Will Macs ever be a force in gaming?

[SquirePB]

Given the popular trend amongst young people these days (shit I just turned 20 and already I'm sounding like an old man) to go with a Mac for whatever (stupid) reason, I believe more developers will make Mac compatible versions of their games because within the next few years they won't be able to afford not too as a significant portion of their demographic will be on Mac.

And on a side note... Screw Macs. PC FTW!

 

[BENZOOKA]

There's 257 games in Steam Store for Macs. Including great titles like HL2, Civ V, Portals, older GTAs, Bastion. There's some great indie games too, like SpaceChem, LIMBO, Amnesia, and so on. And Diablo III, just like Diablo II, is for Macs too.

But they'll continue to be a secondary market. That's for sure.

aye, i read your first part and was sharpening my pitchfork, but then..

Just to make sure of my stance:
Fuck the over-simplified, overpriced, restricted... Macs, and Apple. The only things I can give them credit for, are branding and design.

Spoiler: you're awesome

thank you for that wonderful approach to an opinion that I highly agree with.

OT: it will never be THE main force to contend with, but indie and pro-mac people will always develop for it, sure, and with boot camp and other procedures it's definitely a decent secondary market.

still...overpriced and overrated garbage

Haha. Cheers mate.

I don't mind games being "ported" to Macs too, as it doesn't affect PC master race gaming.

I actually won an iPad2 last winter from a free draw. Took an objective try at it, as I'd have much use for something laptop-like, but it was just crap. The over-the-top "simplicity" makes everything so difficult and non-straightforward. Sold it in a couple of days for a decent price though, to not be hungry.

 

[Zipa]

Not unless Apple make significant changes to their computers, they use totally different programming to both run their OS and games, and basically all games are based around Microsoft software, DirectX (hence the name of the Xbox ). That and Macs are generally way more expensive than a PC running windows and have inferior hardware that can't be retrofitted.

As it stands now you might as well build/buy a PC for less of the cost of a MAC and spend what you save on some kick ass games.


I think its more likely that Google will enter the computer Operating system market and be a serious competitor to Microsoft considering their success with android on phones/tablets and Microsoft's seeming large attempts at suicide with making shitty OS's.

(hint: making windows 8 for touch screen monitors and more like the MAC OS is not a good idea Microsoft)

And to those that say that MACs have are not at risk to virus attacks, prepare to be shocked because they are getting to be a way easier target now, the market share may be smaller but a lot of users don't have protection unlike PC users who do.

 

[smudgey]

Will Macs ever be a force in gaming? Not a major force, but they will have a presence of sorts. And i believe it's a good thing for PC gaming. After all, porting from PC to Mac surely wouldn't be that all that difficult, meaning developers have a chance to expand their potential market. And many games feature cross-platform play, meaning it's even easier to find someone to play online with.

 

[Zenn3k]

The amount of misinformation about Mac's and OSX in general in this thread is mind blowing.

The only Mac that costs 4-6 grand is a Mac Pro desktop, that is NOT a consumer level machine, its a industry level machine.

The consumer base model iMac, which is a LOT of computer, is like 1199. Can you build a bare bones power rig for like 800? Sure! But you still have to run Windows as your primary OS...and now you need a display to connect to it.

I use a Mac because I don't trust Windows with my personal data, and linux level security is vastly superior. I run a Boot Camp partition that does nothing but play PC games that I want that don't run on the Mac.

If a Mac option is available, I'll take that over the Windows version, as its likely to have less overall issues. I don't need to run half my games in XPSP3 Compatibility Mode, for example.

I don't think Mac's will ever be a FORCE in PC gaming, because Microsoft owns a lot of that industry, hence why DirectX is the used over OpenGL, but they are a strong option right now.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

The amount of misinformation about Mac's and OSX in general in this thread is mind blowing.

The only Mac that costs 4-6 grand is a Mac Pro desktop, that is NOT a consumer level machine, its a industry level machine.

The consumer base model iMac, which is a LOT of computer, is like 1199. Can you build a bare bones power rig for like 800? Sure! But you still have to run Windows as your primary OS...and now you need a display to connect to it.

