ScientificMethod, on 20 June 2012 - 08:13 PM, said:
All fanboy arguments aside, how does a mac user defend spending so much more on their computers? All other variables controlled for, the mac will still be considerably more pricy. Why? (Other than Steve Jobs could get away with it)
Well, boys and girls, there are more important applications than games, believe it or not.
Is Mac hardware overpriced? Yes, but some of us need an OS that . . .
A) is robust and goes through a stable development cycle, which is not Windows;
B ) can do more than one thing at once, which is also not Windows (what did Microsoft tell you? You should ask an actual software engineer or information scientist);
C) actually works when doing "mission-critical" stuff like color correction for publication, for example;
D) is not a virus magnet.
While there have been professional applications I have found, particularly in publishing, that utilize Mac desktop machines well, I'd never get one of those for myself. If I have a desktop, it's going to be a gaming machine; an iMac is awfully pricey for what I need.
My everyday professional machine is a laptop; for this, I would never use a Windows-based machine: PC laptops are sad, embarrassing pieces of unreliable plastic cheese, and no one could spend 5 minutes on one after having used a MacBook; (yes, I know: someone will chime in with their $3000 Alienware laptop and say I'm "wrong," without seeing the irony).
I used PCs exclusively from 1985 until 2008, then I switched to Mac; this switch corresponded to my growing need for a laptop. My work got easier (much easier), my mobile computing problems disappeared, and I'd never go back, ever. Those who imagine that Macs are just ostentatious PCs that simply don't play games are either not doing serious work on their laptop, are envious, or are so massively confused about computers that they don't know or cannot tell the difference.
All of that being said, (in stark opposition to the frankly lugubrious back-slapping going on here), playing games on a Bootcamped MacBook is less than ideal and comes with its own set of problems (some of which are the result of the many issues Windows has generally---should I really have to set my PCI latency timing manually?---and some of which have to do with the immense amount of heat that the MacBook can generate when gaming).
So, you can try Bootcamping: it might work OK; it might not, but it's better (and less of a headache) to build a dedicated gaming rig: I've come up with something decent for around $650 (Phenom II 965; Radeon 6850; 8GB RAM; 128GB SSD) that I think will do OK with this and other games.
I've been struggling running games since 2008, with varied success; I'm not convinced that the intense pressure games can put on your hardware is particularly good for your laptop, ultimately, and I completely understand why a developer wouldn't port to OS X.
Just my $.02: good luck OP.
Edited by Major Bill Curtis, 20 June 2012 - 09:13 PM.