It's unlikely that anyone will specifically buy a Mac to play games on it. Mostly, we love our Macs because they are great tools for work. But you must admit, sometimes you want to put work aside and distract yourself a little by playing some toy. Of course, a Mac doesn't have the same abundance of games as a Windows PC, but there are plenty of places where you can find a lot of great games, as long as you know where to look. In this article, I will tell you about different sources where you can find a wide variety of games.
The day Valve released Steam for Mac was a great day. A large number of good commercial and indie games are now available to Mac gamers. Steam has a dedicated section for Mac, so it's very easy to find the right game.
It’s also nice that all discounts and sales apply to both Windows and Mac versions of games. And now Mac users who decide to buy a couple of games for the occasion will not feel deprived compared to their Windows colleagues, as was the case before.
Apple provides an excellent opportunity for all game developers to enter a huge market and show their products to a huge audience. Another thing is that few developers take advantage of this opportunity, preferring Mac users to avid PC gamers. However, on Mac App Store still there is Interesting games. For the most part, these are, of course, indie projects, although there are also high-profile titles.
Convenient search by category and ratings of paid and free games, will help you choose a game for any pocket. IN Lately, some new games appear immediately on the Mac App Store, but sometimes it’s better to check Steam first, there may be a better offer there.
Appeared long before official store applications from Apple and already back in 2005 offered a wide range of games. You can buy games directly from the site or use the proprietary application.
MacGameStore often hosts sales and various promotions, and you will also find demo versions of games there (if they exist).
From a publishing site, Aspyr, which promoted its own games, has grown into a service for distributing Mac games from many other developers and publishers.
In addition to the distribution of games, GameAgent.com offers all sorts of in-game goodies. For example, by registering on the site, you can use the Mac Match service, which will help filter the games supported by your Mac based on system requirements. You will also have access to the Wish list function, special offers, discounts and much more.
Mac game publisher Feral Interactive is well known on the Mac App Store, but you can also find their games through other services. If you prefer to receive them directly, Feral will be happy to collect your money through its own service, where you can buy games exclusively from this publisher.
Feral uses standard publishing practices - they buy licenses for the most popular console and PC games, adapt them and sell Mac versions. So, if you want to play the new Tomb Raider, for example, or XCOM: Enemy Within, you know where to look for them.
TransGaming is a company that, for the most part, remains behind the scenes of the gaming industry. Their destiny is to port games to Mac using their own Cider technology (which in turn originates from WINE, an open source project) and transfer them for subsequent distribution to publishers. However, TransGaming also has its own game distribution service - .
On GameTree Mac you can find both games from commercial and indie publishers, as well as some titles that TransGaming worked on that are not available from other sources. Therefore, here you can find some exclusives that are interesting to a certain circle of gamers.
This service specializes in selling various old-school games. The abbreviation GOG is nothing more than “good old games”. In principle, they also sell relatively new games, such as Torchlight, but the main specialization of GOG.com is the “resurrection” of old games from DOS and the early Windows era.
All games from GOG.com support the hardware of modern Macs and run on them much better than you might expect. Usually, you can easily find good old classics for $5-10, and play childhood hits without any problems. As a rule, games from GOG.com run inside some kind of shell or emulation layer, which allows you to enjoy the same gameplay, since the graphics and controls remain the same as in the original.
This is another service that allows you to download games for both Mac and Windows. GamersGate does not have a proprietary application, like the other services mentioned above, and you will have to buy games through the website, but it does have another interesting feature. This is a reward system, the so-called experience that you earn using the service.
The more active you are on GamersGate (write comments, rate games, help other gamers), the more Blue Coins you earn, which can be spent on discounts or future purchases. You also earn experience by increasing your level - you will need it to access special offers and bonuses.
More and more Mac game publishers are creating services to exclusively distribute and support their games. For example, Origin from Electronic Arts, in which you can download SimCity and play online with other users. And not only Electronic Arts. Do you want to plunge into the famous World of Warcraft or Diablo III? Let's go to Battle.Net!
So, not everything is so bad in the Mac gaming field. Yes, of course, many titles appear on Mac much later or are released only on Windows. But the situation is constantly changing for the better, and in the future you can count on even more favorable conditions.
Personally, my position regarding games (not just Mac games, but games in general) is this: games are on consoles, only work is on the Mac. There are still rare exceptions, but for the most part, the games that come out on Mac are enough for me. What about you, dear readers? Do you play on your Macs and if so, what? Tell us about it in the comments, we will be interested to know.
There are many myths in the world of Apple laptops. In general, the same thing happened before with iPhone smartphone. For example, many people used to think that the iPhone was a dummy for status, which in reality did not represent anything. To be honest, the first generation was exactly like that. At that time, no one had such phones with an “apple”, so they were considered unusual. Although everything seems to be clear with the iPhone, the same cannot be said about the MacBook yet. The biggest misconception among people is that MacBooks cannot run games or other heavy tasks.