I use a Mac because I don't trust Windows with my personal data

If a Mac option is available, I'll take that over the Windows version, as its likely to have less overall issues. I don't need to run half my games in XPSP3 Compatibility Mode, for example.

snipped the bits that I wasn't going to refer to, just to keep it easy.

getting an imac for gaming? are you silly? the "industrial" version as you put it is the only one worthy of it, if you are looking to do any kind of serious gaming, my friends imac runs hotter than the sun trying to do some of the stuff my 700 dollar rig does.

and your acting like windows is inferior? i can't stand using OSX unless I have to, which is never the case, so that's completely opinionated there.

There is some slight bit better security sure, but if you are worth your weight in the slightest when it comes to computers, you shouldn't have to worry an ounce about ever having anything get leaked, unless you are that addicted to paying for porn subscriptions and such..

compatibility mode? the last time I used that was probably...4 years ago? with vista? on windows 7 i've played games of all ages, from planescape to witcher 2 to tf2 to fallout, and i have yet to have a single issue involving windows 7 in the slightest. that is an old problem that is near obsolete with windows 7. (not to mention it is the tiniest fix, what is it, two clicks with the mouse?)

i'm not even going to get into prices, because the prices are still outstandingly ridiculous for any kind of apple product, otherwise i would actually consider getting one as a secondary computer.

 

[LilithSlave]

I would hope not. I'm no Windows sympathizer. But Mac doesn't really much deserve it. Even less than Windows. I'd much rather see Linux gaming take-off.

iOS is currently a force in gaming. Considering how popular mobile gaming has become. But Apple computers and software are very limiting and the only real advantage the Mac OS has is some rather exceptional video editing software(better than Sony Vegas, certainly).

And no, software compatibility between Linux distributions is not that disparate. Certainly there is stuff optimized for certain Linux versions like Mint, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Fedora, or ect., and different schools or interfaces like Gnome or KDE or Xfce. But things are still fairly compatible. And differences between Linux distributions would not prove difficult for games.

Of course, here's another thing relevant to this thread. Before a non-Windows operating system becomes popular, PC gaming itself would need to become more influential. PC gaming is still an obscure minority. Most people still do not find PC gaming that interesting. Most people I have talked to out off the net haven't even heard of Steam, but they have certainly heard of the PlayStation Network. It's arguable just how much Windows is even a force in gaming. Most people don't know much about, or care much about PC gaming.

 

[steelbom]

It's unlikely that Macs will ever become the choice system for gaming, but more and more high quality titles are coming to the Mac, which is just great. In a few years, hopefully many developers will be targeting both PC and Mac.

snipped the bits that I wasn't going to refer to, just to keep it easy.

getting an imac for gaming? are you silly? the "industrial" version as you put it is the only one worthy of it, if you are looking to do any kind of serious gaming, my friends imac runs hotter than the sun trying to do some of the stuff my 700 dollar rig does.

An iMac is perfectly fine for gaming, and they're supposed to be hot -- the fans don't move from ~1000 RPM so it's very quiet and the aluminium backing acts somewhat as a giant heatsink.

The iMac has been getting better and better graphics, and the high end 27 inch model that will be released in 2012 will have the 7970M 2GB which is an under clocked 7870 desktop and the 7870 is actually a little better than the GTX 580. (It's the natural successor to the 6970M which is basically an under clocked desktop 6850.)

i'm not even going to get into prices, because the prices are still outstandingly ridiculous for any kind of apple product, otherwise i would actually consider getting one as a secondary computer.

How so? The iMac's are reasonably priced. You can't even find another all-in-one with graphics as powerful as the 2011 models.

The single processor Mac Pro carries a +$1k price tag over the competition, and Apple does that so not to hurt iMac sales, the dual processor model on the other hand is competitively priced. Any and all upgrades from Apple are extremely over priced though... only the CPU should be upgraded from them -- never hard drives and RAM.

