"All PC Games Run On Macs." What?

[EXos]

Wahahahaaha. Go check the store on steam and take note on how "many" games are also sold for Mac...

The internetz call bullshit!

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

The actual Mac OSX game library has been expanding lately, but it still doesn't even compare to the selection on a PC. Though I can tell you from experience that PC games generally run fine on an iMac that can run Windows, I'm doing it right now, actually. Mind you, we did pay for a RAM upgrade when we bought this. (From 1GB to 2GB)

But even so, this has been suiting my gaming habits waaaaaaaay better then my old (crappy) PC. Most games seem to work fine on Medium graphics settings. I've played Assassins Creed, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Arkham Asylum, Portal, Prey, and Spider-Man 3 on this just fine. And it goes without saying that older games run on their max settings without a hitch.

 

[Joccaren]

1. No, all games do not run on Macs.
2. Yes, it is possible to get five gigs of RAM. 2 2GB (Or one 4Gb) dim and 1 1GB dim. However, it is far more common to find even RAM numberage, and the '5 more gigs' or RAM thing is utter bullshit.
3. If you are paying $3000 for a good gaming Rig, you are being MAJORLY ripped off. That is near the price of one of the more expensive Alienwear rigs, which will likely use about 1/2 or 1/4 of its full potential on current programs (Possibly except Battlefield 3), and that I could build myself for about $1000.
A tip: By the PC parts yourself, and have us help you install them. It isn't hard, there are just a few basic rules you need to know, and you also need to know how to play around with Lego or read instructions.
A motherboard will have the Locations of EVERYTHING in a manual that comes with it, and most basic stuff is easy to find anyway. Its just the cabling you MIGHT get mixed up on, but even that is labelled and goes in the correspondingly labelled plug on a motherboard. Also, make sure your parts are compatible, that is another thing we can help with.
Best yet, being friendly people at the Escapist, our services are free. Though, we don't actually go to your house and build it for you, and we will need pictures either that you took, or that are already online to know what's going on, but it will be a learning experience for you, and you get a good rig for a cheap price.
I recently almost-fully upgraded mine. It cost $400. All I need now is a $200 Graphics card, making the overall price around $600. It is not top of the line, but its good nonetheless, and will run pretty much everything max settings (Except BF3, I need that better graphics card for that).

Legos

Lego*
There is no s at the end, it is like sheep. The plural is the same as the singular. I believe Lego has (It definitely used to) the site 'Legos.com' which will tell you off for typing Legos and then redirect you to Lego.com
Sorry, but stuff like that kinda annoys me.

 

[brainslurper]

I wouldn't usually say this, but at least 75% of the people here have no fucking idea what they are talking about. Yes, you can certainly run windows games on a Mac. It takes about about 5 clicks to get windows installed on your mac, from there it can run windows just as well (And in some proven cases, better) then a windows native computer. And you still have all the advantages of OS X if you want to do professional work. The thing is, if you aren't going to take advantage of an OS X native system, then you are better of buying a cheaper (Less reliable) windows native computer.

Exactly what are these "proven cases" where running Windows on an iMac is better? It sounds like you're the one who doesn't know what you're talking about. They both use the same hardware architecture, except the stuff in iMacs is pathetically weak but comes in a shiny box and a huge price tag.

It was a big study by popular mechanics, it started as a simple windows native computer vs os x native computer of equal hardware. Also, about the price tag, I challenge you to find ANYTHING that can even remotely compete with an iMac.

 

[Akukaishi]

Macs -cannot- run 'all' PC titles. Your friends are misinformed.

 

[Conza]

I wouldn't usually say this, but at least 75% of the people here have no fucking idea what they are talking about. Yes, you can certainly run windows games on a Mac. It takes about about 5 clicks to get windows installed on your mac, from there it can run windows just as well (And in some proven cases, better) then a windows native computer. And you still have all the advantages of OS X if you want to do professional work. The thing is, if you aren't going to take advantage of an OS X native system, then you are better of buying a cheaper (Less reliable) windows native computer.

