So, I got my new 24" iMac all setup, backed up and patched. The very next thing I did was get BootCamp installed. For those that don't know, that is how you run Windows (XP or Vista) on an iMac natively, in its own partition and at full speed. Basically, games. I installed Supreme Commander, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Fallout 3, BioShock, World of Goo and Portal so far. On the OSX side, I installed World of Warcraft and Eve Online. Read more to find out my initial impressions of game playing on these iMacs with the very nice ATI 4850.
I have had only (only?) one lock up so far. It was under BootCamp (Windows XP SP2) running BioShock. However, before it locked up it was SO beautiful. I am running it at full resolution, 1900x1200 wide sreen, with every single bell and whistle turned on and getting very very good frame rates. Looks so nice compared to my old iMac. My only gripe with it is with the mouse sensitivity. I am not sure why, but if you up the sensitivity of the mouse, the movement of the graphics, as you pan around, gets a bit 'jagged'. Setting the mouse sensitivity to 1, no boost, makes it go away. Not too big of a deal for me, but I generally like to crank it up. I don't remember seeing this when I played it on my old iMac, but I had to have a lot of the graphics options turned down there.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Gaming with the iMac, ATI 4850 and BootCamp
Next up was Microsoft's Flight Simulator X, with Service Pack 2. This is another game I ran extensively on my last iMac. On that old machine I had to turn down most of the graphics to get decent frame rate. Not a problem since I used it mostly for IFR training, so all you saw was grey clouds. On the new iMac with the ATI 4850, I have turned up the graphics to Ultra High settings and drive it at 1900x1200 with no problems at all. I guess all that rain and clouds will look really good now. :)
I also ran Fallout 3, which looked very nice and had no problems at all. Again, every graphics option is set at the highest and it runs smooth as silk. Very nice.
I am going to hook up my 32" HDTV to the new iMac as a second monitor and use it in Supreme Commander. I will post another separate article on that since I will be also using the 2nd monitor for Aperture 2 and other OSX based apps, not just games.
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So you are not getting the freezing problem? There is a big thread about it over at Macrumors. http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=686283
ReplyDeleteNo freezing here. I have been using Aperture a lot (pretty graphics intensive, but not a game). I had one freeze in boot camp under BioShock, but it has not re-surfaced again. And man, it looks great. I have also been playing Fallout 3 with no problems and really great frame rate.
ReplyDeleteI played only a few minutes of Eve Online under OSX, but no problems noticed there. I have only been patching Wow, it had been a long time since I played. :-)
I will update the post if I see anything described in that link you posted, thanks by the way.