Longtime viewers of this show are aware of the AtAT's staff's concerns that the cute and cuddly consumer iMac may be inappropriately tricked out for the most important computer activity in the home. Nope, we're not talking about electronic banking, surfing the net, or writing book reports-- we're talking about games. It's games that drive consumer computer sales when you get right down to it. Think about it: while the parents hold the credit cards, they will often defer to the superior computer familiarity of their kids to help decide which system to buy. And let's face it... what computer doesn't let you write reports and send email? (Notice that we didn't say "easily...")

So if Junior gets a substantial vote in what computer the family is going to buy, you'd better make darn sure that the computer you're trying to sell can play some kick-ass games. And while the iMac has a processor that blows away anything that Intel has to offer (it's not just hype, you know; they had an iMac running next to a 400 MHz Pentium II system at the show), its graphics chipset is an ATI Rage II-- definitely years-old technology, whose 3D performance is so poor for the gaming environment that it's often referred to as a "3D decelerator." That won't cut it when it comes to games like Quake and Unreal. Worse yet, since many games support only the 3Dfx chipset, iMac users who want to to play games like Myth and Carmageddon must settle for software rendering only, which is slower and not nearly as nice-looking. And the iMac's complete and utter lack of expandibility means you can't even add in a decent gaming card.

We asked an Apple iMac guy why they were using a Rage II instead of the newer Rage Pro, which still isn't fantastic (and wouldn't do anything to improve games that only support hardware acceleration via 3Dfx), but it's about three times faster than the pokey Rage II. (The Rage Pro is now used on the motherboards of all G3 Power Macs, including the All-in-one.) "Price," he said. When we told him that the Pro was all of maybe $10 more than the II, he changed his mind: "Compatibility, then." Strike two; the Pro is pin- and driver-compatible with the II, which is how Apple was able to move from the II to the Pro in its G3 systems midstream. "Then it's something else." Er, okay, like perhaps a failure to think things through?

That being said, we've got to admit-- playing a beta of Unreal on an iMac was a surprisingly nice experience. Unreal, for the uninitiated, is a new 3D first-person-perspective shoot-'em-up that recently shipped for the PC and will be out for the Mac later this month; it is the most resources-hungry game we've ever seen. You need to give the beta 96 MB of RAM. No joke. And yet, the 96MB iMac we played it on (which did have VM turned on) performed admirably. Sure, the frame rates weren't phenomenal, and it was nowhere near as nice-looking as it was on a Power Mac G3 with a 3Dfx Voodoo2 card installed, but it was still pretty and playable. That impressed us, and really says something about the raw performance of the G3 processor. Nevertheless, kids walking by who had seen Unreal running under hardware acceleration in Macsoft's booth unanimously agreed that the game just couldn't compare on an iMac.

So we asked a few of those kids what they would think of a gMac: same exact thing as an iMac, but with 3Dfx acceleration, a more games-heavy software bundle, and translucent red plastics instead of the bondi blue, all for perhaps $1399. Response was overwhelmingly positive. Heck, we know we'd buy one. ;-) But until such a beast emerges from Apple's labs, we have to admit, the iMac is a significantly better game machine that we once suspected. It's got a kick-ass processor. Its screen is magnificently crisp and flicker-free, with super-fast refresh rates. It now comes with a 56K hardware modem, which won't slow down Internet-based net games the way a software modem would. For all but the most demanding 3D games, it's a powerhouse. Our only concern is that demanding 3D games are what's most popular right now. But consumers will vote with their dollars, so we'll soon see how important the G-Factor is.