The switch

[elviorion]

(he says)Hello, my name is Elviorion and I'm a PC user
(crowd says) HI ELVIORION

Anyway, little humor aside I have been a PC user all my life. Since graduating high school I have worked in IT in some capacity or another. I worked as a network/server admin for a local ISP, managed a helpdesk that supported about 40 different ISP's (if you live in NE and have called your ISP you've talked to my crew), and most recently work in IT at one of the largest hospitals in the country.

That said...I know next to nothing about mac. I have never owned one, I had never had an interest in owning one. I never learned more than I needed to do basic support. Knowlege of Linux helped a great deal with troubleshooting and kept me from having to learn too much mac specific stuff. I have always been a gamer, and so always gravitated towards the PC. It's where I am comfortable, it's home..

Well, I want to move. I'm bored with home. I'm tired of the bugs, I'm sick of spending 2 days fixing my windows PC after someone uses it for a day and gets it all mucked up. Mostly I crave a new experience! I have 3 children, 2 of them under the age of 3, and have not used my PC for gaming since I built it a few months ago. It's only been used to edit pictures and store files. The proceeds will go towards the purchase of a Macbook Pro (I think...)

What I am looking to get out of the computer. Picture editing, minor video editing (I have a small cannon HD camera I want to make better use out of), browsing the internet and...light...gaming. I'd love to be able to play Sim City on it, and maybe a few older titles. Nothing with state of the art graphics of course. I have a Playstation 4 for that.

I am planning to get a 13 inch Macbook Pro Retina, 2.4GHz Dual-core Intel Core i5, 16 gig of ram, and a 256 gig flash drive. I will supplement storage with either a 1 or a 2 TB External Western Digital drive (I will NOT pay a premium for the drives from apples site).

Knowing little about macs I have been searching far and wide but can't seem to find any definitive answer. Will this set up run something like The Sims without issue? I know it will do everything else. I know it is essentially the recommended set up for all uses. I also know that I can't afford anything beefier as the apple premium is higher than I am used to, and selling my wife on the $1,579.00 with student pricing has been tricky as is.

Any input is welcome, thank you!

 

[Weaselboy]

Will this set up run something like The Sims without issue?

Easily.

 

[nickdylan]

Yes, you'll run The Sims just fine. I have the same model you're looking at buying and it has no problem running medium end games, like SimCity, The Sims or XCOM.

I'm a PC user too. I still use PCs for like half of what I do. OS X is very easy to start using, though there are plenty of little changes you'll learn. You'll have a blast with a new rMBP and it should be sufficient for all the uses you gave.

 

[kelon111]

elviorion , a Mac is a PC.

If you used some Linux distros before , Mac OS X would seem easier to use since it's more locked down (and therefore somethings are more straight forward).

Sims 3 should run fine on that Mac that you are pointing out since it has a very good integrated GPU (similar to low end dedicated).

 

[elviorion]

I'm a PC user too. I still use PCs for like half of what I do. OS X is very easy to start using, though there are plenty of little changes you'll learn. You'll have a blast with a new rMBP and it should be sufficient for all the uses you gave.

Yeah, I'll still wind up having to use a PC (yes..I understand that a mac is a pc, I'll just continue to use PC as a reference to Windows computers as the majority of the rest of the world does..) for work, and to help my wife with her homework. She has zero interest at all in joining me in my conversion. At least until she lays eyes on the macbook and realizes what a sexy beast it is.

Thanks for the input so far guys I'm looking forward to being able to pull the trigger on this. Just wish I wouldn't have to wait for shipping time once I do.

 

[glenthompson]

If you want to make the switch easier, get the book "Switching to the Mac" by David Pogue. It highlights the differences and shows how to do common Windows tasks on a Mac. It made my conversion much smoother.

 

[Qaanol]

You’re an IT guy, so I’m sure you’re fully capable of deciding for yourself what machine to get. However, if you’re looking for input on that at all, I’d say you’ll be more than fine with 8 GB of RAM. It doesn’t sound like you’ll be running multiple VMs or editing 4k video, so there’s really no reason for 16 gigs.

