Not knowing if I'm still in the guild since my comp is about to die a slowly painful death, i wondered if anyone here uses mac? The fat 24" iMac seems like a nice one, anyone got any experience with those?

About to try to get this piece of shit up and running for a while longer, if that wont work, i'll buy myself something new soon, since i'm starting to realize i will never be the best Guitar Hero of all times...

/Egeanin

Macs are like laptops to me, nice to have but certainly wouldn't have one as my only computer.

Mac's can do anything PC's can do and better, they can even RUN Windows INSIDE it now, with OSX running at the same time. They're much faster than a Windows machine with the same hardware and far more reliable and secure, and a hell of a nicer user experience. It doesn't treat you like a moron unlike Windows (Vista specifically) when you do something. If you play lots of games stick with Windows, or get a Mac and run Windows in Bootcamp, best of both worlds. You get more for your money with a Mac, and it something goes wrong you know who to blame, unlike PC's where you'll have like 20 different companies who could potentially be at fault if something screws up.

Right click?

Oh let's not do this here This is a WoW forum - there's already plenty to get fanboyish over without having to go off topic to suck Steve Jobs off.

Man... I think I'm starting to sound like a ging!

I used to play wow on my ibook - it couldn't really handle it.

The new intel macs should run it fine - you might want to consider a graphics card upgrade at some point but you should be fine boss

M

Yep. Get a mighty mouse, or use two fingers on your mouse/pad on laptops, or press control and click.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9WHJT4WsbM

Oh and iBooks are older than WoW and not really made for gaming. Newer MacBooks shouldn't have a problem with it though and deffinately not the iMac desktop models.

Bought the fattest iMac and filled it up with 4GB RAM, runs smoothly this far. The mighty mouse needs to be relpaced by a Razer Diamondback asap. Installing WoW now....

I only use Macs for gaming, and have done for years.

I used to work for Apple, and because of that got an invite into the original WoW closed beta back in March 2004.

I'd say using a mac to play WoW is to see the game the game the way it was meant to be! Rob Barris one of the Mac developers at Blizzard has said over and over that the game is smoother and looks 'better' on the Apple platform, I'd have to agree with him

Atm I game mainly on a Macbook Pro 2.16 Core 2 Duo, 3gig RAM, with the 256MB x1600 gfx option, sometimes running a cinema display.

(I have a 20" c2d iMac, and MacPro too that I use mainly for work)

On the Macbook Pro, with all settings set to Max apart from distance redraw, I usually average around 30-40fps outdoors and up to 70 or so indoors. I see reduction in raids and see around 30fps or so, but it is smooth and with no noticeable lag...

The iMac 24" should be awesome with WoW... it should fly performance wise, and the screen is stunning from what I have seen of them so far. I do know there were some graphic driver issues with the early ones, but I am sure that they are now ixed with the OS X10.5.1 update.

Added bonus, no viruses, keyloggers, spyware...

I'd say that despite the haters, Apple is a great platform for WoW, and will only getter better for gaming in general.

Grats!

If you want any advice on nifty free apps, productivity or utility apps etc, just yell! (I know I can recommend 'iStat' and 'Menumeters' right off the bat).

Enjoy the machine!

This thread makes Ghibli angry... very.. very.. angry..

also, watch this for a laugh

And so it begins...

[/img]

oh it's on!!!

*pain*

*Biting tongue*

In fairness I quite like Macs although I still enjoy teasing Mac users even though I am one myself mainly because they are overly precious about their machines.

But they could never be my main machine for work as they quite simply do not have the software available to the same (or even remotely similar) degree that the PC market has for structural engineering and even CAD.

Having worked on several Mac CAD environments over the years, they do lack the sophistication and accuracy that a structural engineer requires from his CAD package, they do excel at tarty pretty images though in fairness which is why you find the odd Mac tucked away in architects offices.

For everyday computing I think Macs are probably my preference, but for gaming I prefer PC's but that's mainly because I like tinkering with things and tweaking.

I can recommend iStats too, quite a nice dashboard addon.

Back to the main point...

Either will be fine just spec what u want and see if its cheaper as a Pc or mac.
tbh I think a lot of it is about image now when comparing the 2.
I prefer PC yet would have a mac if it was a better deal.

Though I do prefer Pc as EN said to tinker with..
lol mind that usually goes wrong so maybe I should have a mac.

Well, I'm a mac-hater at heart, but I'll try be as objective as I can in this matter.

