Freed from the prison that is Apple Computers.

News & General Discussion
1

INCOMING WALL OF TEXT, HIDE THE CHILDREN.

I started using Unity a few years ago, and at the time it was Mac only. Because of this, when my work at the time gave me a $10,000 budget for a new home computer I used it to buy a $8,000 early 2008 model Mac Pro desktop. This was possibly the worst financial decision I have ever made. At the time I was the stereotypical “Mac guy”. I bought into all the hype and bragged about my new machine. But over the next couple years I realized what a piece of junk I had bought, and just how much I over payed for it.

Since its purchase, the graphics card failed, the replacement card failed, and the current card is on the fritz. The second memory bay failed, the 3rd hardrive bay failed ( Or I suppose it may have never worked, I just hadn’t tried it until recently ) and the internal speaker has failed. And besides the numerous hardware failures, the hardware just SUCKED. An equivalently speced PC at the time would cost in the range of $1,000 to $2,000. So best case scenario I payed 4x to much for a computer that can barely play WoW on high.

But so what right? Macs aren’t gaming machines, they don’t need to be powerful, its all about USABILITY right… RIGHT…?

It took me a while to figure out “It just works” is a bold faced lie. In fact, NOTHING works. So many products be it software, mice, keyboards, microphones just DON’T work. EVERYTHING requires an extra step

-Like when I brought home a new mic only to find out my Mac doesn’t have a Mic-in port, and instead has a proprietary port that only works with apple mics which have a frequency response that would anger a tone deaf 6 year old.

-Or when I wanted to hook up my computer to my TV and projector. Instead of having a HDMI port, or even an S-video port. It has two DVI ports that require a special adapter that I had to go buy at radio shack

-Or when I bought a new high DPI mouse that had “Mac Compatible” written on the box, only to find out in order to make the additional buttons work I needed to download a $20 third party driver and adjust the settings in there.

-Or when I tried to hook up my studio monitors(Speakers) which even connect to my FIFTEEN YEAR OLD IBM LAPTOP but DON’T connect to my Mac Pro without an adapter, despite the Mac Pro being advertised as a “Musicians dream”

-Or when I bought a new gaming headset just recently to play the newly released Mac version of TF2 only to find out that none of the dedicated buttons are usable, and the volume is permanently to loud.

Not to mention that 90% of all computer products don’t have a Mac verion, and the ones that do release it WAAYY later than the PC version. Because of this my household was always clamoring for the single PC computer because there was always SOME plug-in, or program or peripheral that was PC only. I bought an $8,000 dollar computer that touts usability as its primary feature, yet it sits alone in the office while my family of 6 fights to the death over who gets to use the 5 year old piece of junk Windows XP laptop.

AWGHAIGIKAFGNKENGKQWGNaufhwaihjgqwgTQHGIQWGR

But today, that is all over. On labor day I bought a new windows 7 desktop and a new windows 7 laptop, and I swear to god it feels like I am coming home after 3 years at war.

For <$1,100 I picked up a:
ASUS G73jh gaming laptop.
Intel Core i7 Quad-core which self over clocks to 2.8 Ghz, and goes up to 3.2Ghz on “twin-turbo mode”
8GB DDR3 RAM
ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics card with 1GB dedicated video memory.
Blu-Ray drive ( Bought separately, but included in the price )
1,600x900 resolution 17.3 inch screen.

This thing is a beast. With “twin-turbo mode” on It runs Crysis on max settings even at 1,600x900. And despite its size it is quiet as a mouse, and never heats up.

And the new family (Read no one touches it but me ) desktop:
Digital Storm Black Ops Assassin
Intel Core i7 950
12GB DDR3
Twin ( Thats right, 2 ) nVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 with 1.5 GB dedicated video memory each
blu-ray drive
512GB Solidstate drive
2TB Secondary harddrive

All that for ~$3,000

At first I wanted to make fun of the fact that I got both these machines for HALF the price of my crappy Mac Pro, but I decided that wasn’t fair. I got it 3 years ago and things have gotten significantly cheaper since then. So out of fairness, lets go have a gander at the latest Apple Computers, and see what it would cost to get a Mac version of what I just bought.

For a Mac laptop: It would cost $2,899…
And even though it costs over 2x more, the best graphics card you can put in it is not even half as good as the one in my $1,100 ASUS.

Thats right, you pay over 2x more to get a computer thats not even HALF as good.

And for the Mac desktop: $7,900… :shock:

And yet again, the closest thing that you could call “equivalent” is still inferior both in clock speed, and graphics capability ( 2 GTX 480s being slightly faster than 2 radeon 5870s ). And yet again, despite being inferior, it is still over double the price.

Now that Unity has a windows editor, I am forever done with Apples pathetic and overpriced products ( Except you iPod… I still like you). I will give apples marketing team credit. They were given the task of getting people to pay more money for less computer and by god they pulled it off. I feel sorry for anyone who is dim enough to fall for the pathetically transparent apple ads. I know there are a lot of hardcore apple fanboys here, because I used to be one of you. But not anymore, I officially defect from the ranks.

