Getting new iMac, concerns?

[Panzer Lehr]

Any concerns with play CMX4 all games?

27‑inch iMac with Retina 5K display.

3.8GHz 8-core 10th-generation Intel Core i7 processor, Turbo Boost up to 5.0GHz (Ok?)

16GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory (Too much, or is 8 fine?)

Radeon Pro 5500 XT with 8GB of GDDR6 memory (Ok?)

1TB SSD storage

10.15.7 Catalina (Ok?)

[Artkin]

Oh man. 

Prebuilt computers are generally terrible and overpriced. 

All in one computers (Like an Imac are even worse) 

Laptops are the worst. 

 

Imac has no way to cool its components, at least efficiently, so dont expect it to perform as fast as other machines even with the same parts. They will automatically slow as they warm up and are unable to dispose of the heat. 

I dont want to come off as mean or rude, but you have totally no clue what you are buying man. Didnt even include the processor model - just copied and pasted what they wrote on the website. 

Generally cant go wrong with intel if you dont mind paying for it. 

16gb of ram is the minimum you should consider as win10 now likes to use 4+gb alone. The brand GSkill by far makes the best ram. (SPEED GENERALLY DOES NOT MATTER - timings do - and most people dont understand how this works - including myself...). I would buy a 16gb set of quality gskill ram. It produces a moderate to large fps increase in most cases over pretty much every other brand. 

 

5500XT is a "low end" card. Although I have been eyeing this particular card for its high OpenGL price to performance ratio, it is not a 4k capable card. Your screen is 5k. You should consider buying a close to the top of the line gpu if you wish to use that screen. 

 

However - You are buying an Imac. which makes swapping parts a total PITA... Or even impossible. 

I don't buy Apple. 

[Panzer Lehr]

My games are all mac and I am a mac guy ... all my other software is mac so I am stuck ... any pro-Mac user advice would be helpful.

 

[Artkin]

Well I just gave you the advice. But youre probably going to be unable to make any changes once you buy it. Besides maybe the ram. But who knows with apple these days. 

 

Knowing the model of the cpu would help (i7 10700k perhaps). 

16gb ram if swappable go for gskill kit (Theyre worth it) 

The gpu is meh. You're going to want a top of the line card if you wish to drive 5k or even 4k with ~60fps. In gaming at least. 

 

[Panzer Lehr]

My only options

 

3.8GHz 8-core 10th-generation Intel Core i7 processor, Turbo Boost up to 5.0GHz 
or 

3.6GHz 10-core 10th-generation Intel Core i9 processor, Turbo Boost up to 5.0GHz 

8GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory 
or 
16GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory 

Radeon Pro 5700 with 8GB of GDDR6 memory 
or 
Radeon Pro 5700 XT with 16GB of GDDR6 memory 

[The_MonkeyKing]

Choose 16GB RAM. Other than that, listen to your wallet. (and this is for general quality of life, combat mission doesn't need 16GB)

Everything you listed will run combat mission just fine. You probably should not play the game on 5k resolution, so just run time game on 1440p for example.

[BFCElvis]

I'm considering getting a Mac soon. Not to replace my Windows computers but to add. On the Help Desk I get Mac questions sometimes and I have no idea what they are even talking about. They are English words that I know assembled into sentences that make no sense to me. Some of the "standard fixes" I tell people are words that mean nothing to me.  So, I figure that I should get one so I at least have some idea of what I'm talking about.

Anything you listed will play CM fine though. When buying a system with CM in mind steer away from anything that has only an Intel integrated video card. They have about a 50/50 chance of running the game. 

[Lucky_Strike]

2 hours ago, Panzer Lehr said:

Any concerns with play CMX4 all games?

27‑inch iMac with Retina 5K display.

3.8GHz 8-core 10th-generation Intel Core i7 processor, Turbo Boost up to 5.0GHz (Ok?)

16GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory (Too much, or is 8 fine?)

Radeon Pro 5500 XT with 8GB of GDDR6 memory (Ok?)

1TB SSD storage

10.15.7 Catalina (Ok?)

 

6 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Choose 16GB RAM. Other than that, listen to your wallet. (and this is for general quality of life, combat mission doesn't need 16GB)

Everything you listed will run combat mission just fine. You probably should not play the game on 5k resolution, so just run time game on 1440p for example.

+1 to this, ignore Artkin he hasn’t even read you question properly.

I run a very similar rig and use it to design and test all my mods. You’ll have no problems.

I do actually play on a PC which has a lighter spec than my iMac, but it has an nVidia GPU which I prefer over Radeon.

 

 

[Panzer Lehr]

Cool ... thanks guys ... so much more helpful  Cheers and Happy gaming Art aka PL aka Panzer Lehr ... come fight me at the Blitz or chat with me at FGM   Hi to Steve who has kept me happily gaming now for nearly three decades..

