Quake Tests
So is taking care of your virtual family possible on a Mac? Absolutely. The Sims 2 is ported very well and the different extensions are easy to get on the Mac. The version is practically identical to that of the PC version. The only problem is that it is slow on the MacBook, but The Sims 2 can still be interesting for its quirks and jerky animation.
The last test is with Mac OS X and the influence of the virtualisation with Quake III Arena. “Why a game that is so old?” you might well think. Firstly: because it uses OpenGL on the two platforms. Secondly, because it was originally made for the PowerPC, but only Intel versions exist. And thirdly: because this game works with nearly all the solutions of our tests.
The test: methodology and results
All the tests were carried out in 1024 x 768 (unlike our other tests) with the settings to the max as well as the most recent patch. The first solution tested is in Windows in native, with Boot Camp. The second is with Mac OS X. We tested the basic PowerPC version (G3) to check if the emulation via Rosetta works. Then we went with an optimised version for the G4s (more precisely for the Altivec, an SIMD instruction game). On the Macs in PowerPC G4, we can gain between 10 and 20% of performances simply by changing the execution. Finally, a version compiled for the Intel processors was used. Then we tested Quake III in a virtual machine with VMware Fusion, then with Parallels. Finally we used Crossover and Cider to test the emulation programs.
All the tests were done on the 15” MacBook Pro, as VMware only activates the 3D with Windows XP SP2 (used on this model).
As we can see the performance differences are vast. Between the native Windows version and VMware, we find a 30 fold difference. The OS X version of Quake III, considered to be optimised, pales in comparison to the Windows version. Rosetta, Apple’s PowerPC emulation tool, manages Altivec well: we gain about 7% in performance. VMware doesn’t let you play the game, while Parallels is a little more respectable while at the same time not blowing anyone away. CrossOver does very well; the emulation is relatively fast. There is still the problem of Cider. Like with Quake 4 the game launches but the keyboard and mouse don’t work. This really stifled our attempt to actually test it… In the end, Quake III Area, an old game (it dates to 1999) is a bit greedy, we realise that it is unreasonable to expect to play it on a virtual machine.
To finish our tour of Mac games, we tried three recent games in their demo forms. The games are Crysis, Unreal Tournament III and Call of Duty 4. Of course, we only tested these in Windows. As soon as the demo for Unreal Tournament III for Mac will be available for Mac, (beginning of 2008 apparently) this page will be updated.
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The Bottom Line (corrected): Macs = No good for games (maybe battleships and doom II)
Do you mean ultimate? (as far as I'm aware there is no "ultra" version of vista) and was it ultimate 64bit or 32bit?
A very weak and uninformed review. The MacBook and MacBookPro are not designed for gaming, but for media and business use. So why test them? The IMacs that can play games very well, Just search in Youtube.com for "Imac crysis" and watch the videos. Why did they use Vista? everyone knows that it creates a huge performance hit for games, that why Mac Gamers who use boot camp use Windows XP. The bottom of the range MacPro was excluded? why? because it might have shown a result that the authors didn't like? it only costs $2299. Not $3000 and comes with the HD2600 XT card not the 7300 mentioned in the article. I guess the article was written some ago before 10.5.1/2 as both updates have enhanced features that benefit gaming and in bootcamp you can put any Windows graphics card in. I guess that Pierre already had his conclusion and wrote an article to back it up. Very poor composition, certainly not constructive journalism! Why not find someone who knows about Mac's to write an article on getting the best out of gaming on a mac, just pop along to http://forums.macrumors.com/forumdisplay.php?f=125 there are lots of people there who could tell you differently. Overall a disappointing article for its lack of accurate information and depth.
Pretty bad review....
There is a 256 version of the MacBook Pro, which if you are a gamer would be the one you go for...
You CAN scale the res on all those machines, and even have the apps autoswitch them, so I don't understand your comment that the Mac cannot do resolution scaling so you had to go with full res...
While I agree you should not be buying a Mac if what you want is gaming, this article was just uninformed....
Good points above - a proper review should use the latest machines.
I still found the review very interesting because it directly compares the performance with Parallels and VMWare to OS X native and Windows native. One of the big selling points of Parallels (which I bought) is that it emulates accelerated 3D graphics in Windows. And this review shows that this is just marketing hot air as that 3D acceleration makes the difference between 5 FPS and 1 FPS, 5 times as fast in marketing speak, still completely unusable in the real world.
So, big thanks for making the effort!
PS: I am not a native english speaker myself but the english in this article is pretty hard to understand in places. I am sure you'd find english-speaking volunteers to edit / proof read this...
Face it, the MAC is a far better computer because it has support for a far better operating system. Windows is just BS, as you will see quite easily for yourself if you actually use the computer and don't just play games. Life is short folks, do yourself a favor and give it a try. Be warned though, it's very true, once you go Mac you don't go back.
But some readers jump to conclusions (e.g. "Bottomline, Macs are no good for games"--geez did you read this at all?), and even the writers of this article have many misconceptions--it is obvious you are out of your element a bit. But I applaud your efforts nonetheless, don't get me wrong.
Windows is basically 'owned' now by OS X, OS X has Windows running in a window, or available at the touch of a button. And there are plenty of instances of "It is even faster, generally, than on Windows."
Thanks for pointing out that even WINDOWS runs better on Mac! Which it does. And, you don't have to rely on Windows horrible and almost complete lack of security.
Macs suck
What we wanted was a more direct comparison between hardware and OS. Macs use PC hardware now so the comparison should be much easier. I suspect Tom is being paid, forced or coerced into not showing us this important comparison. Macs suck but I suspect their OS is far less addled than vista.
Are They Any Good For Gaming? The reveiw is flawed in some ways yes, but the definitive answer is that if you want to play the latest and best games, why get a mac?
I had a mac, and I'll never go back...to mac that is. I can buy 3 pc laptops with similar internal hardware for the price of a mac nowadays. Macs are to computers what Starbucks is to coffee. The folks that drink it can come up with all kinds of reasons why they are right to pay 3 times as much for their 'super special' coffee. More power too ya, but seriously, macworld...wake up. Macs just can't compete.
Compete to what Gryphyn, compete to what?