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iMac 2013 possible advantages in terms of "gaming"

D

dregshwoyn

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 9, 2013
8
0
hi,

can you image possible advantages a "new iMac" could have in contrast to the current gen in terms of gaming?

I'd like to play DayZ on the iMac and therefore ask myself whether its worth waiting for the next gen (e.g. for better graphics)

I'd purchase a current gen 21,5 - 2,9Ghz, Fusion Drive, 8GB Ram and would have to pay 1582€ (student discount).

do you think some of these "extras" are next gens standard-configuration?
 
Not going to see much of a boost with Haswell graphics, because iMac has a separate GPU. It remains to be seen if there will be a upgrade to the GPU. IIRC there won't be one.
 
mellofello said:
Not going to see much of a boost with Haswell graphics, because iMac has a separate GPU. It remains to be seen if there will be a upgrade to the GPU. IIRC there won't be one.
Click to expand...

Possible for them to use 700 series NVIDIA maybe?

Also, DayZ runs really well on 2012 iMac, I played it quite a lot at a time on max settings and max resolution with no problems.
 
No one "knows" at this point what will come on the "new iMacs".

As mentioned Haswell won't do much for graphics on the iMac with a "separate" video card. Quoting things is "fun".

;)
 
Adam552 said:
Possible for them to use 700 series NVIDIA maybe?

Also, DayZ runs really well on 2012 iMac, I played it quite a lot at a time on max settings and max resolution with no problems.
Click to expand...


What are the specs of the imac you played dayZ on well?

If there will be no real Performance gain in next gen the only that keeps me from buying is the Chance that e.g. FD couldnt be at extra cost in the next gen :/
 
mellofello said:
It remains to be seen if there will be a upgrade to the GPU. IIRC there won't be one.
Click to expand...

Apple has offered a newer GPU in every new model release (at least as a BTO option) in recent years, so I see no reason why the "2013" iMac will not also see a new GPU (likely a GTX 700 series, as suggested by Adam552) to go with the Haswell CPI, PCIe SSD and 802.11ac wireless.
 
fig said:
No one "knows" at this point what will come on the "new iMacs".

As mentioned Haswell won't do much for graphics on the iMac with a "separate" video card. Quoting things is "fun".

;)
Click to expand...

"Nudge nudge. Wink wink. Say no more." What kind of "gaming" are we talking about, then?
 
Adam - I play Company of Heroes, Civ 5 and Xcom with NO issues - and better game play then my home made PC that has these games on them as well. This is in OSX.

I have a I5 27 inch with the GTX 680

I see no reason to buy a new mac to get very little improvement.

Do you buy a new car every year when the new model comes out ?


Tom
 
im in the same situation like you, i have 2.9 Ghz imac with 650M and Fusion Drive, but if i want to play games on MacOS i think we will need the high end dGPU like 780M. I am waiting for that because i dont want to see windows anymore, and install it just for "gaming"
 
Confusius said:
"Nudge nudge. Wink wink. Say no more." What kind of "gaming" are we talking about, then?
Click to expand...

Macs are great for all sorts of fun stuff.

Ever tried any "photography"? I bet you have, I bet you have! A nod is as good as a wink to a blind bat.
 
It seems like the biggest thing you can do to help your iMac play games faster and with better graphical goodies is to upgrade to Mavericks later this month or next.

Why? OpenGL 4.1 support.
 
Irishman said:
It seems like the biggest thing you can do to help your iMac play games faster and with better graphical goodies is to upgrade to Mavericks later this month or next.

Why? OpenGL 4.1 support.
Click to expand...

Software needs to make use of the API—there's no free speed boost.

Even with a 700-series card, don't expect a huge performance jump: 600-series to 700-series hasn't been a huge leap.
 
