Is it worth putting windows on my new imac to play games?

[linkmon99]

Okay so quick background: I've always been a windows user, but the new 5k imac tempted me with the display, video and photo editing power, and the all-in-one portability, so I bought it.

Now, I'm not a heavy gamer but I enjoy playing popular titles on steam, minecraft, mmos, etc.
My question is, is it necessary that I do windows bootcamp to play the games, or will they run perfectly fine on the mac assuming its supported? I have no real knowledge about bootcamp other than you install it and then when you turn on the mac you can select your macOS or windows and the files can be separated on the drive. Obviously I'd rather just stick to the macOS instead of having 2 OS, but is it worth doing bootcamp for games (or do the run fine), and is the bootcamp process easy and storage efficient?

Note: I have the 512 SSD option, is that enough for these processes? I will probably get an external drive if I need more storage, but I've never had to do that before on my other computers (mostly because they were 1-2TB and I don't use a ton).

Thanks for helping me with this imac gaming problem!

 

[keysofanxiety]

Should be absolutely fine, though gaming performance will be almost always better on BootCamp due to newer drivers & marketshare deeming Windows is prioritised.

However if you've already got the games on Steam, try it on macOS. You're not paying anything extra. If performance sucks, install Windows and run on that instead. If it's fine, you don't need to.

 

[linkmon99]

Should be absolutely fine, though gaming performance will be almost always better on BootCamp due to newer drivers & marketshare deeming Windows is prioritised.

However if you've already got the games on Steam, try it on macOS. You're not paying anything extra. If performance sucks, install Windows and run on that instead. If it's fine, you don't need to.

Thanks, so macs OS is mostly caught up (maybe these problems were from years past I heard about). If I do decide to get bootcamp, any disadvantages to it though that you know of?

 

[keysofanxiety]

If I do decide to get bootcamp, any disadvantages to it though that you know of?

Other than tainting your beautiful Mac with Windows? None at all.

Very easy to delete the BC partition if necessary. Very easy to set up too. Honestly there's no need for concern whichever route you decide to take.

 

[linkmon99]

Other than tainting your beautiful Mac with the Windows OS? None at all.

Very easy to roll back or delete the BC partition. Very easy to set up too. Honestly there's no need for concern whichever route you decide to take.

Thanks again, lastly can you recommend a bootcamp guide so I install properly? Lots of different confusing youtube videos and a lot of them are older versions.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Thanks again, lastly can you recommend a bootcamp guide so I install properly? Lots of different confusing youtube videos and a lot of them are older versions.

As long as you've got a W10 ISO downloaded and you've got a 32GB or higher USB stick, you'll be fine. Open BootCamp Assistant on macOS and it'll take you through what you'll need to do. It should do the leg work for you so nothing too concerning about following certain steps to the letter.

Just make sure that when you're in the Windows install, you don't format the macOS partition... heh. Regardless the Windows volume will be called BootCamp so you'll know where to install to and what volume to reformat. Should be smooth sailing though feel free to update/start a new thread or drop me a PM if you run into any hiccups at any point.

 

[YMark]

While many people do, no chance would I pollute my new iMac with that Windows turd.

 

[linkmon99]

While many people do, no chance would I pollute my new iMac with that Windows turd.

I don't want to but if games run significantly better I might have to for when I want to game :-(

As long as you've got a W10 ISO downloaded and you've got a 32GB or higher USB stick, you'll be fine. Open BootCamp Assistant on macOS and it'll take you through what you'll need to do. It should do the leg work for you so nothing too concerning about following certain steps to the letter.

Just make sure that when you're in the Windows install, you don't format the macOS partition... heh. Regardless the Windows volume will be called BootCamp so you'll know where to install to and what volume to reformat. Should be smooth sailing though feel free to update/start a new thread or drop me a PM if you run into any hiccups at any point.

You mentioned a USB. Have you ever tried maybe an external SSD usb and putting the windows file on that? I think I should be able to insert it into the USB port and switch the imac to windows when I want to and hold certain games on it? Or, would that just not work.

