Games, Macs and other facts
Hello, reader!
I wrote this post weeks ago but I was waiting for the latest iMac refresh to check the changes but just let get to the post!
A few years back, the Mac wasn’t seen as a viable gaming platform. Such a small user base (compared to PC’s), different hardware and software layers kept game publishers away from the Mac. That made all sense back then! If I had a software house, I wouldn’t spend time and money developing a product that would only sell a few copies.
As time passed, the game changed a little: Apple decided to change the hardware platform from IBM PPC to Intel and with that, even lacking game titles for OS X, the ability to install and run Windows brought some fresh air to Mac users on what running games is concerned. However, installing an OS which you may not like, loosing disk space, rebooting your machine to log into an OS that your machine wasn’t really made for just to run a bunch of games is far from being an optimal solution. After all, if you have a Mac, you have it for some reason. Mainly because you don’t like Windows at all! But, suddenly, Mac users, through Windows, had access to a lot of new games that they never have had before. Well… as long as your Mac’s GPU could handle them.
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Here rises another problem: graphics performance. Even today, you can’t update your Mac’s graphic guts at the same pace you can on a regular desktop PC. Every few months, AMD and Nvidia are releasing new cards that PC gamers can buy to upgrade their PC. Currently, there is only one Mac model where you can replace the graphics card: the Mac Pro. This machine is built and sold as professional workstation mainly used for content creation, be it music, graphics, video or science applications which demand superior processing power, among other higher hardware specs. As you can expect, the Mac Pro is the most expensive Mac available. Even if money is not problem and you can buy one of this beasts, the number of graphics card options available for you is very small because PC graphics cards don’t work on the Mac Pro, at least out of the box. (I don’t know if it’s possible through firmware hacks to make a PC card run on a Mac, feel free to enlighten me on that on the comments section “beloooowwww”). To this adds the fact that, even being able to install more than one card, nor Nvidia SLI nor AMD CrossFire are supported on the Mac Pro.
On the software side of this subject, recently came Steam. Through Steam, the number of good games natively running on Mac grew substantially. Many are already available, some more will come in the future and these are great news for the Mac user.
Some might say that one is stupid if he or she buys a Mac to play games but this is not about stupidity, is about available options. I use both Macs and Windows PC’s and I prefer Mac OS X so, why shouldn’t I be given the choice of playing the games I like on the machine I like, on the OS I like? The GPU thing still is a problem, however: you can’t change the graphics card on your iMac, Mac mini nor on your Apple notebook (but you can’t do that either on any other regular laptop, at least easily).
So, laptops aside, I guess we are kind of stuck in a cycle: only one model (expensive) with replaceable graphics available which leads to lack of choices on cards which leads to inability to run some of the most GPU demanding games of today which leads to lack of interest from AAA game publishers. If you have an iMac you can play some games with good performance as long as your GPU isn’t outdated (Let me remind you that the GPU inside your iMac is a mobile version, just like the ones in notebooks: they don’t have the same performance as a desktop version). As soon as this happens you still have a great machine for everything else but for gaming. Currently, the only upgrade a user can make on an iMac, the easy way, is memory. If you want to switch you hard drive you’ll have to take your machine to an Apple store or some other store or repair partner, replace the graphics card is an option now but only if it burns out. The latest iMacs have a detachable graphics card but I think this is only to make the repairs cheaper because the whole motherboard won’t be replaced if only the graphics card is malfunctioning. I don’t believe Apple will provide an option to replace it with newer ones when the next refresh hits the market. Long story short: your iMac will stay the same as long as you keep it.
For many years, some Mac users ask for an headless mid-range Mac. People on forums and rumor sites like to call it the xMac. The xMac in the vision of the ones of would like it to become reality, is a desktop computer, a tower a little smaller than the Mac Pro but within which a user could change the graphics card, add more memory or change the hard disk. In my opinion, the processor could be soldered on board to make users buy a new machine from time to time . I believe the introduction of such machine would boost some of desktop Mac sales (and yes, it would cannibalize some iMac sales, but I’m convinced that after sometime it would justify the investment), being user serviceable would get attention from graphics card makers, which would made the Mac more interesting as game platform for gamers and for publishers. I think this is the only way to break the aforementioned cycle. And yes, I would still buy Apple peripherals, be it the keyboard, mouse or the LED Display. Some would rather buy a cheaper monitor but the whole point here is give to Mac users some more choices. I know Apple is a control freak but it could always certify which parts would be compatible with it’s machines, keep control of which hardware is appropriate giving users more options.
Well… that said, I guess I’ll wrap this one up now. Just to conclude, I still have hope for the xMac or for a Mac Pro with mainstream hardware (core i5/i7, non ECC memory, replaceable graphics). See you next post.
Logan
