Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Start talking about 18 month old games and I'll start talking about six month old gaming rigs.

They're both outdated, in case you didn't catch that.

You're right. Macs "aren't" for games. I'll just use my Nehalem Mac Pro for professional work and you can buy new graphics cards every six months to stay behind the curve.

Let's not do this debate here because one, it's not the right place and two, it's not the purpose of this thread.
 
I'm getting sick of sycophantic mac owners that think their mid-specced machines can perform miracles. Macs aren't great for gaming, fact. Do you really think that your machine can play the latest games at the highest level? Get real.

A gaming PC would have upwards of 4Gb of ram, two of the latest graphics cards running at over a gig each, core i7 extreme processor etc etc. I'm sure you know all this as you are studying computing, surely you know the forefront of gaming lies with PCs?

I'm far from ignorant, I've been using PCs for gaming for the last 13 years.

You are ignorant because you seem to think Macs (which are just PC's running OS X now, since they use Intel chips) can't run games. Of course I'm talking about running Windows through Boot Camp.

I fail to see any examples where the latest games won't run. The MacBook Pro is a very capable gaming laptop. Of course it isn't going to be as good as a dedicated gaming rig but you are writing it off as being crap, saying it can run "some games but okish".

That is being ignorant about Macs.
 
Start talking about 18 month old games and I'll start talking about six month old gaming rigs.

They're both outdated, in case you didn't catch that.

You're right. Macs "aren't" for games. I'll just use my Nehalem Mac Pro for professional work and you can buy new graphics cards every six months to stay behind the curve.

Let's not do this debate here because one, it's not the right place and two, it's not the purpose of this thread.

Mac pros rely on current gaming cards just like a PC does ( after all a mac pro is just an expensive PC running apple software).

You are ignorant because you seem to think Macs (which are just PC's running OS X now, since they use Intel chips) can't run games. Of course I'm talking about running Windows through Boot Camp.

I fail to see any examples where the latest games won't run. The MacBook Pro is a very capable gaming laptop. Of course it isn't going to be as good as a dedicated gaming rig but you are writing it off as being crap, saying it can run "some games but okish".

That is being ignorant about Macs.

I didn't say they were crap. I said they run some games okish, more games IF you choose to run a second OS (with the extra cost involved). Apple have only recently taken gaming into account and are now producing machines with better gfx processors, if this trend continues they will probably catch up with PCs over the next couple of years ( albeit for double the price).

I can't see anyone who's offended... :confused:

I can.
 
My aluminum MacBook runs GTA4 good enough to save me from buying an Xbox360.

The plastic MacBooks were terrible for games. But the new ones are good as long as you keep the settings reasonable and realistic.

I'm not a huge gamer, but my 2.4GHz plastic Macbook runs Spore just fine.
 
Mac pros rely on current gaming cards just like a PC does ( after all a mac pro is just an expensive PC running apple software).

My point was, I'll be using the same workstation card for professional work while you continually update your gaming enthusiast cards.


And the obvious lead in was for you to name them in reply. Didn't really think we'd need to say it.
 
Macs can handle some games OK but c'mon, you need a decent desktop PC to get the most out gaming.

What do you mean with the most?
I don't mind playing crysis with 30 fps, medium high settings. I much rather have that then carrying a huge, and ugly, pc with me all day, which would give me a bit more fps.
 
You can play games, I never said you couldn't, you just can't get the most from them.

Right, ok, well I'm out this thread, I can see it diluting down into a simple "I'm right, your wrong" flamefest, and I'm getting real tired of those, it's Christmas for crying out loud, be cheery and stop complaining!
 
No, that's a 'mobile enough for lan parties'.


Why is everyone so offended at the the fact that macs aren't that great for gaming?

That's not mobile. Mobile is you can take it everywhere, and use it normally. I don't want to pay $3000 for a great gaming laptop, which is ugly, huge and heavy, that i'll only use for gaming because it's too heavy to carry around with me all day.
 
Right, ok, well I'm out this thread, I can see it diluting down into a simple "I'm right, your wrong" flamefest, and I'm getting real tired of those, it's Christmas for crying out loud, be cheery and stop complaining!

Weird People said:
I'll never be satisfied until I have an iPhone nano in my hand and an xMac on my desk!

It's right before MacWorld: 'Tis the season for the last three Longstanding Rumors to be argued to death for the seventy-third time.

For those of you just tuning in, the remaining Longstanding Rumors that haven't come true are:

MacTablet
xMac (headless iMac, won't happen until Steve leaves)
and introducing... iPhone nano!
 
That's not mobile. Mobile is you can take it everywhere, and use it normally. I don't want to pay $3000 for a great gaming laptop, which is ugly, huge and heavy, that i'll only use for gaming because it's too heavy to carry around with me all day.

The latest macbooks do OK with gaming, not as good as dedicated gaming laptops and that's up to the end buyer, there will always be a compromise between performance and portability. Personally I don't need a portable gaming machine, when I'm out of the house I'm usually too busy to even think about it.
 
