Macbook Gaming

[Then there were none.]

Look. I know its an age old question been asked a million times already but its really playing my god D*mn mind.

 

Will a macbook 1.83ghz with 1gb ram preform sutibly for gaming?

I mostly play RTS games, and Guild Wars and they apart from C&C generals preformed well on This:

Amd athlon 3200+ (old old version)

512mb ram

geforce fx5200

 

Will i be taking a hit in preformance in games like guild wars and such?

Note: I run games at medium settings.

Thanks.

 

Disclaimer:

I dont want to her about how i should go for a MBP because its just not in my budget.

[A Nonny Moose]

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

 

Why are people seriously thinking about using a laptop with Intel Integrated graphics as a pure gaming machine? If you need a gaming machine on a budget (and already have a keyboard, monitor, and mouse) then get a PowerPC Mac mini.

[Then there were none.]

not pure gaming machine, one that will simply preform well and be used as a medium range laptop

[A Nonny Moose]

Then you need an iBook G4.

[Then there were none.]

Well an ibook G4 wont run windows so it wont really run much games will it?

i mean GMA950 is better than 16mb dedicated anyday.

I saw a you tube video of guild wars running on a base macbook, 1gb ram:

the results are better than expected.

[blackentangled]

lol, you just answered your own question! well anyone in their right mind would know (or at least sense) that a gma950 is not a suitable gaming setup, macbook with 1gb of ram or not. although jobs would want you to believe that it's twice the speed of the ibook or whatever but the fact of the matter is is that it's still a gma950 wrapped in a nice shell (white/black).

[Mebster]

A tried playing a copy of Halo for Mac on my Macbook. The quality was poor.

 

I normally play Halo on my Dell 3.4ghz 1gb and GMA950 graphics too and it plays very well. It shows me a message stating that my graphics spec seem lower than what’s needed, but press ‘ok’ and it works fine. Halo Mac is almost 3 years old and so I would have expected much better. But unfortunately not! I should note that the solo gameplay is 'ok' (with med-low settings) but not multiplayer, that’s too poor (slow and colour is rubbish due to low settings)

 

I too am kind of having second thoughts about getting a Macbook because of this gaming issue (even though I don't play many games - mainly halo multiplayer). But a MacBook Pro is just too out of my budget (damn u apple high prices).

 

Buying a pc laptop and putting OSX can still cause many problems. You need to get it all working (sound, ethernet, wifi, bluetooth, graphics.... that’s assuming you got it installed first). And then after all that if it still has a GMA950, you can't be sure it will play games well.

 

It's weird that on my PC I can play lots of games quiet well. Halo (fully settings), San Andreas (med-low settings).... but the Macbook which has the same onboard graphics card fails miserably.

[Then there were none.]

Yea i found a macbook pro 1.83ghz base spec for £1000

[munky]

Halo Mac is a PowerPC application, its running through Rosetta. THAT is why its so pathetically slow on a MacBook.

[Colonel]

I'm running Halo on my MacBook 1.83GHz and I have to say, it's really more than I expected. Rosetta doesn't seem to be very choppy at all, and I am able to use the default graphics settings.

[munky]

Ok, maybe not 'pathetically slow' - that was aimed at the guy complaining. If you stop and think that its a game written for a completely different architecture, you appreciate how well it really is running.

 

Try installing Bootcamp and the windows version of Halo - im sure it'll run much better.

[Mebster]

THAT is why its so pathetically slow on a MacBook.

Ok, maybe not 'pathetically slow'

?

 

colonels I'm not sure how you're able to get decent game play out of it. I was wondering if you were referring to the solo missions, as they seem fine, or the multiplayer. It's the multiplayer that tends to slowdown and look choppy + poor colour. I've only had it installed for a day so haven’t really tried adjusting all settings but maybe will give that a go.

 

Also I was using it on a 2Ghz white Macbook, not that it makes much of a difference.

 

Thanks for both of your inputs

[munky]

in answer to your '?' - i dont know how well or not it runs on a macbook, as i dont have one. all im saying is that IF you are disappointed with its performance, try to remember that its a PowerPC binary, running thru an emulation / translation layer, so good performance shouldnt really be expected. if you're keen to play Halo, install WinXP under bootcamp and install the windows version, which is compiled for Intel.

[A Nonny Moose]

It runs under emulation, BUT the graphics card in the MacBook Pros seem to take more of the brunt of the game (as it trounces the iBook G4's on game tests)

[glassJAw]

Get a Asus S96J.

[buglamp]

Get a Asus S96J.

Get a girlfriend!

[G_G]

Well it looks like the MacBook running on OS X can finally play Halo properly, thanks to this.

[SenVa]

How much do they really need to edit to switch to x86? I mean I would assume everything but the main binary is arch independent... isn't that how it is for most games?