Windows You love PC gaming, and Mac. How do you do it?

[G51989]

Just as the question states. I am very curious, and in the planning stages of my next desktop setup. So i'm curious?

Thats good, remember a PC tower doesn't need to go on your desktop, the tower can simply go on the floor next to the desk.

How do you play PC games, and use OSX?

For PC games I use my gaming tower, provided by

http://www.gamepc.com/shop/systemfamily.asp?family=ds1

My model is the last generation, only having the 680GTX cards, tho I've upgraded mine to 128gb of ram. And added more hard drives. I plan to upgrade the video cards next year.

Had it about for a year and a half now, its perfect for gaming. Silent as well.

I have several PowerPC Macs, and a 2012 27 inch iMac, which I plan to replace with this generation of iMac. That does everything besides game, and freelance simulation projects. I'm planning to add a Mac Mini in my bedroom. And maybe another iMac for the garage.

Do you have a pc and a Macbook?

Gaming PCs, and a few rackmount servers for my home network, the servers are from Dell. No MacBook however, they don't offer the power I need.

If I didn't need a ton of mobile power, I wouldn't be carrying around a 18 inch Alienware laptop, I'd be using a rMBP or a MBA.

I'd love some opinions, some predictions, and some advice on how to go about doing this for myself.

I would highly recommend a mid range gaming PC. The game selection is much larger. From small developers, to large developers. Games seem to perform much better on Windows machines with the same hardware.

The gaming towers biggest advantage, is that when your video card becomes outdated, you just pop the side off via thumbscrews for most cases, and pop in a new video card, and your good to go.

 

[G51989]

The idea that macs are "crap" for gaming is crap. Yes, sure, if you're a hardcore gamer who is a single lad (or lass) and it's your primary hobby, build a PC that screams. Personally, I like having a minimalist footprint on the desk, no loud & hot box on the floor, and a beautiful screen, all built into one system, that serves all of my personal needs.

Macs aren't " crap " for gaming, but if the OP loves PC gaming, and wants the full experience of PC gaming, he needs to buy a Gaming PC.

And a college kid, I dont know about him, but my time was divided between playing games ( Red Faction 1! Oh yeah! ), girls, drinking, and studying. Gaming time is always there.

A Gaming tower doesn't need a desk footprint at all, its easy to put the tower on the flood next to it, and via a wireless keyboard and mouse, you really only have a power wire and a display cable going to your monitor.

Also, " loud and hot box "? My gaming PC ( linked earlier in the post ) runs very cool, and is silent.

Even a sub 1000 dollar gaming PC is very quiet, this isn't 2003 where you had super noisy P4 boxes.

Hell, my GF just bought a cheapo 700 dollar Dell, its pretty much silent, if you listen REALLY carefully, you can hear a little hum.

What the PC enthusiasts fail to mention is that while their custom built rig they spent 700 dollars on today will be worth ~150-200 in 3 years, your $2000 iMac will be worth about $1400 in 3 years, so for about the same price as a PC upgrade (i'm talking mobo, cpu, and gpu) you can sell an iMac and buy a new one, keeping up with the latest video card. It's not a complicated concept. In fact, I'll probably be selling my 21.5" 2011 iMac later this year and buy a 2012 (or 2013 if they're out) 27" iMac with the updated graphics card. Selling the 2011 iMac will cover at least 30-40% of the cost of the new iMac (and considering i'm planning on going from a base model to top-of-the-line, that's still pretty good.)

Macs do have good resale value.

But if the guy is serious about building or buying an upgradeable gaming rig. It can be upgraded for 5+ years in most cases to the newest video cards, and newer processors. PCs tend to have pretty long upgrade lifespans.

If gaming is what this machine is for, an iMac won't match a upgradeable gaming PC for value for money.

And the iMac has never had the " latest and greatest " GPUs.

So if you are REALLY serious about PC gaming, and don't mind having wires and boxes and stuff all around your desk area, then by all means, build a PC and get you a mac mini or a laptop and KVM them. But if you are looking for an elegant all-in-one solution to run both OSX and Windows that will play anything you can throw at it for the next 2-4 years, then an iMac is an easy choice.