The "Mac vs PC" debate can't be decided for you. You have to decide for yourself what pros and cons are more important to you.
To name a few:

Mac pros:
Very userfriendly
Stable and very hard to "mess things up"
Fairly straightforward in choice of machines
For now, not plagued by viruses and spyware (even tho proof-of-concepts exist for both)
The machine looks nice
Very efficient in memory management

Mac cons:
More expensive than a PC
Not as much choice in software, some things are even impossible because there is no software for it
Very limited in choice for games, and they generally perform slower on the same hardware
Less compatible for online stuff (unsupported file formats and non-w3c-compliant websites)
Not very many options to set in the OS and most of the software
Not all hardware is mac-compatible

PC pros:
Massive choice in software
very tweakable both in software and hardware
Choice of OS (XP/vista/linux/...)
Can handle any task a computer is capable of doing
Cheaper than a mac
Supports almost all hardware
Very wide choice in games

PC cons:
Not as userfriendly
requires more knowledge to keep it stable
Infectable with viruses and spyware


I won't touch the "speed" subject, as this is almost impossible to compare. Generally, a mac and a WinXP PC with the same specs will run things equally fast.
As for PCs, avoid vista untill it provides more advantages over XP than disadvantages.


To sum things up, you can fit both machines in a nice profile.

Macs are for people who want their computer experience to require little knowledge, don't mind the lack of software (do tasks on a mac that a mac can do), don't mind paying a little extra for design and name, and don't mind having a very limited choice of games.

PCs are for people who want to be able to play whatever game they like, who want to have complete control over their system, both hardware and software (requires some knowledge though, some things just can't be done easily), don't mind having to be careful not to get infected with spyware/viruses (you can avoid 99% of them if you follow some groundrules)

I for one feel like a marathon runner in a wheelchair when I'm on a mac. Sure, I can compete, but I'm still a cripple.
It just doesn't allow me to do the things I want to do on a computer.


Well, if anyone asks me anything about this post, I will deny the existance of it and I never spoke these words.

Now excuse me as I go and take a bath in disinfectant and subject myself to self-torture for going against my fanboyism to write this.

If you use UNIX at all, then Macs win hands down too as they are effectively a Free BSD box.

With bootcamp you can also use XP/Vista and even any of the Linux Distros you like too.

I use my main Mac for software testing, and run OS X with a partition for Vista and also triple boot Ubuntu sometimes when I need to. Also when I have OS X running I use Parallels to run Vista in a separate window within OS X.

I can cover pretty much all bases OS wise and platform wise from a laptop, which I find ultra convenient.

The thing that gets me? the price.

Yep I have used Macs since 1992 or so, but I am so, so sick of paying the huge premium...

if I were to spec out a Dell Inspirion or Acer Aspire to the same spec as a Macbook Pro, I'd save over 1000Euros

The cons for spyware etc for PC should be narrowed down to Windows, which of course Macs can run, so is that really a con? You're simply assuming that by buying a PC you'll be running windows and not linux, unix etc Same could be said about the compatability for applications, Linux can't run a lot of windows based apps without some 3rd party software but there's plenty of alternatives for a lot of the applications. So at the end of the day I see it as being simply a hardware difference (unless of course you're simply a basic user) and I'll be damned if I can see how the Mac Hardware can warrant being priced so much higher than that of PC components. Microsoft's attempt at monopolising the markets are sickening but Apple are no better. If other companies were allowed to build Macs or at least the components then the prices would plummet.

As such I refuse to purchase any Apple based stuff though if they want to send me free stuff I'm fine with that.

This was actually the situation for a long time, with companies such as Motorola, IBM and a few other making 'clones' with Apple's consent. They made some *awesome* machines... right up to the point they out developed Apple, and released multi processor machines, and machines that kicked Apple's ass in every way.

At which point Steve Jobs returned to Apple and pulled the plug overnight, putting them all out of business... which arguably is why Motorola/Freescale effectively killed off the G3 and G4 chips and didn't develop them. By making the market 80% smaller overnight, they killed their source of processors as there was no demand, and shot themselves in the foot!

If companies made Apple clones now, Apple wouldn't get a penny of my hard earned Euros.

Shit! Have IBM gone out of business? I must have missed the memo!

/hides under desk

lol

Well, I guess I need to learn to clarify my terms a little more here! Their consumer/public PC business has yes... Their desktop business was folded a long time ago now, and they sold off their laptop line to Lenovo a few ago too

I'd love to try and get WoW running on a quad Power5 blade server, but even I am not that masochistic (but hmm, it is an idea ^^ )

Peace,

Sos

Nicely clarified Sosu, although I was just being a pedant

Being yourself is nothing to be ashamed of

Believe me - it is