PC games ran through Boot Camp Windows

[DiverDave]

I’m looking for feedback from anyone who has installed Windows with Boot Camp and plays PC games on it. How is the performance? What do you consider the pros and cons? Is It easy to boot\reboot on whichever OS you want? How much did you partition? If it matters, I‘d be doing this on a newly purchased Mac.

 

[MacInWin]

If it matters, I‘d be doing this on a newly purchased Mac.

It does matter. Is this new Mac Intel or Apple Silicon?

 

[Raz0rEdge]

To Jake's point, if it's an Intel based Mac, then you can use Boot Camp to partition a portion of the drive for Windows and once installed it's a true Windows installation, so the games should be fine.

Be aware, that any game that makes specifics demands of graphic cards (usually high end) will not work in the ultra high resolutions, but lower.

If your primary purpose of installing Windows is for gaming, then Boot Camp is the only true way. You would reboot the machine on each reboot choose to boot into Windows or macOS.

If you purchase an Apple Silicon based Mac, disregard everything I just said since it's doesn't apply.

But, if gaming is your goal, I would highly recommend a gaming PC as opposed to using a Mac to serve both purposes. The Mac will do fine with all casual and some high end games, but you'll find the gaming PC is cheaper and easier to run.

 

[DiverDave]

Thank you both! I currently have an older Mac and a borderline POS Windows PC and was hoping to buy a new Mac as my new all-in-one. It sounds like that may not work as envisioned.

 

[MacInWin]

Thank you both! I currently have an older Mac and a borderline POS Windows PC and was hoping to buy a new Mac as my new all-in-one. It sounds like that may not work as envisioned.

Not if you are a serious gamer. The new Macs come with the Apple Silicon chips, named, currently M1 and variants (Pro, Max, etc.) Windows does not run natively on the M1 silicon. There is a beta, unsupported version of Windows that apparently will run, but MS doesn't support it. I suspect gaming will push it to the limits of the OS. You COULD try it, I suppose, but then if it doesn't work, you won't get support from MS for any problems. I guess you have to decide if the uses for the Mac exceed the uses of the Windows and make a decision. Or, you could get the new Mac Mini (not too expensive) and an el-cheapo PC for games???

 

[DiverDave]

Not if you are a serious gamer. The new Macs come with the Apple Silicon chips, named, currently M1 and variants (Pro, Max, etc.) Windows does not run natively on the M1 silicon. There is a beta, unsupported version of Windows that apparently will run, but MS doesn't support it. I suspect gaming will push it to the limits of the OS. You COULD try it, I suppose, but then if it doesn't work, you won't get support from MS for any problems. I guess you have to decide if the uses for the Mac exceed the uses of the Windows and make a decision. Or, you could get the new Mac Mini (not too expensive) and an el-cheapo PC for games???

Thank you

 

[Raz0rEdge]

The probably with the above is that you aren't running Windows natively on there, you'd have to do within a virtual environment and that's not conducive to gaming.

So again, if you're going to purchase a brand spanking new mac and it's M1-based, that isn't conducive for Windows gaming. You'll have to go with an Intel based Mac for that and then you're limiting the life of the Mac..