Will Macs ever be a force in gaming?

[Madman123456]

I doubt Macs are going to be known as gaming Machines, unless Apple decides to make one, which i highly doubt.
You can copy Stuff on Macs, which would have Publishers in a big fat Panic. Another Platform which can be used to pirate Products? You can bet that if Macs where to go anywhere gamingwise, Publishers would kill off the Market quickly with Copyprotection Software. Apple itself would be rather scared of this i figure.
If People would buy Macs for gaming and got Games riddled with Copyprotection Software that makes the gaming experience a nightmare if there is any Experience to be had at all, after all, we've seen Games that just wont work because of Copyprotection Software, Users will have a bad Experience with their Macs.
Though Apple wouldn't be to blame in that Case, users would associate this Apple Product with a bad Experience. Apple wouldn't like that.


Another thing, i've seen quite a few People move away from the PC as a gaming Machine because of the Hardware and the (wrongly) perceived need to buy the newest Hardware all the time. Seriously, if you don't need to run every new Game at the highest possible Settings smoothly you can use your Hardware for a long time. Especially now, where every slight upgrade in Graphics would be prohibitively expensive and most Developers don't bother, you don't need the newest expensive Hardware to run the newest Games.

But whatever, many People felt that a gaming PC is too expensive and so they bought a console for their gaming Needs.

Macs aren't exactly known for being a cheap alternative to anything.

The "PC is pricey" Argument falls flat a bit nowadays since you'll have to search for a new PC that wont be able to run modern Games. So if you need a new PC for unrelated Reasons, the gaming Machine is included.


Gaming Macs could gain some Ground when one argues that they are more versatile then consoles and you'll have less problems with conflicting hardware.
But then again, People would just go all the Way. If one is tired of his new game not wanting to cooperate with his Soundcard or something he'd be like "fuck this" and buy a console, the machine most unlikely to have any conflicts with the Hardware.

Getting certain Games to run with certain Combinations of Hardware and Drivers for that Hardware can be a chore sometimes. But i never had as much difficulty with any such Conflict then i had with Copyprotection Software.
If one is to abandon his gaming PC he most likely wont turn to Apple Machines, because you'll have Copy Protection there as well.


Captcha: "Exercise more"...

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I think while Steve Jobs did an excellent job building and ultimately rebuilding Apple, it's actually for the best that he's out of the way now and more concessions can be made to consumer demand over Job's tunnel vision.

Too soon?

that's perfectly fine, part of my frustration is people (like my mom for example) that buy a imac for the simple fact of the brand name, when all she does is browse her e-mail and play an occasional solitaire...spending 2-3x for something like that is unneeded and it frustrates me when they are too damn stubborn to admit it >:/

Build her a custom rig with the same performance specs as the imac and then tell her all about how it can run Crysis with over 9000 FPS or something. Make it seem like it's this big monster of a thing.

When she inevitably asks, "I'm never gonna need to do that. Why would you get me something like this?" do your best trollface and ask "GOOD QUESTION. Why'd you do the same thing for yourself at 2-3 times the cost?"

i don't have the money laying around, otherwise i would, and believe me i have tried tons of times, my mom is more stubborn than a baby from hitler and a feminazi. believe it.

 

[Daverson]

If you're talking about handheld and tablet devices, they already are.

If you're talking about desktops, no.

There'll always be one or two desktop gamers who use a Mac just to be different, but Windows is always going to be the standard, and anyone who wants more will usually get it from Linux instead (for obvious reasons!). Macs're always going to just be the Hipster option! =p

 

[Souplex]

Will typewriters ever be a force in computing?

 

[steelbom]

Doesn't matter which monitor it is, it's the cost comparison.

Spending 1000 dollars on a monitor that has slightly better quality than a comparable 23' 1080p is just idiotic.

You were complaining about the price of building your own computer and yet you want to justify to me the difference between monitors whose sole differentiating quality is an increase of 4 inches and 6 extra dots per inch. I've said you could get a monitor with a higher refresh rate that is justifiably superior for gaming. The Thunderbolt is not a 120hz display. With the money left over from not buying that paperweight, you could get two 580's to run in SLI. Ironically, going with that setup would actually enable you to run a 1440p monitor with a better framerate and less hiccups because the GPU would be suitable to handle it.

It's just 4 inches. That might make a significant difference in orbital trajectories and dicks, but not here. Not at 2-3 times the price.