The myth that games don’t work ended its existence in 2011, when the powerful MacBook Pro with a powerful modern 4-core i7 processor and a 1 GB video card entered the arena. Surely you know that you can install other systems on OS X using BootCamp. So, through this application, caring testers installed Windows 7 on a powerful new product. After testing the apps on a MacBook Pro, the same games were tested on one of the most powerful Windows desktop PCs. The result surprised everyone: games ran better on a Mac than on a PC.
What games were tested? For example, GTA 4. Installing a powerful hard drive SSD added performance. The MacBook Pro computer has been working well for 3 years now, and the performance is still good today. What is he capable of? For example, while the video is being processed in Finnal Cut Pro X (the video is being stabilized or exported), you can switch to Aperture and start viewing the processed files. At the same time, Dreamweaver mail, mail, Photoshop, browser, iTunes, etc. can be opened.
There are no so-called “lags”. Nothing freezes, any program runs in almost 1 second. By pressing tab+command, you can instantly switch between Photoshop and Finnal Cut Pro X. Today, this MacBook runs modern games at high settings, the average values here are only for anisotropy and anti-aliasing. But few will consider the difference between these unknown parameters. Even if you reduce them to a minimum, the games will still look great. What games are on? Dota 2, Far Cry 3, Battlefield 3, BioShock Infinite, Metro: Last Light and much more. In these products you will observe great picture without any lags.
But with the release in 2012-2013, the famous Retina display appeared. Then gamers with MacBooks started having problems. If previously a powerful video card handled games well and produced high-quality images, now it had to devote most of its resources to the Retina display. And these MacBooks are inferior in performance to the 2011 MacBooks.
If you invest in additional SSDs, you might be able to run modern 2014 games just fine on your MacBook. But what's the point of doing this if for the money you pay for a brand new MacBook you can buy a really powerful PC with operating system Windows? The idea is that people will have to pay a premium for their love for Apple. But this doesn’t stop some people, so Apple equipment is worth the money. As for the MacBook, it was created with the expectation of working with powerful and demanding programs. Games were an additional service. So what games can you play on this ultra-thin MacBook?
You can install the most popular games of the Moba genre on your MacBook - League of Legend, Dota 2. It is recommended for MMO fans to install them; these games will run on ultra-high graphics. As for powerful new products like Battlefield 4, Crysis 3, etc., they are unlikely to work fully for you at high rates. You can also install a subsection of games such as “Indie”. Typically, these games are not endowed with luxurious graphics; they rely primarily on the plot.
Now another question arises - how to install applications on a MacBook? This is done very simply. What Apple product is complete without iTunes? That's right, none. In iTunes or the App Store you can select all the new games, and the description will also indicate whether it makes sense to install them on our MacBook of the model that you have in your hands. Games can also be installed from Steam. Surely you know about this system. A huge social gaming network where you can purchase various applications, communicate with friends and follow the news of the gaming industry.
Now you know how to download games to your MacBook. You need to understand that an Apple laptop is first and foremost a work machine. And if you set out to install and play the most modern things, then you need to look towards personal computers in the operating room Windows system. If you do work on a MacBook, but sometimes want to devote time to games, then a MacBook is suitable as your main computer. The choice of products is so large that you are sure to find applications that will be optimized for your computer. Now you know how to do it.
Which MacBook is better for gaming?
Unfunny joke
Apple doesn't make computers for gamers. The only Macs that can be considered gaming Macs are the MacBook Pro and iMac with Radeon Pro graphics, as well as the iMac Pro with Vega 56 on board. Such pleasure costs from 100 to 380 thousand rubles, but it’s still of little use. Owners of even the most powerful Macs cannot play new hits due to the banal lack of support for macOS from game developers and publishers.
You've probably heard about the incredibly popular PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Is it available for Mac? No. Any timeless hits like the third Witcher or GTA V? No. Atmospheric Fallout 4? A cheeky Wolfenstein 2? Creepy Resident Evil 7? Hardcore Dark Souls 3? No no and one more time no. Kingdom Come has already been released, Far Cry 5 will be delivered soon, and all this will pass you by.
What to do? Score and accept? Splurge on a gaming PC or console? We offer the most rational and affordable option.
To turn your Mac into a gaming PC, you'll need:
PLAYKEY is a cloud gaming platform. In essence, this is a gaming computer on a long wire.
The PLAYKEY app reads keystrokes and mouse movements from your Mac and sends them to the PLAYKEY server. There, your actions are performed in the running game, and a video stream is broadcast to the screen of your Mac. The idea is that any MacBook or iMac can handle playing a video stream. As mentioned above, this is essentially a gaming computer on a very long wire. The main thing is that the Internet is fast and stable.
It is generally accepted that Mac computers not suitable for games. But is this really so? Snazzy Labs founder Quinn Nelson conducted an experiment by running GTA 5 on an iMac at maximum settings at 2560 x 1440 to prove that Apple PCs can become gaming computers.
