Software and Tools Poker Forums

Hey DC,

I'm almost graduated, so I want to reward myself with a new computer soon. I'm still undecided whether I should switch to Mac, or just stick to Windows.

The reasons to buy a Mac for me is because I hear a lot of good stories about it, it is 'something' new, it is safer and it performs and looks great. However, reading through some forums it seems that Mac is still somewhat underdeveloped in terms of poker. For example, it still doesn't have a good autohotkey program like TN for stars. HEM2 for mac will probably take ages, however, PT4 supports mac from what I believe.

I like to have some advice of people who play poker on their Mac: which programs do you use, how is it functioning, and if you think Mac > Windows. Also like to hear if you prefer a Macbook or Imac and why.

Thanks

Hi DjuNKell

I made the exact same exercice exactly 6 months ago because I liked the MAC a lot. Did you search trough the forums? There are probably few threads in the forums on this exact question.

As for myself, I did a lot of research and I was really interested to buy a MAC and use it mainly for poker. My conclusion was that its possible but a lot of the tools I am using now (HEM2, TN) are not available. Yes there are other softwares available, but my conclusion was that MAC isnt the best option if your main use of your PC is for poker.

Hope it helps

I've use mac and windows. Mac is pretty terrible for poker, less site support and less functionality with the tracking programs. Also the mouse annoys the hell out of me, I (and many others) thought it was something to do with acceleration but it turns out it has a 32ms lag which hasn't seemed to be fixed yet. I assume the safety things comes from the "macs get less viruses" idea, which is true but only because a small userbase meant not many viruses targeted it, not that it was more secure. Windows notebooks are catching up in design and the ultrabooks are pretty awesome. Mac will always be great for video/audio production and is cool for the casual user who just wants to click an app and have everything work but if you're doing anything involving precise, fast mouse movement or poker I think a windows machine is far superior.

With that said you can use bootcamp on mac to run both windows and mac but I just found myself using my macbook pro as a windows laptop.

Hi DjuNKell

I made the exact same exercice exactly 6 months ago because I liked the MAC a lot. Did you search trough the forums? There are probably few threads in the forums on this exact question.

As for myself, I did a lot of research and I was really interested to buy a MAC and use it mainly for poker. My conclusion was that its possible but a lot of the tools I am using now (HEM2, TN) are not available. Yes there are other softwares available, but my conclusion was that MAC isnt the best option if your main use of your PC is for poker.

Hope it helps

Thanks for the info, I just looked through your posts and saw these threads (just copying links to make sure others can benefit from it if they are looking for similar info):

http://www.deucescracked.com/forums/23-Software-and-Tools/477001-Anyone-playing-with-a-MAC

http://www.deucescracked.com/topics/470251-I-Need-a-New-Computer?forum_id=4-General-Discussion

It seems that you didn't bought a Mac. What did you buy?

I've use mac and windows. Mac is pretty terrible for poker, less site support and less functionality with the tracking programs. Also the mouse annoys the hell out of me, I (and many others) thought it was something to do with acceleration but it turns out it has a 32ms lag which hasn't seemed to be fixed yet. I assume the safety things comes from the "macs get less viruses" idea, which is true but only because a small userbase meant not many viruses targeted it, not that it was more secure. Windows notebooks are catching up in design and the ultrabooks are pretty awesome. Mac will always be great for video/audio production and is cool for the casual user who just wants to click an app and have everything work but if you're doing anything involving precise, fast mouse movement or poker I think a windows machine is far superior.

With that said you can use bootcamp on mac to run both windows and mac but I just found myself using my macbook pro as a windows laptop.

Thanks for the info. My new computer will be mainly for playing poker, occasionally for gaming or watching videos. I also use Excel a lot. It should be fast, smoothly and silent.

Regarding you post, I've a few questions:
- That mouse problem should be easily solved by plugging in another mouse, or does this problem occurs for every mouse?
- As for safety, your claiming that Mac is not more secure compared to Windows (e.g. hacking)?
- Do you believe a mac with parallel/bootcamp is still superior to a windows (ultra) laptop?

Regarding you post, I've a few questions:
- That mouse problem should be easily solved by plugging in another mouse, or does this problem occurs for every mouse?
- As for safety, your claiming that Mac is not more secure compared to Windows (e.g. hacking)?
- Do you believe a mac with parallel/bootcamp is still superior to a windows (ultra) laptop?

- It's not to do with the mouse itself, it's a problem with the mac OS software, so yeah happens for every mouse.
- I'm not sure if it's more secure or not but people always thought it was because it got less viruses. This had more so to do with few mac viruses being around than awesome security, as can be seen as the increase in viruses mac users are getting as the userbase increases. In any case windows is perfectly secure if you have basic anti viruses and don't click random links
- parallels performs far worse because you're running 2 operating systems at once, bootcamp runs exactly the same as a windows machine with equivalent hardware except you'll be paying 50-100% more for the mac. Mac uses the same components as windows machines, if you go check out same speced mac/windows machines (eg. 15" screen, 8GB ram, i5 processor) you'll see the mac is way more expensive. You'll get a slightly better produced machine that performs the same, almost all that extra mark up is you paying for the opportunity to be in the mac crowd.

I just bought a macbook and run windows with parallels. Works really nice and fast. Always had a windows laptop but for some random reason chose to give mac a chance. Very happy although it is overpriced.

I just bought a macbook and run windows with parallels. Works really nice and fast. Always had a windows laptop but for some random reason chose to give mac a chance. Very happy although it is overpriced.

Which one did you buy? This means you switch to windows every time you want to play poker?

I always work in mac. I have a folder in my taskbar with a windows logo on it. If I start a windows program, always when I play poker, it starts windows 7 but I don't see I work in windows. Everything has a maclook. HM2, Pokerstars and Ipoker work perfect. Have it for almost 2 weeks now.

There are more options in parallels but this is the one I use. Check out some youtube vids. It is really easy even for a computer noob like me. I bought the retina, if your still a student you can get a discount up to 12% I believe.

A friend bought a macbook air but that's a bit to slow for parallels. You have to use bootcamp then and restart your computer to work in mac or windows.

The retina screen is nice and all but I don't think its worth the money. But yeah... it is really quite, fast and smooth.