The latest macbooks do OK with gaming, not as good as dedicated gaming laptops and that's up to the end buyer, there will always be a compromise between performance and portability. Personally I don't need a portable gaming machine, when I'm out of the house I'm usually too busy to even think about it.

Do you own a new MacBook?

Seriously, you are flying out all these assumptions about Macs being not very good for gaming, yet you don't give any facts or show any experience.

I'm not denying the MacBook isn't the best for gaming, because obviously it isn't going to be as good as a huge, bulky dedicated gaming laptop, but it can run any game and has surprisingly good performance.
 
Do you own a new MacBook?

Seriously, you are flying out all these assumptions about Macs being not very good for gaming, yet you don't give any facts or show any experience.

I'm not denying the MacBook isn't the best for gaming, because obviously it isn't going to be as good as a huge, bulky dedicated gaming laptop, but it can run any game and has surprisingly good performance.

No i don't own a new MB but that's besides the point. Granted it can run any game, some better than others. As for huge bulky gaming laptops, they aren't that big and like I said it's a compromise between portability and performance. I just wouldn't want anyone to go out and buy a new MB thinking that it's a ninja gaming system when it's not. Horses for courses and all that.

PS I apologise if I've made any sweeping generalisations.
 
Mac pros rely on current gaming cards just like a PC does ( after all a mac pro is just an expensive PC running apple software).

Comparable PC hardware with the same chipsets (Xeon) are actually pretty much the same price if you upgrade the hard drives and the ram yourself.
 
K guys I really didnt want this to turn into a fanboy fest...but i appreciate all the input. CONCLUSION: Hardcore gamer? Go buy a dedicated PC. Casual? Macs are juuuust fine.
 
K guys I really didnt want this to turn into a fanboy fest...but i appreciate all the input. CONCLUSION: Hardcore gamer? Go buy a dedicated PC. Casual? Macs are juuuust fine.

Yep.

Although I'm not a Mac fanboy, I'm just stating that the hardware now used in Macs (particularly the unibody) is pretty good for gaming via Windows in Boot Camp and is more than capable of being just "ok" at games.

The new PES 2009 I can run 720p on my MacBook Pro hooked up to my tele with graphics up full and get silky smooth game play.
 
So much anger and useless threads for me to read through.

It doesn't matter if the machine is a Mac, a homebrew laptop, Alienware, Dell, Asus, whatever. Point of fact, as stated a few posts above: Its a laptop, casual gaming is about what you'll get.

Have to admit that I was a bit disappointed, I was hoping they'd pull out a bit more power, at least make the 9400 a close rival to the 8600M.

At the discussion of res, 720 is relatively low for games, but quite good for movies/tv. That being said, when I game on my big black hulking behemoth I run at 720 simply because of an aging videocard and weird behavior running 1080 on my DVI-HDMI cable.

Now everyone, cut it out, its gonna be the day before Christmas soon and if you're naughty the banhammer is gonna hit extra hard this year.
 
If anything Mac's are better to game then on PC's! :apple::apple::apple:

To be fair to the thread posters, you can't really put all the blame on the replies for things getting heated.

Look at that line in the original post for crying out loud. Imagine if it had read:

"If anything PCs are better to work on then Apples!"

You'd get the same flame war but in reverse.
 
There are so few good exclusive PC games around these days that a gaming PC simply isn't worth the money. You could get a PS3 or an Xbox 360 and run the games with no problems instead of continually tweaking drivers and messing around with settings to get them to run okay. For the price of a high end gaming rig, you could also get yourself a pretty decent HDTV to play them on too.

I myself was a hardcore PC gamer, but the latest consoles provide a good enough level of visuals that I simply don't feel the urge to keep playing PC games any more.

And if we're discussing portable games, then there really are only two solid candidates - PSP and Nintendo DS (no, iPhone really does not count). They are designed with this in mind (particularly DS, thanks to super fast cartridge loading) and work extremely well and run for a long time on battery power. That's simply something which MacBook or Pro cannot do.
 
I was heavy into PC gaming for the past few years. Constantly upgrading my computer etc. Then I bought a PS3. I had forgotten how fun consoles are. I'm done with computer gaming. I will use my computer as a computer and a gaming system as a gaming system.

Also ignore everyone on WoW. This is coming from someone who has been playing since launch: 99% of the tools on there are complete idiots.
 
g e t a c o n s o l e a n d a t v a n d d o s o m e t h i n g e l s e w i t h y o u r c o m p u t e r . . . . .
 
Am also plannin to run GTA4 in my macbook, under xp (thro bootcamp).
What is the FPS u get while playin it?? n if possible can u please post (or PM) a screen???:)

I'm running it on XP too.

I honestly don't know what frame-rate I'm getting. All I know is that its playable and it looks good enough to get me through the game and save me money by not getting an Xbox360 :D

I really don't want to know what the frame-rate is because I know how I am. If I know just how low it is in reality I'll be disappointed. But right now, visually, its good. I'd say it runs better than the PS2 GTAs did (I have all of them, including the awful PSP ports).

I'm using a couple of commandlines line the shortcut to bump things down a bit. That helped a lot. But it runs surprisingly good on the "auto detect" settings, as long as you turn traffic density down.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.