Recently, external graphics cards like the Razer Core for Windows laptops have become popular. In theory, the Razer Core supports Macs, but most models don't come with a Thunderbolt 3 port, with the exception of the new 2016 MacBook Pro. Instead of Razer, you can purchase BizonBox, which runs on Thunderbolt 2. BizonBox is essentially a modified version of AKiTiO Thunder2 PCIe Box. Thunder 2 converts standard PCIe accessories such as SSDs to Thunderbolt for use with a Mac. But it is worth noting that there is no official support for video cards. A few minutes with a soldering iron and ATX, and you can easily turn AKiTiO Thunder2 into a Razer Core. The cost of AKiTiO Thunder2 is $350, which is quite a lot.
Let's say $350 is the right price for most people. How technically can an external graphics card affect a Mac's gaming performance? Many PC games are only released on Windows due to DirectX, so the first step is to install Microsoft's OS via Boot Camp. If after this you just connect an external video card, nothing will happen, the computer will still use the built-in one.
On the Bizon website you can find a large list of models that are incompatible with BizonBox. Some Macs don't work well with BizonBox on macOS but are fine on Windows, others don't support Windows but no problem on macOS. There are even devices that do not work with Bizon on any OS. In the case of Mac, absolutely all models have at least one compatibility limitation. The only iMac that will have the fewest problems is the 2014 iMac 5K. On this computer Windows detects the external video card, but it still doesn't work directly. Since the iMac uses a discrete graphics card, you will have to connect another monitor anyway for an external graphics card. So can you play on Mac?
Nelson tested GTA 5 with a GTX 1060 and GTX 980 Ti at 1080p. The GTX 1060 delivers 96 fps on PC and 82 fps on Mac. The result on Mac is, of course, lower, but not as bad as 22 fps with the standard AMD 295x. The GTX 980 Ti is a slightly different story - 147fps on PC and 88fps on Mac, which is just 60% of PC performance. And this applies to all tested games.
So technically you can play comfortably on a Mac. Although this is not recommended due to compatibility and driver issues, the need to connect an external monitor and the high price. It is much easier to buy a powerful PC or PlayStation.
Let's figure out which MacBook will perform well.
Let's take as an example folk version– World of Tanks.
No wonder it has become one of the most popular online games. Extensive Arsenal military equipment, exciting gameplay with excellent social integration and the opportunity to feel like you’re in a tank even if you haven’t served in the army - all this was appreciated by hundreds of thousands of players from all over the world :)
But this is for Windows? Let's figure out how things are going with Mac and consider 7 MacBooks on which you can play WoT.
Model characteristics:
Not an oldie yet, but not the newest Mac either. And besides, there is also an Air model with a built-in video card. Will it be possible to launch? You can play without problems, but there will always be a feeling of a couple of dozen FPS shortage. You can forget about 60–70 FPS, but it’s easy to carry out a couple of tactical battles.
Model characteristics:
This model will turn exactly 5 years old in a couple of weeks. And it is still compatible with World of Tanks. We personally tested the performance of the game using these characteristics and we can draw conclusions. The settings, of course, are all on minimum: An integrated graphics card with 388 MB of memory is not an option for the serious tanker. But the amateur will be saved by a powerful i7 processor. FPS - 18–25 . Quite a playable option for those who really want it. Get ready to live with the sound of a cooler turned up to maximum.
Model characteristics:
Even during the announcement of the 12-inch MacBook model, Apple emphasized that this is not a gaming version of the laptop. It's the perfect workhorse for the journalist and the person who needs a computer on the go. But you can play WoT on this ultrabook. Install medium graphics settings and get FPS at the level 18–24 . We lower it to a minimum and half the values rise to 28–35. Don't forget that the MacBook does not have a cooler and keeping it on your lap while running World of Tanks is not the best solution.
Model characteristics:
This is not the latest MacBook Pro model. But that’s why it’s Pro and the hardware is brighter. At startup, medium settings will be automatically set, but it is still advisable to set the graphics to minimum. This is how you can achieve 50–55 FPS, and this is more than enough for serious gaming. Iris graphics do the job.
Model characteristics:
A powerful beast that will remain relevant for several years to come. On maximum values graphics, you can easily achieve an FPS of 30–35. Want a smooth picture? Calm down your ardor and set the rendering to medium. At minimum requirements, FPS values go off scale above 100. Perfect option for World of Tanks.
Model characteristics:
Relevant to this day (possibly the last) model of ultra-thin MacBook Air shows good performance in World of Tanks. Graphics level – short with an FPS gap of 50–60. Not bad for an office option! The picture is smooth, there are no brakes, the cooler is full.
Model characteristics:
This option is chosen by those who want to carry their tank with them. The 2014 11-inch model also handles WoT. It is strictly not recommended to raise the characteristics above average, but at low and minimal levels the baby pleases with a completely edible picture. 40–50 at minimum requirements is an excellent opportunity to crush the enemy.
As you can see, it is not at all necessary to chase a top-end car and take out loans on yourself. Even models that have completed their first five years are perfect for your favorite game. The main thing is to choose correctly and understand what you want to get from the game. More options can be found on our flea market. Strong armor and a full clip for you.
P.S.: I heard that tanks will soon play football ?