>>>>>

The 2011 21.5 inch iMac I have costs $1199 US and I'm very happy with it. I bought it primarily for work and general use, but I game a lot on it too and it does that quite well for an all-in-one. Most games I can get 25-30 FPS at 1080p on medium or high settings, but games like Crysis 2 or The Witcher 2 force me to play at 720p. I'm considering getting the next 27 inch w/ the 7970M.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

It's unlikely that Macs will ever become the choice system for gaming, but more and more high quality titles are coming to the Mac, which is just great. In a few years, hopefully many developers will be targeting both PC and Mac.

snipped the bits that I wasn't going to refer to, just to keep it easy.

getting an imac for gaming? are you silly? the "industrial" version as you put it is the only one worthy of it, if you are looking to do any kind of serious gaming, my friends imac runs hotter than the sun trying to do some of the stuff my 700 dollar rig does.

An iMac is perfectly fine for gaming, and they're supposed to be hot -- the fans don't move from ~1000 RPM so it's very quiet and the aluminium backing acts somewhat as a giant heatsink.

The iMac has been getting better and better graphics, and the high end 27 inch model that will be released in 2012 will have the 7970M 2GB which is an under clocked 7870 desktop and the 7870 is actually a little better than the GTX 580. (It's the natural successor to the 6970M which is basically an under clocked desktop 6850.)

i'm not even going to get into prices, because the prices are still outstandingly ridiculous for any kind of apple product, otherwise i would actually consider getting one as a secondary computer.

How so? The iMac's are reasonably priced. You can't even find another all-in-one with graphics as powerful as the 2011 models.

The single processor Mac Pro carries a +$1k price tag over the competition, and Apple does that so not to hurt iMac sales, the dual processor model on the other hand is competitively priced. Any and all upgrades from Apple are extremely over priced though... only the CPU should be upgraded from them -- never hard drives and RAM.

>>>>>

The 2011 21.5 inch iMac I have costs $1199 US and I'm very happy with it. I bought it primarily for work and general use, but I game a lot on it too and it does that quite well for an all-in-one. Most games I can get 25-30 FPS at 1080p on medium or high settings, but games like Crysis 2 or The Witcher 2 force me to play at 720p. I'm considering getting the next 27 inch w/ the 7970M.

it's SUPPOSED to run hot? I call horrible design and bullshit there then, if that's what it's supposed to do. my fans run never higher than 50 C and i'm playing everything on max settings, so to hell with that.

yes, and while that is all good and dandy for that new 2012 model, with the 7970m in it, it'll rack that price up to what, 2000 dollars? forget that, like i mentioned before, i'd rather save myself 500+ dollars with even better upgrades and being able to fix it myself then have to deal with apple (my friends macbook had a sticky key, he didn't know what he was doing so he sent it in, they charged him 600 dollars to fix it...A STICKY KEY. yeah, i'm not supporting any company that is ridiculous like that.)

it might be one of the best "all in one" bundles out there, but honestly, if i am buying a monitor, then i'll just get a tower, i don't need it "all in one", that is just silly to me. so i just don't see the point in condensing it down like that when it's obviously stationary. while that is all good and dandy that you are personally satisfied with that price and playing games at those settings, really that is awesome that you are happy with it, i'm on the other hand not at all, i'm playing all those games at max settings for a much cheaper price, in which i can do simple upgrades instead buying a whole new imac each time.

 

[steelbom]

it's SUPPOSED to run hot? I call horrible design and bullshit there then, if that's what it's supposed to do. my fans run never higher than 50 C and i'm playing everything on max settings, so to hell with that.

It's well within thermal specifications so how is that horrible design? You're dealing with a very compact form factor, it's going to be hot unless you turn up the fans. But what would you prefer? Silent operation that's well within thermal spec, or loud operation that's cooler despite serving no point? If the latter, you could grab a free utility to turn up the fans.

What did you mean by: "my fans run never higher than 50C"?

yes, and while that is all good and dandy for that new 2012 model, with the 7970m in it, it'll rack that price up to what, 2000 dollars? forget that, like i mentioned before, i'd rather save myself 500+ dollars with even better upgrades and being able to fix it myself then have to deal with apple (my friends macbook had a sticky key, he didn't know what he was doing so he sent it in, they charged him 600 dollars to fix it...A STICKY KEY. yeah, i'm not supporting any company that is ridiculous like that.)

it might be one of the best "all in one" bundles out there, but honestly, if i am buying a monitor, then i'll just get a tower, i don't need it "all in one", that is just silly to me. so i just don't see the point in condensing it down like that when it's obviously stationary. while that is all good and dandy that you are personally satisfied with that price and playing games at those settings, really that is awesome that you are happy with it, i'm on the other hand not at all, i'm playing all those games at max settings for a much cheaper price, in which i can do simple upgrades instead buying a whole new imac each time.

