santascow Posted May 18, 2007 Share Posted May 18, 2007 I had FEAR on my mac mini with 2 gb of RAM, overall it ran ok with some of the settings lowered. The only time it would start to lag a bit was if there was a lot going on. Awesome! Thanks for the help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
riktor Posted May 23, 2007 Share Posted May 23, 2007 i got my ram and will start doimg some intensive burn ins soon, for the record i will cover apps for visual fx and film production as well as games. Apps I will cover will be these; Final Cut Pro 5.1 Shake 4.1 Photoshop CS3 Autodesk Maya 8.5 Games Half Life 2 Based Games Counter Strike Condition Zero old modified engine Quake III mac and windows Battlefield 2 NFS Underground 2 Starwars Battlefront these should range the OpenGL and DirectX performance of game in windows while quake will compare XP to OSX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobNyc Posted May 23, 2007 Share Posted May 23, 2007 I dont think the MacBookPro's x1600 will even be that better either Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
riktor Posted May 23, 2007 Share Posted May 23, 2007 The difference between the two cards are that the ATI has dedicated VRAM which doesnt matter a whole lot when you have two gigs in Macbook since the intel will expand the VRAM to 244MBs, but the other which is important as games go is the programmable gpu. This gives ability for the ATI to support DirectX Pixel Shader Models on the fly and intel will have to use a cpu to process it or to display what shader it can perform. Also from what I understand is that Intel Chip cant do Transform and Lighting processing, which is a 3d to 2d conversion of the game (more complicated then that but thats basically it) which again a CPU has to pick up. But the main falacy in everyone thinking that the GMA950 is not capable is the fact that they only consider the GPU. When in all reality the game will probably use one core to focus on the game engine and the other to focus on the GPU instructions the GMA cannot do, which means alot of the dependancy in the game test will be in the Core Duo chips that support the GPU. This means in theory that the macbook can do games up until they have a need for specific instruction sets that are required for the game to function and the CPU cant pick up the slack. For example Spiderman 3 that just came out has a large number of DirectX 9 Specific GPU Instructions that require a card with some horsepower. The minimum requirements are actually pretty steep with limited amount of cards able to work, say nothing made before 2005, even so my desktop has a 6800 Ultra and I have to play with the settings on low and at 800 x 600 for decent frame rate above 30fps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synaesthesia Posted May 23, 2007 Share Posted May 23, 2007 I dont think the MacBookPro's x1600 will even be that better either No ways, the GMA950 is ok, but the x1600 is WAY faster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
consolation Posted May 24, 2007 Share Posted May 24, 2007 I occasionally play Civ IV on my GF's MacBook, it's ok on low graphics settings - meh, it's a strategy game, no biggy. Warlords will give you a warning that your system is below spec, but you can disable that. Still 950 is such a sucky chipset.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
riktor Posted June 15, 2007 Share Posted June 15, 2007 Hey guys im in the middle of a production schedule right now and I will conduct the tests as soon as I am able to... I will say that Photoshop is the fastest Ive ever seen, Final Cut Pro 5.1 works fantastic (able to capture, edit, color correct, adjust audio all on battery minutes after the shoot) and shake is quite usable but the interface is a little slugish due to the opengl acceleration, and the Call of Duty 2 Demo is playable at low texture settings. Im sorry this taking long but I will post a review as soon as I can wipe my system with a clean install with boot camp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bitninja Posted June 16, 2007 Share Posted June 16, 2007 Well now with the new MacBook Pro's GeForce 8600M GT cards you should be able to run Crysis ala DirectX 10 just fine! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProMacUser Posted June 17, 2007 Share Posted June 17, 2007 Bull {censored}. MacBook can run WarCraft 3, WoW on minimum and CS 1.6, too. Who said, that it can't run WoW?????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
riktor Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 A little of topic, but have you seen the tech demos for crysis? They recommend Quad Core and QC extreme cpus, and with that engine with so many possible interactions I would be suprised what you can and cant run it on. But again we know pros can do games but the question is how well a vanilla MB can do gaming. And yes MB can run WoW there are countless you tube videos to prove it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jendre Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 And yes MB can run WoW there are countless you tube videos to prove it. It is not question whether you can do it but if it is still fun to play game in low resolution... This might be frustarting... Are there no external graphic cards for MB like there are for laptops? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProMacUser Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 I bet MBP will fully run Crysis. It is made for Crysis. There is no doubt it will. It has got an ultimate great graphics based on 8600 gt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stadsport Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 I play Guild Wars and Need for Speed Most Wanted on my MacBook all the time, and they run perfectly. I know for a fact it runs WoW great, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProMacUser Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 For a fact visit this link. Games for GMA 950 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