This comes up every year when a new iMac is about to be release or even afterwards. People are either speculating about the next gen GPU or complaining the GPU in the latest iMac isn't great enough for gaming. Here's the thing, Developers need to get off their butts and create games for the Mac. While Steam certainly has helped, it's still pathetic how long certain popular games take before they make it to the Mac.
Developers certainly don't give Apple any reason to take the iMac seriously as a gaming machine. Apple puts GPU's in the iMacs that work very well for people in the arts for creation.
If people here are expecting Apple to create Macs as gaming machines so they can run Windows games then forget it. It's not going to happen, it's hasn't happened. For occasional gaming a Mac is great. The last 3 years, the iMacs have had great GPUs for gaming but Developers refuse to jump on it so Developers refuse to give the Apple reasons to up the game on Macs each year.
Macs for the foreseeable future will be great for occasional gaming but not gaming machines and people need to get over this and buy what's going to work rather than pout and hope.
Why does Apple put forth so much effort with iDevices in terms of gaming? Because Developers put forth big efforts to support it.
 
Irishman said:
It seems like the biggest thing you can do to help your iMac play games faster and with better graphical goodies is to upgrade to Mavericks later this month or next.

Why? OpenGL 4.1 support.
Click to expand...

Why do you think that OpenGL 4.1 allows the games to run faster and with better visuals? I am just curious.
 
elithrar said:
Software needs to make use of the API—there's no free speed boost.

Even with a 700-series card, don't expect a huge performance jump: 600-series to 700-series hasn't been a huge leap.
Click to expand...

Didn't say "huge". I would say it will be worth the $30 Apple will likely charge for it.
 
I wouldn't expect huge gains this year in terms of gaming performance as the 600-700 has been negligible. However saying that I would still wait until these new Haswell iMac's come out as a free speed boost is a free speed boost after all right?

The biggest performance in gaming for iMac will more than likely come next year, towards late 2014 or early 2015 when Nvidia release mobile 20nm Maxwell GPU's, the next evolution of graphics on a brand new architecture.
 
leman said:
Why do you think that OpenGL 4.1 allows the games to run faster and with better visuals? I am just curious.
Click to expand...

There was a thread here on MR (I'm sorry, I can't pin it down no, but it offered a link to benchmarking comparisons of DP6 of Mavericks running OGL 4.1 giving framerates VERY similar to Windows versions of the same game, unlike existing implementation for ML (3.2). THAT is a performance gain. Also, by graphical visual improvements, I'm thinking primarily of hardware tessellation, which current versions of Open GL and DirectX support (OpenGL on ML does not).

Hope that helps.
 
Irishman said:
There was a thread here on MR (I'm sorry, I can't pin it down no, but it offered a link to benchmarking comparisons of DP6 of Mavericks running OGL 4.1 giving framerates VERY similar to Windows versions of the same game, unlike existing implementation for ML (3.2). THAT is a performance gain. Also, by graphical visual improvements, I'm thinking primarily of hardware tessellation, which current versions of Open GL and DirectX support (OpenGL on ML does not).

Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

Provide a link plz, or never happened. Never seen such a link, though I've read almost each and every thread in 10.9 sub-forum.
 
IF Apple were to introduce a new iMac 27" (at least) with a top-end grfx card with at least 3 GB VRAM, then I would seriously consider it for X-Plane 10.

My ageing 2008 Mac Pro has been updated (16 GB RAM, Radeon 7950 Mac-edition, SSD) to make it was fast as possible for X-Plane 10, but the ol' CPU / FSB / RAM speed is the bottleneck.

A new Mac Pro Black™ would probably be nice (;)) but I fear a H-U-G-E price-tag for the Dual Pro grfx cards when only one will be used... (and, of course the Xeon...)
I assume that if you want the performance of one high-end 3D gaming card (around $ 600) you will end up paying for two high-end Pro cards (something like $ 3000...? :( ) in the new Mac Pro.
 
if they dont do the refresh this year ...there are 99% chances they wait for the retina panel around 200 pip
 
kaellar said:
Provide a link plz, or never happened. Never seen such a link, though I've read almost each and every thread in 10.9 sub-forum.
Click to expand...

Sorry, man. I did my due diligence. The rest is up to you.

Plus, I never said it was in the Mavericks subforum. I don't remember WHERE it was. I tried searching for keywords like "Mavericks", "OpenGL", and "games" to no avail.
 
Irishman found nothing like what you've been saying about. In contrary, there are reports of OGL performance worsening from ML to MavDP1 to DP2 etc.
 
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