You seem to have this very strong misconception that the benefit is only a "slightly better quality" display. You get slightly better sharpness than a 23 inch 1080p display, and a substantial increase in workspace, but the actual quality of the display itself is so many leaps and bounds above anything in a $300 price range that it's downright insulting to even mention the two in the same sentence.

It's not "justifiably superior for gaming" it's subjective, and I don't want a display with a higher refresh rate and I don't want the hot, noisy hardware that's required to get 120+ frame rates in all the high end games. I want a bigger more immersive display and that doesn't give it to me. (I want silence too, so your suggestion is not only not what I want but actually worse for me.)

I could say to you that it's idiotic to buy a $400 GPU just to play on higher settings or to get higher frame rates when a $150 GPU does the job well enough, or to buy a $250 1080p 23 inch display when you could get a 20 inch 1600x900 for $100. But then all I'd be doing is dismissing what you actually want and telling you to get what I think is better or what I would find acceptable, which is just stupid. (Both of those are just examples and not my actual opinion.)

If you value higher frame rates in games and the highest settings over a larger 1440p display, then more power to you! If that's what you want, I'm not going to tell you're wrong.

An iMac doesn't have a great GPU and unless you have the i7 you are getting a Dual quad Core i5.

Don't fool yourself.

EDIT Was wrong on the CPU side of things.

You do realise I'm talking about the 2012 model which will have a 7970M which is a slightly underclocked desktop 7870, and a 7870 beats out the GTX 580. So it's going to be very powerful.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

snip

it's all good and fine that you want that 27 inch monitor 1440p, but yeah..you must be going off the most expensive price on the market for a 23" 1080p

(this is LED too, mind you)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009315

^it goes on sale like once a month two, i got my grandparents 2 of those for 220 bucks total, that's right, two of them.

so yeah, just saying, your price is a bit construed on your 23 inch there..otherwise not gonna argue the other stuff.

I think the argument that he, and i was getting at earlier, is that most things don't have native for, or don't make things that support 1440p for mainstream use. yeah you can stretch it and maximize all you want for more space, but when it comes to games, that won't make a lick of difference, playing games at 1080 with higher frame rates is better than playing a game on a 1440p monitor with medium settings, the 400 dollar gpu would just be matching the 1080p monitors ability, rather than bottlenecking it with worse framerates/graphics. (i used to have 720p monitor for a while, i was doing about 1.5x the amount of frame rates for it that i am on my 1080p right now) (but as you've stated, your imac is not a gaming rig first and foremost, so not a big deal.)

 

[Freechoice]

You seem to have this very strong misconception that the benefit is only a "slightly better quality" display. You get slightly better sharpness than a 23 inch 1080p display, and a substantial increase in workspace, but the actual quality of the display itself is so many leaps and bounds above anything in a $300 price range that it's downright insulting to even mention the two in the same sentence.

Actual quality of the display itself? As in the physical appearance? Or are you talking about TN vs. IPS?

It's not "justifiably superior for gaming" it's subjective, and I don't want a display with a higher refresh rate and I don't want the hot, noisy hardware that's required to get 120+ frame rates in all the high end games. I want a bigger more immersive display and that doesn't give it to me. (I want silence too, so your suggestion is not only not what I want but actually worse for me.)

Part of me doesn't believe you actually know what you're talking about. I don't know anyone that actively strives to get 120 FPS on something like Battlefield 3. If you assumed that had anything to do with the refresh rate, it doesn't.

And no, it's not subjective. Go onto a tech forum and ask. A higher refresh rate means you get smoother images.


You can't hear shit, he's getting ridiculous FPS, the temperature is nominal and it looks so fucking smooth.

I could say to you that it's idiotic to buy a $400 GPU just to play on higher settings or to get higher frame rates when a $150 GPU does the job well enough, or to buy a $250 1080p 23 inch display when you could get a 20 inch 1600x900 for $100. But then all I'd be doing is dismissing what you actually want and telling you to get what I think is better or what I would find acceptable, which is just stupid. (Both of those are just examples and not my actual opinion.)

You do get that the difference between a decent monitor and what you want is the cost of the rig itself, right? That's what I say is stupid. In fact, what you just said is applicable against you. What you're talking about is something that will work just as well for a smaller price tag. If I had the desire to play Crysis 2 at 60 FPS and I wanted to get a 580GTX for 450 and someone told me I could get the same result with a 280 for half the cost, the desire to play Crysis 2 at 60 FPS has been satisfied for less money.