Exactly what are these "proven cases" where running Windows on an iMac is better? It sounds like you're the one who doesn't know what you're talking about. They both use the same hardware architecture, except the stuff in iMacs is pathetically weak but comes in a shiny box and a huge price tag.

Here here! I second this above question. Please; bring on the proven cases, and I want to see how much more performance and extra $3000 gets you, with lesser components, please, I'm just dying to know how it's possible to pay more money, get less capable hardware, and yet still come out in front - is it magic man?

I wouldn't usually say this, but at least 75% of the people here have no fucking idea what they are talking about. Yes, you can certainly run windows games on a Mac. It takes about about 5 clicks to get windows installed on your mac, from there it can run windows just as well (And in some proven cases, better) then a windows native computer. And you still have all the advantages of OS X if you want to do professional work. The thing is, if you aren't going to take advantage of an OS X native system, then you are better of buying a cheaper (Less reliable) windows native computer.

Exactly what are these "proven cases" where running Windows on an iMac is better? It sounds like you're the one who doesn't know what you're talking about. They both use the same hardware architecture, except the stuff in iMacs is pathetically weak but comes in a shiny box and a huge price tag.

It was a big study by popular mechanics, it started as a simple windows native computer vs os x native computer of equal hardware. Also, about the price tag, I challenge you to find ANYTHING that can even remotely compete with an iMac.

Challenge accepted! Please read my above post for more details.

Then I challenge you, to tell me why, a laptop shoved into a monitor, could possibly ever compete with a real bonafied PC.

 

[brainslurper]

A Mac person talking out of their ignorant ass? HAS THE WORLD GONE MAD? And an answer to your question: No.

A general rule of thumb is: Do NOT take advice on computers from people who own Macs. The very reason they own Macs is because they can't operate PC's properly.

Also, just as a general note, my computer cost about 1300? (with a 24" full HD screen, a gaming mouse, keyboard & mousepad), and a similar but a tad slower Mac Pro costs about three times as much, and runs slower. No joke, I'm an university student, studying to become a producer, and as part of our studies we make various kinds of videos and whatnot. And, through my experiences in various fields in media both as a professional, an enthusiast and a hobbyist, I can say FOR CERTAIN that Macs ARE NOT in ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM better with programs such as Photoshop, Pro-Tools, Avid, After Effects etc. And a well put-together PC is just as stable as any Mac, if not more so due to more user control.

Macs are trash. All Apple products are trash, iPods nonwithstanding. The people who buy them are either people with more money than braincells, teenage girls or just generally people who can't operate computers. The only thing they're good at is making you look like a complete ponce.

Feel free to quote that as a whole to the Mac tard who you had the displeasure of talking with.

Well you sir are the king of retarded people. You think I own a mac because I can't operate a PC properly? I built a PC. I use a Mac because I have far too much data passing through my computer to worry about viruses, and because in my experience (And apparently, everyone else's, Apple has been at the top of the consumer satisfaction index for like 8 years straight) macs are far more reliable. As stable? There is no fucking way anything running windows can even be remotely called stable, especially when compared to OS X. You have never owned an apple product. You probably never will, because you make assumptions about something you have no experience with. Saying an entire product line is trash (Where most professional critics and users who have actual experience with the products) almost universally disagree with you just makes you look stupid. If you prefer windows fine, but there is no need to insult the intelligence of people who prefer OS X simply because you at some point decided to hate it, for some reason.

 

[Lyri]

First of all: Please read the whole post before posting. Thanks!

Last night, a friend of mine and my dad's dropped by. Well, we got on the subject of computers and he starting saying that, for the things I do, an iMac would be perfect.

Well, my gaming computer is so old that the latest game I've played is The Sims 3, and it was pretty laggy at that. <:'-( So, for the past few years I've missed out on games. (I don't even have an Xbox360, a PS3 or, God-forbid, a Wii.) So, we mentioned that it would be difficult to spend $1,200 on a work computer and THEN spend at least $3,000 bucks on a new, up-to-date gaming rig.