Edited January 26, 2021 by Panzer Lehr

[Artkin]

32 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

 

+1 to this, ignore Artkin he hasn’t even read you question properly.

I run a very similar rig and use it to design and test all my mods. You’ll have no problems.

I do actually play on a PC which has a lighter spec than my iMac, but it has an nVidia GPU which I prefer over Radeon.

 

 

Sorry what part of his question did I not answer by not reading? The Catalina part? Besides that I am probably one of the better qualified people to voice my opinion on this subject.

[Schrullenhaft]

All of your iMac options sound good and should play CM fine (including the new engine when it comes out).

The only question would be if upgrading from the Radeon Pro 5500 XT to the Radeon Pro 5700 would be worth $300 or not. The Radeon Pro 5700 is about 42 -70% faster overall than the Pro 5500 XT. This performance difference may not be truly significant with the current game engines of CM, but the next one MIGHT show a more dramatic increase with the faster videocard.

[Lethaface]

With the 5k screen a faster GPU wouldn't hurt I guess. Although it only matters really if you need apps that have to calculate and render stuff in realtime and 3d etc. Playing some video's or photo editing at 5k is no issue and 8GB VRAM isn't 'bad', but for 5k textures I guess more would be better. 

[grunt_GI]

I am an old Mac guy as well and have had no issues running CM on my trusty ol' iMac...I guess my bigger concern is does the latest Mac OS Big Sur do anything to CM?

I stopped upgrading from Mojave cuz I heard some guys had issue and I remember when Apple broke CMSF1 a few years ago...but my iMac is also getting long in the tooth so am thinking about upgrading this year.

Any issues @Panzer Lehr with your OS?

[AlexUK]

Something to think about is the apple transition to the apple silicon chips. The current models are probably the last generation of Intel chips. For future proofing may be worth waiting? 

[grunt_GI]

43 minutes ago, AlexUK said:

Something to think about is the apple transition to the apple silicon chips. The current models are probably the last generation of Intel chips. For future proofing may be worth waiting? 

Ahhhh.  Good point.  Forgot about that. 

[Artkin]

With that logic waiting will always be better, and it will be 5 years before you even realize! Especially with the current state of the market today. It's awful.

The XT version of the 5700 gets almost double the fps in Metro Exodus. However, this title is an outlier. Just goes to show how much software optimizations go to make a difference. I would definitely buy an XT.

My worry is with the enclosed Imac, you won't be able to fit larger cards, or you may not even be able to access them at all to swap. If you want to use your 5k in games, then get the best gpu imo.

Edited January 26, 2021 by Artkin

[Artkin]

Accidental double post -

However I will say with the better specs you will be able to load larger and larger maps (4k x 4k and larger) with ease. I think the largest I had was 5k x 5k. You can play comfortably on these in real time if you don't go nuts on the forces. I bet WEGO is way smoother. 

Edited January 26, 2021 by Artkin

[Ultradave]

22 hours ago, BFCElvis said:

I'm considering getting a Mac soon. Not to replace my Windows computers but to add. On the Help Desk I get Mac questions sometimes and I have no idea what they are even talking about. They are English words that I know assembled into sentences that make no sense to me. Some of the "standard fixes" I tell people are words that mean nothing to me.  So, I figure that I should get one so I at least have some idea of what I'm talking about.

Anything you listed will play CM fine though. When buying a system with CM in mind steer away from anything that has only an Intel integrated video card. They have about a 50/50 chance of running the game. 

I've been running all the CM games on a MacBook Pro with Intel integrated graphics for many years. I have never had a problem with running anything, except it bogs down a bit panning around Ben's master map of Berlin. They do suck the battery dry pretty quickly, but I just make sure I'm plugged in.

There is one Mac Big Sur issue right now, and that's that the activation screen and the progress bars are messed up. They were ok with all OS X 10, but 11 somehow broke them. There's a ticket in on it.

Performance wise, that iMac should blow away my MacBook Pro.

Dave

[edited - I said Catalina issue. Catatina is just fine. I meant Big Sur, OS X 11  Sorry for any confusion]

Edited January 27, 2021 by Ultradave

[Bud Backer]

I run the CM games on my 2012 MacBookPro without issue. I’m still on MacOS 10.10. My friend runs it in his 27” iMac using MacOS 10.11 without a problem. There is a delay the first time one runs it after installation as the OS does some sort of scan of the application. This can sometimes take a few minutes but if allowed to complete then subsequent running of the app is instant. 
 

[A Canadian Cat]

18 hours ago, AlexUK said:

Something to think about is the apple transition to the apple silicon chips. The current models are probably the last generation of Intel chips. For future proofing may be worth waiting? 

