Alienware or Apple for video game editing?

thiskid

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May 15, 2012
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Hello,

i want to get a laptop which is good for video editing, i dont really know much about laptops or computers because i am only 14.
i dont care so much for gaming on it, just good enough to play skyrim and maybe a few more games
 

willard

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Nov 12, 2010
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Since you didn't mention anything about a price range, I'll just give some general advice.

OS X (the operating system on Apple computers) has some pretty good video editing software. That's not to say that there isn't good software on Windows, but in general people seem to prefer Macs for video editing.

The trade off is that you pay considerably more for Apple computers. This extra doesn't buy you much. The parts in an Apple computer are no better than the parts in a Windows computer. They aren't any faster or newer, they aren't any less prone to failure and they certainly aren't Apple exclusive (in fact Apple usually lags behind several months on hardware adoption). This extra cost is commonly referred to as the "Apple tax" and it applies to almost all of their products.

Also, video game support on Macs is, in general, pretty bad. Until recently most game developers ignored Macs entirely due to their pitiful 8% market share compared to Windows' 90%. It's better than it used to be, but games are almost exclusively developed for Windows, then ported to Mac. I've seen games where support for Mac was much worse than for Windows as well, due to the producers focusing on the much larger Windows user base.

Still, if you really want a Mac and can afford to pay the extra for it, Final Cut Pro X is an easy to use piece of software, though it's been dumbed down considerably to cater to the average Joe. Used to be the standard for professional editing, but its users left in droves when features critical to professional workflows were removed in the latest version.
 

zhihao50

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Sep 23, 2011
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Skyrim like most games don't run on mac natively, that require you either get bootcamp and use windows which reduces mac to a peice of expansive fashion designed hardware or you can try to find a mod that would let you run it under mac.

As Willard said we need to know your budget and the resolution/quality you intend to play skyrim. Playing at desktop quality graphic on a laptop is still a big ask even for the most expansive mobile GPU. You may have to play it at mid to low res.