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Mac Gaming - or Crazy Mac Switchin' Part 2: Electric Boogaloo |
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 Crazy Mac Switchin - Part 1
A lot of Windows users think the Mac is a piece of crap when it comes to gaming. They say there are no games for the Mac OS, or that you can't upgrade Macs, or that they're slow. Most of this is just ignorance spouting from the mouths of the uninformed, and I'm here to hopefully shed a little light on the subject.
Performance
As far as performance goes you can argue for days about who has the "faster" machine. That's not the purpose of this article - there are entire Web sites devoted to this topic, so if you want to argue Megahertz or cache sizes or video cards, go find a good forum and start posting away.
Most gamers know that it's all about frame rate, or frames per second. For the non-gamer, the more frames the better and the more detail you see. Framerate is dependant on many things, like your processor, amount of RAM you have, the video card, as well as the Operating System and the how well the game was programmed. Well, today's Macs are well equipped with high end video cards like NVidia's GeForce 2MX and above, or ATI's Radeon, and more than enough guts to give you excellent frame rates on all the latest and greatest games. (It would have been nice to give you details on the exact FPS on certain games comparing Mac to Windows, but I didn't have the time or inclination to hop on a Windows box and get those numbers. Anyone know a good site?)
Keep in mind, I'm not saying which platform is better for gaming, just defending the Mac and saying that it's a great gaming machine.
Number of Games
It's true - there are not as many games for the Mac OS as there is for Windows. It's a simple fact and is easily believeable since there are about 10 times as many Windows users in the world.
However, the disparity is not as much as you might think. There are tons of games out there for the Mac - more than you could play in a lifetime (well, without using cheats!). And it's getting better all the time.
Most of the major games are ported over within 3 or 4 months of their release on the Windows side, if they're not released at the same time. Aspyr and MacPlay, two of the major Mac "porting houses", seem to have more games in development now than they ever have.
Many games are Mac-only as well. Most Windows gamers have probably never heard of Ambrosia Software or Pangea, and it's sad because they've come out with some of the coolest games ever and they're MAC ONLY. Ok, I take it back - it's NOT sad, because we Mac users have something for ourselves! (And after Bungie selling out to Microsoft we need to have something).
Upgradeability
A lot of Windows gamers swap parts in and out of their system like it's a Mr. Potatohead, and look down on Macs because they think you can't upgrade them. Well you can upgrade them. PowerMacG4s are easy to swap parts in and out of, probably easier than any PC. iMacs, eMacs and laptops, yeah it's not so easy, but you CAN upgrade them. Granted you can't swap out video cards, but who needs to?
By the time your video card is out-of-date, odds are that the rest of your system is as well. Seeing how Macs hold their resale value much better than their PC counterparts, you can sell your old system on eBay and go buy a new one. If you time it right, for instance you sold your iBook just a few weeks before Apple debuted a new model, an upgrade to a new machine could cost you under $100 bucks using this method. And it's not that hard to predict when a new product debut is around the corner - just keep an eye out on all the Mac Rumor sites.
Intangibles and Other Stuff
There are many other benefits to using a Mac as your gaming machine. I think the best one is that you have ONE machine to do everything you need to. On Windows, you have a good gaming environment, but none of the development apps that OS X/Linux have to offer. On Linux, you have a great development and server platform but few games. Mac OS X has it all, buddy.
Secondly, let's talk about real-world gaming. I've been to more than a couple LAN parties (where everybody brings their computers and you frag each other in multiplayer games). When I brought my iMac to these gaming events, I was set up and ready to go in under 5 minutes. It took the other guys with generic PC hardware at least 15 minutes to get going, and some of them it took hours. Some had hardware problems or issues with software drivers that didn't allow them to play at all. One guy would get his system going and another's would break.
Now these guys were hardcore gamers and I couldn't understand why they would put up with that if gaming was their life. My machine on the other hand, ran like a Tangerine dream, allowing me to consistently land in the top 3 in frags as well as winning a match or two.
It's Over, Finally!
Now, this was another of my long-ass rants, and it was poorly written, as usual! So if you read it all, I thank you. If you got anything out of it, then great! If you're a hardcore Windows gamer and think I'm a dumbass, well ... you may be right, but I know that I'm not wrong about the Mac being a fantastic gaming machine. |
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March 12 2003, 11:59 AM EDT, by
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