Mac gaming

Not sure if I'm posting in the correct area, but I was just wondering if someone could answer a question for me:

Why is it that games that are available on both Mac and PC seem to run better on lower spec macs than PCs? I mean you wouldn't even try to play Call of Duty on a PC laptop with a 32mb video card, but it's quite playable on my 867 powerbook! (with it's 32mb ATI chip)
If anyone knows why, I'd be really curious to find out! And I know PCs suck, so you don't have to point out the obvious

You can't really compare the specs between mac's and pcs

trpnmonkey41 said:

You can't really compare the specs between mac's and pcs

Click to expand...

True, but there's no way in **** you'd be able to play Halo on a $700 PC, but it looks great on my buddy's Mac Mini.
I'm just amazed at how low-end or old Macs perform with graphic type applications as compared to low-end or old PCs.

its always been that way...

that is the chips different. usually a game wont need alot of data to be processed, mostly you need graphe data to be processed. mac have a hugh adv. on graph processing

Nihil_ said:

Not sure if I'm posting in the correct area, but I was just wondering if someone could answer a question for me:

Why is it that games that are available on both Mac and PC seem to run better on lower spec macs than PCs? I mean you wouldn't even try to play Call of Duty on a PC laptop with a 32mb video card, but it's quite playable on my 867 powerbook! (with it's 32mb ATI chip)
If anyone knows why, I'd be really curious to find out! And I know PCs suck, so you don't have to point out the obvious

Click to expand...

Ummm, what "32mb video card" are you talking about? The amount of memory a video card has is just a single factor in its overall performance.

I mean imagine if someone tried to compare a system with a 256MB Radeon 9250 to a system with a 256MB Radeon X850 XT PE and just left it at that.

The results would be ridiculous, and meaningless.

Several low to mid-range PC laptops have integrated graphics with a dedicated AGP aperture appropriated from the significantly slower system memory.

Any independent video card will blow away integrated video; it's not even worth talking about.

Otherwise, I've had just about the opposite experience with games on Mac, and so has the majority of the gaming community. The Mac platform isn't exactly the first thing you think of when you think of pop gaming.

And I'd be interested to find out why you think "PC's suck"

Nihil_ said:

True, but there's no way in **** you'd be able to play Halo on a $700 PC, but it looks great on my buddy's Mac Mini.
I'm just amazed at how low-end or old Macs perform with graphic type applications as compared to low-end or old PCs.

Click to expand...

Interesting. My $700 PC built TWO years ago spank(ed/s) my iBook G4 in gaming, and I bet it would spank any iBook/iMac/eMac/mini. Granted, $700 two years ago is about the equivalent of $740 today once you factor inflation into the picture, however if I would have saved that $700 and bought a PC today I would only have the buying power of about $660. Also, the price on most of the parts of that PC have practically halved since then, so it could be built for much cheaper.

The Specs Were:
$55 Aspire X-Dreamer II Black Case
$82 ASUS A7N8X Deluxe Rev.2
$82 AMD Athlon XP "Barton" 2500+
$160 1GB (2x512MB) OCZ Black
$190 ATI Radeon 9800 NP 128MB
$116 160GB Maxtor SATA 7200RPM 8MB HDD

None of these parts were spectacular at the time either, it was a budget build.

Given all of this, I'd still rather use an iBook/iMac/eMac/mini over a PC for WORK. The only time I'd rather be on a PC is to play games, which I hardly do anymore so my need for a PC is pretty much negated other than for servers for which I'd rather use Linux.

[edit] Feel free to correct my math if I made a mistake

I actually have to say that I've found the Mac gaming experience to be very enjoyable. Granted, I spent a lot on a high-end system, but it does seem as though macs get an unfair bad reputation as far as gaming is concerned. Just seeing how much my friend's G4 867 Mhz single-processor powermac could do in gaming is what finally sold me on switching. For years, the bad reputation of mac gaming had kept me away.

To each his own, but I love to game on my powermac, and I ain't lookin' back!

I don't so much think it is the hardware, I think gaming has more to do with the game developers. What I mean is, most all games are released for the pc and then ported to the mac (granted there are games made solely for the mac, but most are made for just pc or are like the warcraft III and released with support for both platforms.) That being said, pcs tend you get the beta releases of games (no I don't mean the beta tests, I mean the actual releases...I call them beta because it seems like most all games somewhere within a few months after their releases get a big patch!) and so the reason I think some games run better on macs is because of optimization that is done when games are ported to the mac. Heck, a while back I saw a fps game that was only a few megs, but looked every bit as good as some levels from some of the top fps'ers out there...the key was that that little game was highly optimized with a very good code base. It seems that more and more games are just pushed through production to get them out on shelves with the attitude that "oh well, we will patch it later." So in short (sorry to ramble)..I think the main reason some games run better on a mac platform is becuase of code optimizatoin and such...'course I could be wrong! Also, until there is a huge shift in the gaming arena from windows to mac, I don't think much will change. Anywho, just my 2 cents!

I am so tired.