I am technologically inept, need basic recommendations

I have a MacBook Pro. Can't use it for shit when it comes to gaming. I just want a basic PC that I can game well on. I really have no idea where to go from here, someone help me out pls.

When I say game I mean things like steam games and possibly downloading other PC games.

 

Just use bootcamp?

 

I'm technologically challenged so excuse this question but what is bootcamp and what benefits does it offer?

 

It lets you run windows on your mac. So you will be able to play windows games.

 

Is it whether it's windows or not that makes a game run smoothly? I always thought it was the hardware and specs of the computer itself. Would a 2010 MacBook Pro run games well?

 

Under no circumstances will your MacBook pro be worth two flips for gaming. Even the current most top-of-the-line MacBook pro comes with only a Nvidia GT-750M at best. This card is already two generations old in the notebook world(desktops skipped the 8xx cards), and it was a mid-range card at its time. Currently, it is considered a low range card and will hardly play modern games at playable framerates unless playing at 1366x768 resolution with low settings.

Now, add the fact that what was suggested by using bootcamp to basically run windows under a virtual machine WITHIN OSX, and you get unplayable framerates even at 1024x768. You may as well be watching a slideshow.

Unfortunately, my suggestion to you would be to run an external GPU setup via your thunderbolt port (or a mini-pcie if your laptop has one) and set it up with perhaps a used 7970, and that would be the best bang for your buck. The reason I say this is an unfortunate option is because it's not necessarily simple to understand and set up at first. People have done this with a lot of MacBook pros thru their thunderbolt port. It doesn't allow the full bandwidth of the GPU, which hinders its performance somewhat. But the resulting performance is still far greater than you'll get out of your laptop in any other way. on a thunderbolt 2 port, the performance loss is only about 10-15 percent. on a card that already gets perhaps 60fps on a game at high settings in a desktop, youll see perhaps 50-55 on your egpu. not a big deal. The mobile CPU's have decent enough power to not bottleneck the EGPU much and allow the graphics power boost to really show(even a mobile i5). Your major bottleneck on the Egpu solutions with laptops is often the bandwidth of the connection you are using.

Since your MacBook should have a thunderbolt port, doing an egpu solution would cost you about 500-550, including the cost of a decent video card. It's not the easiest solution though and has a slight learning curve for you to understand...not something for the inept. But it's certainly something you could learn. start with a little research here, and then a few google searches will find you much more info.
http://forum.techinferno.com/enclos...o-thunder2-pcie-box-16gbps-tb2.html#post98210
this box is an all-in-one solution which makes it nice. Plug your GPU into the PCI slot, hook up the power supply of your choice, plug everything in, and plug the thunderbolt to your laptop. Unplug one plug when you need to be mobile, and plug it back in when you sit back down and want to game.


Otherwise, you'll want to set aside about 800 for a fairly good windows gaming PC, but it will be simple. Boot and play.


If it were me, i'd dual-boot that MacBook with windows 8.1 on a separate partition, then boot to windows...and go in and delete the mac osx partition forever so you only have windows. OSX sucks.

 

Jeez that's one long response. Ok so what I learned is that unless I'm a wizard I can't play games on my Mac.

Alright so can you recommend a type of computer. Don't give me specs because I literally don't know what any of that means. Preferably, link me to a few.

 

What is your budget?

Are you looking for a desktop PC or a laptop?

If you're looking for a PC, do you already have a monitor/mouse/keyboard, or do those need to be factored into your budget?

 

Id reccomend looking into building your own computer, take a couple hours out of your day and itll save you money

 

Get a desktop.

Your next problem is your budget.

After you determine we can help you.

SASRT8 knows his stuff.

 

Laptop. Would prefer it to be below $1,000.

 

Ignore the shit about getting bootcamp. My mac is a late 2011 and im barely getting 25FPS on league of legends. No doubt your 2010 mac will be worse than mine.

I've just dropped £1,250 on a new gaming PC.

You do realise PCs game far better than laptops? but ofcourse this is up to you. However for a $1,000 laptop, im not sure.

Heres one i found, pretty decent, but ofcourse expensive as fuck since its alienware.

http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-13/pd?oc=dkcwe01h&model_id=alienware-13

As stated above though, SASRT8 knows his shit, he helped me with alot of my parts for my PC.

 

Get the 2.7GHz its like 500 dollars with the 1.7 but that want be enough u need the 2.7. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00NGK7S1A/ref=mp_s_a_1_9?qid=1417805537&sr=1-9&pi=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70

 

ASUS makes fantastic gaming laptops, and the price is extremely fair in comparison to a lot of the "name brand" gaming pc/laptop manufacturers (ibuypower, falcon northwest, alienware, sager, etc.)

I have the Asus G75VW, was $1499 when I bought it almost 2 years ago, andto this day it still runs pretty much any game I throw at it with ease. It has a GTX670M GPU, I believe 8 or 12GB of RAM stock, and off of the top of my head, I forget what the CPU is.

Something along those lines might be worth the investment for you.

 

I second the Asus suggestion. One of my friends has had a couple and they have been good and fairly cheap.

 

I'll get with ya about these things when I can get some time in, sorry I've been busy travelling for business in Saudi.

 

This and MSI is also magnificent, I would stay away from Alienware they are just overpriced.

As for a recommendation for a certain laptop I don't have one, but I would try to stick to either an i5 or i7 processor. A dedicated graphics card is a must, and also an SSD would be preferred.

Here's a link to some laptops: http://www.xoticpc.com/custom-gaming-laptops-notebooks-gaming-laptops-ct-118_96_98.html

 

so from my reading, it seems youre now leaning towards a laptop.

With a budget at 1000, it will be hard to get something that will last you longer than 1 1/2 to 2 years before you have to really start bringing down the game settings big time. The sager np8651 is a close match, with a gtx 970M and an i7. the 970 will last you several years, its a solid GPU. that laptop is just over 1200.

Generally, my recommendation for laptops will always be MSi for the features, or clevo/Sager for their price to performance ratio. Browse around xoticPC.com and see what you like.

 

Buy parts online and build a computer yourself, look up pre-made builds if you can't be bothered making it, easy.