Gaming experience with a Mac

[Juliet Must Die]

Hello fellow Lurkers.

As the topic title suggests i just want to know if War III and Diablo II are playable on a Mac. I know that there is a Mac version of the game of course, but what really interests me is if they are playable without any flaws like crashes and weird lockups - I've heard that Mac's arent good for playing so i thought I'd check.
I've also read the system requirements for a Mac, but it usually takes a little more if the games aren't supposed to run choppy, so if someone could please state a list of requirements that are recommended for optimal gameplay that would be very nice.

Thanks in advance

/Juliet Must Die

[Occhidiangela]

I have been playing Diablo II with Hawkmoon and Doc for 2 or 3 years, they are MAC users, and seem to do alright.

Occhi

[NuurAbSaal]

Both games are perfectly playable with any current and most (especially DII) older (couple of years) Macs. I own a 1.6 GHz G5 with the (sub-)standard GeForce FX 5200 and I can play WCIII:FT with all settings on max with absolutetly no slowdown even with a huge number of units onscreen. Most G4s should handle both games really well.

I've heard that Mac's arent good for playing so i thought I'd check.

This is bull. Number of available games and waiting for a (possibly bad, see DII, Halo!! :( ) port are (in my experience) the only negative aspects of Mac gaming and you can hardly blame your computer for those. You have maybe 1/100 of the trouble of PC folks trying to get games to run with different hardware configurations, driver issues, viruses, etc..

And your operating system is far superior, of course :)

Greetings

Nuur

[Bun-Bun]

I ran D2/LoD and War1/2/3 (and Civ3, and the Myst series, Myth and a bunch more) on a 500 MHz G4 for years. Rock-solid, no graphics lag once I got updated video drivers. Your information is rather incorrect.

On my current dual G5, D2 runs just fine. There's really no difference in gameplay, the G4 was plenty fast enough. Any Mac made recently should do D2 and War3 easily. I'd recommend at least 512MB RAM for any OS X Mac for any purpose, though.

My only beef is that the G5 won't run D1 in Classic mode. :( Just too old I suppose.

And for whatever it's worth, my current box with a Radeon 9600 Pro card works just dandy with World of Warcraft. :P

[Mavfin]

I can run Warcraft 1/2/3, Diablo I/II just fine on a Mac. Currently playing Warbirds all the time on a Mac. Did have to find a surplus PC for TeamSpeak, but no big deal.

I think tonight my squaddies and I are going to take over the bombing title from the Menacing Ferrets. On a Mac. :o :)



No spyware, viruses almost nonexistent........

Love it. Work on PCs all day anyhow.

[Sword_of_Doom]

I played Diablo II on my iMac (233 megahertz, 4 gig hard drive, video card (can't remember)) for years with no problems. I have not played Warcraft III but Warcraft II worked fine with my above specs.

[Guest]

Macs don't come with 2 button mice, so thats an extra 50 dollars for a decent one. Also, they are a lot more expensive, and their technology is a wee bit behind... I don't think they've crossed the 3 ghz barrier yet, and the most powerful video card is like a 9800.

I played D2 on my 350mhz Imac. I couldn't run it at 800x600 without it lagging during some parts (bhaal, lister, etc), and an occasional hitch in framerate.

[Yrrek]

Uuh, where do you buy your mice? My mouse cost me $19 off of NewEgg. It is also a optical-wheel mouse.

[Ajax]

Given the quality of your posts, i find it both amusing and unsurprising that you are getting ripped off. Yrrek is correct--you can get a decent multi-button mouse for around $20.

You also show your ignorance when you throw out numbers. It is true that Macs have lower processor speeds than the pentium line, but to a great extent Ghz rating is irrelevant when comparing processors across different chip families.

And as for the cost, we have a saying about the lowest bidder...

[NuurAbSaal]

edited - remember Lemming's post

-Griselda

[Doc]

iMacs are NOT gaming machines. You can play games, yes, but they are not gaming rigs. They are internet terminals. Plain and simple. Asking an iMac to be a smoking gaming rig is like asking a Geo Metro to be a (Insert fav race car here)

Want a gaming rig... Get a tower. Mine for example, is a G4 533 Dualie. Mhz means nothing. I have lots of folks that have the latest and greatest peecees tell me all the time that my rig blows the doors right off what they use. And it does. Gig of ram, 80 gig master drive, dual 40 gig drives in a RAID array, still has stock video card, whatever that was, need to upgrade that someday. Not much makes it choke. It's solid, dependable, crashes once in a blue moon, and is, with out a doubt, one of the finest machines I have ever used in my long history of computing.

[Guest]

Uuh, where do you buy your mice? My mouse cost me $19 off of NewEgg. It is also a optical-wheel mouse.

Any 20 dollar mouse cant have more than a few hundred DPI. A 800 DPI+ mouse costs at least 40 dollars.

The MX510, which is the most commonly used mouse by the CPL, sports 800 dpi, and one of the best contours I've ever felt. Also has 8 buttons. 50 dollars.

The Razer Boomslang features a whopping 2000 DPI and costs 60 dollars.

Sorry, but I don't think I could game on your cheap mice :P

Edit:

I'm sure your mice serve for daily purposes, but for those of us who take our sports seriously, an uber mouse is essential.

