Mac questions

D

DonReactor

Registered
Well i'm new here so i have some question about Imac's and the things i can include or connect to it.
1st of all i don't have a Mac yet, but i'm willing to buy one i have my eye on the Imac. I want to use it for video editing and a bit of gaming is the 17 inch any good?
And is the software that comes with the Imac any good for a beginner for video and so? or do i have to buy some more program's? i'm not willing to spend allot of money on it yet.
and is there something for the Imac to make 5.1 sound? an external soundcard or something? and do i have to have special speakers for it coz i already have 5.1 for my pc.
And EyeTV is that good to watch TV and record?
and last do i have to upgrade if i want editing video and so, or is the Imac 17 inch enough without upgrading?

Greeting DonReactor
Dutch :cool:
 
Hey Don! Welcome to the forum.
Here the answers:
software for video editing: all you will EVER need is bundled with your new imac! And even more. You will get iLife 2004 which is amazing. You will be very surprised how great the software is. I will promise there is nothing you gonna miss.
gaming with the iMac:
erhmmm, this won't satisfy you. I believe you come from the pc world and the amount of games is less in the thinking different world. And if you look for the latest 3d games, you will be slightly disappointed with your iMac. Games running on the quake engines (also quake3) work very fine. But there are a lot of games that won't run that well. This might be due to the MX 3d card in the iMacs but mostly because of the really bad ports.
About the sound: Can't tell you. I am pretty sure that there are some cards or usb devices that provide 5.1 support to the iMac. But I can't tell you any.
EyeTV works -from what I have heard by now- pretty good.
One thing about macs and upgrade: max out the ram and everything will be fine ;)

Hope I was helpful!
 
Zammy assumes you want 5.1 sound for games, and he's probably right... Or are you thinking 5.1 sound for DVD movies? There is at least one surround-sound card for Macs (Revolution 7.1 - PCI Audio Interface) but I don't think you can install it in an iMac. A G4 or G5 would work though.

There are many good games for the Mac platform, but if you want to be able to play the very latest games as soon as they come out, don't toss your PC. Take a look at www.macplay.com for some decent games, or www.apple.com/store, and follow the links to third party/software/action games.
 
thanks i will keep it in mind when i'm gonna buy an Imac. To bad there aren't much games for the mac but ooh well. :(
But thanks for helping me out a bit with this :D
 
there are games for mac ... http://www.apple.com/games as a short look what exists .. you will get a few games with the imac too - i think deimos rising can be one of them (http://www.ambrosiasw.com has it) - one of my all time fav games.

there is a great subwoofer that works fine with imac. i forgot how it's called (sorry, fever) - ask in the apple store. it makes a big difference to the sound. without the sound is fine or good, with it it's great. test it somewhere if you can, e.g. an apple store close to you.

i believe the 17" will be what you will like / need.

welcome on board :)
 
For a large list of major or semi-major games (as in mostly commercial games) for the Mac, go to the Mac Games Database.

For a surround-sound speaker system, a multi-channel sound card will work the best, but without it, Macs provide fairly good 5.1 simulation. You can find a number of speaker sets at MacMall:
  • Kenwood
  • Logitech
  • Klipsch (I looked for this one initially... I couldn't find it because I was entering "Klisch!" LOL)
  • More 5.1 sets (scroll down a bit, toward the bottom, to get the large listing)
Also look for 4.1 sets... the only difference is that these lack the center speaker, and are still excellent.
 
I now have a Cambridge Soundworks 5.1 DTT2200 speaker set. can it be put on the Imac? It has 3 connectors 1 for front 1 for rear and one for center/subwoofer. and i only saw 1 connection for the speakers how can this be done?
And some other questions:
In wich format can i put the ready to burn cd/dvd? SVCD, VCD etc. (with basic software that comes with the Imac)
And do i have to have special CD/DVD's? Coz i saw some apple dvd disc on the apple site.
and could i burn 700 mb or even 800 mb cd's if i want to and can i burn everything on it that i want?
And how is it with the full screen of the Imac from dvd's coz not all are wide screen played.
And that's all for now :p
 
the iMac just has 1 jack connection. However, if you just want to have all your speakers working and you don't care for real positional audio, then simply buy a jack doubler and plug front and rear speakers. I think the center speaker is dispensable, right? If you want to use true 5.1 sound, check out for usb or pci devices for macs.
You can burn ANY format you like. I am just not sure if this is possible with the bundled software. There is a great app called Toast which does really anything you could ever dream of that is related to CDs and DVDs. Take a look at that one. I can highly recommend.
No special CDs or DVDs needed. You should just make sure you buy DVD-Rs and not DVD+Rs but this is the same in the PC world if you don't have a multiburner. But of course there might be some brands that don't work fine, but this is the same with every burner.
You can burn as much as the CD allows and believe it or not, you can even burn ANYTHING you want on those CDs or DVDs! ;)
Don'T know about the full screen thing. Sorry... :(
Anything else? I am still around for 10mins. ;)
 
Got another question! :D
This time it's about the hardware.
Do you have to have Apple hardware like there grafich card or can you use normal AGP grafich cards?
Ad if it can will it work as good as on a computer or les or maby even more?
 
if its an imac you wont be able to upgrade its video card sorry, but as far as desktops go they arent really apple's graphics card but ATI and nVidia cards
 
still they need to be "mac versions". Don't know in what way they differ to pc-ware. However, there are radeon 9800er pro for macs as well. And as nb3004 said: you won't be able to upgrade your iMac gpu. You might want to consider a G5, huh? ;)
 
yeah maby a G5 is good the 1.6 version is the almost the same price as the Imac only with no screen and the 1.6 is more powerful. will the price of a Nvidia or ATI Card be more expensive then regular PC card?
And could some tell me what's better a G5 1,6 Ghz or the Imac i'm giong to use it for basic edit's (photo's , vid's etc). I have a Normal screen 17" 1024X768 75 hz what's best? price of both computers are almost the same.
 
I think those mac-versions of the latest nvidia and ati gpus are some kind of reference boards. In the pc world every company uses its own board design and saves money on this and that. So, I believe those mac compatible cards should be at least slightly more expensive.
Why are you concerned about the gpu? Beside in games the standard equipment is good enough.

Also consider some old Dual G4 powermacs. They have a very good performance/price ratio.
 
If you compare G5 powermac and iMac and the screen is no argument, I would definitely go G5. But you won't rape your G5 with your crt screen (=non_lcd_screen). So, there won't pass a month and you will think of a nice lcd.
The G5 is surely the better choice in terms of performance and ability to upgrade disc, gpu...
But as I said before: consider a Dual G4 powermac too.
 
I just wanted to reiterate that there are LOTS of games for the Mac now and more on the way. No, it can't compare with a PS2 or PC, but unless you're a super hardcore gamer and simply must have all of the best and the newest the minute they come out, you'll have a large selection.

There will be technical problems (for ex. No One Lives Forever 2 won't run on the newest version of the operating system yet, boo!), but there are technical problems on the PC too, as I'm sure you know.

I think I counted 20 excellent games available or soon to be in another post. That list didn't include games I'm not interested in or games more than about a year old. The newest games will run on the iMac, but not with all the graphical bells and whistles.

Now, should you get the G5 or the iMac? You'll probably want to get the G5 or wait for a G5 iMac (not yet announced). I love my 17" iMac, but I'm saving my money for a G5 because of its greater speed and expandability.

Doug
 
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