college crisis: playing PC games on a mac at college...
August 22, 2008 3:06 PM Subscribe
Windows gaming on a Mac... new college student is very nervous about which laptop will give him good performance...
So we all want the guy to get a Mac because we think it's a better machine for college use. Right?
Except he's a Windows gamer. He plays these games: Counterstrike source, Starcraft, Half Life, Half Life 2, Portal, TF2, and FEAR. That's a partial list.
He wants to make darn sure he can still game on a Mac. As far as I know, and I don't have a new Mac to test this with (the guys at Microcenter broomed me when I started bootcamping the display box) the new machines do well with DX9 games. Am I correct in assuming that if he bootcamps XP Pro, gaming performance will not be a problem? Should he VM it? Has parallels grown up yet?
Anyone doing this have any recommendations/lessons learned?
Thanks in advance...
So we all want the guy to get a Mac because we think it's a better machine for college use. Right?
Except he's a Windows gamer. He plays these games: Counterstrike source, Starcraft, Half Life, Half Life 2, Portal, TF2, and FEAR. That's a partial list.
He wants to make darn sure he can still game on a Mac. As far as I know, and I don't have a new Mac to test this with (the guys at Microcenter broomed me when I started bootcamping the display box) the new machines do well with DX9 games. Am I correct in assuming that if he bootcamps XP Pro, gaming performance will not be a problem? Should he VM it? Has parallels grown up yet?
Anyone doing this have any recommendations/lessons learned?
Thanks in advance...
Definitely Bootcamp over VM. On my Imac I bootcamp to play Day of Defeat (Half Life Source engine) and it's great. The Pro has a dedicated graphics card, so if he "wants to make darn sure he can still game on a Mac" I'd go for that. The regular Macbook may be able to handle some of those games but I'm not sure about the frame rate on something like TF2.
He may also want to wait a bit. There are rumors of updated Macbook Pros and regular Macbooks with the new silver chassis (and possibly x4500 graphics) which may present better options for him.
posted by sharkfu at 3:17 PM on August 22, 2008
He may also want to wait a bit. There are rumors of updated Macbook Pros and regular Macbooks with the new silver chassis (and possibly x4500 graphics) which may present better options for him.
posted by sharkfu at 3:17 PM on August 22, 2008
You definitely do not want the standard Macbook. The video card is a crappy shared-memory Intel job; and the latest revision of the Macbook uses a crappy shared-memory Intel GPU that none of the game devs actually like or support.
But, actually, why do you believe that a Mac is better for school? It's certainly "cooler", but I don't know about "better".
posted by Netzapper at 3:29 PM on August 22, 2008 [3 favorites]
But, actually, why do you believe that a Mac is better for school? It's certainly "cooler", but I don't know about "better".
posted by Netzapper at 3:29 PM on August 22, 2008 [3 favorites]
Current-generation Macbook Pros always test up there speedwise with the Windows laptops in Boot Camp, except for very fast and specialized laptops that cost the moon. I use Parallels with a Boot Camp install, it's nice to be able to get into Windows without rebooting if needed. I think that gaming on a Mac laptop with a dedicated video card - so the Pro, not the standard Macbook - would be as good as a regular laptop.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 3:31 PM on August 22, 2008
posted by Dipsomaniac at 3:31 PM on August 22, 2008
BootCamp. MacBook Pro, on current spec: the dedicated graphics makes a difference. That's the only gripe I have with the MacBook as a replacement for the iBook: any intensive video is handled by the CPU and fires up the fan. But wait: all signs point to a major rejig in September.
On 'college use' -- well, Macs are ubiquitous, the educational discount is good, and there are plenty of info organisers and writing tools that are OS X only. (And the good thing about Boot Camp is that he'll have to reboot to play games, while a Windows setup means gaming rather than studying is just a click away.)
posted by holgate at 3:35 PM on August 22, 2008
On 'college use' -- well, Macs are ubiquitous, the educational discount is good, and there are plenty of info organisers and writing tools that are OS X only. (And the good thing about Boot Camp is that he'll have to reboot to play games, while a Windows setup means gaming rather than studying is just a click away.)
posted by holgate at 3:35 PM on August 22, 2008
All the games you listed will run great on Boot Camp with a MBP. They will not run very well, if at all, in a VM. DirectX 9 support is, as far as I know, only supported by VMware Fusion (not Parallels), and only experimentally at that.
posted by panic at 3:41 PM on August 22, 2008
posted by panic at 3:41 PM on August 22, 2008
The key to gaming on a Mac is a dedicated graphics card. Which means upgrading to a MacBook Pro. And not just gaming--if you do a lot of graphics work or video editing, a dedicated graphics card is essential.
posted by zardoz at 4:21 PM on August 22, 2008
posted by zardoz at 4:21 PM on August 22, 2008
Check the video card in the Macbook Pro (NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 256 MB) and look up benchmarks for the GPU.
