Is Mac any good for gaming?

My 6 year old uses a Mac - it's great for kids since it's OS is fairly idiot-proof, never really virus checked it (ever), but it works for the kids still despite all the shit that they click on. Haven't actually tried Windows on it, but our Macbook runs Windows XP just fine, but I still wouldn't want to game on either Macs because my PC is better for gaming. I would NEVER buy a Mac desktop ever, EVER, for 800 you could get a decent PC built. Also, I hate how if something in a Mac breaks you have to send the entire thing in.

As much as I love macs, gaming is not something I'd recommend them for.

Mac isn't good for anything.

Why would you want a mac? It is like paying more for less.

I've had no problem running most indie games on my Macbook Pro, but I wouldn't really recommend Mac if you plan to use it just for gaming. Most big titles aren't even available on OSX, and those that are don't work that well most of the time with the exception of Valve titles. Of course you could set up a Boot Camp partition to play games on Windows and do everything else on OSX, but that would kind of defeat the purpose of getting a Mac in the first place.

I've been enjoying macs for almost 7 years now. I had my last laptop for 5 years and it was a tank, I never had a problem with it, ever. Then someone stole it. I upgraded to a Macbook Pro, fully upgraded with whatever the crap I could want (this was done by me not Apple.) I have been able to run any game I want in Bootcamp on a Windows partition, so you can play games on the mac. I could not be happier with my set-up.

Unfortunately if you want something for gaming, go grab a PS3, or get a PC. I love my mac, but you can game for far cheaper. Also a lot of the games ported to mac have terrible problems. Walking Dead crashes a lot on my Mac partition, but runs fine on Windows. Penny Arcade 1&2, Shank 2, Intrustion 2 all say they work on Mac but won't even start. This is due more to lazy developers than the OS, but still know what you are getting into (Borderlands 2 on the other hand runs excellent.)

And I am able to run everything well on high settings, despite what others say. If you have any more questions go ahead and ask.

As much as I love a good mac, mac mini is not a good mac, especially not for gaming. $800 will get you a lovely powerhouse of a "regular" desktop, especially if you have a knowledgeable friend / helpful computer salesman around willing to put a custom one together for you.

pls
just pls

Edit: Macs are brilliant for doing audio/video/graphics editing/producing though.
You'd have to be a bit reckless and slightly asinine to get a virus on any OS, especially if you have software for combating it. My friend's father caught a virus on Mac within two weeks of having it, they're not 'virus-free' at all. He does have his thumb in the middle of his hand (Scandinavian idiom) when it comes to computers, however.

Macs are not virus-free. That alone made Apple change their advert.
If you just want pretty safe OS, get Linux.
If you want the bundled software on Mac OS, get a Mac.
If you want games, get a Windows 7 or 8 computer.

Until I got this laptop, my primary computer was a Mac. These are my experiences.

1. There is virtually always a Windows version. There's less frequently a Mac version.
2. Even if there is a Mac version of a game, it very often performs WORSE than the Windows version on the same computer, which brings us to:
3. You can put BootCamp on your Mac and install Windows. (This does require buying Windows) It eats up a lot of space, but it's FAR BETTER than trying to virtual-machine your way. This will allow you to run Windows applications and games at native speed. But...
4. Games run way better on my far cheaper Windows laptop... Macs are expensive. They are far more expensive than equivalent equipment. When you buy a Mac, you're buying the whole experience. The operating system and the hardware are designed to work well together. When you buy Windows (which runs on a far greater variety of hardware) you don't have that same guarantee. So Macs cost more for a reason. But they still cost more.

So, you have to decide what the PURPOSE of this computer is to be.

If it's a gaming machine, buy Windows. You will get faster equipment for the same amount of money.
If it's anything else, Mac will be fine too.

Think of all the games you could buy with the money saved by not buying a mac

nope

no

If you are talking about the 2.3ghz quad core i7, I can tell you this right now:

I have a 2011 custom macbook pro with the same processor and I have played these games with slight to no issues: Borderlands, Batman Arkham Asylum, Bioshock, Fallout 3, Portal 2, Saints Row The Third...

I draw the line at Tomb Raider (2013), this game was meant to be optimized for low end computers however my Macbook could only run it on low settings, there was a fair bit of framedrop and it was very laggy during cutscenes. I would safely assume that any AAA game more recent than this will not run very well if at all on my computer.

HOWEVER the mac mini you are looking at will NOT perform as well as my macbook because it only has Intel HD Graphics 4000 and 4gb of RAM, whereas my macbook has a 1gb Radeon HD 6750M card in it as well as 8gb of RAM. You're not going to get much out of a computer that doesn't have a dedicated graphics card.

On that budget, you are far better off getting a PC if you want to play games. If you're not confident building a PC/don't want the out of pocket cost of getting someone to build one for you, you can get some pretty good prebuilt machines around. I'm looking at getting something like this hopefully by the end of the year. Good luck finding something right for you :)

Mac is good to throw out the window, and hit the garbage container outside. Or against a wall, that should work too!

Honestly, make a desktop pc for gaming, you can easily make one for high settings probably and perhaps even ultra for the current gen games.

Are rocks more edible between two pieces of bread?

Short answer: Nope.

Long answer: Only a few companies bother with making a Mac version of their games. And there are virus for Macs, it's just that because there is such a low market share worldwide of PCs (Personal computer, because a Mac is a PC in case apple fanboys don't get it) with Mac OS that most programmers that create viruses don't bother with it. Get a PC and you won't have to run boot camp in order to play your games.

Mac is expensive crap. You can get computer with same hardware for much lower price if you build it yourself and use Windows. And Mac isn't good for gaming either because there aren't that much games for Mac. Most companies don't even bother making Mac games. If you really want virus-free OS get good PC and install Linux as your main OS and then Windows as you secondary - gaming OS (in other words - make dual boot system). So you can use Linux when you do other things and Windows when you play games. No overheating, good fps and no lag.

For same 800 euros you can build yourself pretty beast gaming PC. Get i5 Haswell CPU, motherboard that supports that CPU, atleast GTX660Ti (or AMD equivalent) graphics card, 8GB 1600MHz RAM (2x4GB), decent power supply, SSD (atleast 128GB) + HDD (I suggest 1TB WD Black) and that's mostly it. Of course case and some other stuff you maybe need but something around this would cost about 600-700 euros.

NO!

no.

No, don't buy a Mac. It's not completely virus-free. Most game companies don't even make a Mac version for their games. It's expensive, you could get a more powerful Windows PC for the same price.

Is the same as asking "is a laptop good for gaming"? The anwser is: No, but you can do it anyway. BTW, Laptop >> Mac for gaming, not to talk about Macbook.

Your choice should depend on the following, at least according to me:
What is your highest priority?

• Slimmmer chance of getting a virus: MAC;
• Gaming: Windows.