[Guest]

Want a gaming rig... Get a tower. Mine for example, is a G4 533 Dualie. Mhz means nothing. I have lots of folks that have the latest and greatest peecees tell me all the time that my rig blows the doors right off what they use. And it does. Gig of ram, 80 gig master drive, dual 40 gig drives in a RAID array, still has stock video card, whatever that was, need to upgrade that someday. Not much makes it choke. It's solid, dependable, crashes once in a blue moon, and is, with out a doubt, one of the finest machines I have ever used in my long history of computing.

Can a 533 mhz really run games that require 1 ghz of processing power? :huh: My friend was able to run doom 3 on a 1.4 ghz computer (100 mhz below minimum system reqs) but 500 mhz seems like quite a stretch...

[Yrrek]

What do you use 8 buttons for? My 4 buttons are more than I need, and I game quite frequently.

[Doc]

Is Doom III out on the Mac already? Last I checked, those specs were for the peecee boxes and their poorly done inefficient code. Quick question, doesn't Doom III have M$ bits like the direct 3d or what ever it is? Bloatware? Is it even an issue yet? I don't think DIII has been ported yet.

Macs usually have lower system reqs. At least that has been my experience. I can remember running games a long time ago that took a Pentium chip peecee side on a 030 or 040 Mac.

I can run most FPS type games with all the bells and whistles and graphical wizbang effects, usually at 1024x768 (I like that resolution, easy on the eyes) and most of the time still get frames in the 3 digit range. 100+ fps.

A little bit of trivia. You can thank the Mac for the world's first first person shooter. No, not Marathon, but Colony. It was a 2 colour black and white vector based graphics game. It took a whole 2 MEGS of memory. Back in what was it... 1988? 89? Can't remember what year exactly, but, 2 megs of memory was as expensive as hell. Or was it 2.5 megs of memory? Damn. I must be getting old, my own memory needs upgrading. That game was nausea inducing, flickered, caused headaches, and made you want to barf. And the first time something jumped out and tried to eat you, your arsehole would pucker up good and tight. It was new then, nothing like it had ever been done.

Now I am jaded. Not much scares me.

[Guest]

I guess I just assumed Doom 3 was a hybrid as all of ID's games have been... It uses OpenGL not D3d tho that's why Geforces out preform it? But I wasn't talking about Doom 3 on a mac, I meant like 1ghz games which is pretty much the staple system requirement for most new games.

I use 1 button for firing, 1 for alt fire, 1 for chatting in game, 1 for chatting in ventrillo, 1 for chatting in AIM, 1 for alt tabbing, 1 for getting in and out of cars, 1 for changing weapons, and one for bringing up the console. (i only use 7 buttons at most for 1 game). It's also handy for D2 hotkeys.

Anyway, you can go ahead and play your black and white game, I think I'll go kill some people on Counter-Strike, which macs can't run :-p

[Doc]

You know, I have pretty much stopped playing FPS. Got bored with them. Been retrogaming a lot, been playing a lot of Sim City 2000 for some reason, and designing buildings with the Urban Renewal Kit. Stuff with pyramid themes. And Sim Tower. Currently have a tower with about 11,000 people. It's one of my best. Requires constant micromanagement. Much thinking.

Still playing Majesty, which is an awesome game. Been playing LOTS of Stronghold. Still playing Spiderweb stuff. And Gopher Golf. Some Diablo II here and there. Some CivIII on occasion still. And the Sims is digital crack. I loath the makers of the Sims. I hate them. Bad bad rotten awful people.

I guess I quit playing first person shooters because it's more fun to shoot the real thing. I am absolutely in love with my Smith & Wesson 500. Brand spanking new AR 15 with a drum clip mod. Makes it look a bit like a Tommy gun. And this funky new to me little French gun type thing that shoots needles. It's wicked... It's a truly evil sidearm, not made to kill, but to injure, mutilate, and ruin.

[Bun-Bun]

A little bit of trivia. You can thank the Mac for the world's first first person shooter. No, not Marathon, but Colony. It was a 2 colour black and white vector based graphics game. It took a whole 2 MEGS of memory. Back in what was it... 1988? 89? Can't remember what year exactly, but, 2 megs of memory was as expensive as hell. Or was it 2.5 megs of memory?

What about Mazewars? As I recall, it was out about 1985 or 1986. FPS by the most primitive of definitions, ran on a 128K. Up to 4 people could play networked. Giant eyeballs shot at each other in a fairly simple maze.

[Guest]

Real guns are for wimps.

Is spiderweb any good? Pcgamer has given them quite a bit of traffic lately.

[NuurAbSaal]

I can only advise you to download the HUGE (content not size) demos they offer for all of their games.

Disclaimer:
If you don't like games without top-notch graphics, don't be surprised if you think Spiderwebgames suck (which they absolutetely don't!). They trade in eye candy for incredible story, immersion and general w00tness. I enjoyed the Avernum series a lot more than Baldur's Gate 2 (well, not exactly the same type of game) and I sure as hell spent more time with Spiderweb games.

Get the demos here.

Special Kudos to Jeff Vogel, the man behind the company (well, he IS the company :) ). Try to get that level of customer support from a big software company...

hmmm, Doc, you wouldn't have been Beta-testing for Spidweb, would you...? :ph34r:

Greetings

Nuur