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Mac Users: need Mac testamonials.
Jasconius
sword criminalmad onlineRegistered User regular
sword criminalmad onlineRegistered User regular
My PC died, after only two months. I'm pretty tired of that sort of thing, and without the resources to properly diagnose my dead machine, I think it would be more cost/time effective to make the switch!
My coworker and friend is a tremendous Mac supported and suggested that I pick up an iMac, but I want a second opinion before I drop 2 grand on a new computer.
I am targetting a 20" iMac.
Aside from my design/programming work, which doesn't take anything that the iMac doesn't readily offer, hardware wise, my second use for my computer is gaming. Mostly MMO's like World of Warcraft (which Mac supports) but a few others that it doesn't. Does 20" iMac have enough juice to run these games with stability?
Also: I still have a very nice PCI-E video card that works, is there a way I can install that into an iMac (I doubt it, but it doesn't hurt to ask).
My coworker and friend is a tremendous Mac supported and suggested that I pick up an iMac, but I want a second opinion before I drop 2 grand on a new computer.
I am targetting a 20" iMac.
Aside from my design/programming work, which doesn't take anything that the iMac doesn't readily offer, hardware wise, my second use for my computer is gaming. Mostly MMO's like World of Warcraft (which Mac supports) but a few others that it doesn't. Does 20" iMac have enough juice to run these games with stability?
Also: I still have a very nice PCI-E video card that works, is there a way I can install that into an iMac (I doubt it, but it doesn't hurt to ask).
this is a discord of mostly PA people interested in fighting games: https://discord.gg/DZWa97d5rz
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Jasconius on
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I think he's planning on running Windows on it as well, and, you know, having access to all games ever made for Windows ever.
To the OP, unfortunatly I can't really help you. All I know is that the MacBooks are terrible for gaming, as their video cards are underpowered; no idea about the iMacs though. I doubt your video card can be transplanted.
Having seen Parallels running windows on an imac, I can safely assume that most games run on it will not be a very enjoyable experience.
How about BootCamp? Parallels is just a virtual machine, so you're running two OS's at once. Boot camp lets you install Windows on a Mac just like you would on any other PC. Still might not be great for gaming (depends on iMac's hardware) but it should perform a lot better than Parallels.
Here's a video of Half-Life 2 running under Bootcamp on an iMac; it's pretty smooth. The video was posted over a year ago, and I know the iMacs have undergone a processor boost since then.
Edit: for the baseline 20 inch iMac, you can upgrade the processor online to a 256mb radeon x1600 for an extra 75 bucks.
Second, I am on my Macbook, running bootcamp, happily happily. Let me say: at school we ran Doom 3 through a MacBook Pro on a 24" cinema display, and it actually worked well. Obviously not max settings or anything, but high rez, and not low quality, just not max. And that should be enough.
Boot Camp will work fine and dandy for games, it'll be just like running it on a PC, so no worries.
And no you can't install your PCI-E card.. sadly.
Mid August iMac upgrade you say? I think I can wait that long.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
WOW will run on apple, and there is actually a good selection of games in modern play avalible for mac. depending on your needs. Quake 4, Empire at War, anything Blizzard all are avalible.
Dawn of war unfortunatly is not though, which makes me sad.
I'd also recommend checking out eBay. You can find them pretty cheap if you don't mind going used.
I don't know about the video card, but I'd highly doubt it would work, and since someone else already said it won't... yeah. I don't think the iMac line is terribly upgrade friendly in that capacity, although you certainly can change the hard drive and RAM and possibly even processor should you wish. On that note you'll want to get the minimum spec hard drive and RAM, and upgrade those yourself. It won't void your warranty. And you can get an external drive caddy and plug your current PC's hard drive into that, and use it as an external drive.
As someone who's used Windows, Unix (I used to run a FreeBSD 5.2 server) and OS X, I can say honestly that the best user experience comes from OS X. It's really not even close. And if you want to dig into the background and learn how things work, you can go ahead and pop open a terminal window.
Also, since you're a Windows programmer, I assume you know about COM objects and automation. Wait until you see what's exposed in OS X. It's exactly what you'd expect if someone were to start from scratch today and design an ideal replacement for the OLE/COM object model without any worries to backwards compatibility or any of that nonsense.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
Also, Boot Camp makes your iMac just a straight-up Windows machine (with Mac OS X on it!) so if you are worried about gaming speeds, just look at the specs and compare it to the competitors. You'll find that bang per buck, when you factor in the screen, it's pretty close. But when you ues Mac OS X for productivity, you'll find it has an edge over Windows and you will get work done faster regardless of the speed.
But yeah, wait for the august upgrade. Apple usually bumps up the video cards then, and the current selection is less than mediocre by modern standards. Charging a premium for a non-gimped X1600 is unbelievable bullshit.
Edit: Also, if you're going to be running Parallels, get 2 GB of RAM.
So instead let's focus on saying things that provide useful information.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH