Core 2 Macbook Pro Gaming Performance

[e12a]

Just to chime in on a couple of points:

1.) Comparing a MacBook Pro to a boutique-level gaming laptop is totally flawed. One is a desktop replacement, one is a mobile workstation. One is easy to carry, the other actually offers a backpack option instead of a standard case. One is built for gaming, the other isn't.

What you SHOULD be doing is comparing it to other media-class PCs with similar hardware. Dell Inspirons would be a good comparison, as would Toshiba Satellites (the home series).

When I purchased my MacBook Pro just now, I did a direct comparison with my former laptop: a Dell Inspiron 9300. That is a much closer comparison that an XPS. I found the MacBook Pro slightly outperformed it in 3DMark05, particularly on the CPU benchmark but also held its own on the GPU tests. This class of machines should get between 3000-4000 and the MacBook Pro almost got 4000 on the dot.

Finally, in terms of your comparison, I don't think anyone would be playing Fear on one of these machines. First off, the game sucks. But more importantly, it's unreasonable to assume any media class (non-boutique gaming machine) is going to play Fear well. I bought this laptop knowing what was reasonable (Wow, UT2003, Doom 3) and what wasn't (Fear, Farcry, etc).

2.) Blizzard just released the pre-expansion patch to the test realms for Wow. It's a ~400 MB monster that prepares the game for the expansion. One of the major improvements for Mac users is multithreaded OpenGL support. These OpenGL libraries have been included in recent Intel Macs. The difference is pretty impressive. With all settings on max, full resolution, I was pinning to 60 fps. In heavy traffic, it never dipped before 30. Considering this feature will be active for all users in a month, you may need to revisit your Wow test.

i dont know if you understood me..as i was not bashing the MBP's performance in FEAR. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how well it ran considering it running under bootcamp and the MBP not being a full fledged gaming platform. keep in mind i'm upgrading from a p4 1.7ghz so significant improvement in games is nice.

 

[urrl78]

I appreciate your effort but I would honestly be more interested to know how the C2D handles the heavy games like Oblivion, FEAR and FARCRY at the lower resolutions, since I really don't expect to play such games at max settings on my C2D, even though Tomb Raider Legends gave surprising quality at max settings, no anti-aliasing.

BTW thanks e12a on that info running F.E.A.R. at 1024x768 high settings; just what I was looking for. Although it is not widescreen you may be able to uncheck something in Display Properties/display in order to get a full screen, although some of the vertical screen edges may be cut off.

 

[Machead III]

I bought my MBP almost primarily for games, and let me tell you, I've only had it a few days, but hoo hooo, I don't have a whole lot to compare it too, but this baby rocks. Battlefield 2142, AoEIII, Half Life 2, FarCry, TR Legends... they're all butter smooth on near enough max, and I mean max, settings (so HDR and all that jazz).

 

[Macnoviz]

I appreciate your effort but I would honestly be more interested to know how the C2D handles the heavy games like Oblivion, FEAR and FARCRY at the lower resolutions, since I really don't expect to play such games at max settings on my C2D, even though Tomb Raider Legends gave surprising quality at max settings, no anti-aliasing.

I have a very good friend who bought his C1D a few weeks before the C2D came out (as a student you can't really hold out long withouth a computer), and Oblivion runs very smooth at the right settings.

 

[truffle666]

as far as WoW is concerned, (I was running this in OSX mind you) but I never dropped below 25FPS. and I was averaging 45-60. On top of this, things are only going to get better with the next patch as they are optimizing the OSX client.

My tests were done in Windows, thus the optimized OS X client will not change anything there. Window already runs Wow faster than OS X.

My frame rate is usually 60 in Wow, a comment like "I was averaging 45-60" is nice but what you should really do is go to the same moonwell where I was and then drop your comparision, otherwise your observerion is not relevant.

 

[freeorangeshoes]

for what its worth, i installed FEAR last night and let the game auto-detect settings. it went with max for virtually everything. i was gonna up the resolution to native, but i got a warning saying that the game wasnt optimized for this res (it seems to only be optimized for the "standard" resolutions). so, its currently running at 1024x768 or something similar to that.

the game runs super smooth. averaging around 40-50 fps. fans dont even stay on all the time. doesnt get too hot or anything.

so to those people posting in the thread above me and saying that its ridiculous to try and run a game like FEAR or farcry (which is 2+ years old!) - maybe you ought to try it first.

 

[truffle666]

Just to chime in on a couple of points:

1.) Comparing a MacBook Pro to a boutique-level gaming laptop is totally flawed. One is a desktop replacement, one is a mobile workstation. One is easy to carry, the other actually offers a backpack option instead of a standard case. One is built for gaming, the other isn't.

It's fine to compare the two as long as you acknowledge they aren't intended to be comparable PCs. You could likewise compare a gaming laptop to a gaming PC, everyone knows in advance the PC is going to win - but the question is by how much. What I wanted to know is how a macbook pro compares to a gaming laptop - and I found that out. I already knew the macbook pro would be slower, now I know how much slower.

What you SHOULD be doing is comparing it to other media-class PCs with similar hardware. Dell Inspirons would be a good comparison, as would Toshiba Satellites (the home series).

2.) Blizzard just released the pre-expansion patch to the test realms for Wow. It's a ~400 MB monster that prepares the game for the expansion. One of the major improvements for Mac users is multithreaded OpenGL support. These OpenGL libraries have been included in recent Intel Macs. The difference is pretty impressive. With all settings on max, full resolution, I was pinning to 60 fps. In heavy traffic, it never dipped before 30. Considering this feature will be active for all users in a month, you may need to revisit your Wow test.

