"All PC Games Run On Macs." What?

[YuheJi]

Wait, when did I ever say that I bought a Mac? /:-|

Someone didn't read the thread that well ...

I concluded that it was the only way you could think that a PC costs 3000$

Actually, the "Hard Stuff Trinity" section of PC Gamer magazine is the culprit. Their top of the line recommendation PC (complete with two GTX 580's in SLI) comes out to $4,200. So, I figured a just-as-good system would cost me around $3,000, especially considering that I want a case like this:

Spoiler: The kind of gaming case I want

Edit: Then again, if a nice case is going to delay me upgrading, I'll just get a plain, generic one.

Also, I've never owned an Apple product in my life. Not even an iPod.

I'm sure your comp could cost thousands of dollars if you go for the bleeding edge and excessive stuff like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227724
But if you just want to play games, around $1000 is more than enough for your needs. Computer parts keep coming out, and the slightly less new parts start dropping in price so quickly after the newest iteration comes out that you can build a PC for your needs fairly cheaply.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

EPIC.FAIL.
>There is no 5 gigs of RAM, it comes in even numbers.
>No, games don't work that way. Its not a console.
>Most games on PC are NOT mac compatible, even though a lot more are now than in past years.
>Yes, you can install windows on a mac, but that's stupid as the mac is more expensive and cannot be modified for shit.
>>The hardware on macs is shit to begin with.
>A good gaming PC is not that expensive. I have a good rig and it cost me less than $1000, and that's after I took a regular computer and changed all its hardware.
>Games are made on PCs, usually. He'd be right if we were in the 90's.
>You can get a better monitor for a PC.
>It doesn't usually get crazy hot like a mac does.
>Also, if its "five more gigs of ram" then what the hell is it to start with?

 

[Zeema]

Bullshit

TONS of games can't work on mac i have a mac and its shitty with games.


but you can install a program on MAc that lets you play pc games but its really annoying and hard to work.

 

[Jamous]

Sir Snippers von Snippington of Canterlot

Bullshit; Have a Mac, am on it currently. Games, they do not work on it. If I even try, they tend to look hideous and the lag doesn't even bear thinking about.
Seriously, get a half-decent gaming laptop. Make sure you look for it though, don't get an Alienware. They're shit and overpriced. My friend got a ridiculously good one for £650. Almost 3GHz Quad Core Processor, 3GB RAM (Yes it is possible), 1GB Graphics Card, 750GB HDD, Windows 7, 17" Screen. It's absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately I can't remember the model, but I will check and edit that in.
EDIT; It's a Sony Vaio vpcf13m8e. LAPTOPLINK! [http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?hl=en&q=Sony+Vaio+vpcf13m8e&gs_upl=5715l5715l0l5920l1l1l0l0l0l0l0l0ll0l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&biw=1920&bih=992&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=1587068869591412155&sa=X&ei=IH6TTt6MDcq88gO25JCZBw&ved=0CFYQ8wIwAg] Anyway, it's a very nice machine. My friend's adding in extra RAM as well. Gonna be good.

 

[Broax]

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."
[...]
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?

Everything he said is a lie... You can run a lot of games on mac. Mostly newer ones (thanks to steam), some old ones (like postal), some indie games (although they're a lot more buggy on mac) and every blizzard game I can think of. For me personally, between steam and blizzard I'd have most my bases covered but still... sticking to the point it's not true.

You can run most PC games on mac if you boot windows into it... But the hardware performance will be way below what you'd get if you were running windows on a PC ('cause of the architecture and all that). Also it's a lot more busy work getting games running in windows installed on a mac then on windows installed on a PC.

As for price... It's a horrible lie! When it comes to hardware, you get a setup 4 times more powerful on a PC for half the price of a mac. If you don't trust me check the prices and you'll see...

As for "the work you do" argument.. I've been hearing that for a long long long time as I do mostly graphical design work and I think that argument comes from some older days when all we had was windows 98 or something like that... Currently I see no real reason why mac is better for graphical work then a PC. A lot of people tried to change my mind but failed to point valid arguments.

One point I give to macs is the build quality. Macs are built with great quality materials for the case, keyboard, etc. That doesn't seem to make a big difference but sometimes it does. In laptops the main difference is in cooling. I have a Toshiba laptop and it overheats like a sweaty *****...

These are my considerations... Your fathers friend, with all due respect, was just being a fanboy... If you want a computer to work and game I wouldn't make the horrible mistake of going mac... But that's just me... Macs have some qualities to them but hardware and software availability are obviously its weakest points... I'd love to see someone counter this with FACTS and not OPINIONS...

Edit: Out of curiosity I was checking some iMac specs... I found an iMac 27 for ?1400! This is priceless... My 3 year old laptop which I bought for ?550 still manages to have better specs then this ?1400 brand new (released in may 2011) mac desktop... 4Gb of ram! i5 processor (FFS!) and a radeon hd 4670 with 256mb of vram!? trololoolol You can have 1000 valid reasons to buy a mac (you like the design, you appreciate the build quality, you enjoy the OS, etc) but hardware!? Software availability? And seriously... I just don't touch the OS because I think that's a subjective point... If you buy the mac you'll regret it and you'll spend your whole life trying to justify and rationalize that purchase!