Apple, you wasted my money, my time and my patience. And I swear to the flying spaghetti monster that I will NEVER buy an apple product again.

tl;dr: 2 Apples cost the same as a single window, but are only half as transparent.

2

There’s no such thing as an “Apple mic”. Your computer has no mic jack; it has a line input and full-sized TOSLINK I/O. There’s nothing proprietary about any of it.

Get real. You’re trying to hook up “studio monitors” with RCA cables. :stuck_out_tongue:

It’s not Apple’s fault you spent a boatload of money for a product that was completely unsuitable to you. Next time, do some research.

3

I enjoyed reading that because I’m the only one with a windows computer in my office.

However, I’m not as anti mac as you. Currently I have no laptop and and I’m the market to buy one. I’ve looked at different brands and honestly, everything that isn’t a mac looks like it was made 40 years ago from old tractor parts. And why do they still insist on putting that godawful VGA port on every single laptop?

And iMacs are pretty affordable, and you get an amazing screen with them.

Also I feel there’s a lot more amazing work related mac applications out there than there are windows applications. For example Omnifocus and Transmit, which I seriously desire as a Windows user. :slight_smile: And applications like Photoshop seems to be designed for macs now and ported to Windows. The interface in CS4 and CS5 is horrible on Windows.

There’s a lot of reasons to get a mac if you’re not into gaming as far as I’m concerned. And it’s mostly the reason I can’t decide what to get. If I did buy a mac it would certainly please the rest of the office. :slight_smile:

What suprised me however is that you like your iPod. :slight_smile: I think the iPod is by far the worst product apple has. It has abyssmal sound quality and it’s so limited you can’t even copy song to and from it from different computers.

4

@spiralgear
It sounds like you’ve turned from a stereotypical Mac into a stereotypical PC guy. But it’s partly entertaining to read that you are the only person who seemed to be able to obtain hardware components which everywhere else produce heat and so fan noise without these symptoms. Oh well…

The best aspect of my MacBookPro probably are the sharp edges, i enjoy scratching myself with these from time to time.

5

I am well aware…
I accidentally omitted the part about my digital I/O being broken out of the box, which is why I couldn’t use them. they offered to fix it though I guess, but I had deadlines to deal with and couldn’t be without my computer for a month worth of shipping times. But at the time this thing was touted as a computer for musicians and that being the case it has an appalling lack of audio inputs and a terrible sound card.

“Unsuitable to you” makes it sound like it would be suitable to someone else. I can’t imagine the kind of person who absolutely requires to pay 4x more for no reason. And a lack of research doesn’t forgive the MANY hardware failures.

I should probably mention that this post was more cathartic for me than informative to anyone else… Even though I am sure that is blatantly obvious. I guess my story if anything should serve as a warning: Don’t trust commercials, especially when they are convincing.

RANT MODE DISENGAGED.

6

A musician won’t be using the built-in A/D converters. Seriously, what do you expect? This is the way it’s done these days; having music-geared jacks built into the tower would be dumb.

There are several good reasons. For example, some of us like using the best music software.

7

I will agree that buying a Mac Pro is way over priced and completely not worth it. That being said, I don’t think that I would want to buy any other laptop other than a macbook pro. Grant you, macbook pros are also overpriced but no other laptop I have seen has a track pad like apple’s.

8

By supposing the family computer (thus, the less powerful in the house, available even to your children) is THAT, what the HELL is your gaming or working computer ?!

Anyway, you sure seems to have a lot of fun with Macs… 8) I never used one of my life (therefore, my life is incomplete :)), but I am not especially impatient, huhu…

Edit : family, but no one touches it ? Huh…

9

@Jessy, what is this talkboy link?
@TwiiK, travtor parts ahahahha :smile:

i have looked to that asus with i7 and incredible tech stuff, yesss, buttt… it is probable that when you get a macbook pro at hand and, this beast at hand, i will directly get the pro, and that s is what i am gonna do. i dont believe that beast can hold up to 8 hours of power chordless mode. I believe what you experienced was a chain of unlucky experiences. I am sorry for that. we ve got 3 macs at the office, 1 imac, 2 minis, and believe that these guys are far more expsensive here in Turkey, but buying them cheap at the right time is an issue. The topbest series of the line is usually very expensive, i believe that 8000 stands for this… i usually look for the second in hte line products in electronic goods, since they reside in a more efficient status. SO we got 3 and never had any issues for 1+ year. And never had to pay anything for any extra thing like usb mouse or so… And i am gonna buy a macbook pro soon, yes its not like tractor part, yes it has no that awesome vga input, what impresses me is its magnetic power suply input. When i saw that thing, i understood why the black beasts were cheap and this macs was not…
To develop the games, i do not believe i have to live with a beast :slight_smile:

Best

10

Love it. You’d think we’d all learned that lesson long ago, but yet we still fall for it (Up to 50mb broadband was my last fail in that regard… like saying I’m up to 9’ tall…)

11

Over the years I’ve had PC’s, Macs and even an Amiga or two. My studio currently has 2 Macs and 2 Dells. The Macs were bought strictly to develop with Unity, but with Unity 3 now requiring Leopard or above and Snow Leopard causing my Macs to run at 1/2 graphics speed, something newer/faster was required. I opted to go the same direction as 97% of my market, with a Windows machine.

