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JackJack_Morris's avatar
JackJack_Morris
6 years ago

iMac 2019 Radeon 580X (or Vega 48) Sims 4 performance?

Hi everyone!

It’s basically confirmed that there will be new iMacs at WWDC, and as it’s a new design it means there will probably be a huge price difference to the current line up, and it will be the first iMac not to support 32 Bit Apps (which I would prefer it did) and Ram will probably be an add on only instead of user upgradable (or very hard to upgrade). 

So my question is, does anyone on here have an iMac with 580X (or even 580) graphics? 

If so, can you please tell me what kind of peformance you get from The Sims 4? Is it possible to get 60fps, Ultra Settings, with Retina Mode enabled and Edge Smoothing on high? And if so, what resolution do you play at to get that peformance? Is it possible at 5K? 

And if anyone has the Vega 48 option do you know the peformance on that as a last resort? 

Basically as The Sims 4 is my main game, I will make my final decision based on how it performs. The rumoured Navi options could sway me for more power overall.

Thank you in advance for any insights! 🙂 

mac

8 Replies

  • Bluebellflora's avatar
    Bluebellflora
    Hero+
    6 years ago

    @JackJack_Morris9 

    FPS really does depend on your game and how you play. If you have a lot of high poly CC (I do) then it will slow it down due to rendering. If you have a sim filled lot with a lot going on, that will slow it down. If you have lighting and shadows on the highest setting, that will slow it down. This article explains it really well - https://www.lifewire.com/optimizing-video-game-frame-rates-811784

    I'm really happy with the game on my iMac, apart from this graphics glitch which affects AMD cards in full sunlight. My specs. and settings:

    Around 40fps with these settings:

    I always play in windowed mode. The settings above are a large game window filling up most of the screen. You can achieve higher fps with a smaller game window. 

    And around 60-70fps with these settings:

  • JackJack_Morris's avatar
    JackJack_Morris
    6 years ago
    @Bluebellflora Hello 😊 Thank you so much for such a detailed answer this was amazing! The 580X seems to be better than I expected it to be, it’s a shame about that lighting glitch as I love my game to be on the best settings when it comes to lighting! Hopefully the fix it soon. I wonder if it happens on the Vega 48?

    60 - 70fps is really good for 1440p, which I guess is the native scaled resolution for iMac anyway?

    This is good because it means I’m not forced to jump to the next gen iMac (I really want an iMac not a Mac Mini or MacBook Pro), but I play too many 32 bit games that it would be a major disappointment to lose them after paying for so many over the years. But this has given me some confidence. I also hate the look of the iMac Pro (Space Grey seems to be aging badly and Silver imo is timeless).

    Have you heard anyone with Vega 48 and if it’s much better than the 580X?

    Thank you for your time 🙂 I really do appreciate it.
  • Bluebellflora's avatar
    Bluebellflora
    Hero+
    6 years ago
    @JackJack_Morris9

    I think someone has posted on this forum with the Vega but I can't immediately find it. If you buy a brand new iMac now it's going to come with Catalina installed which doesn't support 32-bit apps so you'll need to go for a second hand one but not from Apple's refurb program ☹️

    The graphics look incredible in my game (apart from the glitch!), the lighting is just gorgeous.
  • JackJack_Morris's avatar
    JackJack_Morris
    6 years ago
    @Bluebellflora Oh no! Is it not possible to downgrade back to Mojave if that’s the OS that came with that model? Or is that limited by what Apple ships with? I hope it’s not limited to Catalina ☹️ That means most games I play will be useless. Gahhhh, Apple why do you do these things yet still make such good computers.
  • Bluebellflora's avatar
    Bluebellflora
    Hero+
    6 years ago
    @JackJack_Morris9

    Unfortunately not. The furthest back it goes will be the OS it ships with. I'm sure there are ways to hack around it but you would need to google them 🙂
  • dimkapenguinYT's avatar
    dimkapenguinYT
    6 years ago

    Hello everyone! I had a MacBook for about 5 years and now I'd like to buy a new iMac in a few months. But I've played on my friend's MacBook 16" with Radeon Pro 5300M and the performance was not good enough – only 20 fps on the highest settings. So, I think I'll better buy a new iMac with Radeon Pro 580X, but I'd like to know about performance because I have a YouTube channel about TS4 and it's really important for me. Thanks for any help!

  • Bluebellflora's avatar
    Bluebellflora
    Hero+
    6 years ago
    @dimkapenguinYT

    I've merged your post into this thread as the question has been asked a couple of times now and it's great to keep everything together in an info thread 🙂 I have the iMac with the exact GPU you're looking at and posted above with some tests.

    There is no comparison with the 16" MacBook Pro. Even though iMacs are also built using mobile parts rather than proper desktop parts, they have much better and more efficient cooling than MacBook Pros. MacOS throttles power to reduce the risk of overheating so an iMac will benefit over a MBP. Having said that, I also play on a 2017 15' MBP with 4Gb AMD Radeon Pro 555 and the game is fantastic on it (all my graphics settings are always on high).

    There are also issues with the game running on the new 16" MBPs which are very specific to those model Macs - https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-Mac/NEED-INFO-Problems-playing-Sims-4-on-the-16-quot-MacBook-Pro/m-p/8750583#M27203

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