Best budget laptop or desktop for certain online games (see post inside)

[ssledoux]

My grandson wants to play some online games like Jurassic World, and Among Us I think? I’d like to help him get a laptop or desktop he can use for that, but want to spend the minimum I can get by with. He’s 11 - not interested in some heavy duty computer that’s gonna last him 10 years or anything.

Any suggestions?

 

[coffeemilktea]

A quick Google search turned up:

Best gaming laptops under $1,000: Best overall, best battery life, and more

These are the best gaming laptops under $1,000 including popular brands such as Acer, HP, and Asus.

www.pcworld.com

 

[compwiz1202]

A quick Google search turned up:

Best gaming laptops under $1,000: Best overall, best battery life, and more

These are the best gaming laptops under $1,000 including popular brands such as Acer, HP, and Asus.

www.pcworld.com

Yea don't know how high you want to go, but the Acer Nitro I got years ago and is still going is still at Best Buy for $800.

 

[cthompson94]

I also can vouch for the Acer Nitro series for decent cheaper gaming laptops. I had a older model and it did just what I needed it too without being heavy and too expensive. I solely bought it for a deployment while I was still in the Navy and it was great without breaking the bank (and in my case sold it to a friend after deployment so the loss was minimum for me)

 

[casperes1996]

Fortunately enough, Among Us will run on pretty much anything at all, performance wise. I really doesn't require anything even remotely powerful. Jurassic World also is not that demanding so most computers will do just fine

 

[ssledoux]

Fortunately enough, Among Us will run on pretty much anything at all, performance wise. I really doesn't require anything even remotely powerful. Jurassic World also is not that demanding so most computers will do just fine

Well ideally, I’d get him a MacBook Air, but I don’t know enough about any of the gaming stuff to know if that would do the job. I haven’t ever heard good things about Macs and gaming. We’re pretty much all in with Apple, and looking for other stuff is really foreign to me at this point.

 

[DisraeliGears]

Hmm, are you sure a laptop/desktop is the best device for your use case (or maybe I've gotten Apple brainworms too hard) because it sounds like an iPad should be your next computer haha.

Just checking on the app store/steam, and it seems that Among Us and Jurassic World don't have native MacOS versions, but they do have iPad versions. This might be a perfect use case for an base iPad, or an iPad Air if you want to get him something that'll last a bit longer. If he's playing primarily iPhone games and wants a dedicated device, getting the bigger version makes sense to me.

Plus you've got the iPad accessory tree for future Birthday or Xmas gifts haha.

 

[MBAir2010]

Well ideally, I’d get him a MacBook Air, but I don’t know enough about any of the gaming stuff to know if that would do the job. I haven’t ever heard good things about Macs and gaming. We’re pretty much all in with Apple, and looking for other stuff is really foreign to me at this point.

try OWC MacBook Air they are selling
the company is very reputable and will honor their sale.
I know you know Macs, and this is a great possibilty
if not. oops!

I hoped this helped, GO MOJAVE!

 

[maflynn]

Well ideally, I’d get him a MacBook Air,

The biggest question you need to ask yourself regarding the MacBook Air, is, will it play any and all of the games that your grandson wants to play?

Also is there way to ask him what he thinks are really good computers, that maybe some of his friends play? Sometimes with kids, finding out what they like and want goes a lot further. At 11, he should have some ideas of what's decent, good, and also poor. Even the cheapest computer capable of playing games requires an outlay of significant money, its best to ensure what ever is purchased is capable of playing the games and something he'll also enjoy

 

[casperes1996]

Well ideally, I’d get him a MacBook Air, but I don’t know enough about any of the gaming stuff to know if that would do the job. I haven’t ever heard good things about Macs and gaming. We’re pretty much all in with Apple, and looking for other stuff is really foreign to me at this point.

The MacBook Air will definitely, performance wise, run Among Us. It is also strong enough for Jurassic World, but there is a problem in that neither game is natively supported on macOS. Among Us will work perfectly fine with Parallels since it's a very very lightweight game, but I must admit I'm not entirely certain how Jurassic World would do via either Parallels or CrossOver - If it's an Intel based Mac, you can install Windows via Bootcamp to play games directly on Windows on the machine but the way better Apple Silicon based machines will only allows for virtualised or translated Windows where YMMV for game compatibility.

According to the AppleGamingWiki, experience with Jurassic World through Parallels is fairly poor and even an M1 Max based 16" will run it fairly poorly on low settings 1080p. It is noted that there's a very small difference between the highest and lowest settings, pointing to the problem very much being with running it through virtualisation and not natively. Having something like an older Intel based iMac that can have Windows installed natively would thus perform a lot better here. It may also be possible to run via CrossOver but is not validated. The only person who tried testing it only had it on the Epic Store which does not work on CrossOver without a lot of effort and an unofficial version known as the Heroic Launcher.

