OS X Question about games and NVIDIA video cards

[Hugh]

Hi, I have a 2013 27" iMac with the NVIDIA GeForce GT 755m, I've been looking at picking up some Mac games, but like I've noticed before, Mac Games have some high requirements. When it says NVIDIA 7xxx series is not supported does that include mine as well?

It doesn't say GT which is why I ask. My 2012 iMac has a NVIDIA GeForce GT640m, is this card too low for games too?

Now before you say anything gaming is not that important for me, but I would like to play one of these games. What games you want to know? These: X-COM: Enemy Unknown and Batman: Arkham Asylum, and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. I'm also looking at Company of Heroes 2, which I'm not sure why it has so high requirements.

=Ryan

 

[gkarris]

A great website to determine if you GPU can run a game:

http://www.game-debate.com/hardware/?gid=1800&graphics=GeForce GT 755M

If you look at the right you can see if your GPU can run certain games (like for Battlefield 1, this GPU is 89% under the min and 319% under the recommended). You can look up your games as well.

This is a great site to compare GPU's

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GT+755M&id=2646

and you can compare it to other GPU's as well...

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2646&cmp[]=3447

 

[Hugh]

These sites are confusing me. They say the card has 2gb of ram on it, when all my info in About This Mac says 1024mb. :/. Are you sure you understand I'm talking Mac here and not PC?

=Hugh

 

[GlassSpectre]

IIRC, the 7xxx is referring to the 7000 series which doesn't apply to your 755m considering that games that don't support the 320m are listed as 3xx and not 3xxx.

Your 755m has 1 GB of video ram, and I believe that computer has at least an intel 3.2 ghz cpu and 8 GB ram so your mac does meet the requirements of all the games you've listed, so X-COM EU, Arkham Asylum, and Company of Heroes 2 should all run at decent settings and fps, but Shadow of Mordor will most likely require playing at lower settings to achieve 30+ fps.

 

[jonen560ti]

These sites are confusing me. They say the card has 2gb of ram on it, when all my info in About This Mac says 1024mb. :/. Are you sure you understand I'm talking Mac here and not PC?

=Hugh

I believe you were looking at Max video memory, which is the highest amount of Video memory the chip can adress. according to Apple`s own site. https://support.apple.com/kb/sp688?locale=en_US your model does have 1GB of video memory and at least 8GB RAM assuming i got the right model.

your machine is fine for those games. as mentioned earlier, the 7xxx is referring to the Geforce 7 series of GPU`s produced in 2005. the 755M is no beast by any stretch of the imagination, but it could handily outperform the PS3, 360 and probably the Wii U. be prepared to run them in 720p to get good framerates though, especially shadow of mordor.

quick note on your 640m, its barely over half as powerful as the 755m. stick to the 755m

 

[gkarris]

These sites are confusing me. They say the card has 2gb of ram on it, when all my info in About This Mac says 1024mb. :/. Are you sure you understand I'm talking Mac here and not PC?

=Hugh

The speed of the chipset is most important.

I believe you were looking at Max video memory, which is the highest amount of Video memory the chip can adress. according to Apple`s own site. https://support.apple.com/kb/sp688?locale=en_US your model does have 1GB of video memory and at least 8GB RAM assuming i got the right model.

your machine is fine for those games. as mentioned earlier, the 7xxx is referring to the Geforce 7 series of GPU`s produced in 2005. the 755M is no beast by any stretch of the imagination, but it could handily outperform the PS3, 360 and probably the Wii U. be prepared to run them in 720p to get good framerates though, especially shadow of mordor.

quick note on your 640m, its barely over half as powerful as the 755m. stick to the 755m

Yes, here's the comparison of the two GPU's the OP mentioned and the GPU in the "Console PC" I had built.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2646&cmp[]=3447&cmp[]=2147

OP - you can run a lot of games, go online to youtube and see many of the budget PC videos with older GPU's people have built and can still run many, many games. Just don't expect 1080p/60 gaming...

 

[Hugh]

I'm not expecting HD gaming, I don't mind playing games running mid to low settings. As long as I can run the came at decent FPS and still looks good. I'm not picky. I just the ability to be able to just play the game is alright.

Question for you guys: Are some of you guys playing some of these games on Windows because of their requirements being lower then the Mac version?

=Hugh

 

[gkarris]

I'm not expecting HD gaming, I don't mind playing games running mid to low settings. As long as I can run the came at decent FPS and still looks good. I'm not picky. I just the ability to be able to just play the game is alright.

Question for you guys: Are some of you guys playing some of these games on Windows because of their requirements being lower then the Mac version?

=Hugh

Windows is cheaper. I bought an Asus sub-note at the MS Store two holidays ago for $160 and that Intel HD chipset runs a lot of older games.. It also runs a lot of new games but in the lower res/quality - many playable.

You can just load Bootcamp and Steam and go to town...

If you go to game-debate.com, you can put your game in and specs and it will spit out the stats your game will run in...

Here's a little history lesson (I've lived through all this - very, very true):

 

[Hugh]

Well most of the games I play are really old Windows 95/98 games where WINE is great to use, I'm having a lot of fun with it. There's just a few games that came out today that look interesting to play.

=Hugh

 

[gkarris]

and you can compare it to other GPU's as well...

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2646&cmp[]=3447

Well most of the games I play are really old Windows 95/98 games where WINE is great to use, I'm having a lot of fun with it. There's just a few games that came out today that look interesting to play.

=Hugh

In the Console PC I built, I ran many recent games on Medium/720p - you should be able to at least get the same as your GPU is more powerful (the comparison is above).

 

[winston1236]

Hi, I have a 2013 27" iMac with the NVIDIA GeForce GT 755m, I've been looking at picking up some Mac games, but like I've noticed before, Mac Games have some high requirements. When it says NVIDIA 7xxx series is not supported does that include mine as well?

It doesn't say GT which is why I ask. My 2012 iMac has a NVIDIA GeForce GT640m, is this card too low for games too?

Now before you say anything gaming is not that important for me, but I would like to play one of these games. What games you want to know? These: X-COM: Enemy Unknown and Batman: Arkham Asylum, and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. I'm also looking at Company of Heroes 2, which I'm not sure why it has so high requirements.

=Ryan

I haven't read through your entire thread so forgive me if someone has already said this.

I also have a 2013 iMac, except with the 4GB Nvidia, SSD and 32GB RAM. I recommend installing a Windows partition via Bootcamp and running the games from that. If you do that you can download the Nvidia GeForce Experience http://www.geforce.com/geforce-experience and it will automatically optimize your game settings based on the hardware you have. Also unlike on the Mac side Nvidia updates the drivers all the time for the gfx card.

 

[Flint Ironstag]

I understand the GeForce experience is now forcing you to create an account to use the software. Not a fan of that... really miss the days when you could just anonymously (and effortlessly) download a driver.

 

[Irishman]

I understand the GeForce experience is now forcing you to create an account to use the software. Not a fan of that... really miss the days when you could just anonymously (and effortlessly) download a driver.

Are you talking about the osx web drivers from nvidia?

 

[saturnotaku]

Are you talking about the osx web drivers from nvidia?

No, he's talking about the Windows drivers.

 

[Fosty]

Question for you guys: Are some of you guys playing some of these games on Windows because of their requirements being lower then the Mac version?

Although I have some games on the OSX side (Bioshock 1&2, Borderlands 1, Deus Ex HR, Doom 3, The Batman Games, & Civ V), I primarily use bootcamp and have windows on a separate hard drive along with all my windows games. There's just more available to you on windows and the games perform better.