Wires and boxes is Fud, all of that can be put on the floor, and take up no desk space.

The problem with the all in one is that it can't be upgraded, and even with a good resale value, you still lose money and its a pain in the ass having to reinstall everything from Mac to Mac.

 

[jedolley]

Wires and boxes is Fud, all of that can be put on the floor, and take up no desk space.

The problem with the all in one is that it can't be upgraded, and even with a good resale value, you still lose money and its a pain in the ass having to reinstall everything from Mac to Mac.

I agree with you mostly... Nowadays, you can build a pretty darn good mATX gaming machine. No need for mid or full towers anymore.

As for "re-installing" from Mac to Mac, is not a pain at all. I just did this over the weekend and using a cloned back up it was a snap.

IMO, it comes how much of a "gamer" are you and for me this has changed over the years. My iMac (27", 2012) has been more than enough to run every game i've wanted to play so far and I feel it will be that way for awhile.

 

[G51989]

I agree with you mostly... Nowadays, you can build a pretty darn good mATX gaming machine. No need for mid or full towers anymore.

Check out the link in my top post on the page, its a Mid Tower, and will serve me well for at least 6 years I would like to think.

Full Towers are just to sexy to ignore, I still have my old full tower gaming rig from 2005

And even if you feel like blowing 10 grand on an insane gaming machine ( I almost did, I think mine was like 9500 something, I typically build my own. But It was a gift to myself ) in a full tower configuration, just put it on the floor.

As for "re-installing" from Mac to Mac, is not a pain at all. I just did this over the weekend and using a cloned back up it was a snap.

I've done it before, its not hard but a pain in the ass.

My last gaming rig was built in 2005, and I was able to upgrade the thing to the point where I could still play the latest games on max settings up until about 2011, last year I finally caved and bought my first PC desktop that I didn't build myself, Couldn't be happier.

My old gaming rig lasted almost 7 years of playing games at max settings, if I wanted to push it at medium settings, it would easily have lasted until 2014. But I like playing games as they were meant to play.

It still sits in my man cave in the basement, next to my XP box. The XP Gaming Rig being used to play the old school stuff.

As much as I love my macs, you simply can't get that same value out of them.

IMO, it comes how much of a "gamer" are you and for me this has changed over the years. My iMac (27", 2012) has been more than enough to run every game i've wanted to play so far and I feel it will be that way for awhile.

Absolutely, for a casual gamer an iMac would be more than enough.

But for someone who wants their games played like their meant to be played? An iMac, as sexy as it is won't cut it.

And there's the game library, some people in the thread would like to tell you the Mac Library is almost as good, its not. At all.

Lots of small and open source developers can't afford to do Mac and Windows, so they just go with Windows, and there are a TON of really good old school, free, and fun to play Windows games that you'd be missing out if the OP went just Mac and OSX.

I think because the OP has the money, he should go Mac and PC, most PC vendors make better desktops than the iMac, as long as you don't care about looks and all in one ( I mean really, put the tower on the floor ), and you can easily build one yourself as well.

Apple makes the best portables overall, so if he has the money to build a great gaming PC, AND afford an Apple portable, I say that is the best balance.

Its what I did in College, I had a very late Pentium 3, 1gb of ram, Windows XP, Geforce 2 Video card, 31GB HDD, Dell Desktop for gaming and the heavy stuff, then I had a Pismo for everying else at college.

Even over a decade ago it was nice having a PC and a Mac, same thing applies today.

 

[jedolley]

Check out the link in my top post on the page, its a Mid Tower, and will serve me well for at least 6 years I would like to think.

Full Towers are just to sexy to ignore, I still have my old full tower gaming rig from 2005

And even if you feel like blowing 10 grand on an insane gaming machine ( I almost did, I think mine was like 9500 something, I typically build my own. But It was a gift to myself ) in a full tower configuration, just put it on the floor.

mid and full towers are fine, but people were mentioning the size in this thread. My point was that mATX builds are small and can be viable top-end gaming PCs.

 

[G51989]

mid and full towers are fine, but people were mentioning the size in this thread. My point was that mATX builds are small and can be viable top-end gaming PCs.

