It’s one way to get your game on in a way you’re probably familiar, and use all of the tweaks and tools you’re familiar with. Whether you give up on OS X entirely or you use Boot Camp to dual-boot, you can run Windows and your favourite Windows apps and games on your Mac hardware. Just to get the inevitable out of the way, yes - you can always install Windows on your Mac. Keep an Eye On Performance with Your System Monitor You could just remove Flash and Java entirely, or you could install ClickToFlash for Safari or Flashblock for Firefox or Chrome to stop it from loading until you actually want it. Flash, Java, and other heavy plugins for web content are especially to blame for sucking down system resources while you’re trying to play full-screen games, and fighting those games for valuable processor time even though the game clearly has priority. In some cases, it’s not a big difference, but in others - namely when it comes to web browsing - it can be pretty nightmarish. If you can, close Firefox or Chrome on your Mac while you game, or at least close them before you game and start a fresh session if you like to surf the web or research while you play. This is especially true for heavier apps and web browsers, which consume more system resources the longer they’ve been open. If you game on Windows, you’re probably used to the performance tradeoff of keeping other apps open while you game, so you should be ready for it in OS X as well. Try Windowed Mode versus Full-Screen and See Which Works BetterĮven if your Mac is packed with a massive SSD and plenty of RAM, keeping a bunch of apps running in the background while you fire up a full-screen game isn’t going to do you any favours. Then you won’t have to worry about any of them when you get where you’re going. Personal experience here, but if you’re planning a trip and you want to game on your Mac, even if you know you’ll have reliable internet access where you’re going, let Steam update itself and all of your games before you even leave the house. In OS X, it just doesn’t seem to work quite as well. In Windows, if you have a powerful enough gaming PC, you can freely let Steam download updates or manage its own downloads while you do other things. Patches, updates, new game installs, do it all before you play, and don’t trust Steam or your Mac to manage that stuff in the background while you’re trying to game. If the bulk of the games you play on the Mac are Steam games, your best bet before you fire up your favourite games - or before you hit the road with your Mac - is to let Steam do everything it needs to do long before you feel like playing anything. Let Steam Finish Its Work Before You Play Windows users will be familiar with CCleaner, which also works a treat on OS X. MacTuts+ has a great how to for both if you’d like to turn them off entirely.īeyond that, you can always use some of our favourite tools to clean up and spruce up your Mac, like Onyx, our favourite system tweaker for the Mac, or iBoostUp, another fast and free Mac tweaking tool. Additionally, you can kill off some of OS X’s features that you know you never use, like Dashboard or Notification Center (assuming you never use them). As a byproduct, the last thing you want, especially if you’re playing Steam games, is to cut Steam off from valuable disk space while you’re playing. Some of those games may grab some disk space for scratch while you’re playing, and you’ll feel it if you’re short on it. We covered some of these tricks in our guide to speeding up and reviving your Mac, but it’s even more important when it comes to games. One of the best ways to keep your Mac in speedy shape is to clean up your app clutter, disable resource-hogging startup apps and uninstall unwanted apps (especially menubar utilities that run in the background all the time). Free Up some Disk Space and Clean Up System Clutter Here’s how to tweak your Mac to make the most of your games. Plus, if you’re like me and use a Windows PC as your primary gaming machine but travel with a Macbook Pro, you don’t necessarily want to leave your video games at home just because you’re headed out of town. Thanks to Steam, Humble Bundles and developers who are more open to releasing their games on multiple platforms, owning a Mac doesn’t mean you’re resigned to watching your Windows friends get their game on. ![]() Let’s take a look at a few ways to make those games run as smoothly as possible. You may not immediately think “gaming” when you think “Mac”, but there are lots of games for the Mac these days, and some of the most popular PC games are also available for OS X.
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