Apple can also be well behind the latest OpenGL versions at times, though its most recent update brought things in line. The problem used to be that Apple only updated OpenGL when it updated the whole OS, and until now that was a paid upgrade, so not every user would get the better features that developers needed to progress. This went for any drivers, too. Funnily, this is very similar to Microsoft's attitude with DirectX, but it's even worse for developers.
Overall, many games perform considerably worse on Macs than Windows PCs - SimCity, for example, can run perfectly smoothly on Intel HD 4000 graphics at 1080p on low settings on Windows, but on a Mac with an AMD 6750M GPU, those settings are barely playable. As David Stephen suggested earlier, though, that could change with the more advanced APIs available in the latest operating system.
The performance problems aren't the case with all games, though. "I've had some instances of performance hits, but often my ports will have performance increases, depending on the hardware. There have definitely been some OpenGL bugs/ bottlenecks, but that's something that can often be addressed in my code," says Ethan Lee, a developer on the MonoGame framework for porting XNA games to Mac/Linux, and who ported Fez to these very platforms as well.
Put the boot in
When games don't run as well on OS X, there's always one solution: run Windows instead. Apple's Boot Camp software enables you to easily partition your disk drive, and provides all the drivers necessary to get Windows working natively on your Mac.
We recommend replacing the graphics drivers provided by Apple, unsurprisingly, but the odd thing is that Macs tend to be consistently some of the best-performing Windows machines you can buy. Everything works brilliantly, any SteamPlay games you've bought will play on Windows (with your saves brought in over the cloud where supported), and you can play Windows-exclusive games.
You get storage issues if you dual-boot one of the lower-end laptops with small amounts of solid state storage, but with Intel HD 5000 graphics, even something like the MacBook Air is a viable portable gaming machine for smaller indie titles.
Macs don't represent a great deal for someone who wants high-end gaming, but they shouldn't be dismissed because of that. The range of games is already strong, and is only going to grow further - and you can run Windows for the rest.
In a balance of gaming power and size/weight, there's not a lot that can touch the MacBook line. Dear readers, it's time to embrace the Mac and its users to the PC gaming fold. They are our brothers in arms (which was a game released on Mac as well, incidentally).
- Now why not read our Hands on: Mac Pro review
