[lazerwalker]

The driver performance just isn't there. If you have a cross-platform game and run it on the same Apple machine in OS X and on Windows, the Windows version's gonna be WAY more performant.

As a lesser frustration, most Windows games I play natively support the Xbox 360 controller, whereas almost no OS X ports do.

[Kurtz79]

I was able to play quite a few games (Civ5, Walking dead, Portal 2, Diablo 3) without any issues on a Macbook (Pro 15 Retina first generation). Portal 2 and Walking Dead are quite playable also in my Macbook Air 13 (2010, last model with nvidia board).

Of course these are relatively low requirements games. Do you have examples where the performance difference is relevant, and the games actually unplayable ?

[lazerwalker]

On my mid-2012 11" MB Air, most games around the level of requirements you said tend to run maybe 3/4ths as well in OS X as in Windows 8 (Portal 2 being a concrete example). Not unplayable by any means, but the performance difference is substantial enough that it's worth my while to reboot into Windows.

[Angostura]

Just to point out that 10.9 significantly updates OS X's OpenGL support which may have an effect on performance - we shall see (Mac gamer).

[dimillian]

You're right, but it's moving fast (At least once a year...). I would say that native games are 95% on par with Windows equivalent.

Wine and other "Translator" are moving fast too, in a few release you'll see a lot of big improvements in the graphics area. Crossover latest release already profit from that.

[kd0amg]

It's been a few years since I tried, but I got much better performance running the Windows version of the Orange Box in Crossover than I did with Valve's OS X port. Is the driver situation significantly different when running in Crossover/Wine than native?