Last weekend I bought a 17″ MacBook Pro to replace my older 15″ MBP.  It’s fast, has a proper HD screen, and a decent video card.  My oldest kid has my oldest MBP, and the youngest kid has a MacBook.  My wife has an MBP…  It’s safe to say the house is full of Macs.  They’re the systems we use all day long for work, play, entertainment, and hiding behind.

That said, we’re also a house that likes to game.  I’ve got a big gaming PC rig that I use for TF2 et al (well, really, is there another game other than TF2?).  The Wii gets used mostly by the kids.  But over the last few years we’ve all started to play more games on our Mac’s.  Granted they’re all portable systems, but they have competent video cards.  In theory the Mac makes a great gaming platform with it’s advanced hardware, solid OS, and great reliability.  But go to the Apple Store and try to buy the latest and greatest AAA title for the Mac.  Good luck.  So how is the Mac for a gaming platform?  Is it a viable alternative for the hardcore (or even casual) gamer, or are we just hitting our heads on the wall?

Hardware

First, looking at the hardware, the current generation of Mac’s should be able to handle most modern gaming titles.  The bigger MBP’s have an NVidia 9600M GT, while the previous generation sports an 8600M GT.  While not the greatest card ever made, they certainly can play nearly every game out there with reasonable settings.

Apple makes a big deal out of the quality of the rest of the hardware in these boxes, including using the latest chips from Intel, DDR3 memory, and (usually) fast disk IO.  Any number of sites have run tests against the MBP’s and declared them one of the fastest laptops available on the market today.  So, love the Mac or hate it, the hardware is solid.  And a solid hardware foundation should lay the groundwork for a good gaming experience.

Verdict: Come on now.  The Mac hardware is a fully functional piece of gaming iron.

Operating System and Core Software

Apple computers have been synonymous with graphics workstations for years.  Even when the Mac OS wasn’t known for cutting edge capability and performance, it was at least a great platform for graphics works.  Stable graphics drivers, well supported applications, optimized floating point operations, and access to higher speed IO than a PC made Macs the obvious choice for graphic artists.

As OS X has evolved, its core graphic capabilities as evolved as well.  Coco intensive  a provides a common framework for the UI, and the native OpenGL support makes moregraphics applications perform well.  Apple historically has had a stranglehold on the hardware that will work on the Mac platform.  While it makes for poor diversity in hardware options, it means they can pour their efforts into the handful of supported devices and make stable drivers for them.  Honestly I hate keeping up with all the latest NVidia and ATI drivers on my PC and rather enjoy just having graphics that “just work” with the OS in OS X.

And obviously OS X can make use of multiple cores.  The Mach microkernel and the surrounding architecture is highly efficient and lends to an OS that can be very fast on the right hardware. Verdict: the OS is up to the task of gaming… maybe even a better platform than a PC because of the lack of hardware diversity.  Dare I say that the Mac is somewhere in between the chaos of PC gaming and the homogeneity of console gaming. As a publisher, that’s got to be a good thing, right?

Current Games – Casual

For casual gaming, Mac’s seem a reasonable platform.  The vast majority of the flash and web based games work fine under Safari.  There are a few hold out sites of interest, including Adult Swim, which until recently shut out Mac users.  And publishers such as PopCap have a large library of games available for casual Mac gamers.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t addicted to Peggle for a while.  But I’m better now… for the most part.

Beyond the Mac itself, the iPhone has been a boon to casual game development.  iTunes and the online store serves as a focal point for distribution while XCode, Apple’s development environment is the focal point for application creation.  XCode is basically the same animal whether you’re developing for a Mac or an iPhone, and arguably the flood of developers of casual iPhone games is increasing the number of developers at least capable of developing casual games on the Mac.

The verdict?  If you’re a casual gamer, the Mac is a fine choice.  Large diversity in the available titles, stable gaming experience, and good performance.  Simple.

Current Games – Hardcore Gaming

The landscape changes dramatically when you look at hardcore/AAA gaming.  Note: I’m defining this category as “games that cost ~$50″. Some of the games that fall in to that space are hardcore-casual like the Sims.  While maybe not a first person shooter, games like the Sims are still a big production to make and release.

There are very few titles available when compared to the PC or console space.  It seems that AAA games that are released on the Mac through two different processes.  Some developers will release on the Mac concurrently with their release on other platforms.  The big daddy for this type of release is Maxis.  Games such as the Sims and Spore are big money winners for them and these games had the same release date on the PC as they did on the Mac.

My personal experience with the games that have concurrent development and release schedules as their PC brethren is that the end result can vary wildly in quality from the PC to the Mac.  For instance, the Sims has been stable on a number of Macs in the household.  Spore, on the other hand, has been a mess.  3 different systems have had 3 totally different sets of problems.  A fresh install of Spore over the weekend resulted in a game that would only run for 5 minutes and then die repeatedly.  So, at least from my view, concurrent development does not necessarily yield a high quality product.

The other type of release is through a third party development shop that ports existing titles to the Mac.  Companies like FreeVerse and Aspyr can take another developer’s title, use their secret sauce, and release it on the Mac.  Games from CivIV to CoD 2 have arrived on the Mac thanks to the efforts of these third party development houses.

Again, like the natively developed games, the quality of the port can vary wildly.  As an example, HeroesV has solid game play, but there’s a common bug in it that effects many users of the game.  Unfortunately, the developer doesn’t seem to be interested in creating a patch and many have simply abandoned the game (or not bought it at all) because of this problem.  This underscores a problem with third party porting.  Not only are you at the mercy of the original developer for patches and upgrades, those changes must now flow through a third party.  And if that third party loses interest in a title due to lack of sales or other reasons, patches will never make it to your Mac.

On the other hand, I’ve played CoD Modern Warfare on several different Macs and the experience was nearly identical to the PC experience.  Multiplayer gaming is seamless; I’m able to play in games with PC users without an issue.  COD:MW seems to be a great Mac game for the hardcore gamer.

Verdict: Meh.  Very limited selection of titles, even more limited support and questionable quality of code.  For some titles the Mac is a great option… for others it’s a waste of time and money.

Parting Shots

By all accounts the Mac should be a great gaming platform.  With the vast majority of Macs sold in the last 3 years having good gaming internals, the “chicken and egg” problem of getting good hardware in users hands has been solved.  All that’s needed is developers to step up build high quality AAA titles for the Mac just as they would for other platforms.  Unfortunately the user base doesn’t seem to be large enough for the mainline developers to make the jump… or if they do jump the quality can be terrible.

Ultimately I didn’t buy my Mac to game… most people don’t.  However it’s nice to be able to play the titles you enjoy without having to go boot a PC or jump on your console.  In the market today that’s a hit and miss proposition, with more misses than hits.