys Windows PC gaming at it exists now. So, I think that's the real basis of you and I not seeing eye to eye on this stuff.

 

[Mackilroy]

In fairness, it is not as if that is the common everyday GPU the average gamer is running with. Source? Please see the Steam Hardware survey results for further info. I didn't even bother to look but I will bet I was right just now.

Just one more thing I want to be sure I am clear about. I do not disagree with you at all about PC gaming doing very well now. Steam has been a huge thing for PC gaming that is for sure. I wouldn't disagree with you about the power of PCs either. Really where I think I differ mostly with you is in that I feel you are looking at what you enjoy yourself in something of a vacuum that is not taking into enough consideration all other trends also in play right now and going forward. I think you are tending to be very dismissive of anything that doesn't fit in with what you want to believe as someone who I am just guessing very much enjoys Windows PC gaming at it exists now. So, I think that's the real basis of you and I not seeing eye to eye on this stuff.

I mentioned the Steam hardware survey earlier, and I agree--the average gamer isn't running with that high end of a GPU. That's one reason I think PC gaming isn't about to die any time soon, actually, because developers know that the average gamer doesn't have expensive hardware.

I actually play no games on my computer whatsoever, I'm currently running Linux, and I don't have Steam installed. I absolutely agree that eventually smaller, lighter, and more tablet-like form factors will replace the desktop PC for most people. I just disagree that it'll mean PC gaming will shrink, or that it will happen in the near future. Within ten years? I doubt it. Within twenty? Probably. But by then we'll have OS X, Windows, and so on available to run on lighter and smaller machines than we do now. You're not going to be using an OS meant for a smartphone on a desktop--just look at how Apple keeps iOS and OS X distinct, and even Microsoft is aiming for a different user experience for different form factors.

Also, don't put words in my mouth. I said Steam had that many accounts, I made no claims as to activity. I doubt that that many are active, though I'd bet at least ten percent are regularly active in playing games. And don't forget, you can use Steam offline. Valve's numbers won't update then.

Hackintosh, bruh.

I'm aware of those, I ran one for five years. However, even then you're limited to a certain subset of PC hardware that's guaranteed to work. A broad subset, to be sure, but a subset nonetheless.

 

[Irishman]

I'm aware of those, I ran one for five years. However, even then you're limited to a certain subset of PC hardware that's guaranteed to work. A broad subset, to be sure, but a subset nonetheless.

Why is that a problem?

 

[Mackilroy]

Why is that a problem?

Because you're not using Boot Camp with a hackintosh, which was the previous poster's point. And you still have far more hardware available if it's a pure PC rather than a hackintosh. They're good, don't get me wrong, but they're more hassle and more downtime.

 

[interstella]

I think Mackilroy has got it right. Most people have a PC of sufficient power and don't need to upgrade. The vast majority of people browse the web, maybe do some emails, write an occasional letter, stream some video and that's about it. All of this can still easily be done on a very basic PC running Windows XP. I rarely use my Windows computer these days but, at nearly 7 years old, it still does everything I want it to do. Outside of gaming, most PC's (and Mac's) don't really need a lot of CPU or GPU power for day to day stuff. Even in industrial applications it isn't necessary to have massive computing power.

I work as a chief engineer on ships that have a lot of automation but the PC's that act as the man-machine interface to the various automation systems on the bridge and in the engineroom don't need to be the latest all singing-all dancing variety. We managed 15 years ago with 200MHz CPU's and integrated graphics and can still do the same today. Reliability is far more important than performance in these situations. I reboot the engineroom automation PC's on my ship once a month whether they need it or not but I did once keep a PC running for 5 years without a reboot. Ok, it was only running one main application but even so it was pretty good going. The PC only had to be rebooted when the ship went to dry-dock and the UPS couldn't keep the computer running until we got the electricity supply reconnected!

I don't really keep up to date with gaming but if I recall correctly it's only a few years ago that people laughed if you said you gamed on a PC rather than a console. Nowadays it's seems to be the other way round, even if the main emphasis is about how great the PC looks (blue LED's on the fans, water cooling etc.) rather than the performance.

I'd just like to say that I've really enjoyed this thread. There's been some very good comments, even if we have wandered off topic a bit!

 

[antonis]

I'd just like to say that I've really enjoyed this thread. There's been some very good comments, even if we have wandered off topic a bit!

Same here. Some threads are just what a forum should really be. Different opinions expressed in that way as above.