The Asus specs are impressive, but their after sales / tech support is lacking. I bought a G60 a few months back which intermittently crashed, the cause of which neither Asus or “The Geek Squad” (I bought it through Best Buy) could find. The techie at Asus could barely speak English and insisted the serial number of my notebook was “invalid”. Fortunately, the manager at Best Buy allowed me to swap that Asus for a comparable Toshiba (actually the Toshiba is much nicer) and I’m happy. I’ve had Toshibas before and this one is just as nice as the last I owned years ago. Their tech support is top notch. After a bit of tweaking, I’ve gotten Windows 7 to behave the way I want it and I’m happy. I’ve got a notebook with better specs than a MacBook Pro for less than half the price. The switch from OS X to Windows 7 has been pretty painless so far and the performance vs. hardware cost is miles ahead of anything Apple offers… in my opinion that is. :wink:

12

I’ve always built my PCs on my own, because that gives you the machine and the components you really want, and in many years i only had one issue and that was a Radeon 9800 PRO which was fried by Unity. As for notebooks i can recommend SONY, a little bit more expensive but from my experiences they pay out in the long run. A MacBookPro is nice as well but it’s more expensive than a SONY.

13

Since I’m writing this on a Mac, got to be careful!
Macs: Good, not as good as people say, expensive.

14

Ditto taumel’s comments on a Sony notebook. I had one and it was very well made and tech support was awesome. I had that puppy for over 6 years before I finally donated it to a school and it’s probably still going strong. I would guess that Sony Vaio’s come as close to an Apple MBP’s quality as anyone, and their tech support is top notch. I went with the Toshiba because it was the best notebook I could get through Best Buy and I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with their tech support.

15

I am all ears when it comes to hearing how Unity fried any video card.

16

But not as expensive as people say, at least not for comparable machines.

17

I’m sure both mac and pc users will agree that what I choose is the best option for the following situations, and if someone disagrees I’d like to know why…

Situation A)
If I were to choose a computer on a specific budget… (say… $3000 us dollars) I’d definitely choose PC, because for the same price of a mac I think I can find a PC that I like much better.

Situation B)
If I wanted a computer for work only, video editing and stuff like that. And I was forced to choose from a mac and a pc of the same speed (no matter the price difference) Then I’d choose MAC. Because what I grant mac is that their software (and hardware) look really good, and I hear they are quite stable, and the video editing and most softwares might just be simply better than those available for pc.

Situation C)
If I wanted a multipurpose computer (work/ gaming/ internet/ etc) But I was forced to pick from a PC and a MAC that are same speed(no matter the price difference), I’d choose PC again, because mac products feel they’re always mac exclusive, for both software and hardware, and I want to feel like I can run any software and install any hardware I want. And for internet and especially gaming that can really affect your experience negatively.

I’ve spoken openly and honestly, you’re welcome to add a situation in which you’d choose mac or pc, and if you disagree with any of what I said I’m open to hear and why and consider changing my view on the matter.

18

I also hate macs. If they were to reasonably price their products, they would have more respect, AND more sells to all of the teens who think “OH OH THATS THE BESTLATOP EVER”.

19

@dogzerx - I’d disagree with “Option B”. There are many more options for video editing under Windows than there are for under OS X. Take Adobe Premiere for example, used to only be available for a Mac when it first came out, now you can’t get a Mac version any more.

I don’t “hate” Macs, I quite like OS X, Windows 7 and even Ubuntu all for different reasons. I -choose- to buy only Windows machines now because that’s what works best for Windows 3D game development. If I were an iPhone or Mac games developer, my opinion might be different.

20

@JRavey
There is not much to tell beside of that whilst the card worked fine in games and demos it got fried whilst i was playing around with a more complex Unity shader (Unity 2.x but i can’t remember which one it was) . boom Glitches, memory errors blocks on the screen, no HW acceleration anymore, … had to buy a new one.

This is a problem which sometimes shows up when you’re stressing a video card and the shaders are written in a more uncommon way. I remember two commercial releases were the developer got feedback that their game was causing crashes and freezes.

After extensive tests they realised that nothing was wrong with the code from a logical point of view but that their shadercode caused certain parts of the gfx-cards to overheat which was the cause for the crashes/freezes. They altered the code, updated the game and the problems were gone.

As you might expect i never got any reasonable feedback to this from Unity, just the standard ignorance. Sometimes you get better support when you’re buying just a game.