Well, this friend then said this, pretty much word for word: "All PC games can run on Mac. They were designed on Macs. You put it in and, BOOM, it's loaded. No installing, no waiting, it's in there instantly. On a computer, you have to put it in, wait for it to install, no, not on a Mac. It's installed the moment you put it in."

Well, to be honest, to me, that sounded, and still sounds, like bullshit. VALVe just recently made Steam available for Macs and Skyrim doesn't seem to have OSX support.

However, since my dad and I are not really computer savvy, I wanted to give our friend the benefit of the doubt by asking here: Can an iMac run all PC games? Even old ones that you would get at Good Old Games?

Also, he mentioned when talking about the difference between the $700 and $1,200 iMac, he said the $1,200 iMac has, "... Five more gigs of RAM." Um, that's funny; I always thought RAM cam in 256MB, 512MB, 2Gigs, 4Gigs, 8Gigs and so on. Is it possible to have an odd number of RAM like 5 Gigs?

You can play anything on a Mac, just uninstall the OS and put windows on it.
Macs are the computer and not the operating system, which is what stops people from playing every game.
Your friend however is saying you can play any game on the OS and this is false, unless you install bootcamp he's talking total bullshit.

It may have been posted once in this thread already but I'll just link it anyway.
http://thenextweb.com/files/2010/09/mac01.jpg

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

That guy is insane. Macs can not "just play all PC games without needing to install them".

 

[brainslurper]

Macs are good for artwork and creativity

This statement baffles me. I see it being made all the time with no qualification and I'm genuinely curious as to why people think this is, can you enlighten me at all?

I'm not sure the person who posted this actually knows jack shit, but coming from someone who has tried to use windows for adobe creative suite coming off a mac, I can try to explain why. Adobe creative suite is pretty much identical between the two operating systems (With the exception of cs4, which for some reason lacked a 64 bit mac version) so it essentially comes down to how the operating system interacts with the program. I can certainly tell you that finder works better then windows explorer (For everything, but it shows more when using photoshop) when transferring large files quickly in and out of a workspace. It is also true that it is more efficient to never worry about viruses (DURR), but this is true with pretty much any professional use of a computer. Another thing is the lack of Final Cut on windows, which is definitely a deal breaker for me.

 

[brainslurper]

Unfortunately, your friend is either seeing through some thick fanboy fog, or is an idiot. If you intend to use a computer for gaming, there are no upsides to using a Mac over a PC.

Coming from a mac user, that is entirely true.

 

[brainslurper]

Wahahahaaha. Go check the store on steam and take note on how "many" games are also sold for Mac...

The internetz call bullshit!

Go look at the steam store after you have installed windows via bootcamp, and then tell me the same thing.

 

[brainslurper]

Macs -cannot- run 'all' PC titles. Your friends are misinformed.

Yes, they can. Macs are computers. They run on x86 processors. Therefor they can run windows. Apple even makes it easy by building a boot loader into to the OS, something microsoft would never do.

 

[brainslurper]

I think my brain threw up reading that...

1. Mac can duel boot or use Windows Emulators its no where near as easy as he is saying, however.

2. My gaming rig cost 1200 dollars and thats at the upper end of the majority of gaming rigs. You COULD spend 3000 on one but it would be so much overkill its pointless. You are better paying 800 and upgrading one or two pieces every year.

3. No, there is no "5GB" of ram. In theory you could put a four and a one in but that would be beyond retarded.

It is pretty easy. About 5 clicks in boot camp utility and your hard drive is partitioned and windows is installing. Then just hold option on startup and you can finally fulfill your dreams of playing minesweeper.

