[sanford]

This questions involves games but really is more related to capabilities of the new iMacs, so I thought I'd put it here.

The system requirements for Bioshock (Windows, of course, but an iMac can boot into XP) are:

Minimum Requirements

CPU - Pentium 4 2.4GHz Single Core processor
System RAM - 1GB
Video Card - Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 128MB RAM (NVIDIA 6600 or better/ATI X1300 or better, excluding ATI X1550).
Sound Card - 100% direct X 9.0c compatible sound card
Hard disc space - 8GB free space

Recommended Requirements
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo processor
System RAM - 2GB
Video card - DX9 - Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 512MB RAM (NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT or better) / DX10 - NVIDIA GeForce 8600 or better
Sound Card - Sound Blaster X-Fi series (Optimized for use with Creative Labs EAX ADVANCED HD 4.0 or EAX ADVANCED HD 5.0 compatible sound cards)

And the specs on the new lowest end iMac are:

2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1GB memory
250GB hard drive1
8x double-layer SuperDrive
ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB memory

Would this be enough to run Bioshock as specified above under Windows XP (Home)? We could step up to the next 20-inch configuration with a better video card and slightly faster Intel Core 2 Duo, but since beyond Bioshock the base model will suit all our needs, I'd rather not put the extra money into it if I can avoid it.

Yeah, I know if I want to buy a whole system just to play Bioshock, I'd be better off cost-wise to either build a PC or buy an Xbox 360. But we don't want a PC and I've owned an Xbox 360, which flaked, heated whole rooms (nice in winter, not so in summer), made lots of noise, burned up (not scratched, clouded over the disc) several games and DVD movies before finally dying about a month or two out of warranty with a failure conveniently not covered by the new, extended three-year warranty.

Besides, my wife and kids are using a Cube as their Mac. It needs an upgrade, anyway -- playing the Windows version of Bioshock is just perhaps the push for me to go ahead and get one of the new iMacs.

Thanks if you know if the game specs fit the iMac specs booted into Windows.

[jamil5454]

It would run Bioshock, but the graphics card would easily be the bottleneck, especially at the native resolution of 1680x1050. You'll be much happier with your games if you got the better 20" model. Of course, you could always just use the cash to buy an xbox 360 core system and Bioshock for the 360 instead, and never have to worry about requirements.

[CheesePuff]

It will run quite a bit better if you get the high end 20" model, because of the faster graphics card, faster processor and then upgrade the RAM with a 1 GB chip for a total of 2 GB.

[sanford]

Originally Posted by jamil5454 

It would run Bioshock, but the graphics card would easily be the bottleneck, especially at the native resolution of 1680x1050. You'll be much happier with your games if you got the better 20" model. Of course, you could always just use the cash to buy an xbox 360 core system and Bioshock for the 360 instead, and never have to worry about requirements.

Thanks. Sounds like it will run but not particularly well. As for the Xbox, from my above post "... and I've owned an Xbox 360, which flaked, heated whole rooms (nice in winter, not so in summer), made lots of noise, burned up (not scratched, clouded over the disc) several games and DVD movies before finally dying about a month or two out of warranty with a failure conveniently not covered by the new, extended three-year warranty."

I still have a PS3 and don't have to worry about specs *or* hardware failure and poor build and design quality -- same reason I own a Mac and iPod and Apple TV. Bioshock, which may or very well may not come to PS3, struck me as quite interesting. At any rate, I read more reviews, all of them stellar, after I posted my question, and in several of them they use the term "interactive fiction", which makes it a non-starter for me. You're to make various decisions, asking yourself "moral" questions, which effect the flow and outcome of the game. Not for me. Without going all into it, I deal with fiction all day long, and when I sit down to play a game the only question I want to ask myself is "Can I kill that with the sniper rifle?" Of course some people will love this game and should, but this sort of thing for me like working all day long, then going home and doing more work as a hobby. I'm a pretty low-brow game fan: you know, Pac-Man with much better graphics and sound, and big guns.