consolation Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 I bet MBP will fully run Crysis. It is made for Crysis. There is no doubt it will. It has got an ultimate great graphics based on 8600 gt. Dude, why do you think 8600gt is so good? It gets caned by a lowly 7900GS. The 8600 series has the makings of a real dog. http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=638&p=5 And that review was for a GTS, the GT version will really blow chunks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProMacUser Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 Man, it is a Mobile PC. Wake up. It awesome for a laptop. I perfectly know, that 7900 gs is slightly better, but it doesn't run DX10!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobertLovesCSS Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 Thats rather audacious of you to say all this considering you don't own a macbook. You're wrong about 2 atleast: World of Warcraft, I got my char to lvl 60 with my macbook. i play daily and raid weekly Civ 4, im a macbook civ 4 expert -robert 1. World of Warcraft = No2. Warcraft 3 = Yes, but on lowest graphics settings incl resolution 3. Counter Strike 1.6 = Yes 4. Civ 4 = Hell No The Macbook has integrated graphics....which spells out no gaming litereally. I said yes to counterstrike (1.6), because I've seen it being played perfectly on old Dell Opterons with integrated graphics, so it should play flawlessly on a Macbook under bootcamp. Warcraft 3 is also not that bad when it comes to graphics power, you can get away with having good frames if you set everything to low. If you want to play all the other games you listed, plus many, many more at maxed out resolutions and maxed out grapihcs settings....you've got to get a Macbook Pro, which has a dedicated mobility Radeon X1600. I can play Civ4 on mine with everything maxed out and at 1440x900 at 62 fps. I dont like Civ4 though...I'd rather stick with Civ3, which was much more fun IMO. I'm not sure about the size and how many cells the MB battery has (becuase I own a MBP), but the average life per charge should be around 2hrs, if you are fully doing graphics intensive things, such as playing a game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mstrshikadance Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 what means do you play games on your macbooks? through bootcamp or parallels? or are you playing mac native games? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
riktor Posted August 16, 2007 Share Posted August 16, 2007 I can start doing some testing on my macbook now. Is there any recommendations for UB games natively in OSX before running into Bootcamp and testing windows based games? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fridgerator Posted August 19, 2007 Share Posted August 19, 2007 Okay, I can confirm that with max settings in Warcraft III, my macbook runs everything smoothly with 2gb of ram. And running WoW, I set everything to the middle, with the exception of terrain distance (1/4 of bar), spell effects and weather effects, I get 20-40 fps in cities, and pre burning crusade outdoors. Resolution is like 1280 x whatever, its the max resolution I believe. In Burning Crusade outdoors, I get 15-25 fps depending on the detail of the land, but I get like 20-30 fps in pvp battlegrounds. Also, I turned off the terrain lighting, shadows, death effects, filtering, etc. So I believe WoW is completely runnable on a macbook. I found out on WoW, terrain distance makes a huge difference in fps, like 5-10 fps difference per quarter of a bar. Also, turning on GLFaster 1 on the WTF file also helps too. The games are all run in mac OS, and not boot camp or parallels. Hope this helps. Btw I own the latest version of the macbook, 2.16 ghz. So I can't guarentee anything with the lower models. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hyphyleo Posted August 19, 2007 Share Posted August 19, 2007 IF you are running the simplest game like halo etc on your macbook, don't bother getting one. Get a gaming pc laptop or mbp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zizou Posted August 19, 2007 Share Posted August 19, 2007 Ok, let me try to clear a few things. YOU CAN GAME WITH THE GMA950 on the Macbook (I have tried with the lowest Core Duo 1.83 Ghz /w 2gb ram). But don't expect too much of it. For example, I can play counter Strike source on high settings, aslong as the map is small (and doesn't have high detailed textures) Because once you try a map like cs_office, you'll get lag even without high settings. (and a 640 x 480 res lol) If you want to game on a laptop, get a Dell with a dedicated GPU for like 1500, and if you love Mac so much get that Macbook Pro, its awesome for portable gaming really. (Although I only play Counterstrike Source / Half Life 2:DM and BF2) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damesj Posted August 20, 2007 Share Posted August 20, 2007 Ok, let me try to clear a few things. YOU CAN GAME WITH THE GMA950 on the Macbook (I have tried with the lowest Core Duo 1.83 Ghz /w 2gb ram). But don't expect too much of it. For example, I can play counter Strike source on high settings, aslong as the map is small (and doesn't have high detailed textures) Because once you try a map like cs_office, you'll get lag even without high settings. (and a 640 x 480 res lol) If you want to game on a laptop, get a Dell with a dedicated GPU for like 1500, and if you love Mac so much get that Macbook Pro, its awesome for portable gaming really. (Although I only play Counterstrike Source / Half Life 2:DM and BF2) Whats the avg fps you get in source? I play cs 1.6 and source sometimes and just ordered my mbp so I'm curious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magic6435 Posted August 20, 2007 Share Posted August 20, 2007 dont the new Mac Book Pros have 8600 gt's. they will probly be a best in gaming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vbetts Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 Man, it is a Mobile PC. Wake up. It awesome for a laptop. I perfectly know, that 7900 gs is slightly better, but it doesn't run DX10!!!! True, but on a mac not running windows, dx10 means nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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