That said, I did a quick check on Dell's site and they have a comparable notebook - 15" C2D, double the ram and bigger HD and the same GPU for - $1099
posted by wongcorgi at 4:28 PM on August 22, 2008
That said, I did a quick check on Dell's site and they have a comparable notebook - 15" C2D, double the ram and bigger HD and the same GPU for - $1099
posted by wongcorgi at 4:28 PM on August 22, 2008
What they said about the graphics card. His only real choice would be one of the MBPs.
I think there's a promotion for students going on right now, and model revisions are rumored for later this year.
If you like to do things the hard way and have a lot of free time, you could try a hackintosh.
posted by svolix at 4:34 PM on August 22, 2008
I think there's a promotion for students going on right now, and model revisions are rumored for later this year.
If you like to do things the hard way and have a lot of free time, you could try a hackintosh.
posted by svolix at 4:34 PM on August 22, 2008
designbot: Starcraft will run natively on the Mac.
Not unless they upgraded it to OS X. Support running programs built for the "Classic" operating system was removed with the last major OS upgrade.
I also was unable to get it to run under WinXP with bootcamp. (It wouldn't switch to VGA mode.)
posted by KirkJobSluder at 4:59 PM on August 22, 2008
Not unless they upgraded it to OS X. Support running programs built for the "Classic" operating system was removed with the last major OS upgrade.
I also was unable to get it to run under WinXP with bootcamp. (It wouldn't switch to VGA mode.)
posted by KirkJobSluder at 4:59 PM on August 22, 2008
Oh wait, there is an update for starcraft and the brood war expansion to run under OS X.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 5:04 PM on August 22, 2008
posted by KirkJobSluder at 5:04 PM on August 22, 2008
Apple doesnt sell a sanely priced gaming laptop. The 15 inch mac book pro has a mobile 8600 nvidia card and runs 2 thousand dollars. Perhaps he'd be happier with a cheaper wintel equivalant and dual-boot a hackintosh partition. Want 17 inches? Thats $2800.
posted by damn dirty ape at 11:36 PM on August 22, 2008
posted by damn dirty ape at 11:36 PM on August 22, 2008
FWIW, Dell owned alienware starts at 1399 and blow the pants off those MBP. Heck, if you want to step down to an 8400 card I recently helped someone price out a Dell for 600 dollars.
>So we all want the guy to get a Mac because we think it's a better machine for college use. Right?
Right? I did a lot of things with computers in college any the OS didnt matter. It should matter less nowadays.
posted by damn dirty ape at 11:43 PM on August 22, 2008
>So we all want the guy to get a Mac because we think it's a better machine for college use. Right?
Right? I did a lot of things with computers in college any the OS didnt matter. It should matter less nowadays.
posted by damn dirty ape at 11:43 PM on August 22, 2008
If you're a gamer, get a PC laptop with a suitable graphics card. Simple as that. It's much cheaper and less hassle. This is coming from a Mac user.
posted by macdara at 1:44 AM on August 23, 2008
posted by macdara at 1:44 AM on August 23, 2008
Response by poster: Thanks, everyone, for the feedback.
It sounds like the MBP is the way to go, my client has the dough, and I think he's gonna jump.
The reasons for going with a Mac, aside from the ones listed here, are support from both fellow students and Apple (which I understand is pretty good - he's getting Applecare and extended protection), he wants the machine to last a few years (the MBP will, for sure, last a while). He's not so *serious* about gaming that it's the central reason for buying the laptop. It's important to him. More importantly to the people buying him the machine are *who's gonna fix it when it breaks*, *where can he turn for advice* and *it needs to just work all the time*.
posted by disclaimer at 11:26 AM on August 23, 2008
It sounds like the MBP is the way to go, my client has the dough, and I think he's gonna jump.
The reasons for going with a Mac, aside from the ones listed here, are support from both fellow students and Apple (which I understand is pretty good - he's getting Applecare and extended protection), he wants the machine to last a few years (the MBP will, for sure, last a while). He's not so *serious* about gaming that it's the central reason for buying the laptop. It's important to him. More importantly to the people buying him the machine are *who's gonna fix it when it breaks*, *where can he turn for advice* and *it needs to just work all the time*.
posted by disclaimer at 11:26 AM on August 23, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by mpls2 at 3:13 PM on August 22, 2008