PC Gamer Wondering About Gaming on Macs

As mentioned in the title, I am a pc gamer. My question is if I run windows vista natively on a Mac Laptop, will I get the same game performance out of a mac as i would get out of a pc. I like the look and specs of mac laptops but I dont want to sacrifice gaming to get on.

 

running vista on a mac, you will get the same performance as you would running vista on equivalent pc hardware. to the letter.

stick with xp though, for your own sake.

 

can i run XP on a mac? Mac laptops look and work so much better imo. I just want to put windows on it to game. Id probably use os X for everything else.

 

Yeah, generally speaking, once you install XP or Vista (and whatever drivers you prefer...... i.e. people seem to get better results with the laptopvideo2go drivers than the stock Boot Camp drivers), the gaming performance is going to essentially be just like what you'd get with a similarly spec'd and clocked PC notebook. When you boot into Windows, it is not really any different from a PC laptop.

Having said that, I'm not sure the extra cost is worth it to buy one just for the hardware, if you don't plan on ever using OS X.

 

i am doing the same thing, xp for gaming , osx for the rest,

I hear it works like a charm, and i also have heard that XP runs faster on mac hardware than equivalint pc hardware.... go figure

 

Yeah, as long as you have an XP SP2 CD, you're fine to install that (or Vista, whatever you prefer).

Yeah, if your plan is to use Windows for gaming, but to use OS X for most other things (and of course you can use Parallels or VMware to run Windows apps inside of OS X when you need to), it should work fine.

 

I said above I would use OS X for everything except games. I am willing to pay extra to be able to play games on it. What is Boot Camp exactly? Is it different from partitioning your hardrive and putting to OSes on the computer?

 

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't run faster...... the only difference I could see maybe would be that you'd be more likely to have a fresh clean Windows install compared to perhaps a typical PC laptop.

But I think that, if given the exact same hardware, the performance between the same configuration of XP on a PC and on an MBP should be pretty much the same.

 

http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

Yes, it's essentially a partition manager/boot loader thing that assists you in creating a partition for Windows and then handling dual booting.

It also includes drivers/etc. on the Window side.

Currently its available as a beta, and it will be included as part of Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) in October.

 

guess thats just the apple sales man BSing me over the phone then :O

 

Well, it MIGHT be true..... I've heard that claim before too. But I still just doubt it - given completely equal settings, configurations, etc. there isn't any compelling reason I can see that there should be any appreciable performance difference.

-Zadillo

 

not true in the least. it is just as fast as pc hardware. however, it is convenient having the boot camp manager installed on the windows side, which will keep your drivers up to date without any hunting on your part, at all.

gaming / running powerful windows applications works really well with boot camp, because the performance is equal to pc hardware.

you really will want to do everything else in osx though. there are a ton of issues with having windows as your main operating system on mac hardware. if i can find the link, i detailed them on this forum more than once.

 

I'd really appreciate it if you could find that link because im curious about what those issues are. I really would much rather get a mac, PC laptops are ugly. period. compared to macs. Oh, also I dont really want to pay 750 for 4gb of ram. i am wondering if i can manually upgrade the ram at somepoint. If i remember correctly macs are somewhat harder to get into than PCs. I definitely want to put 4gb of ram in my computer at some point because this computer is going to be it for 3-4 years for me (college computer).

 

you can change the ram if u want to and not void the warrenty, but thats about all u can change, and its easy to do.

im gunna get a 2gb stick and put it in with one of the 1gb ones to have 3gb, so i have more ram to let the gpu borrow

 

Yeah, upgrading the RAM is very very easy. On the current MBP it's upgrading the hard drive that is very difficult (because it requires practically taking the whole machine apart).

This video shows you how to install RAM, and also how to install the HD if you're curious:

http://www.macsales.com/clicks/fclick.php?id=96

And yeah, you don't need to spend that much for the RAM - I think third party 4GB kits are in like the $200-225 range or something right now.

 

You really have to ask yourself if it's worth the money if you're going to be playing games. For 2 grand you only get a 128MB GPU. You have to spend $2500 to get a 256MB GPU.

For about $1k you can get yourself a refurbished white MacBook Core 2 Duo with DVD writer.

You can spend the rest of the money on a desktop that will absolutely mop the floor with the MacBook Pro when it comes to gaming.

I love OS X. It's great. Leopard, honestly, is amazing. However, the price you pay for the hardware specifications, regardless of how well built the system is and how nice it looks, is too much.

I love my MacBook, but I have definitely been envying the PC side of hardware lately. Recently I saw a 17" notebook that had a Turion64 X2 at 1.8GHz (yeah I know, not as fast as the Santa Rosa Core 2 Duo, but at least 75% of the speed) that could handle up to 4GB of RAM (came with 1GB on 1 stick stock), a GeForce Go 7600 256MB, 100GB HDD, DVD writer, all that for $800. I know the GPU isn't quite up to that in the $2500 MacBook Pro, but its still very fast and, after taxes, about $2,000 cheaper. It's also $600 cheaper than my MacBook cost me in March of this year.