If you value higher frame rates in games and the highest settings over a larger 1440p display, then more power to you! If that's what you want, I'm not going to tell you're wrong.

I don't care about how high I can get my FPS. I still use a 9600GT from like 4 years ago because the damn thing still runs what I need very well. I built my current setup for like 750 bucks and that was a while ago.

You see, I value my money and don't waste it on superfluous crap that doesn't actually help me game better. I'm seeing you brag about Apple (which is the first sign of a hipster) and I'm saying to myself "this is a tool right here." That guy with the Power Rangers villain for an avatar could probably build you a faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar superior PC than what you think Apple is rolling out and do it for like half the cost. How do I know this? Because I've done custom work on my PC. I've looked at the prices for Macs and their upgrade parts. I remembered all the memes about Apple products being the toys for people with more money than sense.

You somehow think you're going to get a value for an all-in-one deal and deluding yourself into believing that having a mac is a worthwhile venture.

Think about this. You somehow believe that a yet to be revealed mac is going to be able to outdo a custom built PC at a competitive price even though it's been historically true that desktops released by Apple are more expensive than their competitors while still being of equivalent power. How do they make money off of this? If the whole setup has a 2k price tag, 1k for the monitor and 450 for the card (which is the price I found by looking up 7970), that means they only get 550 dollars profit if you discount the RAM, the motherboard and everything else. Where does the profit get generated?

If anything, the thing is probably going to cost you 2.5k or more. You are the only person defending this here and it's not because we're all Windows supremacists. It's because we know what the fuck we're talking about.

 

[MammothBlade]

Just wondering what peoples opinions on this is.

The App store seems to be a hotbed of activity for indie developers, and I was wondering whether people thought Macs would ever be as good for haming as PCs, because frankly at the moment they suck.

They'd need gaming development to break away from DirectX as the framework for graphically intensive games, and also start selling Macs with customisable hardware at a decent price - which of course will never happen.

If PC gaming is replaced by Mac gaming though and Macs somehow replace Windows computer in the future - I think it could be the worst thing ever.

Macs are not versatile enough to make great game systems. They discourage modification, hamper third-party development, and are disadvantaged by their lack of compatibility with older games. That puts off discerning gamers seeing Macs as a serious gaming system. They definitely do not have a ready availability of titles compared to Windows.

People might want to play a limited amount of titles on Macs, but it's a catch 22 in many ways. No-one except maybe Apple is going to develop a premium, big-budget game exclusively or primarily for mac, so no exclusives worth thinking about. Mac might exist as a system that plays the smaller roster of titles it does have more smoothly and with low bug rates - more appealing to less patient or less technically skilled users who are unable or unwilling to put effort into making things work just right. But, it will never be a system that can compare for sheer flexibility and modding capability, or competitiveness in terms of price.

However... if Macs were to become cheaper and more friendly to games development, they could muscle in as a hybrid of console and PC gaming, using their PC-level processing power and console-ready compatibility to provide a "clean", dependable premium gaming experience, which whilst not holding a candle to PCs, could earn quite a market share.

So, essentially... what I'm saying is that Macs are inferior to PCs for dedicated gaming, but at the same time Apple isn't taking advantage of their strategic potential in the games market.

 

[steelbom]

snip

it's all good and fine that you want that 27 inch monitor 1440p, but yeah..you must be going off the most expensive price on the market for a 23" 1080p

(this is LED too, mind you)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009315

^it goes on sale like once a month two, i got my grandparents 2 of those for 220 bucks total, that's right, two of them.

so yeah, just saying, your price is a bit construed on your 23 inch there..otherwise not gonna argue the other stuff.

I think the argument that he, and i was getting at earlier, is that most things don't have native for, or don't make things that support 1440p for mainstream use. yeah you can stretch it and maximize all you want for more space, but when it comes to games, that won't make a lick of difference, playing games at 1080 with higher frame rates is better than playing a game on a 1440p monitor with medium settings, the 400 dollar gpu would just be matching the 1080p monitors ability, rather than bottlenecking it with worse framerates/graphics. (i used to have 720p monitor for a while, i was doing about 1.5x the amount of frame rates for it that i am on my 1080p right now) (but as you've stated, your imac is not a gaming rig first and foremost, so not a big deal.)

