Mac or PC for In-game Photography?

Introduction

Virtual in-game photography has grown very fast in the last few years. Partly due to technological advancements, games implementing a “photo mode” directly and gamers and photographers starting to realise the potential of virtual photography. So is in-game photography better on a PC or Mac? And the answer to this question is PC. PC is king and will always be the best option when it comes to in-game photography. For more information see below.

Mac vs PC History

Mac vs PC for design and general computing has been a hot topic for many years. Back when I started my career in design almost 20 years ago I would say that 90% of people in the creative arts industry would have been on a Mac. Over the years Apple started to ignore the design and creative industry to concentrate on selling phones. Because of this, they have a much smaller foothold on the creative industry as a whole today.

My Experience with Apple

Now, before I go any further, I’ll explain my history and thoughts about Apple Mac and the ecosystem. I had been an Apple fan for over 20 years. I used them exclusively for all my graphic design and commercial photography work until about 2018. I’ve probably owned every version of the IMac with a few Macbook Pro’s thrown in along the way from 2002. I loved the mac operating system and still do! For the type of work I’m involved in, it was the best choice! The clean interface, simple operating system and uncluttered design make it a great tool for creatives.

My Experience with PC

I moved to PC in 2018 due to a change in jobs. At the time I wasn’t very happy about it. I found Windows operating system to be very cluttered and bloated with so many useless pieces of software. I continued to struggle along for a few months. Then I decided to change over my home setup to match my work PC setup. All in the hope of getting to grips with windows faster. If we move on almost three years, I’m all in on PC and boy, was it the right choice. Sure, it has its shortcomings but it’s so much more customizable than the Mac operating system. I’ll always love OSX and Apple Mac but I’m a PC guy now, and I don’t think that will ever change.

Mac or PC for In-game Photography

When it comes down to in-game photography there is a clear winner here. It’s got nothing to do with the operating system but more the software that can run on the operating system. The PC game catalogue is huge and it dwarfs what OSX can bring to the table in terms of games. This is the killer but there are a few other advantages to PC.

30-50% Cheaper build
Massive game catalogue
The ability to install graphical mods
Typically easy to upgrade over time
Access to the best graphics cards & CPU’s

You can run Parallels for Mac which will run Microsoft Windows on your Mac. This is somewhat of a solution but I feel you’ll always run into a few issues with some of today’s games being a little power-hungry and you may need to run your games at a much lower graphical setting. Running both OSX and Windows at the same time has a performance loss. That’s something you want to avoid but it may be good for getting your toes wet.

Conclusion

If In-game photography is something you want to try and you have an Apple Mac, get a hold of Parallels then run Windows on your Mac and create a Steam account. From there you have a massive library of games with photo mode’s to choose from. If you get the bug, I’d recommend trading in your Apple Mac for a mid/low spec gaming PC to get you started and you can upgrade your way to something pretty high-end down the track.