What really has me envious is that a $650 HP notebook can be had with a dedicated GPU. Even though the Turion64 X2 in that system is only 1.8GHz and behind my 2GHz Core 2 Duo, it will absolutely embarrass my MacBook when it comes to gaming. And, after taxes, it cost less than half as much as my MacBook.

Apple's hardware is very well built and designed. OS X, especially Leopard, leaves Windows in the dust. But the hardware specifications leave much to be desired when you consider the cost ($2,000 for a 128MB card? $1299 for integrated?) compared to other manufacturers.

Will I switch back to a PC? Maybe. If Apple doesn't get their hardware prices more reasonable. OS X is great, but certainly not worth the double price premium you pay over an equivalent Vista PC.

 

i acknowledge your opinions, but i have to say that the pricing isn't that out of whack.

after rebates and an edu discount- you can subtract $500 from the sticker price of the mac - assuming you were in the market for an ipod / printer or were able to resell them.

that puts you at 1999 for a 1 inch laptop with an 8600m gt.

the more that the components *shouldnt* fit into the form factor of your laptop- the more it costs. 1 inch machine with an 8600m gt? expect to add some dollars to make that work. the design of the machine is top notch. you are paying for that. you are also paying for the 5+ hour battery life (somehow a firmware update pushed the actual battery life up about 30 minutes).

obviously there are cheaper solutions to get a laptop. neither the macbook nor the macbook pro are targeted towards that market. its worth it for me, to not deal with antivirus, spyware, driver incompatibility, have software update automatically, have a clean operating system.

to others, such as yourself, the price outweighs the benefit.

to each his own.

 

Yes, but you are comparing apples and oranges in your post. Its really pointless. You can get a laptop to your hardware specs from HP/Dell/Acer/whomever - but not with the same specs as the MBP. Why not compare to some Dell with the same hardware / RAM / HD / graphics card? I did and the same thing from Dell will cost you maybe $100 - $200 less. But you get a much bigger/heavier box, no light up keyboard, worse battery life, etc.

Apple isn't cheap, but it's not outrageously expensive either. It's in the same ballpark as higher end Sonys or Acers.

If you are really into gaming, I would not recommend Apple. Even though the hardware will perform the exact same as PC hardware with the same specs, you will just run in boot camp all the time - better to buy a PC gaming rig.

Buy the tool for the job. I mostly work on my laptop and the MBP/OS X is the perfect tool for this. Much better than Windows XP/Vista and the Acer. If you mostly game, a Win laptop will be better for you.

I can play old / non-demanding games in Parallels on the Mac, and _could_ play modern PC games in boot camp, but I don't really want to. OS X is not a system that you ever need to restart, so rebooting would be a major pain for me and certainly not something I am willing to do regularly.

 

Yea even though I only use Windows to game, rebooting back and forth is definitely a pain. Vista actually runs many tasks faster than OSX, but it takes an age and a half to boot up (literally a full minute almost!). It's a huge waste of time.

On the other hand, as far as actual performance, the MBP plays games in Windows just fine.

 

That's odd, does that even include Firefox? It makes me wonder if something isn't wrong - OS X shouldn't be slower with something like web browsing.

 

Actually firefox was what I had in mind when I referred to web browsing. Firefox on OSX is just slow. Then again, I find Camino to be the fastest out of the 3 I have (camino, safari 3, firefox), so I tend to use that, which is a bit more comparable to firefox's speed in Windows.

 

Interesting. I haven't been able to notice that myself since I currently am still running on an old G4 Cube.

I hope it's something the Firefox people might work on for Firefox 3, at the very least.

I'd be curious if the FasterFox add-on helps at all; I've at least noticed it made a difference on my Cube.

 

Actually...Minefield 3 prealpha7 is worse (although that changes from day to day depending on the nightly build you get ).

I like a lot of the stuff Minefield or firefox offers - it's just too bad it's not more mac-centric. I'd love to see the maximize button work like safari and camino, render pages faster, and share integration with keychain, bonjour, bookmarks, address book, etc. etc. etc.

 

Not all of us are students anymore, or willing to lie and claim to be a student to get a discount. So for someone who is not a student, and an honest person, a MacBook Pro with a 256MB GPU will cost $2692.67 (I live in California).

You get a $100 rebate on a printer, occasionally. However, a good printer usually costs $100 to $150.

One could argue the downsides of that. First, why wouldn't an 8600M GT fit into 1" space? Most laptops use "heat pipes" and small fans, so there really isn't any reason it couldn't fit in there.

On top of that, having such high powered hardware in such a small space has major drawbacks.

