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Looking for a gaming machine

B

BouncingRadical

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 5, 2009
2
0
I was going to build a PC and my friend told me to look at a Mac. I am looking at the mac book pro with the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT, 512 Mb and 3 GHz. I've read it can play current games OK but I don't won't to get a $2500 machine that won't play new games in a years time. Do y'all think it will hold up for a while?
I also looked at the iMac, but don't like the 'one unit' feature because of its total size. The fact you can't modify an iMac either to keep it up to date is still making me hesitate on a Mac as well.
Any words of advice?
 
I hate to say it, but if you want to purely play games steer clear of Macs. You can pay $2,500 for a computer that plays current games decently, but you have already hit the nails on the head. You won't be able to update easily. You won't be running the games natively on the native OS. Your gonna be dependent on Bootcamp, Cider, WINE, or some other form of port for a long time. By the time native mac games become common place, your system will be outdated. Not to mention the main mac game porter ASPYR has moved away from new releases.
I will say that you can find good cider ports online. Amazing work comes out of The Game Porting Team (Thanks to thedoctor45 and eazery). But a cider port is a cider port. Why buy a mac if the first thing your going to do is partition for bootcamp.
I would wait (most likely a couple of years) for mac games to hit it big or buy a pc. Save the money and buy a mac a couple years from now.

If you do end up getting a mac, make sure to check out thedoctor45's work and support The Game Porting Team! They do a heck of a lot to let us mac users enjoy games!

Final Word: Pure gaming...go PC. Casual Gaming: go Mac.
If you just want thew option to play games, but not looking for a game dedicated rig I would say without a doubt join the mac community. This comes from a die-hard pc fan who made the switch a little over two years ago. Have yet to find an aspect to the switch that has hurt my computing experience.
 
The "Buy a PC" iThink makes just tons more sense. Especially if all you are going to do is game, you are less likely to have to deal with all of the problems that plague a PC. Cider Ports are great, but they are really hit and miss.
 
You can get a quad-core PC with a GTX 2xxx GPU and a 24" iMac for about $2500 -- the PC will need a monitor though. :]

I use both, and have no issues going back and forth. It's really best to just piece a PC together for gaming, as it will cost less, provide more than enough performance for the next few years, and you'll get better components than any name-brand clone. The PC mentioned above will cost under a $k. It's really the best of both worlds, since for most everything else, Macs are generally better.

Anyways, if you want some help on PC components, I can recommend a few that won't break the bank. You really don't need a super high-end rig, unless you want to game at 1600p at max detail. Most games now days are multi-platform releases, so they're generally visually conservative, so will run great on even a lower-end PC.
 
You can build a PC for under $500 that will play most games (albeit on low settings). Or you can buy a new top of the line iMac, which in a years time, will be just as pathetic as that $500 PC when it comes to video games... only the $500 PC can be upgraded ;)
 
I put in a GTX 275(since it fell to $200) and a better PSU, but my prior config (9600 GT), which falls easily in to that $500 category by today's pricing ran the majority of my games at high to max settings at 1600 x 900(vsync enabled) between 30 - 60 fps (Everything from Mirror's Edge to GRID). I originally had this PC hooked up to a 15" screen (1024x768), then a 16" widescreen (1366x768), so it didn't need anything big. This newer GPU is a huge step up, but it's like bringing an elephant gun to kill a deer, where as the 9600 GT is a deer rifle, so all it does it lock every game to 60fps with vsync enabled at 1600 x 900 -- it's pretty much an overkill for the current slew of games. I have a HD 30", but that's for my Mac. :]

Rambles...
 
Plutonius said:
Actually, for pure gaming I would go console.
Click to expand...

Console isn't "pure gaming" though. Even now these power consoles are failing to keep up with PC's in terms of performance.

OP; get a PC. Better still build one. Stick in a GTX295 or a 4870x2, Core i7, 6 or 8gb DDR3 ram and enjoy games at their max settings for a couple of years. Spec for spec a homebuilt gaming PC will be so much cheaper than a Mac.

My Macbook (9400M) plays all the games I want at native res, sure some have to be on low-med settings (Crysis, L4D if I want it running at 60fps). But it's not future proof at all.
 
No current machine can play the most demanding game in one year at max settings.

All current machines, can play all future games next year, not at max settings. My MBP works fine.

In term of gaming there is no way to future proof.
 
Thanks for all the advice, I will go ahead and put my build order into Newegg instead of getting a Mac. Since it will be only a gaming machine, casual surfing will be done from this, and work can only be done on the company provided machine. I would get a console but I moved and my friends play games online on the PC and I want to join them. Maybe one day down the road I will get a PS3.

Thanks again for all of y'alls advice. It was very helpful.
 
God the misinformation from some posters on this thread is mind-boggling. First off boot camp is NOT emulation. Boot Camp is a way to run Windows by emulating the EFI motherboard to be a BIOS system so that Windows XP can boot up. Playing games via Windows/bootcamp IS exactly the same as playing a game on a PC.

As for the MBP, I am a hardcore gamer who plays games both natively in Windows and natively/emulated in OS X. In Windows I play TF2, L4D, CS:S, DOD:S, BF2, BF 2142, and a few NC Soft games and all run great on high settings. In OS X I play WoW, War3, Red Alert 3, Quake Wars, COD 4, all the Penny Arcade games, pop cap games, and occasionally TF2 and DOD:S via Crossover Games (WINE).

My MBP is a year old and still runs most games on HIGH (especially source games) just fine. No laptop is going to run games perfectly on high but the MBP is a great machine if you can justify paying the Apple tax. I am a very small subset of the Mac community... most Mac users are hostile towards hardcore gamers and say many of the things in this thread... even worse PC gamers are INCREDIBLY hostile to Mac users and Mac gamers. You won't find any love but if you enjoy gaming and want to be able o play in OS X and Windows for modern games and can justify eating the cost... get a Mac.

I am happy I did but in the end it is a personal choice.
 
MBPs are decent for gaming but no laptop will compare to a desktop.

That being said, you should have no issues running most games on one. I played through Crysis, Crysis Warhead, and COD 4, all on the computer in my sig under bootcamp, with little issues.

Crysis I ran at 1024x768 with shaders and shadows at medium, everything else high. It kinda looked like ass though.

Crysis Warhead I ran at 1280x800 with again a mix of medium and high.
It looks better because of the higher resolution, but still pales in comparison to my friend's desktop

COD4 I ran all max at 1440x900, lowered the AA from 4x to 2x and played fine.
 
Without considering consoles, it used to be an easy pick between a Mac and a PC when it came to gaming. PC wins hands down.

However, ever since Apple switched to Intel CPU's and introduced BootCamp, I can only say "get a mac", take advantage of BootCamp, and enjoy the best of both worlds. :)
 
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