 

[brainslurper]

Lol macs can't just run a pc game, well i guess in theory they could read the code but the games aren't made to run on them, modern (even very old games) rely on things like directx which are esentially drivers without them the programmers would need to code for each individual model of processor/graphics card/etc. Also it's a sterotype that designers (arts, coding, etc) all use mac, it is not true at all programming taught at my university is in windows using visual studio (which is usually what the pro's use for things like c++, guess why because the application is usually for a windows machine) and netbeans (theres also the fact that all the big software such as photoshop come on both formats).

You are right though you can't get 5gb modules because ram uses the binary number system (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, etc.) but you can have something along the lines of a 4gb module and a 1gb module or something like 2 2gb and 1gb.

One last thing my original gaming rig back in 07 cost £400 to make and it could run basically everything on high @ 1440*900 and that was with a gt 9500. my current one if you minus the watercooling and just used aircooling would be around £800 and that maxs outs everything on 1680*1050 (and the full 1080p when the parents are on holiday and there big tv becomes availble). Point is you don't need to spend mega money to run the lastest and greatest at decent speeds and graphics, the £800 is also my workhorse/powerhouse for compiling programs, and just general work for university.

Also for the money a mac costs you can have a pc which has considerably better specs (and this is using decent makes, if you were to go for cheap £10 = 1gb ram along with other cheaper brands you could build an even faster machine but it might not be that reliable), and has better software compatability (macs are slowly catching up in this i would guess but windows still has the advantage).

Please don't post here unless you have some semblance of experience in the matter. Macs come with bootcamp, which helps you partition your hard drive and install windows in about 2 minutes.

 

[brainslurper]

Macs are good for artwork and creativity

This statement baffles me. I see it being made all the time with no qualification and I'm genuinely curious as to why people think this is, can you enlighten me at all?

I'm not sure the person who posted this actually knows jack shit, but coming from someone who has tried to use windows for adobe creative suite coming off a mac, I can try to explain why. Adobe creative suite is pretty much identical between the two operating systems (With the exception of cs4, which for some reason lacked a 64 bit mac version) so it essentially comes down to how the operating system interacts with the program. I can certainly tell you that finder works better then windows explorer (For everything, but it shows more when using photoshop) when transferring large files quickly in and out of a workspace. It is also true that it is more efficient to never worry about viruses (DURR), but this is true with pretty much any professional use of a computer. Another thing is the lack of Final Cut on windows, which is definitely a deal breaker for me.

Macs get viruses too... -_-

Oh really? Show me one recorded case that a mac, running the latest version of OS X, has gotten a virus.

 

[brainslurper]

I've spent the last 2 days trying to get Wine to work on my Macbook, and the strong impression I'm getting is that no, Macs cannot run Windows software.

Go to applications folder, go to utilities, and click boot camp assistant. Assuming you have a windows disk (You can burn one) you can get windows installing in a couple minutes.

 

[gyroscopeboy]

Just build a hackintosh that dual boots into Windows 7...wont cost you more than $2000

 

[brainslurper]

Your friend is an idiot, dont listen to him.

As for what computer to get, a mac will always be incredibly more expensive for significantly less power, but they'll generally be relatively user friendly. But if you know how to use windows and are comfortable with it then dont get a mac as theres 0 reason to.

As to the things your friend said specifically
- the games being instantlly installed is rubbish.
- most, if not all games are NOT designed FOR macs (whether or not they're designed ON macs is irrelevant).
- not all games run on macs, although all macs can install windows so u can do it by that but its a hassle.
- $1,200 for a pc (windows) will buy you a perfectly suitable mid-high end gaming machine that can run all new games on high settings, for which you'd be paying ~$2,500 or more for equivalent specs on a Mac.

Hardly a hassle. Apple makes it very easy to dual boot, unlike microsoft, desperate to keep their monopoly.

 

[brainslurper]

"THEN spend at least $3,000 bucks on a new, up-to-date gaming rig."

A great gaming rig wouldn't cost anywhere near that much. As for Macs, you'd need to dual boot with Windows, and it can be somewhat of a pain.

It takes a whole 2 minutes of idiot proof instructions to do, courtesy of apple. So much misinformation going on up in this *****.