Oh yes, of course they can.

But I would personally go with a Mid tower, much more expandable, and typically cheaper.

And if you you must have your PC on your desk mATX are the way to go, tho I personally prefer midATX systems.

 

[Rossatron]

How do you play PC games, and use OSX?
Do you bootcamp an iMac/Mac Pro?
Do you have a pc and a Macbook?

well, i look for osx version of that game. the selection is somewhat scarce compared to windows games, but one of the reasons i purchased a mac was to use osx. if i wanted windows, i could have gotten a cheaper laptop instead.

getting a PC for games is an option i am considering (though not in the near future). im a HUGE BF fan, and to think that i won't be playing BF4 on launch day depresses me, as i have done so with all the titles (except 1942). but as i think more about it, i prefer using OSX, so that puts me in the same spot - getting a mac and bootcamping which i am reluctant to do.

yes, I'm weird

 

[kelub]

I guess it just depends on where you are in life and what you're looking to do. A college kid looking to spend half his time gaming but also wants to dabble in OSX? Obviously, build a gaming rig and get a mac mini or work on a hackintosh or get an Apple notebook. An adult with minimal downtime who spends most of said downtime playing games? Again, sure - build a desktop. I have a friend whose wife games, and the two of them spent years playing WoW together. They have a dedicated area for the two of them to do just that. Build a desktop.

For me, and I know I'm not alone here, I get maybe 5 hours a month of gaming time. Maybe. 40-50 hours a week of work, 3 kids, a house on some land, and a wife who has no interest in gaming (which means my time spent with her is spent doing other things) means that while I do really enjoy PC gaming, and spent my youth doing pretty much nothing but gaming, I simply don't have the time for it to be worth building a dedicated system solely for gaming. Even with all of that aside, I also have amateur photography and other hobbies that take my time, and that a mac lends itself nicely to.

Finally, because my lifestyle is such that gaming is not a big part of it anymore, and because my wife is particular about interior decoration and how spaces in rooms look, AND because I have three kids and therefore no extra rooms for a dedicated office, the desk area (which is in the bedroom) has to be as "clean" as possible. In my particular situation, I simply do not have ANY floor space for a tower unless I were to sacrifice leg space, which I'm not going to do. I am using a solid wooden desk that was hand-built by my wife's grandfather 100 years ago, against a wall where there is no space to the left or right of the desk due to doors... bah, here see if this helps explain it.

Note that I plug in a Razer wired mouse when gaming. I don't use the magic mouse.

So for an adult who, as the OP phrased, "loves PC gaming, and mac," and to answer his question "how do you do it?" Boot camp gaming on an iMac is plenty capable for more than just the "casual" gamer. on a 2011 iMac I've recently played Bioshock Infinite and Max Payne 3 at pretty much maxed out settings, played through Far Cry 3, Skyrim, Diablo III, and plenty of other games that I can't even remember right now at near max settings, etc. No, I don't need - nor expect - 100+fps before I consider my gaming experience adequate. I'm not playing online competitively, and I'm not a framerate snob in the way that audiophiles are audio snobs. If I can be satisfied with 24fps from film then so long as my gaming experience doesn't drop below that, I'm fine.

Does that mean I'm not experiencing the game "the way the developers meant for it to be experienced" or whatever? I hardly think so. When I toss a game on my work laptop and play at the lowest resolution just to pass some time, then that statement may be valid. But I hardly believe that the quality of the gaming experience on an iMac is anything less than the experience on a custom-built PC system.

So my answer to the OP is: I use boot camp using an iMac, I get the best of both worlds, I get an amazing gaming experience with the hardware, I have a great physical setup with the iMac mounted on the wall and a clean work area that the most important non-enthusiast in my life can appreciate and admire, and by the time my video card is struggling to run the latest games at the highest resolutions, I'm in the market for a system upgrade anyway.

It doesn't mean it's right for everyone, but it's what works for me, and since the OP was asking for opinions, that's mine.