That's right, it'll cost $1999 but that's pretty good for a 27 inch 1440p display, IB i5 quad-core ~3.2GHz, and a 7970M, in an all-in-one form factor.

That's fair enough, I might have even built myself my own gaming rig had I not needed a Mac for work. I'm no advocating them for everyone -- if you just want to game you're better off building your own. But for a pre-built, and an all-in-one at that, it's pretty good value.

 

[Freechoice]

I'm considering getting the next 27 inch w/ the 7970M.

Or just do yourself a favor and build your own Windows setup. You can get a rig that can easily run games 3 years from now for like 800 bucks. You'll also notice something funny happen when you open up Steam and notice that you can

 

[Waaghpowa]

No, but who gets a computer for one particular reason? I get the best of both worlds--the wonderful Mac interface, better use of Adobe programs, and virus-free browsing, and then the programs I can't use with Mac on the Windows partition. I say why choose one when you don't have to? Of course it's not for everybody, but don't knock it just because it's not your thing.

I'm just nitpicking here, but
"wonderful mac interface" - Opinion
"Better use of adobe" - not sure, can't comment
Virus free browsing - not necessarily true, there are viruses for Mac, just that the market share is too small to have a large enough impact for anyone to care

Also, I don't understand why people think needing a second OS is a plus. Why should you need a second OS, why not one that can do it all? It's the main reason I still haven't switched to Linux because I want to be able to literally do everything on it. Only thing holding me back is DirectX for games. Having a partition with a second OS is a massive waste of storage.

I would also like to mention that you can get Apple OSX without purchasing an Apple computer. They're called "Hackintosh" and are just self built PC's with Apple OSX installed on it like you would with Windows. So there's literally no reason to buy an Apple computer, unless you're doing it for their logos and "geniuses".

 

[Waaghpowa]

Actually, if you're going to build a computer from scratch, your only option for an operating system is Windows.

If we're talking strictly for gaming, yes. Otherwise, there's always Linux.

 

[steelbom]

Or just do yourself a favor and build your own Windows setup. You can get a rig that can easily run games 3 years from now for like 800 bucks. You'll also notice something funny happen when you open up Steam and notice than you can

Yeah, and then I need a display -- and a 27 inch IPS 1440p display would run me about $1k so that's $1800 already. Why not just get the iMac at that point? I get a nice display that I know I like, a great CPU, a great GPU, OS X (for work and general use), all in a very tidy all-in-one form factor.

I dual boot Windows 7 so I can play all the games. I own The Witcher 2, Skyrim, Crysis 2, etc., to name a few.

I've considered building my own rig, and if I had the $1500 for the rig I'd probably do it and just keep my current iMac but I don't.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

it's SUPPOSED to run hot? I call horrible design and bullshit there then, if that's what it's supposed to do. my fans run never higher than 50 C and i'm playing everything on max settings, so to hell with that.

It's well within thermal specifications so how is that horrible design? You're dealing with a very compact form factor, it's going to be hot unless you turn up the fans. But what would you prefer? Silent operation that's well within thermal spec, or loud operation that's cooler despite serving no point? If the latter, you could grab a free utility to turn up the fans.

What did you mean by: "my fans run never higher than 50C"?

yes, and while that is all good and dandy for that new 2012 model, with the 7970m in it, it'll rack that price up to what, 2000 dollars? forget that, like i mentioned before, i'd rather save myself 500+ dollars with even better upgrades and being able to fix it myself then have to deal with apple (my friends macbook had a sticky key, he didn't know what he was doing so he sent it in, they charged him 600 dollars to fix it...A STICKY KEY. yeah, i'm not supporting any company that is ridiculous like that.)

it might be one of the best "all in one" bundles out there, but honestly, if i am buying a monitor, then i'll just get a tower, i don't need it "all in one", that is just silly to me. so i just don't see the point in condensing it down like that when it's obviously stationary. while that is all good and dandy that you are personally satisfied with that price and playing games at those settings, really that is awesome that you are happy with it, i'm on the other hand not at all, i'm playing all those games at max settings for a much cheaper price, in which i can do simple upgrades instead buying a whole new imac each time.

