Which platform?

[chomer]

Hi guys,

I should be getting my first MBP next week...very excited! I intend to install Windows via Bootcamp as I need it for working with Visual Studio.

Since I will have a Windows partition I'm not sure whether to use this for games or stick to OS X. Is there any advantage of using one over the other apart from obviously having a greater selection of games in Windows? For example I'd quite like to play Civ5. This is available on both OS's - are there any differences? How does Steam compare? Football Manager 2011?

Thanks in advance,
Chris

 

[0098386]

Performance is almost always better on Windows (on last check there was one game that ran better on OSX - and it was either Portal 2 or WoW), you've got a broader compatibility with controllers and other peripherals, there are more games and you can disable mouse acceleration in Windows.

If you're installing Windows I'd definitely opt to run games on that over OSX.

 

[Sapientia]

I doubt it was WoW, when I played the game on my mac I found it ran considerably worse. Although blizzard has always been inclined to have programmes to run well on OSX - so I could be wrong.

 

[0098386]

I doubt it was WoW, when I played the game on my mac I found it ran considerably worse. Although blizzard has always been inclined to have programmes to run well on OSX - so I could be wrong.

It might have been Starcraft then. It was one of the Blizzard or Valve games if memory serves!

 

[laetusviator]

Most new games will run significantly better in Windows. Since you're installing Windows anyway, the only real downside is that it is inconvenient to have to reboot to play games.

Games on steam that are mac-compatible give you both the PC & Mac version for one price (Football Manager 2012 is an example). So if you want, you could buy it, run it in OS X, see if it runs fast enough for your taste, and if not... well, you own it for Windows too, so just install it there.

 

[ivoruest]

Install Windows if you want descent gaming and I´d recommend 64-bit. Although its not necessary.

 

[chomer]

Thanks for the suggestions.

My MBP should be arriving tomorrow so can't wait to give it a try.

 

[Huntn]

If a game comes out Mac native, I'm always willing to give a try and will accept some lesser frame rate as long as it's comfortably playable. The last real native Mac game I played was WoW several years ago. Most of my games now are on Windows although I do play Mac versions of Valve games (through Steam) without issue.

 

[ftored]

Yes windows will provide better frame rates and support for updates, bug fixes and drivers updates when needed for a game.

The fact that you are anyway going to make a bootcamp partition provides no reason to not install games there. If you were going to use MacOS X and windows were just for gaming then ok you could try native games.