[schoessl]

So... as a passionate PC gamer, I was quite excited to read in the current Macworld Magazine that PC Games perfom quite nicely on an iMac with Bootcamp.
In fact, it was said, that PC games via Bootcamp are
a) Much better in quality and smoothness than ported games of MAC
b) Performance of your mac is equal to a windows desktop PC.
I would like to know if any of you actually played "current" or "demanding" games via Bootcamp (e.g. Half-Life 2, etc) ? Can anyone confirm this? (I just want to be sure before I go out to buy Windows XP...)

[griffman]

Try searching the forum for 'Half Life' and you'll find quite a few entries, I think. In short: the MacBook Pro and iMacs make great PC games platforms. The MacBook and mini, not so much for current stuff, due to the graphics chipset in lieu of a card.
-rob.

[Peter Cohen]

Schoessl, this question comes up a lot, and the bottom line is that playing games in XP on a Mac using Boot Camp is just like playing them on an equivalent PC. As far as the operating system and game are concerned, the Mac is a PC, running Windows. As long as the game runs well on a system with equivalent performance specifications to the Mac you're planning on using, then the game will work fine.
I've yet to find a game that won't work. Some, like Oblivion, need to be dialed down a bit to be playable, but that's no different than it is on a PC -- the iMac and MacBook Pro both have "mid-range" graphics capabilities.

[schoessl]

Thank you very much!
Just installed WinXP via Bootcamp and the performance is great (I am a little "burned" from Virtual PC, hence my scepticism).
All is good now - PC gaming + Mac Productivity!
- Matt

[braindoc]

VPC--- RIP
Thank you Mr. Job

[dmainzman]

Yeah, I've been playing GTA:SA on bootcamp for a few weeks now. Runs beautifully.

[MaccyA]

I've been playing Counter Strike:Source and Half life 2 on my MBP and it runs beautifully.

[akdahr]

It was said in an earlier post that Macbook's will have problems running games in bootcamp because of the intel chipset instead of a card. Could you elaborate on this, i am trying to run Kotor I on bootcamp and cant get it to load, im thinking its a video driver problem.

[Peter Cohen]

This is straight from the KOTOR Web site:
32 MB OpenGL 1.4 compatible PCI or AGP 3D Hardware Accelerator with Hardware Transform and Lighting (T&L) Capability required
The GMA950 chipset used in the MacBook and Mac mini doesn't provide, among other things, hardware-based transform and lighting effects, which are used by Knights of the Old Republic, so it's not entirely surprising you're having trouble getting it to run.

[Vrenir]

I found a nice video on Youtube that shows a 1.8Ghz Macbook with 2GB of RAM playing a series of games on Bootcamp so that you can guage performance. It does Halo for instance better than I would have thought.