Newbie Help needed

[LowStandards]

I been using Windows since the beginning and I never liked it. I stuck with it because of Steam and games. Recently though I decided to go back to consoles (PS5) and do most of my programming on a Mac. I have a Mac mini (M2, 8GB ram) I got last year for $499.00 It is small, quiet, and built-in graphics support. It is reliable and basically all I want. I would one day like to ditch my PC.

Sadly, the game support in Steam is still legendarily lackluster, even for very old titles. Worse, games like Star Wars Empire of War and other older titles on GOG doesn't support Mac, which surprised me.

So, what are my options?

Should I get a virtual PC emulator for Mac? Are there other sites that offer more Mac games? What about other porting options?

Thanks everyone.

 

[russell_314]

I been using Windows since the beginning and I never liked it. I stuck with it because of Steam and games. Recently though I decided to go back to consoles (PS5) and do most of my programming on a Mac. I have a Mac mini (M2, 8GB ram) I got last year for $499.00 It is small, quiet, and built-in graphics support. It is reliable and basically all I want. I would one day like to ditch my PC.

Sadly, the game support in Steam is still legendarily lackluster, even for very old titles. Worse, games like Star Wars Empire of War and other older titles on GOG doesn't support Mac, which surprised me.

So, what are my options?

Should I get a virtual PC emulator for Mac? Are there other sites that offer more Mac games? What about other porting options?

Thanks everyone.

I’m a little confused. At first it sounded like you were moving your gaming to a PS5 and going to use the Mac for programming. Then you mentioned Steam games on the Mac.


This might irritate some Mac fans but IMO if you want to seriously play games on a computer it needs to be a Windows PC. Sure there are select games that are supported on a Mac but that’s not the norm.

You could use a Windows PC for gaming and keep the Mac for programming. I use my Mac for everything but gaming

 

[thebart]

Since you have a PS5, I assume you're interested in games that are PC only or play best on PC. Then you better get a PC

The number of AAA titles that are ported each year to the Mac can probably be counted on your fingers, and half of them are titles from a few years ago. You can emulate PC on the Mac, but think of the CPU and GPU requirement to run something like cyberpunk 2077 well on a PC, then add the overhead of an emulator and several layers of translation on top of that, then add the premium for Apple products. What you end up with is having an expensive Mac to MAYBE play a game as well as a way less expensive PC, after you jump through all the hoops to get it to work.

If you need an expensive Mac to do other things, then sure, get it and play some games on the side. But if you want to play PC games, get a PC.