I upgraded from my 15 year old PC to one of the new Mac Minis at Xmas last year, thinking that I would be fine for gaming with my Xbox / Game Pass, and I would “skip a generation” on PC hardware. I have a small Steam / Epic library, but everything that didn’t work on MacOS, I had a Game Pass version of.
Fast forward a year. Xbox shit itself, RAM and GPU prices / 2026 outlook are dismal, etc etc
What’s my best option going forward for gaming? The only option I see right now is cloud gaming like GeForceNOW, but it seems like such a ripoff.
Any advice?
Edit- a lot of people are fixating on GamePass. I canceled my GamePass sub when the price went up. I no longer have it.
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Game Pass sounds great, but the average game play time is ~2 weeks. You’re paying $240–480/year to skim the surface of multiple games.
That’s a lot for what is essentially a demo experience. There are better ways to approach gaming.
Play for a week, refund on Steam.
Free forever!
I thought there was play time limits of like 2 hours for a refund
You could play full games, start to finish. I think it’s kinda unfair to compare them to demos. It was a pretty good deal at $10 a month.
I think money is better spent on Humble Choice since you can buy months that interest you and skip those that don’t, and the games stay in your library. I prefer to spend money to be able to keep games than pay to rent newer ones.
Hence me mentioning the price. When does it stop being worth it? You were clearly happy with $120/year, but everyone has their own threshold.
10$ a year is (was) the price of 2 full price titles. And that’s about the price I pay for games in a year. How much do you pay for games in a year?
Maybe $100/year? I prefer games without a “box price”, though I do make exceptions.
Most are free-to-play that specifically aren’t pay-to-win, and play them for years. I’ll also consider paying for DLC and/or “battle pass” systems in them if the content and bang-for-buck is worth it to me.
Is there anything you’re currently missing out on with your Xbox?
Do you have any public libraries around you might borrow physical games from? (Assuming your Xbox has a disc drive)
Depending on what games you want to play, Game Pass might still be a relatively cheap option, especially if you can find it cheaper (Live Gold codes should still work conversion-wise, but who knows how much they go for these days).A used Steam Deck or equivalent handheld PC might be a great option or addition to tour setup, obviously depending on what games you want to play.
Not sure what to tell you, but a Mac is the last platform to go to for gaming. Apple has zero interest in gaming and have made the platform virtually hostile to gaming development.
Steam regularly has sales (really good sales, like under $5) for fairly modern games (within the last 10 years).
Wait for a sale on something like an AMD Beelink and use that.
Like I replied to another comment, the Mac was necessary for work (art and music) and was light years ahead of anything else that can be obtained at its price point ($575).
Thanks for the Beelink rec, though.
I also switched my tower out for an M4 mini last year. It surprised me how much I fell in love with it and Mac OS. Retro game corps has a great emulation on Mac video, though I also ended up with a Beelink SER9 that I use exclusively for game streaming. I’m sure there is a substantial cost, but I wish more developers would release for Apple silicon. They’re truly excellent machines.
Older and or used hardware is gonna be a place to start for CPU and GPU. Used dell optiplex can get you most of the way there, then buy a decent GPU when you can. Just make sure it fits in the case and the PSU that comes with the optiplex can handle the power draw. I’d recommend a new PSU though. Dont buy used for PSU or storage is the best advice I can give.
Optiplex are not gonna get you top of the line performance or anything but it’ll be a lot better than nothing and you can always use it for something else later like a nas, a server, home theater PC, etc.
It might be an option that doesn’t come up much, but older/lower-spec consoles are an option: The Playstation 4 and Xbox Series S. They’re not available for recent big AAA games, but that’s less and less of the big trends. There have still been many games coming out this year for the PS4.
That’s, of course, if you’re really on a low budget for hardware. Otherwise, a PC is a great investment for games on Steam sales.
Maybe wait for the Steam Machine
And how is the Steam Machine safe from the high prices?
Take a break. Go outside. Enjoy nature.
Maybe look into a BC-250 build. Basically a binned PS5 chip but you can overclock it to make back some of the performance.
https://elektricm.github.io/amd-bc250-docs/
That or i got a fairly recent office PC that had an AMD 8700G and 32 GB of DDR5 on ebay for 400 bucks. Slapped in a 9060xt and its a sub 800 dollar build. Didn’t do enough research though and found out the 8700 only has 8 PCIE lanes even though bios and specs list x16. Oh well, it performs well enough for now.
Play old games, I guess? Arc Raiders is one of the only new games I’ve played in a long time. Recently got an Xbox one to play the golden age cod games.
I downgraded to the lowest tier, so technically they lost money on me.
Wasn’t Game Pass like $6/mo on PC not too long ago? Who’s paying $20 for this crap? The game selection isn’t even that good.
Switching to Bazzite (a Linux Distro, made for gaming). No Ragrets so far
I don’t think bazzite runs on ARM macs.
