I have a question about… Gaming on Mac. I know, I know. It’s for my wife, though. Lol!

She has a very old Windows laptop that I cannot convince her to let me put Linux on to improve its life. I’m looking to source an upgrade for her. She is an iPhone person, through and through, and I thought it might be nice to get something for her in that ecosystem. So, I’m looking into a MacBook of some sort.

The question: how does a MacBook hold up to light gaming? We’re talking Sims 4 and Minecraft, primarily.

  • cujo@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
    4·
    7 months ago

    Very compelling. I’m guessing Steam’s Proton work doesn’t do much if anything for Mac? I’m familiar with gaming on Linux, so I’m not afraid to get technical to get it all working, I’m just trying to get a feel for viability… It sounds like Sims 4 is the only thing up in the air, lol.

    I need to find someone with a Mac willing to let me try it… 😂

    • tiramichu@lemm.ee
      8·
      7 months ago

      Proton is actually based on Wine so there’s a lot in common. And Valve contributes back to Wine via Codeweavers (who also make crossover)

      • cujo@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
        3·
        7 months ago

        I’ve been gaming on Linux for a loooong time, lol. I follow Proton’s progress pretty closely since the beginning as it pertains to the Linux space, I just wasn’t sure if it was considered a “solution” in the MacOS world or if it requires some finagling…

        Thanks for the insight! I’ll have to do a liiiittle more research, but I’m feeling more comfortable about it now.

        • tiramichu@lemm.ee
          3·
          7 months ago

          Fair :) Glad I was able to share my experience if that helped a little.

          I’d like to make the switch to Linux for my gaming desktop, currently still on Windows for that personally, but soon!

          • cujo@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
            2·
            7 months ago

            Just be sure to research your must-have titles on ProtonDB. It’ll tell you pretty much everything you need to know if there’s any tinkering to be done for your titles… And don’t make the same mistake I did! 😂

            I upgraded from an AMD Radeon RX580 to an Intel ARC A750… Works perfect, except the specific setup of Linux + Intel ARC can’t play Halo Infinite… It worked fine (if subpar performance) on the RX580, but there’s some software issues between Vulkan and Intel that means certain DX12 games that make a very particular graphics call will NOT work with an Intel GPU… Otherwise I love it!

        • WolfLink
          2·
          7 months ago

          There have been a few cases where developers “port” their games to Mac by wrapping them in Wine.

          Apple used Wine in their Game Porting Toolkit: https://www.applegamingwiki.com/wiki/Game_Porting_Toolkit

          It will require some finagling, but it’s about as good as you will get for running windows only games on Mac.

          Also games built for Intel Macs should be able to be run thanks to Rosetta.