Any Intel Mac user can tell you just how HOT their systems get. Even just browsing and doing minor things can cause the system to get nice and warm on your lap. Which means you have to use the system on a desk, where you don't need it to be super thin or light..

Ask an HP or Dell user how hot their Core 2 Duo systems get. On both of the HPs I've had, on the bottom there is an intake fan that pulls air in and heat away and out the back. My old Turion based HP could be used on my lap running at full load and not get half as warm as my MacBook does just browsing and chatting. My Core 2 Duo HP, while not as fast as my MacBook by any means, is only half an inch thicker than my MacBook but because of that intake fan, stays MUCH cooler when running at full load.

Most PC manufacturer's offer high capacity batteries that will get similar battery life. Though Apple does it in a smaller nicer package. But, again, you pay for that. In both money and heat. You might get 5 hours of battery life (realistically, not even close if you're using wi-fi and have the screen set to a reasonable brightness), but the system will get warm to the point of being uncomfortable on a Summer day. So you can't benefit from that extended battery life anyway. I've got 4.5 hours out of my MacBook with Wi-fi on, but I had to leave it sitting on my desk because it got too warm to be used on my lap.

And thats Apple's problem. Imagine the marketshare they could have if they would put out a $999 MacBook with a dedicated GPU and DVD writer.

Viruses and spyware are a problem, yes. But generally you can install the software and let it run in the system tray and forget about it.

Driver incompatibility is something I haven't had or even honestly seen since the Windows 98 days. This is an issue where you simply don't buy cheap hardware or hardware with bad drivers, like ATI videocards. Every piece of hardware I ever bought during my XP days worked. Of course I had to run a driver CD, but it still worked. It is nice not having to deal with a "new hardware found" wizard when I plug in a flash drive. But, that happens only the first time its plugged in. So the whole driver issue and that has, admittedly, been very overblown by the anti-Windows crowd.

You're missing the point. The point of my argument is that spending that much on any notebook is simply not worth the money. You absolutely do not get your moneys worth on a laptop that costs more than $1500.

Because, as I said, you can buy a system that is about 75-80% of what the MacBook Pro is for nearly $2,000 less. You go up to the $1,000 mark and you can easily come within 95% and have a GPU with twice a much memory.

From a hardware standpoint, it doesn't make any sense to spend so much money on a notebook when you can one that is about 80% of what it is for much less money, and build a desktop that will mop the floor with it, and still have a pile of cash left over.

Unless you're browsing sites with Flash. Your browser will crawl to a halt, the system fans will kick in, and you better not have the system on your lap

As I said before, I love OS X. It'd be hard to switch back to a Windows only system based on that fact alone. But the hardware can't justify the price.

 

I understand what you're saying, but can't help thinking these are sort of extreme examples.

Frankly, if you're going to compare a $2500 MBP to a $500-600 PC, and say that the MBP is $2000 overpriced because that PC laptop can do 80% of what it can do, I think you could frankly make that argument about any number of $2000 PC laptops as well, such as a loaded Inspiron 1520, or an XPS M1330, or a ThinkPad T61p, etc. etc. etc.

You also mentioned comparing it to a $1000 PC laptop, and argued that it can do 95% of what it can do, and this could be true in some areas.

But I don't think its fair to discount the physical dimensions of an MBP.

You are arguing that an MBP simply isn't worth the cost, and it is fine because that is always a decision someone has to make about what is important to them.

But I can speak as someone who has strongly strongly been considering going ahead and getting an Inspiron 1520, fairly loaded, which I can get for around $1500 after my student discount and coupons, including DellCare, etc.

I'll admit that this brings it at least $1000 cheaper than the high-end MBP for for me (including AppleCare).

But I had to ask myself, is the Inspiron 1520 everything the MBP is? Clearly spec-wise, it essentially is, looking at CPU, GPU, hard drive, etc.

But there's more to it than that, as well. Frankly, the big thing that turns me off about the Inspiron 1520 is its size and weight. Generally speaking, I find a significant difference in the dimensions between the two machines.

And frankly I will say that the 5.4 pound 1" thick MBP is worth that price difference to me.... not to mention the LED-backlit screen, and other smaller things (i.e. I much prefer the MBP power adapter to the Dell one, which is also an important consideration when carrying the laptop around).

Of course, it does all come down to OS X, which is the biggest differentiator, and the reason one would or would not be willing to pay more.

But the main part of your argument I disagree with is this idea that the MBP itself doesn't justify its price. I disagree with comparing it to $500-1000 laptops and saying they are not really all that different.

By the same token I'd say that it wouldn't be fair to compare a $2000+ XPS M1330 fully loaded with a $500 PC and say that the XPS is "overpriced". Or even an Asus G1S.

I think these higher end machines do justify their prices for the most part.