Apple's iMac Line: Gaming Machine?

powerss

I want to pick up a desktop Mac.

Barring the lowest end iMac with a GMA 950 chipset (VOMIT), the other two feature:

Either

1) ATI Radeon X1600 graphics

or

2) NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT graphics

Now, these two cards - how much better is one over the other? Could I play EVE Online, Half-Life 2, Quake 4, et cetera on these cards? I would get 256 MB of VRAM for either one.

Mace1370

Those games are compatible with Macs?

[spoiler:17f3d131f7]Sorry, I really have no knowledge about this sort of thing.[/spoiler:17f3d131f7]

Bartholamue

They are with Boot Camp. You can actually run Windows on Macs now.

GimpyBoy

powerss wrote:

I want to pick up a desktop Mac.

Barring the lowest end iMac with a GMA 950 chipset (VOMIT), the other two feature:

Either

1) ATI Radeon X1600 graphics

or

2) NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT graphics

Now, these two cards - how much better is one over the other? Could I play EVE Online, Half-Life 2, Quake 4, et cetera on these cards? I would get 256 MB of VRAM for either one.

I have an iMac with the 256 ATI x1600 and have played all of those games and even vanguard (rig killler, lol) on it. I do have a Windows partition using Bootcamp to do so however.

Sadly I can't help with the comparison.

powerss

So you have OK performance? Or very good with Half Life?

GimpyBoy

Very good with HL2, episode one with the HDR turned on I had to drop it to 2x aliasing to deal with it, but still really good looking.

powerss

Wow, that good? You can even run with HDR?

Color me impressed! I may go pick one of these up today.

FreddyD

Can you upgrade those video cards? Because, like in all pc games, the framerates are going to take a nosedive when the action heats up. And when you are around 30-40 you really don't want to go any lower.

powerss

No, of course not. It's an all-in-one.

A beautiful all-in-one.

GimpyBoy

I think on the online shop you can get a 512mb x1600, I'm not sure if they offer the 1900 yet in iMacs.

Really the most important thing I found was making sure you have enough RAM for a lot of the games.

LoneIgadzra

I dunno how the cards compare, but the 128MB X1600 in my MB Pro works. Source games, (unless I turn on HDR) are so smooth at 1440x900 it's ridiculous. Ep 1 is fun, but disappointingly not much of an upgrade over my 9800 in my PC, if at all. HDR is so integral to the experience, I leave it on and run at 1280x768, and the average fps is like 30. Doom 3 engine games are tolerable, but won't run smoothly at native. Oblivion is fairly decent at 1024x768 without HDR. It's often playable with HDR, but just as frequently not. I have to turn textures down in a lot of games for full performance due to the gimped card, which irritates me a lot.

I dunno how the EVE graphical upgrade would fare (is it out yet?), but the iMac would be overkill for EVE, prior to said update. We're talking everything maxed, native res, etc.

So basically yeah, it'll work, but you're only going to be running games a year or two old at native. If gaming isn't the primary reason you're buying an iMac, then it's all good. However, if you can I would wait and see if maybe Apple doesn't at least stick some X1650's in.

powerss

So what is the game performance benchmark now a days? I remember when I was last into PC gaming it was Quake 3 Arena. What do people TimeDemo in now?

GimpyBoy

powerss wrote:

So what is the game performance benchmark now a days? I remember when I was last into PC gaming it was Quake 3 Arena. What do people TimeDemo in now?

I've seen them use F.E.A.R. and oblivion.

maximumzero

Don't forget that the 24" iMac is CTO-able up to the 256MB 7600GT

powerss

How would FEAR run on this machine?

Miller

GimpyBoy wrote:

I have an iMac with the 256 ATI x1600 and have played all of those games and even vanguard (rig killler, lol) on it. I do have a Windows partition using Bootcamp to do so however.

Do you need to buy a new copy of XP in order to use Boot Camp?

maximumzero

Funny this thread got brought up, because I'm waiting for two things before I buy a new Mac (Currently using an eMac 1Ghz G4/1GB Ram/160GB HDD/DL DVD-RW/32MB Radeon 7500)

A) An Upgraded Graphics card. The iMac has been on the X1600 for a year now, something new must be down the pipeline soon, it has to be.

Leopard. It's so close, I may as well wait another month or three.

GimpyBoy

As long as you have a copy of XP that includes service pack 2 you're golden. An older one won't work. Oh and of course you need a valid and not currently being used key...

Oh and FEAR would run fine. It's not that graphically intense. Less than Oblivion for sure.

LoneIgadzra

maximumzero wrote:

Don't forget that the 24" iMac is CTO-able up to the 256MB 7600GT

Kind of an overpriced rig for what you get, but that is a much better card. Like I said in my earlier post, in might be worthwhile to hold out for a bit and see if Apple doesn't move up to X1650's (competitive with 7600GT) or something.

powerss

Ok, I will wait. Even if its just for Leopard

LoneIgadzra

GimpyBoy wrote:

As long as you have a copy of XP that includes service pack 2 you're golden. An older one won't work. Oh and of course you need a valid and not currently being used key...

Oh and FEAR would run fine. It's not that graphically intense. Less than Oblivion for sure.

I had to make some sacrifices playing the FEAR demo on my MB Pro though. It wasn't un-fun, but didn't really run fast enough to switch to widescreen (if it even had the option), and couldn't really turn much past medium and stay around 30fps. It's a finicky game, and there are some ridiculous settings that will completely cannibalize your frame-rate for no visible gain.

GimpyBoy

LoneIgadzra wrote:

GimpyBoy wrote:

As long as you have a copy of XP that includes service pack 2 you're golden. An older one won't work. Oh and of course you need a valid and not currently being used key...

Oh and FEAR would run fine. It's not that graphically intense. Less than Oblivion for sure.

I had to make some sacrifices playing the FEAR demo on my MB Pro though. It wasn't un-fun, but didn't really run fast enough to switch to widescreen (if it even had the option), and couldn't really turn much past medium and stay around 30fps. It's a finicky game, and there are some ridiculous settings that will completely cannibalize your frame-rate for no visible gain.

Hmm, that's interesting. Now I think I'm gonna install it just to see what happens. Haha. Yay for morbid curiosity!

Marlor

powerss wrote:

Ok, I will wait. Even if its just for Leopard

Yep. Wait for June if you can. If the release dates are as expected, you will get iLife '07 and Leopard free with the computer, which will save you a fair bit of money.

I was planning to wait until June for my Macbook, but I'm too damn impatient.