 

[JemothSkarii]

I have a mac, and I don't have any problem running games through Wineskins, Crossover, Cider, etc. The last game I played on high settings was Battlefield: Bad Company 2, though, so I don't really know. I'm sure there are a lot of games the Mac can't run. I don't really use my computer for gaming as much as I do for work, so I can't really say.

Why is it that most game emulators on Mac/Linux etc seem to have some relation to alcohol?

OT: I...uh...wow...he makes my head hurt. All I can say is he's being a fanboy....I can't really add anything that people have said already....
...I need some Panadol now

 

[DelphiSantano]

Short answer: No.
Long (and potentially slightly offensive) answer: Your "friend" is an idiot and has no idea how a basic computer works. It does not work like that. Just no.

 

[maxmanrules]

If you're going to get a gaming rig, do not spend three grand, and do not buy ready-made, you need to but individual parts and then stick them together (or get a specialist computer store to put them together for you)
Also, that dude is moronic.
Shoot him

 

[The Cheshire]

You can run Windows with Boot Camp if you wish, I am actually using Win XP on a Mac at the moment (i restarted on Windows to play Hard Reset, not because it's a better system ).

But no, it's not so easy.

 

[Keepeas]

Most of what your friend said is false...I know this even though I hardly use a Mac.
MANY games can only run on only windows...
you can have a dual-boot; both windows and Mac...but what's the point in that?

Honestly what you're paying for is the hard-ware...and Mac's are more expensive.
Take a PC and a Mac with near equivalent hard-ware; 99% of the time the Mac is more expensive.
I've tried to talk to some mac elitists to try and point this out...but most of them don't know much about computers...
The only real difference is the Operating System(OS), and you can have both on one machine...
Generally PC's are better for gaming and are less expensive.

 

[Foxbat Flyer]

A good Gaming rig will not cost $3000 as nearly everyone above me stated, I build my one for about $1300 for a top of the line PC (The only thing it lacks is a solid state drive).

Mac's use a completely different installing file type than PC's, so if you get a game without Mac capabilities, the Mac will just spit it out saying WTF is this shit. * Most games install with an .exe or a .msi which acts like a sort of package (Much like a .zip) so it needs to unpack the software and load it into the correct drives/folders, thus needing it to be installed to play it, so your friend is full of BS.

*Please note, I am not fully aware of how this all works, and am just explaining how I perceive it to work*

 

[blankedboy]

I suppose it could do that. If you have programs like Crossover or something, then I guess it works.

Crossover tends to be buggy, slow, and doesn't support most things. It's not a reliable thing to use for running .exe files.

Basically, there's an insanely low selection of Mac games around. Bootcamp is your best bet for running PC games on Mac hardware.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

My main suggestion would be, do go try Steam, they're doing what they can it seems to get things to be released on both formats, and when you buy it, you get both versions, no extra charge.

It's not a console for sure tho, it's certainly not 'stick any windows game disc in and it plays'.

As others have said, a $500 PC would get you up and running on most PC games...maybe not at crazy resolutions with everything cranked to max, but playing.

I tend to buy a machine of that range with no video card, then a seperate card, as you can find good deals on fairly well powered non gaming PCs. Add your own video card and you'll generally get a better deal than paying for some 'gaming' PC in a silly case with lots of blue lights.

EDIT: It should be said, that unless you find a cool retailer, most of them void your warranty for opening the case tho, so shop around and ask around.

 

[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.

About the RAM, many computer companies ship lower end computers with one 1gb ram stick, and one 2gb ram stick to save money.

Another little thing- In the time when I was a competitive L4D2 player, I always gamed under OS X. The source engine is far more stable (And slightly slower with the lack of DX11) under Mac OS X. Since switching to a custom windows computer for gaming (iMac became too overwhelmed with rendering and servers to play games at the same time) I have noticed serious stability drops. I have NEVER had a source game crash under OS X, but it seems like they crash once a week on my windows computer.

 

[little.09]

It's not as easy as you have described here, but any new Mac can boot in Windows. (You have to restart the computer) If you like shiny overpriced hardware that looks awesome you don't even need a Mac OS System, you can Install win7 all the way.

It would work on my old MacBook Pro but I like the OS X interface.
Still about 10% of the games don't work well - because of you know, personal issues those games have.
Try to convince customer support to help you when a PC game doesn't work on your Mac!

technically if you use something like vmware fusion you dont have to even reboot and you can access windows software in the osx gui

and yes i realise that is a distinction without a real diference

 

[wastedyouth89]

I love my Mac, and the expanding range of games available is looking nicer every day, but those guys were a bit ill informed. You can run many games locally on a Mac, and many others can be run using Bootcamp to run Windows. In general, you can run a lot on a Mac, but not everything will be as efficient as you want it to be. Obviously you can upgrade to bigger and better things like stronger graphics cards and more RAM, but the standard iMac is pretty powerful. Look into it.

 

[Jodah]

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.