2010 Macbook Air & Starcraft 2

[Hankster]

Recently purchased an 11" 1.6ghz 4GB MBA, can happily report SC2 runs pretty well. I have a MB 13" aluminum (two years old) and it runs SC2 slower than the MBA. Go figure.

The 4GB Ram is key though. While in the store I tested a 1080 HD video on both the 11" and 13" MBA with 2GB, the screen lagged and skipped pretty bad. I went with the 4GB and played the same HD video, it was flawless

So happy I went with the extra RAM!

 

[netddos]

Recently purchased an 11" 1.6ghz 4GB MBA, can happily report SC2 runs pretty well. I have a MB 13" aluminum (two years old) and it runs SC2 slower than the MBA. Go figure.

The 4GB Ram is key though. While in the store I tested a 1080 HD video on both the 11" and 13" MBA with 2GB, the screen lagged and skipped pretty bad. I went with the 4GB and played the same HD video, it was flawless

So happy I went with the extra RAM!

this might be because you got the updated flash player.

ones in store are the old ones without hardware accel.

 

[pfjellman]

just wanted to confirm i've played starcraft 2 on my 13" MacBook Air 1.86GHz model with 4GB RAM. Medium settings across the board, the game still looks very pretty and plays smoothly.

I ran some 45+ minute diamond league ladder games (very intense, lots of units on screen/macro etc), and also some 3v3s with no problems.

 

[vraxtus]

Sorry guys totally lost track of this thread and didn't manage to get a fan record yet.

I haven't benched much else on this lately due to usually playing SC2 on my iMac, though I did notice depending on the conditions, the framerates really do vary.

Example - on a 1v1 sample game the framerate floated from 20-45, but on a custom game was only in the 15 fps range.

It's definitely playable, though I would definitely cap your framerate like I mentioned before just to make sure your mobo doesn't overheat - happened to me on an old MBP and I'll tell you it isn't so nice

 

[vraxtus]

I've liked your thread into the gaming benchmarks thread, thanks for making the effort to benchmark this game!

No problem! This was actually a big question I had when wanting to buy an old Rev C, but no one seemed to actually do any testing of it, other than one thread where the guy said "it runs great!", which from my perspective means very little.

Give me FPS or give me death

 

[vraxtus]

I'm happy to report a computer that was capable of playing starcraft 2 can still play starcraft 2 with better hardware! Thanks I was worried the better graphics card and double the ram was going to make it unplayable.

If you can't provide actual numbers to substantiate a claim, what good is the claim to begin with?

 

[Macmaniac]

MBA 11" Stock

Jut an FYI for custom map players, I tried the stock MBA 11" on a couple of custom maps and it was unplayable.

The settings I was using. All settings on LOW, resolution was set to native. In SOTIS(DOTA) I was hitting 15FPS not in combat, 5-10 in combat, so basically unplayable. I would be curious if anyone with the 1.6ghz machine with 4gb of RAM would test some custom games. Customs are pretty much out of the question for the base 11".

 

[efirmage]

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Jut an FYI for custom map players, I tried the stock MBA 11" on a couple of custom maps and it was unplayable.

The settings I was using. All settings on LOW, resolution was set to native. In SOTIS(DOTA) I was hitting 15FPS not in combat, 5-10 in combat, so basically unplayable. I would be curious if anyone with the 1.6ghz machine with 4gb of RAM would test some custom games. Customs are pretty much out of the question for the base 11".

Wow sorry to hear that. Havent played any dota but it looks fun. I'd like to see how the higher end machines can handle it too.

 

[GDOX316]

I've been playing SC2 on mine , 13" stock with 4gb ram, in windows 7 (32 bit).
I play at low, just because i have a gaming desktop. But at start, just with probes and nexus i average 107 fps. when about a hundred units are on the screen i average between 40-70 fps. Low is the way to go. haha, i Rhymed

 

[vow]

Fan recording: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22176/Memo.m4a

Volume starts off around 2 or 3 notches and increases towards the end.

 

[canaryonavespa]

i have a 13.3 2.13ghz MBA

it plays sc2 ok on medium fine but the fan does get busy
it flies on mostly low settings

i havent tried bootcamping it yet but will do and i will fps cap i think

i just love that i can play sc2 whenever i want and the laptop switches on so quickly and is so light.