Now back to topic and addressing to all:
Regarding the average PC h/w please also mind the fact that a desktop gpu (unlike the mobile GPUs equipped in Macs that are getting in the 'weak' zone about 1 year after each machine's launch, at best) doesn't get obsolete that fast. The GTX 780 I've mentioned above is a typical example of this. So, gaming rigs are not THAT much expensive. AAA gaming does not necessarily mean that you have to get the most expensive gpu currently available. You can spend about $640 for a GTX 980 Ti if you want to, but you can also get a GTX 970 for less than half the price, which is also a high-end beast of a gpu.

 

[Exhale]

The number of user accounts on Steam from 2007 to 2015 says nothing about whether PC gaming is approaching or has hit a plateau at this point. You are also assuming apparently that every one of those accounts is in regular active use. I doubt that but if you have some links to recent credible data that addresses that I'm certainly not above learning new things. At any given time when I view stats of people engaged in playing games on steam for one thing most of them are playing Dota 2, TF2, CS:GO, multiple Call of Duty releases and then the numbers fall right off so that's a wee bit less impressive than the 125 million figure that I guess you are assuming means without any doubt the trend will continue unabated despite whatever else is going on in the world.

125m is number of active accounts - a figure thats correct.
As for record number of active concurrent users (online simultaneously) that figure is at 12 million; a November 2015 record from the 8m records set in January/February of 2015.

Sorry - but your arguments are too reminiscent of the 'PC Gaming is dead' arguments from 5 years ago - which not only turned out to be wrong, but catastrophically wrong. And they actually held more merit back then.

The Console vs. PC gaming market dynamic hasn't changed in favour of Consoles - and the Tablet market is basically in freefall. And phone games are incompatible with the PC games market (the key genres/playstyles do not work on phones).

 

[Irishman]

Because you're not using Boot Camp with a hackintosh, which was the previous poster's point. And you still have far more hardware available if it's a pure PC rather than a hackintosh. They're good, don't get me wrong, but they're more hassle and more downtime.

That's only a problem on paper.

Once you pick your parts, you're good to go (most hackintosh builders use Tony Mac's guides and Unibeast).

 

[Mackilroy]

That's only a problem on paper.

Once you pick your parts, you're good to go (most hackintosh builders use Tony Mac's guides and Unibeast).

Have you built a hackintosh lately? Look at TonyMac's posts about Skylake and El Capitan--the former presents (in their words) 'fairly unprecedented complications.'

 

[Dirtyharry50]

125m is number of active accounts - a figure thats correct.
As for record number of active concurrent users (online simultaneously) that figure is at 12 million; a November 2015 record from the 8m records set in January/February of 2015.

Sorry - but your arguments are too reminiscent of the 'PC Gaming is dead' arguments from 5 years ago - which not only turned out to be wrong, but catastrophically wrong. And they actually held more merit back then.

The Console vs. PC gaming market dynamic hasn't changed in favour of Consoles - and the Tablet market is basically in freefall. And phone games are incompatible with the PC games market (the key genres/playstyles do not work on phones).

Except that nowhere am I saying PC gaming is dead. I am only looking at where things seem to be headed over the long-term coming up. In doing so I'm taking into account a lot of variables besides the current state of PC gaming or even the past 5 years of PC gaming and how that has been trending so far. I do not see that continuing indefinitely whereas I think some people disagree with me primarily on that point more than anything else. That's fine too. Time will tell.

 

[Irishman]

Have you built a hackintosh lately? Look at TonyMac's posts about Skylake and El Capitan--the former presents (in their words) 'fairly unprecedented complications.'

I'm pretty sure that if you are building a $1000 hackintosh you're not going to be using a skylake part.

 

[Exhale]

In doing so I'm taking into account a lot of variables

The only variable you've stated so far is the reduced number of OEM computer sales and 'children'.

Your first argument has a critical flaw; you assume that the slight reduction in OEM shipments results in a much lower presence of computers in homes in favour of tablets. Firstly, this is highly dubious in that the number of people with a tablet but not a PC is extremely low, to the point of being a margin of error. Secondly, it assumes that the people that switched from a PC to a tablet were even in the Gaming market to begin with. Thirdly - it demonstrates ignorance of the extremely dire state of the Tablet market. If anything, people are dropping tablets and switching to PCs. Fourthly, the 'common consumer' hardware is not equal to the more typical gaming computer hardware. NVIDIA sold fewer low-end GPUs this year, but high-end GPU sales are up. Intel's Skylake CPUs for Gamers (K-series) has been in short supply for months, the K series in general set a demand record in 2015.