 

[rockyroad55]

I guess it just depends on where you are in life and what you're looking to do. A college kid looking to spend half his time gaming but also wants to dabble in OSX? Obviously, build a gaming rig and get a mac mini or work on a hackintosh or get an Apple notebook. An adult with minimal downtime who spends most of said downtime playing games? Again, sure - build a desktop. I have a friend whose wife games, and the two of them spent years playing WoW together. They have a dedicated area for the two of them to do just that. Build a desktop.

For me, and I know I'm not alone here, I get maybe 5 hours a month of gaming time. Maybe. 40-50 hours a week of work, 3 kids, a house on some land, and a wife who has no interest in gaming (which means my time spent with her is spent doing other things) means that while I do really enjoy PC gaming, and spent my youth doing pretty much nothing but gaming, I simply don't have the time for it to be worth building a dedicated system solely for gaming. Even with all of that aside, I also have amateur photography and other hobbies that take my time, and that a mac lends itself nicely to.

Finally, because my lifestyle is such that gaming is not a big part of it anymore, and because my wife is particular about interior decoration and how spaces in rooms look, AND because I have three kids and therefore no extra rooms for a dedicated office, the desk area (which is in the bedroom) has to be as "clean" as possible. In my particular situation, I simply do not have ANY floor space for a tower unless I were to sacrifice leg space, which I'm not going to do. I am using a solid wooden desk that was hand-built by my wife's grandfather 100 years ago, against a wall where there is no space to the left or right of the desk due to doors... bah, here see if this helps explain it. Image
Note that I plug in a Razer wired mouse when gaming. I don't use the magic mouse.

So for an adult who, as the OP phrased, "loves PC gaming, and mac," and to answer his question "how do you do it?" Boot camp gaming on an iMac is plenty capable for more than just the "casual" gamer. on a 2011 iMac I've recently played Bioshock Infinite and Max Payne 3 at pretty much maxed out settings, played through Far Cry 3, Skyrim, Diablo III, and plenty of other games that I can't even remember right now at near max settings, etc. No, I don't need - nor expect - 100+fps before I consider my gaming experience adequate. I'm not playing online competitively, and I'm not a framerate snob in the way that audiophiles are audio snobs. If I can be satisfied with 24fps from film then so long as my gaming experience doesn't drop below that, I'm fine.

Does that mean I'm not experiencing the game "the way the developers meant for it to be experienced" or whatever? I hardly think so. When I toss a game on my work laptop and play at the lowest resolution just to pass some time, then that statement may be valid. But I hardly believe that the quality of the gaming experience on an iMac is anything less than the experience on a custom-built PC system.

So my answer to the OP is: I use boot camp using an iMac, I get the best of both worlds, I get an amazing gaming experience with the hardware, I have a great physical setup with the iMac mounted on the wall and a clean work area that the most important non-enthusiast in my life can appreciate and admire, and by the time my video card is struggling to run the latest games at the highest resolutions, I'm in the market for a system upgrade anyway.

It doesn't mean it's right for everyone, but it's what works for me, and since the OP was asking for opinions, that's mine.

Excellent post. What works for some may not work for the next person.

I consider myself a pretty rough gamer. I built a PC specifically for gaming. Everything else gets done on OSX. Upgrading the internals periodically is something I enjoy and value when it comes to the latest games. As of now, I'm only on Battlefield and Mass Effect. I like 60+ fps and that's why I stick to PCs. My tower goes on the floor and everything else onto the desk. When I need the macbook, the keyboard and mouse goes away but the screen is there in case I want a second monitor. Fun stuff.

 

[yliu]

I'm dreaming of an Alienware desktop accompanied by a rMBP.

The second part of my dream had come true, but the first part might have to wait a few years.

 

[N19h7m4r3]

I'm dreaming of an Alienware desktop accompanied by a rMBP.

The second part of my dream had come true, but the first part might have to wait a few years.

Many here would suggest you just build your own, much cheaper than alienware and you can get all sorts of chassis for it.

My old system was a mini-ITX system, about the size of a shoebox. Played everything I could ever want.

