Ok, what the hell should I do? (Options for playing FFXIV)

[sruon]

Option #1, worst case and you don't like FF14 you can still use it as a NAS/Media Server/watch movies while doing shits on other comp. Not a bad investment.

[jmc]

I don't even have a firewire800 port on my iMac. A time will come very soon where I'll want a job using my own gear and I'll need at least FW800 for HD multicam video editing. The iMac has served me well for small projects, but it's not something I'd want to cut on 50 hours a week.

It's also a perception thing - if every post production company is using Mac Pros, and I'm positioning myself to be "renting out" my rig for gigs, I should be using what others use, regardless of whether it's completely necessary.

From someone who has worked on Mac pro's in a video editing/graphic setting.....it's well work it. The machines are awesome.

However, the machines I used were $4k ones so don't know about the cheapest ones.

[Zeh]

Option 4 gets my vote, because as a beta tester, I'm a bit concerned with how polished the game will be at launch. I'm confident in S-E's ability to make an enjoyable experience for a wide variety of people, I'm just not sure how long that will take or if we'll have that at launch. It's also the most cost-efficient. Ask yourself: How much money do I want to invest for one videogame?

[jmc]

Can't provide link cause I read it in the engadget iPhone app.

However, sources for engadget are saying Mac pro's will be getting upgraded soon

[Lovian]

I have to ask but why do you have to have a mac? If its for work i can, kind of understand. Otherwise $2000 gets you a beast of a PC with better specs than a mac and as you said just hackintosh it.

[archibaldcrane]

I have to ask but why do you have to have a mac? If its for work i can, kind of understand. Otherwise $2000 gets you a beast of a PC with better specs than a mac and as you said just hackintosh it.

Hackintosh is a bit more complicated than, for example, bootcamping Vista. You are limited to buying specific hardware, you have driver complications, troubleshooting is much more limited (due to the miniscule number of users). It's appealing because of cost savings and because it's just fucking cool, but those cost savings can disappear quickly if I lose a few $600-$700 a day workdays because I run into problems with it - and cutting HD multicam stuff is very system intensive - if there are problems I'll run into them. I'm pretty computer literate but I can't afford to spend a lot of time command-line hacking new hardware and shit to make it work.

I'm finishing up two pilots right now, if one of them gets picked up (ensuring at least a few months of good paydays) I'll probably just get a Mac Pro. If not...eeeeehh...not sure what I'll do. Hopefully I'll know in the next 6 weeks, maybe sooner for one of the pilots.

Regarding pending upgrades, I wonder what the plan is - they released the "Nehalem" line of Xeon processors for Mac Pros in March of last year. A friend of a friend's brother works for Apple and gets totally sick (like $800 off a $2900 MBP) discounts on gear, but he has used up all his discounts this year apparently. I need more Apple friends!

From someone who has worked on Mac pro's in a video editing/graphic setting.....it's well work it. The machines are awesome.

However, the machines I used were $4k ones so don't know about the cheapest ones.

Yeah, I've been working on them at post production companies for the past 4 years, they are pretty fucking awesome - even going from the Nehalem-line back to the 2008 ones I can feel the lag when doing 4 to 5 camera shows.

[Isiolia]

I'd go with option 1. If FFXIV doesn't pan out, rebuild it as an HTPC or a file server or something. Or buy parts that you know would work as a Hackintosh to use as a backup machine. Or start watching the PC game market more. You never know.

Chances are you could get halfway to a good FFXIV machine just with what it'd cost to put a decent GPU into a Mac Pro - at least with Apple's typical prices and behind-the-curve GPU selection.

Mac Pro update is waaaay overdue though. It wouldn't surprise me at this point if they completely revamped the thing. Still, long as they keep them at the $2499+ price point, they're not an appealing option unless you -really- need one for work.

[quannum]

check out the recommended setup:
http://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/media/recom/na/pc.html

i don't think you're gonna make a budget pc with an i7/4GB/GTX460
just those 3 components alone is 250+80+300

also, bench scores in the 2000-2499 range are "Slightly Low Performance"
http://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/media/benchmark/na/

i'd recommend separate computers for work (mac) and play (win)

[SubzeroDiabolos]

Personnal opinion, 2 is just a work investment that can also be used on the side for entertainment purposes. Even if the bill is a tough pill to swallow, it's something you'd most likely have to do sooner or later for work. To me this is no dilema.

[archibaldcrane]

It looks like people have successfully gotten 5870s to work in a Mac Pro (for Windows use only), so if I wanted to buy a $400 video card just to play FFXIV at higher specs, that would be an option.

Hopefully though the new Mac Pro update will happen in the next two months and there will be a better video card supported for OSX and Windows.

And if the rumors are to be believed, the new Mac Pro will support USB 3.0 and/or Firewire 1600 and/or 3200, which would be huge for home HD editing workstations with external drives.

[jmc]

It looks like people have successfully gotten 5870s to work in a Mac Pro (for Windows use only), so if I wanted to buy a $400 video card just to play FFXIV at higher specs, that would be an option.

Hopefully though the new Mac Pro update will happen in the next two months and there will be a better video card supported for OSX and Windows.

And if the rumors are to be believed, the new Mac Pro will support USB 3.0 and/or Firewire 1600 and/or 3200, which would be huge for home HD editing workstations with external drives.

Mac pro officially update.....

Options for graphics are now a 5770 or 5870.

*edit*

Sorry, not live in the store yet.... Just annonced

[archibaldcrane]

Mac pro officially update.....

Options for graphics are now a 5770 or 5870.

*edit*

Sorry, not live in the store yet.... Just annonced

Yeah just saw - no USB 3.0 or Firewire 1600/3200 though...

That makes me a sad panda. Dual 6-core processors is sick, but it's not a major overhaul I was hoping for.

The ability to put 512 GB solid state memory "drives" in the slots is pretty cool though:

http://images.apple.com/macpro/image...2_20100727.png
Handling 4 streams of 10-bit uncompressed HD is nasty.

And a USB 3.0 controller card is only like $25, so yeah.