[x user]

I might be looking for a gameing machine soon. What would seem to the best deal out there right now? A quicksilver with a Radion 9000 or so sounds kinda tempting. I really HATE the MDD look. I already have a monitor, I think a Dual 800 or single 867/933 would be perfect. What do you guys think?

[Eug Wanker]

Originally posted by x user:
I might be looking for a gameing machine soon. What would seem to the best deal out there right now? A quicksilver with a Radion 9000 or so sounds kinda tempting. I really HATE the MDD look. I already have a monitor, I think a Dual 800 or single 867/933 would be perfect. What do you guys think?

Quite frankly I think buying G4 with Radeon 9000 Pro specifically for the purpose of gaming is a bad idea (if you're talking 3D gaming).

If you want relatively cheap, you'd be much better off getting a barebones 2600+ Athlon and Radeon 9600 Pro or something. It'd blow a dual 800 out of the water. Indeed, with the same video card it'd still blow the dual G4 out of the water.

(I'd take a dual 1.25 GHz G4 over an Athlon 3000+ for many reasons, but gaming isn't one of them.)

[Lateralus]

A Gaming-Mac?

[Eug Wanker]

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
A Gaming-Mac?

Well, maybe if you got a G5, but that ain't cheap...

[docholiday]

If you wanna play games, put together a PC or get a game console a la XBox or Gamecube...

Macs aren't optimal for gaming and I would consider buying a mac for gaming a waste of money...
However, if you have A LOT of money, the G5 with the Radeon 9800, 4GB RAM, and a 5.1 sound system would be the optimal machine out there. (at least performance-wise)

[Cipher13]

Games? Build a PC...

[CheesePuff]

Maybe buy a base 466 MHz Power Mac G4 system, and then upgrade the processor, RAM, hard drive, graphics card, etc. when you get the money. I would chose the 466 MHz model because of the faster 133 MHz system bus and PC133 RAM.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally posted by CheesePuff:
Maybe buy a base 466 MHz Power Mac G4 system, and then upgrade the processor, RAM, hard drive, graphics card, etc. when you get the money. I would chose the 466 MHz model because of the faster 133 MHz system bus and PC133 RAM.

466 MHz gaming system?

[3.1416]

Originally posted by docholiday:
If you wanna play games, put together a PC or get a game console a la XBox or Gamecube...

Agreed. A Mac as a "game machine" doesn't make much sense. If gaming is a secondary purpose then a Mac will be fine, but if it's your primary goal you'll be better off with a console or (ick) Windows.

[DBvader]

even the G5 mac isnt a perfect gaming system.

i would reccomend that you build a cheap PC for gaming. you can build one for a few hundred dollars, and it will be significantly faster than the fastest macs.

[mangore]

Originally posted by DBvader:
even the G5 mac isnt a perfect gaming system.

i would reccomend that you build a cheap PC for gaming. you can build one for a few hundred dollars, and it will be significantly faster than the fastest macs.

How did you come up with this claim? It's a pretty big stretch to believe that a Windows machine built with a "few hundred dollars" will outperform the G5.. especially the dual 2.0ghz.

I think the top end G5 will hold it's own with similarly priced Intel/AMD boxes. The only problem is the game companies doing a poor porting job, which hopefully will be a dead practice soon enough.

I intend to either buy the dual 2.0ghz or whatever comes out as the Rev. B high end, and I intend to use it for World of Warcraft and Doom III. Before news of the G5, I was going to buy a fast AMD gaming machine, but not anymore!

[CheesePuff]

Originally posted by Eug Wanker:
466 MHz gaming system?

I said get it as a base system and upgrade the processor. They have Dual 1.4 GHz upgrades for this computer.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally posted by CheesePuff:
I said get it as a base system and upgrade the processor. They have Dual 1.4 GHz upgrades for this computer.

And they don't come cheap. The 1.2 GHz dual upgrades already cost $800. And in the end you'd get a bandwidth starved computer anyway.