It looks like it doesn’t support ARM architecture systems at all, or anything other than x86_64.
https://docs.bazzite.gg/Gaming/Hardware_compatibility_for_gaming/
Minimum System Requirements
- Architecture: x86_64
Yeah, I figured that hadn’t changed, but was too lazy to actually look up the source, thanks for adding it.
However, with box64 you can emulate x86_64 on arm, however I think macs don’t have the gpu integration. Crazy thing is on some phones with snapdragon chips you can emulate games up to cyberpunk 2077 decently well.
You don’t NEED new stuff to play games. My computer is pushing 8 years old, I just upgrade the nvme or graphics card when needed. I got a refurb 3070 last year for $450 with warranty, can get one on Amazon now for under $300 without warranty. You don’t need 64gb to play games, 16 is plenty and you can get motherboards that use ddr4 fairly cheap.
Look around, second hand market is fine, just very the parts. This 3070 will last me a few years minimum.
Um… you need to sell that Mac and build a computer with DDR4 and maybe a 40 Series NVIDIA GPU (so as to not pay the high prices on both fronts), slap Linux on it (I’d recommend Mint or Pop_OS!), and learn how to set it up for gaming. That’s stupid otherwise.
Sorry, but the Mac is for art and music. I make money with it, its non-negotiable.
Please point me to a comparable PC build that can be had for a total price tag of $575, since that’s what I shelled out for the Mac.
If you can’t, why did you even make this comment?
If you are buying new, $575 isn’t going to get you a lot.
But if you buy used and don’t mind lurking on second-hand platforms for a while to find a good deal, you should be able to get something decent for that amount.
With current pricing, it’s going to be tough and that’s no joke.
Even the new Steam Machine is being predicted to be around $1,000.
https://www.indy100.com/gaming/steam-machine-price-cost-release-date-2674829977
The era of $600 gaming PCs is 1-3 years ago now.
(NGL - I still want a Steam Machine. :)
Yeah, that’s unfortunately the conclusion I’m reaching. I was hoping there was an angle I hadn’t considered yet.
Maybe I’ll just give in and do a year sub to GeForce and then reassess prices next Xmas. I definitely can’t afford to build a new machine now, but a lot can happen in a year.
With the Mac Mini’s use, that is completely understandable. I tried to find something that fit your price range, and couldn’t find squat. However, you might want to take a look at Cevo, which is a Taiwanese ODM, that many of the Linux computer makers utilize.
Good shout with Cevo. One of the few angles I haven’t looked super deeply into is a Linux machine. Time to study.
Mac user as well. I have an M2 Pro mini on my desk, and a base M2 MacBook Air.
To be fair, you didn’t specify in the OP why you bought the Mac. Their comment is fair, and this is coming from a guy who doesn’t like Windows. It’s also a bad recommendation: you’re not gonna get a good deal on the Mac that would get you a comparative PC. Your best bet would either be a used Switch or a used Xbox Series S, or maybe a PS4 (Xb1 sucks).
That said, you can get a comparable PC for $575, but you won’t get $575 for a $575 Mac selling it secondhand. The fallacy with that suggestion is you’ll get about 2/3 what you paid at best and that’ll put you in a much worse spot. Now you might be able to get a Chinese PC with everything on the chip like the Mac mini is, with 16GB DDR4 and something like an i3 dual core that will do some of the things the Mac will do, but it won’t have a Windows license, you’ll need to pay for that or get Linux. Still a bad idea if your new Mac works and you’re happy with it.
I made my comment entirely based on the picture, which is kinda my bad but I’m leaving it. I read the text after. I blame my autism.
That being said, you didn’t buy the Mac for gaming. If you did that’s on you. Heroic is good for some Steam games. M2 Pro isn’t great for gaming. I suspect you have an M4 base with 16 or 24GB of RAM (doesn’t matter in most cases). That’s a more capable machine. Still not great. Macs are not gaming machines. GeForce Now is a decent way to go if you have Steam games. You only need to pay the $10/month price to get decent game streaming, but only if the latency is good enough based on your location. If it’s not, the $20/month tier isn’t going to help. It’s just better graphics.
OP is using the Mac for music and art, and that’s how he makes money. This was a clarification in response to what I said to him.
Have a look at the Heroic Launcher. I remember reading it included a feature to play some Windows games in compatibility mode or something?
Apart from that I guess it’s Geforce Now, Amazon Luna etc…
Can confirm.
Most games I run on Heroic are free giveaways from Epic. Those are, to the best of my knowledge, all Windows. Heroic handles the compatibility with Proton, similar to how Steam does it. With a fancypants workaround you can even install Sims 4 as a direct game exe, and well, you can run any program from it if you really wanted
I’ve used it for Epic and GOG, Lutris for Ubi/EA, but can either play MS UWP games? That seemed to be the one huge hurdle for any third party launcher in general.