If gaming is the primary purpose of the device, a PC may be a better choice - Macs are great, and there is definitely gaming potential in them, I am even part of a Mac gaming podcast, but there definitely is way way broader support for games on Windows and forcing games to run on the Mac can be a lot of effort and even with all that effort sometimes be a subpar experience, because most games are simply not developed for Mac.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

My grandson wants to play some online games like Jurassic World, and Among Us I think? I’d like to help him get a laptop or desktop he can use for that, but want to spend the minimum I can get by with. He’s 11 - not interested in some heavy duty computer that’s gonna last him 10 years or anything.

Any suggestions?

For a gaming PC on a budget, I recommend a Steam Deck. It's a handheld gaming PC that can be used portably or with a TV when plugged into a dock, and can run the majority of all PC games, including Xbox and Playstation games, and it only costs between $400-650. Plus the Deck has grown extremely popular since last year for it's convenience and value. I recommend you get him the 512 gb model and the official dock with it.

https://www.steamdeck.com/

 

[ssledoux]

Hmm, are you sure a laptop/desktop is the best device for your use case (or maybe I've gotten Apple brainworms too hard) because it sounds like an iPad should be your next computer haha.

Just checking on the app store/steam, and it seems that Among Us and Jurassic World don't have native MacOS versions, but they do have iPad versions. This might be a perfect use case for an base iPad, or an iPad Air if you want to get him something that'll last a bit longer. If he's playing primarily iPhone games and wants a dedicated device, getting the bigger version makes sense to me.

Plus you've got the iPad accessory tree for future Birthday or Xmas gifts haha.

He has an ipad already. He wants to play Jurassic World: Evolution, which apparently can’t be played through an app or on the ipad.

 

[ssledoux]

Fortunately enough, Among Us will run on pretty much anything at all, performance wise. I really doesn't require anything even remotely powerful. Jurassic World also is not that demanding so most computers will do just fine

I did clarify that it’s Jurassic World: Evolution. IDK if that makes a difference. I’m totally clueless when it comes to computer gaming.

 

[casperes1996]

I did clarify that it’s Jurassic World: Evolution. IDK if that makes a difference. I’m totally clueless when it comes to computer gaming.

In all the posts I made on this thread, when I wrote Jurassic World, I just used it as a shorthand for Jurassic World: Evolution

Any reasonably modern Mac will be able to play it at least on some graphical settings. But the game doesn't run natively on macOS which means that some Macs that are technically powerful enough hardware wise will not be able to boot Windows natively to play it or suffer an extra performance hit by running it through virtualisation or translation layers, where I cannot speak to the experience specifically regarding this game. If getting a mid-tier Intel based Mac, like a 2020 27" iMac base or mid tier or MacBook Air/Mac mini Intel with an eGPU you can use Bootcamp to play it, but if getting a modern M1/M2 based Mac it will need to run through either Parallels, virtualising Windows, or CrossOver/Wine which translates Windows API calls, sometimes functioning well sometimes not so.

Here is the page on AppleGamingWiki about the game

As can be seen it was at the time of testing not playable through CrossOver at least with the Epic Games version, and the Parallels version runs but very poorly and that's on a powerful M1 max based computer.
This is not because the game is demanding, it is purely because it is not made to run on a Mac and there is no ideal setup for this game on a Mac, outside of Intel based Macs that can boot into Windows natively

Among Us is significantly easier and will run just fine through virtualised Windows with no issues at all.

For Jurassic World Evolution and a number of other games, I really do recommend a Windows based PC, doesn't have to be an especially powerful one, possibly to supplement a lower end Mac as well if that's desired, with the PC for games specifically

 

[ssledoux]

In all the posts I made on this thread, when I wrote Jurassic World, I just used it as a shorthand for Jurassic World: Evolution

Any reasonably modern Mac will be able to play it at least on some graphical settings. But the game doesn't run natively on macOS which means that some Macs that are technically powerful enough hardware wise will not be able to boot Windows natively to play it or suffer an extra performance hit by running it through virtualisation or translation layers, where I cannot speak to the experience specifically regarding this game. If getting a mid-tier Intel based Mac, like a 2020 27" iMac base or mid tier or MacBook Air/Mac mini Intel with an eGPU you can use Bootcamp to play it, but if getting a modern M1/M2 based Mac it will need to run through either Parallels, virtualising Windows, or CrossOver/Wine which translates Windows API calls, sometimes functioning well sometimes not so.

Here is the page on AppleGamingWiki about the game
View attachment 2174634
As can be seen it was at the time of testing not playable through CrossOver at least with the Epic Games version, and the Parallels version runs but very poorly and that's on a powerful M1 max based computer.
This is not because the game is demanding, it is purely because it is not made to run on a Mac and there is no ideal setup for this game on a Mac, outside of Intel based Macs that can boot into Windows natively

Among Us is significantly easier and will run just fine through virtualised Windows with no issues at all.

For Jurassic World Evolution and a number of other games, I really do recommend a Windows based PC, doesn't have to be an especially powerful one, possibly to supplement a lower end Mac as well if that's desired, with the PC for games specifically

Oh okay - thanks. I just know they have other Jurassic World games, and even the app he currently plays on his iPad.

That’s what I was looking for too - I just don’t know what not especially powerful means, as in I have no clue about windows computers since I’ve pretty much steered clear of them for the last 20 years.