You'd be better off just getting a dual 1.25 GHz G4 right from the start. Faster 167 MHz bus, fast 80 GB hard drive, Radeon 9000 Pro, and only $1599.

But that doesn't really make sense either because for that price you can get a PC that will wipe the floor with the dual 1.25 in 3D games.

[Cipher13]

Build a $400 Athlon, seriously...

[Gee4orce]

Buy a £150 PSII or X-Box - no hassles over whether your games will work with your hardware, no conflicts, no crashes. Plus you get to play it on your living room TV with surround-sound and comfy sofa

[Scotttheking]

Gamecube

[The Placid Casual]

Originally posted by Gee4orce:
Buy a £150 PSII or X-Box - no hassles over whether your games will work with your hardware, no conflicts, no crashes. Plus you get to play it on your living room TV with surround-sound and comfy sofa

Too right! Buy a console...

I just dug out my old PS1 and realised that even though it is old and slow, and the games are somewhat dated, it is probably a much better gaming proposition than any PC/Mac...

I would think a PS2, X-Box or Game Cube would be fantastic, especially now that broadband is offering online console gaming as well!

[sideus]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
Gamecube

Just what I was thinking.

[mfessenden]

Originally posted by mangore:
I think the top end G5 will hold it's own with similarly priced Intel/AMD boxes. The only problem is the game companies doing a poor porting job, which hopefully will be a dead practice soon enough.

I intend to either buy the dual 2.0ghz or whatever comes out as the Rev. B high end, and I intend to use it for World of Warcraft and Doom III. Before news of the G5, I was going to buy a fast AMD gaming machine, but not anymore!

Bad ports or not, if price is an issue, building a PC will give you much better gaming experience than a mac.

[CIA]

Regardless of what Mac you get, the problem is, where are the games?

Yes, PC's BLOW the mac out of the water when it comes to both gaming performance, and the sheer number of games available. I'm not saying don't do it, but think about it.

I'm about as die hard as they come about pushing Apple products, but even a zelot like me can admit that Mac's are not really gaming machines. (Maybe the G5 will fix this???? Probably not)

Build/buy a PC or a console.

[AssassyN]

I would also say build a cheap PC for gaming; even if you HATE Windows, if all you do is game, the only time you'll even use the OS is the double click the .exe of your games.

[MacNStein]

Buy an Xbox, a Gamecube, and a PS2.

For ~ $500 you can have access to more games than any human being would ever have time to play.

Abandon the PC and Mac as a gaming solution, unless you're into upgrading your entire system every year. Consoles have a much longer useable lifespan.

[Eug]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
Buy an Xbox, a Gamecube, and a PS2.

For ~ $500 you can have access to more games than any human being would ever have time to play.

Abandon the PC and Mac as a gaming solution, unless you're into upgrading your entire system every year. Consoles have a much longer useable lifespan.

Well, consoles and desktops have different games.

I like certain games on consoles, but for 3D fps games, I much prefer desktop computers. In fact the last console I've owned is an Atari 2600. I've always preferred the gaming experience on PCs, because of the types of games I (used to) play.

I do want to get an old Sega for Sonic Hedgehog though...

[euphras]

Get a cheap Athlon box. PC-versions of games always appear earlier and the vast amount of them is another argument. You don´t need Apple finish to run a gaming rig.

[tooki]

I agree, gaming on the Mac just doesn't want to materialize. The fact that Macs get 1/2 the framerates of the same graphics card on a similar computer may have something to do with it.

tooki

[Mac Zealot]

yeah Macs REALLY suck for gaming ^_^ This is true

Not to mention that dually rigs still won't cut it. a Dual 1.25ghz g4 will still be rather dissapointing compared to an athlon 1700 maybe?