 

[jouster]

Will Windows 10 run legacy games like Quake II and Half Life 2? I have developed a sudden urge to play them through again and am happy to set up a Windows partition on my soon-to-arrive iMac, but not so much if I have to seek out exotically old versions.

 

[shaunp]

If you aren't a heavy gamer and the titles you want only work on Windows then, yes. It's a good solution. It's only if you are a heavy gamer where I would say don't have an iMac for gaming as you would outgrow the GPU too quickly.

Like others have said though, if there is a Mac OS version of the game available via Steam, this would be the best route to go down as it saves you having to install a Windows partition on your machine.

 

[linkmon99]

If you aren't a heavy gamer and the titles you want only work on Windows then, yes. It's a good solution. It's only if you are a heavy gamer where I would say don't have an iMac for gaming as you would outgrow the GPU too quickly.

Like others have said though, if there is a Mac OS version of the game available via Steam, this would be the best route to go down as it saves you having to install a Windows partition on your machine.

Yeah I agree, but is it true the mac versions aren't as good, or was that more of an issue like 4 years ago?

 

[shaunp]

Yeah I agree, but is it true the mac versions aren't as good, or was that more of an issue like 4 years ago?

Probably still the case. Personally I just have a gaming PC, but if you only play a couple of light titles then it's probably not worth the effort of a gaming PC or bootcamp.

 

[morphodone]

Will Windows 10 run legacy games like Quake II and Half Life 2? I have developed a sudden urge to play them through again and am happy to set up a Windows partition on my soon-to-arrive iMac, but not so much if I have to seek out exotically old versions.

I tried running Quake III Arena on a Windows 10 PC and it did not want to load. Did a cursory search and sounds like it's doable but I didn't try. Figured I would just play XBox One instead.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Will Windows 10 run legacy games like Quake II and Half Life 2? I have developed a sudden urge to play them through again and am happy to set up a Windows partition on my soon-to-arrive iMac, but not so much if I have to seek out exotically old versions.

Hey little man, I can't speak for Half Life 2 but for the DOS version of Quake II or DOS games in general, there's a nice way to run them on your Mac.

You can download the DOS Shareware version of Quake II from MyAbandonware, though not sure if you can find a different version: DownloadShareware version 1.06 9 MiB

Just drag the folder into Boxer (it's basically DOSBox but without any of the awkward setup): Download Boxer 1.4.0 2016-02-16, 19.4 MB for OS X 10.6 and up

Regardless, Boxer is your go-to application for running DOS games on your Mac. It's a beautiful beast of an app. I hope this helped in some way!

 

[sheareb]

In a similar vein, I am looking only to play a couple of games - plane and Persons Unknown battleground. I already play x-plane on my laptop (late 2013 rMBP)and its fine at really low settings, wondering if the base iMac 27 will be able to handle both of these with mid-settings at least?

 

[Takuro]

You can do what I did and pick up a cheap Samsung T3 external SDD and just install Windows to it for occasional use. There are tutorials on how to do that. Eg:

https://markthetech.com/how-to-boot-camp-usb-3-0-external-hard-drive/

In this way, you don't need to use up any internal disk space for Windows or "taint" your computer. You can just hold down the option key at boot and load windows just like in normal Bootcamp. The SSD's speeds should be good enough over USB 3.0 that Windows runs just as quickly as it would via an internal disk. You'll get the full benefit of the much better video card drivers available in Windows.

 

[epca12]

If they're supported they'll run fine but a lot of the time the performance will be better on Windows

 

[MacStu09]

I don't want to but if games run significantly better I might have to for when I want to game :-(

For what it's worth, Windows 10 and the latest Mac OS are equally as bad. But you will have an overall better gaming experience on windows. If you had an extra $300 to drop, I'd recommend just getting a used PC with decent specs dedicated for gaming. Even in that price range, you can beat out the iMac's in performance.

 

[Shamgar]

If the games you want to play are mac supported, they will run fine on macOS, and it's certainly more convenient. They will run noticeably better on Windows if you have the latest drivers. Unfortunately, Apple/AMD don't bother keeping the Radeon drivers up to date, so you'd need to rely on bootcampdrivers.com to get up-to-date radeon drivers.