Your second argument neglects to account that pre-teens have always been a very small part of the PC market.

 

[Mackilroy]

I'm pretty sure that if you are building a $1000 hackintosh you're not going to be using a skylake part.

Why not? You can build a Skylake-based system for a very reasonable price.

Except that nowhere am I saying PC gaming is dead. I am only looking at where things seem to be headed over the long-term coming up. In doing so I'm taking into account a lot of variables besides the current state of PC gaming or even the past 5 years of PC gaming and how that has been trending so far. I do not see that continuing indefinitely whereas I think some people disagree with me primarily on that point more than anything else. That's fine too. Time will tell.

Of course PC gaming as is now won't continue indefinitely. Very little does. But it isn't going to be tablets and phones that take up the slack, not in their current forms either. I think we'll see a merger of sorts, with tablet-style hardware gaining access to full keyboards, mice, desktop-style OSes (or a hybrid between desktop and tablet, something like what Windows 8 was), and running full PC games. But that's just the continuation of the miniaturization of technology, and silicon has a hard limit we're running up against. Something else will have to take over for the future, and that will take decades. It isn't going to be everyone playing the next Flappy Bird on their phones while games such as Starcraft 2, Cities: Skylines, even Ryse: Son of Rome, vanish.

 

[antonis]

Why not? You can build a Skylake-based system for a very reasonable price.

Of course PC gaming as is now won't continue indefinitely. Very little does. But it isn't going to be tablets and phones that take up the slack, not in their current forms either. I think we'll see a merger of sorts, with tablet-style hardware gaining access to full keyboards, mice, desktop-style OSes (or a hybrid between desktop and tablet, something like what Windows 8 was), and running full PC games. But that's just the continuation of the miniaturization of technology, and silicon has a hard limit we're running up against. Something else will have to take over for the future, and that will take decades. It isn't going to be everyone playing the next Flappy Bird on their phones while games such as Starcraft 2, Cities: Skylines, even Ryse: Son of Rome, vanish.

Yes, that's more likely. The market will have to come up with something that will be able to replace PC gaming without lowering the - already established - high standards it currently has. This 'something' is just not in the horizon for now. I could see a gaming console doing the job, in the long term, but with a more modular architecture (e.g. able to swap GPUs or using eGPUs, so they can cover a wide range of prices and performance and will be more resilient to time).

 

[Adam552]

You can play games on a mac, you just have to get a nice high-end iMac that costs quite a bit Then play them using Bootcamp.

 

[Dirtyharry50]

The only variable you've stated so far is the reduced number of OEM computer sales and 'children'.

Your first argument has a critical flaw; you assume that the slight reduction in OEM shipments results in a much lower presence of computers in homes in favour of tablets. Firstly, this is highly dubious in that the number of people with a tablet but not a PC is extremely low, to the point of being a margin of error. Secondly, it assumes that the people that switched from a PC to a tablet were even in the Gaming market to begin with. Thirdly - it demonstrates ignorance of the extremely dire state of the Tablet market. If anything, people are dropping tablets and switching to PCs. Fourthly, the 'common consumer' hardware is not equal to the more typical gaming computer hardware. NVIDIA sold fewer low-end GPUs this year, but high-end GPU sales are up. Intel's Skylake CPUs for Gamers (K-series) has been in short supply for months, the K series in general set a demand record in 2015.

Your second argument neglects to account that pre-teens have always been a very small part of the PC market.

I have stated more than one variable easily but I am not going to review everything I've written and serve up a list here of them. Please see earlier posts if you'd like or skip them if not.

Over 8 percent drop in sales for the last reported period I just read about recently is more than a slight reduction and it is also part of trend that has been going on for years now of declining PC sales. In any case, at no point have I made any comment at all about people throwing away existing computers. On the other hand, the older they all get the less they factor into any discussion related to the presence of desktops in homes for gaming. I think you are assuming I am making a lot of assumptions that I am not.

Since you didn't quote whatever my second argument you are talking about was, I don't know what your response is about. Naturally, I don't memorize every post I make here and recall them days later anymore than anybody else thus the usefulness of quoting something you want to make a point about. I don't mean that as any sort of insult but I am being honest as to why I don't care to even attempt to answer to that.