Yeah. PCs Blow macs out of the water bigtime. Anyway, get yourself a nice thermaltake xazer case, a red motherboard that costs $65, an athlon cpu and a heatsink made for a 5 year old celeron, a combo drive to stick in the lowest optical bay and a bright green cold cathode.

Oh yeah.. get a 17" flat CRT monitor and put stickers all over it, and maybe a cheap keyboard and microsoft mouse as well.

That outta make the perfect quake/counterstrike/whatever H4X0R rig.

Then you can pwn yo h4x0rs ph33r them.

Or jsut get a damn gamecube and play your games there

No wait.. the gamecube has a PPC in it.. anything with a PPC inheritently sucks.

Get an xbox to go with your PC.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by mangore:
How did you come up with this claim? It's a pretty big stretch to believe that a Windows machine built with a "few hundred dollars" will outperform the G5.. especially the dual 2.0ghz.

Ha.

This thread isnt about Photoshop, it's about gaming. And from the sounds of things, it doesnt sound like you've done much of it.

G5 or not, the Mac is probably the worst of the 3 major operating platforms to game on.

[DBvader]

" How did you come up with this claim? It's a pretty big stretch to believe that a Windows machine built with a "few hundred dollars" will outperform the G5.. especially the dual 2.0ghz.

I think the top end G5 will hold it's own with similarly priced Intel/AMD boxes. The only problem is the game companies doing a poor porting job, which hopefully will be a dead practice soon enough.

I intend to either buy the dual 2.0ghz or whatever comes out as the Rev. B high end, and I intend to use it for World of Warcraft and Doom III. Before news of the G5, I was going to buy a fast AMD gaming machine, but not anymore!"

its not a stretch at all...there is so much optimization in windows programs for intel/amd hardware, that its rediculous. its baseless to think taht the G5 will hold its own against similarly priced (you can get an amazing PC for 3000 dollars, that the mac most likely couldnt touch...speed wise) PC. its not that companies are doing bad port jobs (or maybe it is), im guessing its the bad video card drivers, OS problems, or something along those lines (perhaps a combination). porting wont be a dead prcatice until mac has more than 3 percent of the market share...its just not cost effective. Though, i have nothing to base my prediction on other than the fast, optimized hardware on a PC, i would still say that the G5 couldnt hold its own (in games) against a similarly priced PC. and PCs still have multichannel audio (remember toslink can only send out stereo or compressed signals...not the anlog 5.1 PCs have) and all that stuff.

bottom line, even the most expensive macs cant hold their own against cheap PCs in games, i reccomend if you want a gaming system, get a PC. when i switched, gaming wasnt a priority. That said, my Dual 867/1GB RAM/9000 runs most games pitifully.

[Eug Wanker]

Initial reports are that a dual G5 2 GHz games pretty well... at least with a Radeon 9800 Pro, running Q3 and UT2003.

However, that setup is far from cheap.

[mangore]

Ok guys,

My last post was made assuming price isn't an issue, and given the title of this thread it IS an issue. If price is an issue, then sure, go with Intel/AMD (although I'd vote for a console system myself). Also, if the number of games is an issue, you again have reason to go for a Windows box. With Blizzard and Id behind Apple, however, we'll be getting some of the best games out there. I don't constantly game, so these two companies alone will keep me happy.. and with the growth of OSX hopefully we'll get some more.

The reason I made my first post was because of a claim that an Intel/AMD machine built for "*a few hundred dollars*" will outperform "the fastest Macs". This is just absurd, unless MAYBE you're talking about the fastest Macs you can get shipped to your door tomorrow. The poster of this claim was talking about G5s, though. If you want a good gaming system that'll keep up with all the next generation games, you'll have to spend some big money. If you're spending big money, then you should consider a high end G5. We won't know how it performs until it's available to test. From the looks of things it will do quite well. Apple machines have been terrible for games in the past, I know. If you keep blindly sticking to that fact, even in the face of hardware that will turn things around, game companies will never make a serious effort to build a Mac community. Just a few thoughts. Call ME blind if you want.