Note not a Mac expert but my understanding from the talk on the forums of the photo editing sw I use is that the new Macs with the M1 chips will have an emulation mode to support older aps. This raises two concerns - 1) will there be any compatibility issues especially for OpenGL that Apple doesn't really care about and 2) how long will Apple actually support that? They don't have a great history of keeping support like that around long term. Which leads to another issue what will BFC do with CM games? Will they be able to recompile for the M1? Will it support OpenGL? I honestly have no idea what BFC plans or what avenues Apple will leave available to them to move forward with the older games.

On the other hand buying new Intel hardware eliminates that issue and leaves you to see what happens over the next few years all the while being able to play CM. Of course that could cause you to not be able to get the latest and greatest version of other software as vendors drop support for Intel machines. That will not happen right away so you would have to decide based on what other sw you use how that factors in.

[Ultradave]

18 hours ago, grunt_GI said:

I am an old Mac guy as well and have had no issues running CM on my trusty ol' iMac...I guess my bigger concern is does the latest Mac OS Big Sur do anything to CM?

I stopped upgrading from Mojave cuz I heard some guys had issue and I remember when Apple broke CMSF1 a few years ago...but my iMac is also getting long in the tooth so am thinking about upgrading this year.

Any issues @Panzer Lehr with your OS?

In my post I mistakenly said Catalina when the graphics issue is actually in Big Sur. Two things - the blue progress bars don't show so when they are supposed to be there at scenario load and turn processing, it looks like the game locked up (especially on scenario load because the screen is black). It didn't. It's working just fine and will come back. It's just a graphics thing. The activation screen (that square screen you get the first time to put in your serial number) is all funky. You can use it, but it blinks and the buttons move back and forth. I've put bug reports in for both of these issues. It affects all titles so it's some graphics weirdness specific to Big Sur. I'm sure it will get cleaned up.

I volunteered among the beta testers to be the guinea pig to see how Big Sur works with CM. Other than that, no issues at all. The game runs just fine and there are no in game graphics issues at all, just those odd ones.

Dave

[Lucky_Strike]

23 hours ago, Artkin said:

Sorry what part of his question did I not answer by not reading? The Catalina part? Besides that I am probably one of the better qualified people to voice my opinion on this subject.

LOL you’re funny.

Panzer Lehr wants to buy an iMac. You started by bleating on about how bad they were - your opinion, not supported by anything you know personally (you don’t buy Apple). Then you started on about cooling - of course they have cooling, damn things would catch on fire without it. Oh, and then there was this choice quote:

16gb of ram is the minimum you should consider as win10 now likes to use 4+gb alone

I T ‘ S   A   M A C

Yawn, you may well be expert in using home-built PCs with Windows, but this was a question specifically about is this iMac going to be good enough to play CM games on? not are PCs better than Mac or vice versa.

I’m sorry that you took offence, but seriously, you absolutely missed the point of the original question.

[Lucky_Strike]

23 hours ago, Schrullenhaft said:

This performance difference may not be truly significant with the current game engines of CM, but the next one MIGHT show a more dramatic increase with the faster videocard.

This will probably be the case, but at the current rate of release, you (PanzerLehr) probably only really need to worry about this if you’re planning to keep the iMac for more than three years.

As an aside I would hope that BF are looking seriously at optimising the next game engine to leverage the power of the new M series of chips that Apple are developing. If all that we’ve seen so far is to be believed these chips are capable of some quite amazing stats, and could really upset the chip market.

[Artkin]

2 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

LOL you’re funny.

Panzer Lehr wants to buy an iMac. You started by bleating on about how bad they were - your opinion, not supported by anything you know personally (you don’t buy Apple). Then you started on about cooling - of course they have cooling, damn things would catch on fire without it. Oh, and then there was this choice quote:

16gb of ram is the minimum you should consider as win10 now likes to use 4+gb alone

I T ‘ S   A   M A C

Yawn, you may well be expert in using home-built PCs with Windows, but this was a question specifically about is this iMac going to be good enough to play CM games on? not are PCs better than Mac or vice versa.

I’m sorry that you took offence, but seriously, you absolutely missed the point of the original question.

Disappear little troll.

He asked for CONCERNS. What I said is correct and is the best advice youll come across. I forgot when typing out the 4gb for windows thing, but the same **** still applies. 16gb.  

 

Also do yourself a favor and look at the cooling of an Imac. Then look at the cooling of a "gaming" machine.

Do you even know what youre talking about?

Edited January 27, 2021 by Artkin

[Ultradave]

8GB is plenty for CM on a Mac, but I'd get 16 anyway if I was replacing mine, just to have the extra memory when needed, and not just for CM.  In fact, I can run Black Sea in Parallels Desktop Windows 10 on my 8GB MacBook Pro.

The iMac he's looking at is much higher spec than my MacBook Pro and I have no problems running CM games. He'll be fine.

Dave