Obviously you can make your own utility judgments, but you could take that $180 and do something really nice for your wife and/or kids, and you’d still have a kick-ass laptop that’s more than sufficient for your needs. Just sayin’.

Anyway, I expect you’ll pick up how to use OS X really quickly, and you’ll find it is actually quite powerful and efficient for most things. There are keyboard shortcuts for just about everything, and you can even make your own shortcuts for menu items in any program.

As a tech person, you’ll want to know about the Terminal and Activity Monitor in /Applications/Utilities. Once you’re up to speed, when you find yourself wanting to customize things more than OS X lets you (or if you just miss window snapping) you should try out BetterTouchTool. Might as well mention TinkerTool here as well.

There are a lot of great programs on OS X, and a lot of them are free. Not all of them are in the App Store though. For example, Seashore is an open source image editor—a streamlined, simplified version of the GIMP, to be precise—that is not on the App Store. On the other hand, for $30 you can get Pixelmator, which for most people is a total replacement for Photoshop.

If you want a text editor more powerful than the stock TextEdit, then you’ll want to try TextWrangler. For office software of course you’ll get iWork, and there is also the open source LibreOffice, which are both quite good—though MS Office compatibility is not perfect.

Of course, half the fun is the adventure, so enjoy.

 

[elviorion]

Well, I bit the bullet and placed my order just now. I wound up going with the 16 gig of ram. I intend to keep the PC for as long as I can, and figured this way at least it would be as future proof as could be. While I don't currently edit huge files or videos my wife and I have been kicking around starting a photo business and we have started recently to do some mini shoots and video for weddings and the likes. I think this will be a good way to break into the business without a much larger investment. I'm secretly hoping my wife falls madly in love with the mac and decides to switch as well (she is going to have to wait though..I literally ordered her a new windows laptop yesterday).

Now...the wait...

I did manage to find a site that says I can download Dungeon Keeper (the original game!) on mac for free. Anyone here familiar with macupdate.com? Are they reputable or am I already getting into trouble?

 

[snaky69]

Well, I bit the bullet and placed my order just now. I wound up going with the 16 gig of ram. I intend to keep the PC for as long as I can, and figured this way at least it would be as future proof as could be. While I don't currently edit huge files or videos my wife and I have been kicking around starting a photo business and we have started recently to do some mini shoots and video for weddings and the likes. I think this will be a good way to break into the business without a much larger investment. I'm secretly hoping my wife falls madly in love with the mac and decides to switch as well (she is going to have to wait though..I literally ordered her a new windows laptop yesterday).

Now...the wait...

I did manage to find a site that says I can download Dungeon Keeper (the original game!) on mac for free. Anyone here familiar with macupdate.com? Are they reputable or am I already getting into trouble?

Macupdate is just fine.

 

[elviorion]

it has arrived! Running updates on the software as I type this. Four day turnaround for a BOT system from time of order to arrival is pretty damn fast I'd say.

 

[wizardofoz85]

About your dungeon keeper post, got have it for free for the nest 36 hours or so if you want somewhere tried and tested to download it from.

 

[cheesyappleuser]

it has arrived! Running updates on the software as I type this. Four day turnaround for a BOT system from time of order to arrival is pretty damn fast I'd say.

Congrats for your machine then
The setup you chose is probably the best you could have picked regarding price and future-proofing imo!

For the hard drive I'd go for a Seagate Expansion / Backup Plus. Those things aside, you'll probably be very happy with the machine.
Some (paid) apps you could start installing are Day One and PopClip. For checking prices you could also use appshopper.com to save a few bucks!

 

[Badrottie]

Just finished playing Sim City 5 on my 2012 rMBP 15", you will not get disappointed with rMBP! It is a great machine. I don't know about 13 inches rMBP but I suppose it will work fine. 2 days ago I have no problem playing The Sims 3 (I am still learning how to play The Sims). Since you are going to play light games and edit pictures then 8GB/256GB SSD should be fine. BUT it doesn't have a dGPU like nVidia GPU 2013 model comes with improved Intel Iris 5000 GPU and not sure how it impacts with games like The Sims and Sim City 5. Anyway whatever you do, I hope you make the right decision. Good luck.