[trampled_underfoot89]

hello everyone,

i am new to this forum and am very interested in purchasing an apple laptop. I have a few questions i have thought of and was hoping that someone could answer them for me.

1.) Can you play games such as Age of Empires or NHL 2005 or any type of game that shows the system requirments to be for windows users only?

2.) Are no virus protection programs needed such as norton antivirus, or any type of spam blocker?

well those are the only questions i can think of right now, but i will probably have more as i think of them later on.

Thank you -
Matt

[Maciej]

1) You can play such games if you also purchase Microsoft Virtual PC. Although I will now warn you it is a CPU hog last time I tried it, and you would do well with upgrading any RAM you might buy for your notebook (not buying your new ram from Apple of course though).

2) You do not need any of that software.

Hope that was helpful, good luck making your decision and if you need anymore information don't hesitate to ask, or PM or instant message.

We are always happy to help out a new user here. Oh and welcome to Nova.

[alcimedes]

1. Nope. Some games are eventually ported to Macs, others (namely Blizzard games) are developed and released at the same time. However, if the box says "Windows only" it's not going to run on your Mac. (well, technically you could run it in emulation, but it won't use your graphics card and it will be dog slow, so it doesn't count in my book)

2. As of this point, there are 0 known viruses for OSX. There are also no known instances of spyware running on OSX. The only one that was ever a question was an old version of Limewire, which I'd avoid like the plague anyway. Use poisoned if you want a good p2p application.

And welcome.

[Batman]

Ah, trampled_underfoot89, you bring up both the pros and the cons of the Mac world. For now, Windows games are not Apple friendly. They might be after the Intel switch (with a bit of tweaking), but not now. However, Apple did not really design their computers with gaming in mind. Now, for the good news. Mac OS X has 0 viruses - zilch, nada, zip. You do not need Norton, et al. Mail.app has a pretty good spam filter, so you should be safe if you use it, or another 3rd party mail application such as Mozilla Thunderbird. So there you go. Hope I could be of some help, and welcome to the world of Apple (and Applenova).

-The Batman

Edit: Darn, I took so long writing my response, several people beat me too it. Oh well. C'est la vie.

[atomicbartbeans]

Welcome to Applenova!

1. No, only if they make a Mac version. However, Age of Empires has a Mac version (I own it and its awesome). I'm not sure about NHL 2005 though.

2. No. there are no viruses, trojans, spyware, or adware for OS X. Anti-virus software does you no good and will only slow down your computer. As for spam email, OS X's mail has an excellent spam-blocking engine (i find it 95% accurate).

Feel free to ask anything else.

Edit: Damn you all, beaten to it thrice!

[geneman]

1) I know Age of Empires exists for mac (haven't tried it), also check http://www.apple.com/games for available games

2) No anti-virus necessary as no viruses exist for the mac. Spam is however an equally big problem on the mac, but free spam filters are available.

EDIT: I see I'm way to slow

[Maciej]

Obviously I must cross post here simply because I am confused. Is it not possible to install games on virtual pc? If so then what is the point if you can't use applications?

[alcimedes]

The problem with 95% of most modern games is that they use the computer GPU (graphics card) to process the huge amounts of visual data in the game. Virtual PC WON'T use your computer's GPU when running things in emulation. The end result is that things that aren't graphics intensive run in Virtual PC just fine. Things that are very graphics intensive (read games and CAD) don't run very well at all.

[trampled_underfoot89]

well thank you everyone for the help

I also thought of another question. My whole house is hooked up to a wireless network. Will the internet work on an apple laptop if i have this, or is there some type of special 'apple network' made for apples only that i need in order for it to work. Also are there built in cards for wireless internet on all laptops from apple?

[Luca]

And by "not well at all" we're not talking 10-15 fps, we're talking 0 fps or even being completely unable to even launch the game. Newer games require a more advanced video card than VPC can emulate. In other words, do not count on being able to play ANY games on VPC, other than solitaire or minesweeper.

Many Mac users who are big into games have to either make do with the better Mac games available (many from Blizzard, as well as ports by Aspyr) or maintain a separate gaming PC or gaming console.

[alcimedes]

Last I checked any Apple laptop you buy has wireless included, and it will work on your wireless network just fine. Wireless (802.11b and 802.11g) is a standard protocol across all computer platforms. (Apple, MS, Linux etc)

[Maciej]

Thanks for clearing that up for me alcimedes, and that makes clear sense now that i think about it.

I believe Apple just introduced standard wireless across the board with their new bump of the iBooks. And there is no extra apple hardware that you will need, other than, obviously, a wireless card that will ship with in your laptop.

[atomicbartbeans]

Yeah, I use my iBook on my network (and networks of friends) all the time. They actually perform better on a wireless network than most PCs.

[trampled_underfoot89]

well thanks again,
lol i have yet another question.. will MSN - windows messanger service (im sure some of you have heard of (a chat program)) work on any apple laptop?

[atomicbartbeans]

Yes. Microsoft just came out with MSN Messenger 5.0 for Macintosh.

Edit: Oooh. I'm getting faster.

[InactionMan]

Yeah, I think they just released MSN 5.

Edit: Beaten by atomicbartbeans! Damn!!!

[geneman]

In addition (to Microsoft messenger) there are tons of other IM clients that can handle the MSN protocol, personally I'm using Adium and I know quite a few others here do as well.