Ah well I wasn't taking into account sales or anything.

Actual quality of the display itself? As in the physical appearance? Or are you talking about TN vs. IPS?

Of course not, I'm talking about colour quality and uniformity, brightness and constrast uniformity, and yes viewing angles as well.

Part of me doesn't believe you actually know what you're talking about. I don't know anyone that actively strives to get 120 FPS on something like Battlefield 3. If you assumed that had anything to do with the refresh rate, it doesn't.

And no, it's not subjective. Go onto a tech forum and ask. A higher refresh rate means you get smoother images.


You can't hear shit, he's getting ridiculous FPS, the temperature is nominal and it looks so fucking smooth.

Are you kidding me?! That's the whole point of a 120Hz display is so that you can see 120 FPS rather than just 60 as is the case with a 60Hz display and that's why everything is much smoother. If you're not getting 120 FPS then you're not fully utilizing the display, and if you're only getting 60 FPS then you're not getting any benefit from it whatsoever.

That's not what I said, I said that whether a 27 inch 1440p is better than a 23 inch 120Hz is subjective.

Oh and a 6990 sounds like an air bus, yet alone two of them. It just doesn't come across as loud as it is because it's on a video, and it's recorded at a distance too. Look at the bottom of this review of it: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4209/amds-radeon-hd-6990-the-new-single-card-king/18, it's recorded at 70 dBA -- that's insanely loud, and now put two of them together and you get a jet. I'm talking about 20 dBA which is near silence.

You do get that the difference between a decent monitor and what you want is the cost of the rig itself, right? That's what I say is stupid. In fact, what you just said is applicable against you. What you're talking about is something that will work just as well for a smaller price tag. If I had the desire to play Crysis 2 at 60 FPS and I wanted to get a 580GTX for 450 and someone told me I could get the same result with a 280 for half the cost, the desire to play Crysis 2 at 60 FPS has been satisfied for less money.


I don't care about how high I can get my FPS. I still use a 9600GT from like 4 years ago because the damn thing still runs what I need very well. I built my current setup for like 750 bucks and that was a while ago.

You see, I value my money and don't waste it on superfluous crap that doesn't actually help me game better. I'm seeing you brag about Apple (which is the first sign of a hipster) and I'm saying to myself "this is a tool right here." That guy with the Power Rangers villain for an avatar could probably build you a faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar superior PC than what you think Apple is rolling out and do it for like half the cost. How do I know this? Because I've done custom work on my PC. I've looked at the prices for Macs and their upgrade parts. I remembered all the memes about Apple products being the toys for people with more money than sense.

No it isn't, the rig I want to build costs $1400 not $800. Yet my desire isn't to play Crysis 2 at 60 FPS, it's to play Crysis 2 on a nice big display and that's going to cost money, I've done it before and it's well worth it. If it wasn't, I wouldn't be going back to it now would I?

That's great for you then, but that doesn't suit me. I have different needs than what you do.

I don't waste my money either. I've already told you several times that I want a big display because it's more immersive and I like it, yet you continually say it doesn't improve anything -- how would you even know if you've never owned one? I wasn't bragging about Apple either.

I could build myself a much more powerful rig than the iMac Apple will be releasing, and I'm an Apple enthusiast and I know the prices of all the Macs, and I know how much they've improved in that area over the last couple of years. Any upgrades you purchase from Apple are heavily over priced, but the stock systems themselves are great.

You somehow think you're going to get a value for an all-in-one deal and deluding yourself into believing that having a mac is a worthwhile venture.

Think about this. You somehow believe that a yet to be revealed mac is going to be able to outdo a custom built PC at a competitive price even though it's been historically true that desktops released by Apple are more expensive than their competitors while still being of equivalent power. How do they make money off of this? If the whole setup has a 2k price tag, 1k for the monitor and 450 for the card (which is the price I found by looking up 7970), that means they only get 550 dollars profit if you discount the RAM, the motherboard and everything else. Where does the profit get generated?

If anything, the thing is probably going to cost you 2.5k or more. You are the only person defending this here and it's not because we're all Windows supremacists. It's because we know what the fuck we're talking about.