That's right, it'll cost $1999 but that's pretty good for a 27 inch 1440p display, IB i5 quad-core ~3.2GHz, and a 7970M, in an all-in-one form factor.

That's fair enough, I might have even built myself my own gaming rig had I not needed a Mac for work. I'm no advocating them for everyone -- if you just want to game you're better off building your own. But for a pre-built, and an all-in-one at that, it's pretty good value.

like stated, when you have an awesome rig, there is no need for one or the other, you can simply have both (form factor is a difference, i just don't see the point in having a tight spaced imac for a stationary machine.) hell the new ipad runs hot as shit for games, yet apple pulled the same excuse "it's well within thermal specifications" even though, if i remember right, it was hot to the touch after some games played on it for merely 10 minutes? now don't quote me on that last part, but i'm pretty sure it is that or is dead close, and that just doesn't sit right with me.

50 c = 50 celcius, which is the highest it's gotten under max load on ultra settings, which was confirmed with witcher 2 (heavy graphics game)

and yeah, that is an awesome all in one factor, i just don't ever see myself ever spending that much on something like that, especially it being stationary, i'll just build my own for what, half the price? if apple wasn't so anal and close platformed, i'd possibly consider getting it if i hit it rich in the job market.

 

[OctoH]

Off topic: I remember the days when we would actually say Macintosh instead of Mac. I also remember playing the old Journeyman games on that old computer. Damn, I feel old.

On topic: Not a Mac user, but I can imagine how they might consider expanding their market further. The inclusion of shit on Steam was a pretty good decision.

 

[steelbom]

like stated, when you have an awesome rig, there is no need for one or the other, you can simply have both (form factor is a difference, i just don't see the point in having a tight spaced imac for a stationary machine.)

It's very neat and tidy. It's also the only consumer desktop Mac.

hell the new ipad runs hot as shit for games, yet apple pulled the same excuse "it's well within thermal specifications" even though, if i remember right, it was hot to the touch after some games played on it for merely 10 minutes? now don't quote me on that last part, but i'm pretty sure it is that or is dead close, and that just doesn't sit right with me.

I own the iPad 3 and as I expected those "claims" were all hyperbole. It's got a dual-core Cortex A9 CPU and a quad-core SGX543 GPU so the bottom left corner where the A5X SoC is located does get warm, but never anywhere near enough that you need to put it down.

50 c = 50 celcius, which is the highest it's gotten under max load on ultra settings, which was confirmed with witcher 2 (heavy graphics game)

Ah okay gotcha, but how fast were your fans spinning? (You can speed the iMac's up with a utility, if you want a cooler system.)

and yeah, that is an awesome all in one factor, i just don't ever see myself ever spending that much on something like that, especially it being stationary, i'll just build my own for what, half the price? if apple wasn't so anal and close platformed, i'd possibly consider getting it if i hit it rich in the job market.

Yeah that's fair enough, although I'm not sure you could build your own for half the price. By the time you've got the 27 inch 1440p display, the quad-core i5 IB CPU and the 7870 desktop GPU, you're looking at like $1.5k -- then you've got $500 for the rest of the components.

 

[Freechoice]

Or just do yourself a favor and build your own Windows setup. You can get a rig that can easily run games 3 years from now for like 800 bucks. You'll also notice something funny happen when you open up Steam and notice than you can

Yeah, and then I need a display -- and a 27 inch IPS 1440p display would run me about $1k so that's $1800 already. Why not just get the iMac at that point? I get a nice display that I know I like, a great CPU, a great GPU, OS X (for work and general use), all in a very tidy all-in-one form factor.

I dual boot Windows 7 so I can play all the games. I own The Witcher 2, Skyrim, Crysis 2, etc., to name a few.

I've considered building my own rig, and if I had the $1500 for the rig I'd probably do it and just keep my current iMac but I don't.

Is that an Apple display or a third party one? If it's Apple, the price is anywhere between 1.5 3 times higher than the commonly purchased equivalent.