Might have saved some money... returning EA games

[chelsel]

Well, I was really excited to go to the Apple store and see some games for sale... I bought Need for Speed and Battlefield... but after the reviews here I'm just going to return them (unopened).

If the Mac supposedly has 'better graphics' than the PC... why the heck aren't there a ton of high quality games for the Mac...

 

[Eric5h5]

If the Mac supposedly has 'better graphics' than the PC... why the heck aren't there a ton of high quality games for the Mac...

Macs are better at working with graphics, which is a very different thing from having better graphics. The former is software; the latter is hardware. Apple gets their graphics hardware from the same companies everybody else does (AMD/nVidia/Intel), and in fact it's all the same stuff (with extremely minor technical differences such as firmware). If anything, they lag behind on the high end. There aren't a ton of games because the market share is still relatively small compared to Windows, and unfortunately the majority of Macs sold have lousy 3D graphics hardware, which means they can't run games very well even if the OS looks nice.

--Eric

 

[Wild-Bill]

If the Mac supposedly has 'better graphics' than the PC... why the heck aren't there a ton of high quality games for the Mac...

Macs do not have better graphics cards than PC's. Apple's mantra when it comes to graphics cards is a) cost over performance and b) whatever Steve says you need.

 

[Gymnut]

Macs do not have better graphics cards than PC's. Apple's mantra when it comes to graphics cards is a) cost over performance and b) whatever Steve says you need.

Exactly, if Steve sez all you need is an ATI Rage 128 card and you will like it dammit.

Bear in mind a lot of games are ports so they're not written entirely from the ground up with Mac OSX in mind, with the few exceptions such as Blizzard which has generally been accomodating with the Macintosh platform.

 

[garethlewis2]

Why all the FUD?

Apple always get ***** cards. The ones in the new iMacs seem to be ones that AMD/ATi had lying around as no PC Manufacturer was stupid enough to buy them.

The other reason games are likely to perform slower than the PC counterparts is unoptimised OpenGL drivers. There just isn't as much coding in the Apple drivers as NVidia and ATi have put into writing drivers for Windows. Whether OpenGL or DX9

 

[0098386]

I'm more than happy with game performance on my iMac. Runs HL2 like a dream = perfect.

 

[MRU]

OP seems to be confused.

When people say Mac's are better at doing graphics and stuff. They generally mean the software like Aperture / Photoshop / Quark etc..... is generally more geared towards mac's creative market.

Like Erich5h say's. That's not the same thing as 'game graphics'.

There are a number of reasons why mac's dont game.

1 - with only 4/5 % of desktop market
And then 'gaming' is an smaller niche of the mac market anway compared to pc.

2 - until the arrival of Intel they were based on completely different processing architecture

3 - direct X is a pc API, and since most games use direct X it makes porting a pain and expensive process, especially considering 1...



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If you wanted to do graphics 'work' welcome to mac

If you wanted to do graphics 'gaming' you should have bought a pc or at least an upgradeable mac so you can bung in a decent gpu and run windows.


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next time remember - a bit of research before your purchase pay's dividends.

 

[Consultant]

OP seems to be confused.
If you wanted to do graphics 'work' welcome to mac

If you wanted to do graphics 'gaming' you should have bought a pc or at least an upgradeable mac so you can bung in a decent gpu and run windows.

Actually, MacBook Pro 256mb vram and iMac can play games at decent quality / frame rate as a Mac or as a gaming PC under Boot Camp (well the definition of "decent" is my personal preference).

 

[MRU]

Actually, MacBook Pro 256mb vram and iMac can play games at decent quality / frame rate as a Mac or as a gaming PC under Boot Camp (well the definition of "decent" is my personal preference).

I agree with you. But it seems the orginal poster is more discerning and looking for that killer 'gaming graphics' rig, and in that scenario - a pc is probably still best.

 

[BlizzardBomb]

I'm more than happy with game performance on my iMac. Runs HL2 like a dream = perfect.

Well if a brand new £1000 computer couldn't run a 3 year old game well, I'd be worried Of course, it suits your needs so you don't need more - it's mostly opinions on whether graphics cards are good enough really.

 

[Krevnik]

I agree with you. But it seems the orginal poster is more discerning and looking for that killer 'gaming graphics' rig, and in that scenario - a pc is probably still best.

I don't think it helps that OpenGL in Tiger has been turning out to be pretty inefficient. OpenGL itself is sucking down more CPU cycles than it needs in the end.

With games becoming more CPU-intensive again, it makes a fair amount of sense that EA's releases (as oddly ported they may be) are currently conflicting with how OpenGL works. Let me just say that the same game that stutters like hell on my Mac Pro with an x1900 XT in Tiger, purrs like a kitten on a MBP 17" with the nVidia 8600M in Leopard. The graphics card isn't even better than the x1900 XT.