You're doing an awful lot of assuming about me, and I don't even think you know anything about Apple, 120Hz displays, or 1440p displays whatsoever. I wasn't even talking about Macs in my last couple of replies to you, only using a 27 inch 1440p display for gaming so I'm not sure why you're bringing it up now.


Do explain to me how I'm deluding myself into believing that a Mac is a worthwhile venture?

I need a Mac for work. And I prefer OS X to Windows. I like the form factor, I like that it's silent, and I get the display I want which is great for everything I do -- work, casual use, and gaming. On top of that the hardware itself is powerful enough to handle everything I throw at it. If I had the money, I'd spend $1500 on my dream rig and then hook up a $900-$1000 27 inch 1440p display to it but I don't. So I'll sell my current iMac and then fork over another $1k to pickup the iMac.

Where does the profit come from? Do you really expect Apple is paying retail for these? Hardly. And where did you get that $2.5k figure from? The current 27 inch iMac starts at $1999 and it's been that way for several years now, continually offering better hardware each year.

>>>>>

I've never said that an iMac is a better choice if you want to game but it is capable of gaming if you want what it offers, and it suits me very well for what I need. And yes it'll cost you near $1k to throw together a decent rig with a 7870 and a i5 3570, display aside. But obviously you've got the ability to upgrade those parts easily, choose a smaller display which might suit you better, or invest more in specific aspects of your rig to get exactly what you want, all major pro's to doing your own custom rig, but for me, personally, the iMac is more than suitable.

 

[GoGoFrenzy]

The second cloud gaming becomes the norm it won't matter what hardware you are using, so then and only then will Macs be as viable as Windows.

Cloud gaming will never be the norm in the states with the greedy isp bastards throttling and limiting your internet.

 

[Freechoice]

Apple enthusiast

Really, there's nothing to be said at this point. If you want to blow 1k on a toy because it's your personal preference, that's fine. Retarded, but fine.

OK, seems pretty legit. So I can' say about everyone, but if that's the case in Slavic countries Mac will never be a force in gaming. They won't be even a normal force. Because we almost don't know crap about it. I personally heard about Apple, Mac etc., when I randomly lurked ED.

Slavic nations: leading the world in not wasting time on bullshit. I salute you, Mr. former Soviet-Bloc man.

 

[steelbom]

Really, there's nothing to be said at this point. If you want to blow 1k on a toy because it's your personal preference, that's fine. Retarded, but fine.

What's retarded (and arrogant) is that you're unable to accept that other people have opinions different than your own, and your unable to be respectful about it either.

It's no toy, and I'm not blowing money on anything. I'm investing in the best system for me right now, that does everything I want better than any other possible setup, and I've considered many. You seem to be unable to grasp that.

You've little to no understanding of displays which you've demonstrated quite clearly in your replies, and even less knowledge of anything Apple related. I think we're done here.

 

[Lug100]

virus-free browsing

Spoiler: No no no no no

<iframe width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/oKI-tD0L18A" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>

If my attempt at embeding doesnt work:
No no no no [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oKI-tD0L18A]

It lies like this apple. It lies like this.

 

[MammothBlade]

The second cloud gaming becomes the norm it won't matter what hardware you are using, so then and only then will Macs be as viable as Windows.

Cloud gaming will never be the norm in the states with the greedy isp bastards throttling and limiting your internet.

For once, I am glad of that. I vehemently detest cloud gaming, it would ruin gaming from the perspective of user freedom to play and mod something how and WHEN they want it. It seems like a mandatory form of always-on DRM across the board. I fear that something such as that aims to remove the need for advanced computers in the hands of private citizens. Many amongst the global elite love the thought of cloud gaming, it makes every "computer" a hackable terminal in a worldwide network, which can be cut off completely. No personal supercomputing power for you lololol

 

[steelbom]

You mean the model that doesn't even exist yet and will cost an arm and a leg?

Gotcha.

Yes, that one. To be honest, it would actually exist at this point it just hasn't been announced yet.

You did say an iMac doesn't have a great GPU though which is true, the 6970M in the high end 27 inch iMac is only decent. The 7970M on the other hand is a really great GPU.

>>>>>

Anyway, on topic, as Apple continues to produce Macs which have better graphics, more and more developers will come on board.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

Considering how unmodifiable and quickly caught up with by PCs, I'd say no. Meanwhile, ipads and what have you will probably get better and better apps as things go along, but will probably always be below consoles and PCs.