In any event, I don't want to waste a lot of time arguing with you or anyone else about this stuff. I've stated my thoughts and shared some reasons for them which has not even included all of my reasons for them by the way and you're of course free to think whatever you like about that including that I am completely out to lunch. I'm fine with that. Time will tell who was out to lunch is how I see that kind of thing and that does not guarantee it won't turn out that it was me either. Like you though, I like to think I am right. I am pretty sure I have a lot of company there, as in the vast majority of all humanity. So I can live with that personal flaw all things considered.

The greatest variable is time. I can't nail down the time and neither can anybody else. That's why you haven't seen me put any dates to anything because neither I nor anyone else possibly can.

So for my part I think I am pretty much done here. At this point it's just a circle to ride around on from my perspective and while it was fun I want to get off now. So I will just wish you the best and do that.
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Why not? You can build a Skylake-based system for a very reasonable price.

Of course PC gaming as is now won't continue indefinitely. Very little does. But it isn't going to be tablets and phones that take up the slack, not in their current forms either. I think we'll see a merger of sorts, with tablet-style hardware gaining access to full keyboards, mice, desktop-style OSes (or a hybrid between desktop and tablet, something like what Windows 8 was), and running full PC games. But that's just the continuation of the miniaturization of technology, and silicon has a hard limit we're running up against. Something else will have to take over for the future, and that will take decades. It isn't going to be everyone playing the next Flappy Bird on their phones while games such as Starcraft 2, Cities: Skylines, even Ryse: Son of Rome, vanish.

I haven't said that tablets and iPhones will replace PC gaming as we know it but maybe your comment is not meaning that either. You don't need a PC to play anything you just mentioned as potentially going away. Furthermore, there is no reason something like Starcraft 2 could not as StarCraft 3 or 4 be different and run on different hardware while still retaining much of what is appealing about it to current players. I do not even want to think about how that would be designed and implemented nor on precisely what hardware. I'll leave that to Blizzard. Just as a minor case in point though, it isn't like strategy including even RTS has not already appeared on consoles. As one example regardless of whatever you might personally think of the title, Supreme Commander 2 was on the last generation XBox. So I think it's fair to assume pretty much anything could ultimately run on a console and thus potentially a console or something like them could pretty much run anything for a lot less cash than a PC and by that I mean a good one that is a lot more powerful not the same or marginally more powerful. Would it be as good? I don't know because that hardware does not even exist yet nor does the software running on it. Is it possible? Sure it is and I doubt you'd argue with me about that but maybe I am wrong.

Anyway, as posted above it was fun talking about this stuff but I'm kind of out of things to say about it and don't enjoy getting into arguments with people so I will also wish you well and be on my merry way.

 

[Mackilroy]

I haven't said that tablets and iPhones will replace PC gaming as we know it but maybe your comment is not meaning that either. You don't need a PC to play anything you just mentioned as potentially going away. Furthermore, there is no reason something like Starcraft 2 could not as StarCraft 3 or 4 be different and run on different hardware while still retaining much of what is appealing about it to current players. I do not even want to think about how that would be designed and implemented nor on precisely what hardware. I'll leave that to Blizzard. Just as a minor case in point though, it isn't like strategy including even RTS has not already appeared on consoles. As one example regardless of whatever you might personally think of the title, Supreme Commander 2 was on the last generation XBox. So I think it's fair to assume pretty much anything could ultimately run on a console and thus potentially a console or something like them could pretty much run anything for a lot less cash than a PC and by that I mean a good one that is a lot more powerful not the same or marginally more powerful. Would it be as good? I don't know because that hardware does not even exist yet nor does the software running on it. Is it possible? Sure it is and I doubt you'd argue with me about that but maybe I am wrong.

Anyway, as posted above it was fun talking about this stuff but I'm kind of out of things to say about it and don't enjoy getting into arguments with people so I will also wish you well and be on my merry way.

Not directly, but everything you've said seems to imply that. And you certainly do need a PC--tablets and phones simply don't yet have the hardware to push the same level of graphics, artificial intelligence, and so on as a desktop PC does. I do know that Supreme Commander 2 was on the Xbox, and the PC version was and is far superior in user options and controls. Just because it can run on that platform doesn't make it a good idea. In my opinion there's one and only one reason to go with a console--to play the games artificially locked into being console-exclusive. Otherwise, I'd go with a PC every day, and twice on Sundays. More hardware, better controls, more options to adjust to make games run, more utility otherwise--the consoles can only compete on price (and not very well even then), and a race to the bottom is a race to mediocrity.