[DBvader]

i still stick by my statements. i said that a PC made out of a few hundred dollars will in fact be faster than the fastest macs. i know for a fact that an athlon 2600+, 512 DDr, 40 GB HD, 9600 will out perform any of the G4s. and i wouldnt be the least bit surprised that in games it would take on the G5. that computer can be made extremely cheap. Macs are not made for games period. im sure the G5 will be fast, but not remotely as fast as anything for that price. the other poster said it best, this isnt photoshop, macs have no game optimization. I have a Dual 867 with a gig of RAM and an ATI 9000. i know its not the fastest mac out there at all, but its still no slouch. my PC, which out cost less than 300 to make now (2000+, 512, Ti4200) gets MUCH better framerate. i can barely play some games on my computer! i emplore you to use a PC, though they may have a cumbersome OS, their hardware is insanely fast and most software is super optimized.

as a matter of fact here is what i said:

"even the G5 mac isnt a perfect gaming system.

i would reccomend that you build a cheap PC for gaming. you can build one for a few hundred dollars, and it will be significantly faster than the fastest macs."

the G5 isnt a perfect gaming machine, becuase there arent any games out for it! regardless of how fast it is, all we have are a few ports that companies are gracious enough to port. and like i said a computer built for ~500 dollars should outperform the Dual 1.4 G4. my other posts also talk about how there is no positional sound on macs, etc. even if the framerates are there (and theyre not) , half the other features arent. Its a sad truth.

[docholiday]

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
G5 or not, the Mac is probably the worst of the 3 major operating platforms to game on.

In terms of selection, i totally agree with you;
in terms of performance, I don't. Just check out the Quake 3 Benchmarks on Apple's website.

[DeathMan]

So what games stand out as the ones you can't play. I keep hearing thre is no selection of games on the mac. The only games I've played (PC) are Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, Warcraft 3, Starcraft, Diablo, and Sim City. These are all available for the Mac, I think.

What games are everyone so let down about?

[SciFrog]

Baldur's Gate: Throne of Bhaal?

Half Life?

Icewindale II?

F1 championship 2003?

Battlefield 1942?

The toolset of NWN (the game is not even out yet after 1 year on the PC!) ?

Anyway if you want a mac gaming system the minimum right now is a 1.8Ghz G5 with Radeon 9600.

[CIA]

Not to mention MMORPG's. Granted "Evercrack" is finally comming to the Mac (I was a beta tester for both the PS2 version and the OSX version, guess which one I liked more.)

The BIG games come to the mac, ususally 6-8 months after the PC version. But there are a ton of really cool smaller games that are PC only.
It pains me to type it, but if you want a gaming rig, period, buy a PC or a console.
Multi-use rig? Go with a Mac.

[DaveNinja]

Originally posted by Cipher13:
Build a $400 Athlon, seriously...

how can this be done? seems too cheap to me...

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by docholiday:
In terms of selection, i totally agree with you;
in terms of performance, I don't. Just check out the Quake 3 Benchmarks on Apple's website.

The tests are a joke. There isnt a person on the planet other than Steve Jobs who will stand by the results of them. The Pentium 4 system that Apple put up scores over 100FPS higher with every other site that has benchmarked it.

And even if the FPS scores were equal between the Mac and PC, which they are not, I would still say that the PC is a substantially better gaming machine. AA on the Mac is a laughable.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by DaveNinja:
how can this be done?

By buying the parts and putting them together.

Right now you can get:

Athlon XP 1.46GHz 1700+ = $45
Fan = $5
Radeon 9000 = $65
512MB of Kingston DDR = $65
48x CD-RW = $40
Case = $30
80GB HD = $80.
Good Motherboard = $75
-----
$405.

[Eug Wanker]

For QIII, conference attendees are saying they get 375+ FPS with timedemo1 1024x768x32 at max settings. That's pretty good. It ain't the absolute highest I've seen, but it's getting up there.

