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-Martin · Apr 8, 2006, 12:20 PM

So, now that Apple has released Boot Camp for the Intel-based macs, what games are people able to run on their macs? My 2ghz/256/1gigRAM MBP should be arriving on Tuesday, and I just wanted someone to excite me with stories of how their favorite PC games now run on their macs. Or, you could let me know if they barely run at all

Thanks!

mduell · Apr 8, 2006, 01:27 PM

Any Windows game, and they all run just as well as they would on the same hardware from any other company.

Reportedly WoW runs ~30% faster on Windows on than OSX, on the same hardware.

-Martin · Apr 8, 2006, 01:29 PM

thanks.......looks like I might have to pick up WoW again hehe

zerock · Apr 8, 2006, 01:44 PM

Ain't WoW a hybrid cd? (it works on both mac and pc)

kick52 · Apr 8, 2006, 02:41 PM

i thought windows would run at least a bit slower.

it has to translate a few lines of code...

baw · Apr 8, 2006, 03:00 PM

Originally Posted by kick52

i thought windows would run at least a bit slower.

it has to translate a few lines of code...

What?

kick52 · Apr 8, 2006, 03:06 PM

it had drivers for video cards and things didnt it?

icruise · Apr 8, 2006, 06:42 PM

There is no translation of any kind going on. Windows is running on native hardware, therefore it has exactly the same performance as a similarly specced Windows computer. The only issue might be the stability of the drivers, which some people have said could use some work.

But anyway, I've played The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Doom 3 on my 17" iMac and they play just great. Quite a bit better than my Shuttle XPC with 3200+ Athlon processor and Radeon 9800 PRO video card. I pushed Doom 3 up to 1920 x 1200 (on my Cinema display) with "high" quality settings, and it was still very playable. I got between 10-20 fps, which may not sound good but it looked surprisingly smooth. Better than my "real" PC running it at 1280 x 768 (with the shadows and some other settings turned off).

Super Mario · Apr 9, 2006, 05:44 AM

Originally Posted by Icruise

There is no translation of any kind going on. Windows is running on native hardware, therefore it has exactly the same performance as a similarly specced Windows computer.

There is a small amount of translation. The firmware of the graphics card is still a Mac version. Apple's ATI drivers are different from the one that is available to the public as the On Mac crowd know too well. They are translating Windows firmware calls to one the Mac firmware can understand. That's the only translation going on. It doesn't effect performance for most stuff and just a tiny little bit in 3D.

-Martin · Apr 9, 2006, 08:14 PM

Hey thanks guys for commenting, and feel free to keep it going.....I am so siked about getting the MBP since now I won't have to stop playing my PC games

angelp75 · Apr 9, 2006, 09:09 PM

So how come I can't run the same game on a 2 GHZ PC with reasonable amounts of RAM and a decent graphics card and a mac 2 GHZ can?

mduell · Apr 11, 2006, 01:18 AM

Originally Posted by 128shot

So how come I can't run the same game on a 2 GHZ PC with reasonable amounts of RAM and a decent graphics card and a mac 2 GHZ can?

I guess you missed that whole Mhz myth thing... some chips are more efficient than others. A 2Ghz Core Duo PC won't have any problem with games a 2Ghz Mac, based on any chip, can play.