The entire thing cost me about €1500, that includes the GTX 680, and 27" IPS monitor. Had an Intel i7 2600k, 8GB low profile low watt RAM, slotloaded blu-ray drive, 500GB SSD/HDD hybrid, 2TB HDD, chassis+PSU, mouse, mechanical keyboard, and headset, along with Windows 7 Pro.



Since then I've moved to just my 15" rMBP, as a family member desperately needed a good computer and I gave them my desktop.

 

[yliu]

Many here would suggest you just build your own, much cheaper than alienware and you can get all sorts of chassis for it.

Yeah, I heard about building my own computers. But I am worried about the quality, and how well it will hold up.

Also as an Apple fan, I really like slick designs. Most custom PCs I've seen simply do not match the 'coolness' of an Alienware.

 

[G51989]

Yeah, I heard about building my own computers. But I am worried about the quality, and how well it will hold up.

Also as an Apple fan, I really like slick designs. Most custom PCs I've seen simply do not match the 'coolness' of an Alienware.

Alienware is a very good choice if your not comfortable with building your own machines.

However, if you buy decent parts, a self made PC can last a long time.

I built my first PC in 1996, its still going today. Today is just sits in my man cave and gets used mostly to play old DOS games. And early Windows Games. Its a great platform to play anything pre XP

 

[N19h7m4r3]

Yeah, I heard about building my own computers. But I am worried about the quality, and how well it will hold up.

Also as an Apple fan, I really like slick designs. Most custom PCs I've seen simply do not match the 'coolness' of an Alienware.

That all depends on what chassis/case you pick. there are thousands, and quality is top notch, you can buy the best best parts from manufactures that offer anywhere from 2 years to life time warranties.

I still have an old single core Athlon 64 3200+ socket 754, system with DDR 1, and an AGP nvidia 6600GT that works perfectly. You just need to build it to last, and take care of it.

 

[fireedo]

Just as the question states. I am very curious, and in the planning stages of my next desktop setup. So i'm curious?

How do you play PC games, and use OSX?
Do you bootcamp an iMac/Mac Pro?
Do you have a pc and a Macbook?

I'd love some opinions, some predictions, and some advice on how to go about doing this for myself.

Currently thinking of buying a maxed 27" iMac (without the RAM), and bootcamping it with a 13" retina for University.

Thanks!

I give up my PC to Apple ... lol
actually I did
I'm not a hardcore gamers and all the game(s) I play already full support on Mac Platform (WoW, SC2, Diablo 3, DOTA 2 via STEAM)
Also glad all my work need has Mac compatible applications so I don't need PC anymore (MS Office, pixelmator or photoshop, AutoCAD) :roll eyes:

So no MS windows and no bootcamp needed here

 

[0098386]

Every 5 years or so I'll just buy the best iMac they sell. I love the form factor and the display.
I don't play the latest games at max settings, but for games like Saints Row IV, Team Fortress 2 and the indie games I'm currently addicted to - it runs perfectly. I'm okay turning settings down (don't know why it's seen as such a big thing to do... if you're used to games looking like maxed out TF2, then medium-quality SR4 has the same visual quality) and lowering the resolution to 1920x1080.

So that's what I do. Just lower settings!

I imagine games will take a huge leap in the coming year, what with next-gen consoles on the horizon.

 

[JailDesigner]

Despite the 'Apple's computers are absolute crap for gaming' comment from another poster, I have found my 2011 3.4GHz HD6970M 27" iMac 16Gb perfectly fine for running games, and I came from using Windows PCs for years before.
Either Mac 'native' or under Bootcamp I have run Skyrim, Deus Ex, Witcher 2, F1 2012, XCOM Enemy Unknown etc. all perfectly well @ 2560 x 1440.

Same here. With bootcamp to play games, with this computer I always play games maxed at full speed. It struggles with some new games (Tomb Raider, I can't max this one) but it's a two years old computer now, so in a year or so I can replace it with a new iMac or buy a PC and leave this iMac for work, iTunes, etc..

 

[odinsride]

I have a 2010 Mac Pro upgrade with 680 GTX that I use for gaming. I spend 95% of my at home computing time gaming, so my Mac Pro pretty much stays booted into Windows (bootcamp). I love OSX but these days finding it pretty unnecessary for my needs.