A G5 will likely be a pretty good gamer. But like I said, it's far from being cheap.

A fast PC is the way to go (if you're not into consoles).

[11011001]

Athlon_System++;

So, have you decided what to get x user?

[DBvader]

Originally posted by docholiday:
In terms of selection, i totally agree with you;
in terms of performance, I don't. Just check out the Quake 3 Benchmarks on Apple's website.

thats the only one game that runs on par. but dont use one 5 year old game as proof of apples worthin the game market. whoever posted that is right, the mac gets the worst framerates of the three major platforms.

[The Placid Casual]

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
The tests are a joke. There isnt a person on the planet other than Steve Jobs who will stand by the results of them. The Pentium 4 system that Apple put up scores over 100FPS higher with every other site that has benchmarked it.

And even if the FPS scores were equal between the Mac and PC, which they are not, I would still say that the PC is a substantially better gaming machine. AA on the Mac is a laughable.

As an interesting aside...

Pretty much every other site, if you read the small print, also disables the sound on the PCs when they benchmark...

If the PC system is set as Apple describes, with the sound ON, the benchmarks are correct...

I would still get a console though, by Apple only heart just won't let a PC in the house!

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by The Placid Casual:
As an interesting aside...

Pretty much every other site, if you read the small print, also disables the sound on the PCs when they benchmark...

If the PC system is set as Apple describes, with the sound ON, the benchmarks are correct...

With systems that have onboard sound, turning the sound off can make a substantial difference in benchmarking since integrated audio systems draw off of the CPU. However, almost all custom built systems, especially those used by enthusiast sites to benchmark, have SBL/TurtleBeach or some other add in audio card that are much more self reliant which takes a lot of the weight off of the CPU.

Turning off the audio just doesnt make as much of a difference as it used to. And it certainly doesnt make enough of a difference to account for triple digit frame rate discrepancys.

[Mac Zealot]

Actually I dun care who says it. The $400 athlon is a bunch of bull *@#@.

Not to mention:

1. No monitor
2. No windows
3. No shipping

that puts you out about $300.

4. $30 for a case? Puh-leeze. Not unless it looks like a turd.

5. hard drives run $60-100
6. decent combo drive runs $120.

$600-700 for a decent PC that will run up with a mid end powermac g5

And that still doens't include ddr400, agp8x, sata, pci-x, and a handful of other things.

Not to mention it'll be a 32 bit machine.

Performance wise macs will be equal to or better then PCs 90% of the time. If you want a g4 specs go like this..
.
dual 800 = 1.8-2ghz P4/athlon 1800-2200xp

dual 1000 = 2.2-2.6ghz p4

dual 1.25 = 2.6-2.9ghz p4

that's basically what to expect.

Single 800 = 1.4ghz p4
Single 1000 = 1.8ghz p4
single 1200 = 2.0-2.2ghz p4 (max)

Help that works

[DBvader]

mac zealot, for games, i think you have the completly wrong idea. my Dual 867 doesnt hang in there with 1.4 P4s in the least.

and we werent talking about the other features of t he G5, its a great machine for sure. the fact of the matter is a 400 PC will have DDR400 and it also run at incredibley higher speeds than most macs. blame it on apple, blame it on the video card makers, blame it on the porters...etiher way, one thing is for sure: the fastest macs dont run games well. thats not what they are made for. if you think that G4s (even the 1.4) can hang with anything above 2GhZ, youre kidding yourself. there is too much optimization, too much great hardware, and too much of an actual reason to do games right on the PC for the mac to ever rival one.

if the G5 ends up being faster than PCs, great!

but chances are it wont be.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by Mac Zealot:
Actually I dun care who says it. The $400 athlon is a bunch of bull *@#@.

Not to mention:

1. No monitor
2. No windows
3. No shipping

1. The Mac doesnt have a monitor either.
2. I, nor any enthusiast I have ever known, has paid for Windows.
3. Actually, shipping was included. You might want to head over to NewEgg.com...

4. $30 for a case? Puh-leeze. Not unless it looks like a turd.

We've gone from gaming to aesthetics?

And that still doens't include ddr400, agp8x, sata, pci-x, and a handful of other things.

Actually, most PC boards between $75 and $125 support DDR 400, have USB 2, BlueTooth, AGP 8x, and some even FireWire. S-ATA is on most boards between $90 and $125

You might want to read into things before running your mouth.

Not to mention it'll be a 32 bit machine.

This thread is about, spell it with me:

G
A
M
I
N
G

Very good.

Performance wise macs will be equal to or better then PCs 90% of the time. If you want a g4 specs go like this..
.
dual 800 = 1.8-2ghz P4/athlon 1800-2200xp

dual 1000 = 2.2-2.6ghz p4

dual 1.25 = 2.6-2.9ghz p4

that's basically what to expect.

Single 800 = 1.4ghz p4
Single 1000 = 1.8ghz p4
single 1200 = 2.0-2.2ghz p4 (max)

Help that works

That is the stupid thing I have ever heard in my life.

Dont get me wrong, I love Apple and the Mac, and am probably a much more passionate Macintosh user than you. But you and people like you are the reason that the PC world looks down on us as a bunch of know-nothing fools who play with our fruity toy machines.

While I did come from the PC world, and am now satisfied that there is little reason for me to go back, being a Mac user does not mean I will ever be contempt as ignorant to any platform. You seem to be taking the opposite approach.

And just to reiterate, this thread is about gaming experience, not Photoshop tests.

[RMXO]

Originally posted by x user:
I might be looking for a gameing machine soon. What would seem to the best deal out there right now? A quicksilver with a Radion 9000 or so sounds kinda tempting. I really HATE the MDD look. I already have a monitor, I think a Dual 800 or single 867/933 would be perfect. What do you guys think?

we all know that the Mac isnt the greatest gaming system but if he wants then lets try to help him out.

i agree w/ CheesePuff. get a cheap system that supports 133Mhz RAM, 2x-4x AGP & upgrade the CPU.

whats your budget BTW?

[MindFad]

Originally posted by Mac Zealot:
Performance wise macs will be equal to or better then PCs 90% of the time. If you want a g4 specs go like this..
.
dual 800 = 1.8-2ghz P4/athlon 1800-2200xp

dual 1000 = 2.2-2.6ghz p4

dual 1.25 = 2.6-2.9ghz p4

that's basically what to expect.

Single 800 = 1.4ghz p4
Single 1000 = 1.8ghz p4
single 1200 = 2.0-2.2ghz p4 (max)

Help that works

Hot damn. And What planet are you from again?

Anyway, back here on Earth, the dual 2GHz G5 is going to be a gaming monster, period. I'm much more excited about seeing how DOOM III and Halo and UT2K3 are going to play. Carmack and crew are going to optimize the hell out of DOOM III as it is, as is to be expected, and it'll in all certainty be dual-processor aware, like Quake 3. That is what I'm excited about. It is not going to run badly on the top end machine, that's for sure. Plus Steve's promise of 3GHz within 12 months (in dual form, no doubt).... Gaming is looking up on the Mac, and hopefully the same goes for future game selection, too. It's good to see.

[chrisutley]

I have done lots of research into this area, for the specifc purpose of building a game PC. I agree with the folks that estimate about $700 to build a good Athlon system that will last you a couple years before you need to upgrade it. You can go a little cheaper, but you will take a considerable hit in performance.

[Scotttheking]

I'd budget $1K for a gaming PC, myself.
$350ish for a radeon 9800 pro, $200 for an athlon proc in the 2800 range, then $450 for everything else. That's pushing it, but doable, assuming you already have a good monitor, of course. Also, windows does cost a bit. I'm lucky in that regard, I have a nice unlimited license copy of win2k courtesy of MS.