Meaningless as my benchmarks were for Windows, not for OS X. I get 60fps with all settings maxed already in OS X without the patch in some situations that could be called "heavy traffic". I chose a specific, reproducable, test scenario to avoid subjective observations.

 

[SilentCrs]

Meaningless as my benchmarks were for Windows, not for OS X. I get 60fps with all settings maxed already in OS X without the patch in some situations that could be called "heavy traffic". I chose a specific, reproducable, test scenario to avoid subjective observations.

My point was that you're going to have to revisit the Mac test regardless because of the optimizations they've put into the Mac client. I was originally going to run Bootcamp for Wow but found it won't be necessary. It's worth making the comparison because this you're testing (in your words) "gaming performance", not "PC gaming performance".

As for reasonable Wow tests, I personally don't consider standing in one location (any location) in Wow on a live server an accurate test. For a truly accurate test you need to do what hardware sites do: set up a private Wow server so there's no PCs interfering, have a bot move the character around in a predictable fashion and get fraps going for an fps average. How often do people stand in a single location in Wow and don't move? That's why timedemos in other games always have the player moving.

Also, and this is just an aside: most serious gamers (like myself) wouldn't even bother evaluating a boutique laptop like an XPS. We have dedicated rigs we built ourselves specifically for game playing. Mine's big, loud, and requires a tower -- it's also insanely fast. The point is I would never even consider buying a laptop as a desktop replacement (particularly for gaming) -- I'd just build a desktop. Outside gaming, my MacBook Pro supports my power and portability needs just fine.

 

[e12a]

I appreciate your effort but I would honestly be more interested to know how the C2D handles the heavy games like Oblivion, FEAR and FARCRY at the lower resolutions, since I really don't expect to play such games at max settings on my C2D, even though Tomb Raider Legends gave surprising quality at max settings, no anti-aliasing.

BTW thanks e12a on that info running F.E.A.R. at 1024x768 high settings; just what I was looking for. Although it is not widescreen you may be able to uncheck something in Display Properties/display in order to get a full screen, although some of the vertical screen edges may be cut off.

thanks for the tip. I don't need it anymore as i have uninstalled F.E.A.R. due to completing the single player campaign. It's scary as hell, but not as scary when your volume is turned down and the lights on .

Playing Call of Duty 2. It runs noticably slower than FEAR, (but then CoD2 has wide open environments compared to FEAR's mainly office building scenes). but i have not updated the game with patches so hopefully it will improve. I am running at maximum widescreen resolution with medium-high settings.

 

[truffle666]

My point was that you're going to have to revisit the Mac test regardless because of the optimizations they've put into the Mac client.

I don't see any relevance, unless you believe that OS X is suddenly going to start outperforming windows by a significant margin.

As for reasonable Wow tests, I personally don't consider standing in one location (any location) in Wow on a live server an accurate test. For a truly accurate test you need to do what hardware sites do: set up a private Wow server so there's no PCs interfering, have a bot move the character around in a predictable fashion and get fraps going for an fps average. How often do people stand in a single location in Wow and don't move? That's why timedemos in other games always have the player moving.

No one has ever done a wow benchmark in the way you are describing. It doesn't make sense. It's not even possible (feel free to provide one example of anyone ever doing this and I'll offer my sincere appologies).

Also, and this is just an aside: most serious gamers (like myself) wouldn't even bother evaluating a boutique laptop like an XPS. We have dedicated rigs we built ourselves specifically for game playing. Mine's big, loud, and requires a tower -- it's also insanely fast. The point is I would never even consider buying a laptop as a desktop replacement (particularly for gaming) -- I'd just build a desktop. Outside gaming, my MacBook Pro supports my power and portability needs just fine.

Your needs do not describe the needs of all mac users as evidenced by people posting in this thread they they specifically do intend to use their macbook pro as a gaming machine. I encourage you to do your own benchmarks to suit your own specific needs, as opposed to declaring that benchmarks that serve other people's needs are invalid.

 

[fblack]

thanx

Multiprocessor was enabled.

Your review was useful to me as I'm thinking of picking up FEAR, that you had MP enabled in Quake is interesting too.

(any chance of running FEAR at lower rez n providing some rates?)

Unfortunately, it always comes down to weak vid cards apple puts in their machines...

 

[SilentCrs]

I don't see any relevance, unless you believe that OS X is suddenly going to start outperforming windows by a significant margin.

Try the current PTR and get back to me. I'm running Wow in OS X and BootCamp on my MacBook Pro C2D. I'm getting literally identical framerates in each -- so I don't see the point in going out to Bootcamp to get the same results.

And again, you're missing my point: you said in your original post "gaming performance". If you really meant "Bootcamp-only gaming performance", you should have said that instead.

No one has ever done a wow benchmark in the way you are describing. It doesn't make sense. It's not even possible (feel free to provide one example of anyone ever doing this and I'll offer my sincere appologies).

Anandtech does this for their benchmarking. Tom's Hardware occasionally does it. That's a couple I can think off the top of my head.

As for "not even possible"... huh? It takes 10 seconds to find private Wow servers through Google. It takes 15 to find bots. It takes a minute to download fraps. I would never recommend doing this on a live server, but in terms of consistent, predictable results that occur without standing completely still or accidentally having a PC walk into your benchmark, a private server with bots is the way to go.

Your needs do not describe the needs of all mac users as evidenced by people posting in this thread they they specifically do intend to use their macbook pro as a gaming machine. I encourage you to do your own benchmarks to suit your own specific needs, as opposed to declaring that benchmarks that serve other people's needs are invalid.

I don't doubt that people game with their MacBook Pros -- I do. However, it's not my primary gaming machine, and I don't think any serious gamer would use it as one. No serious gamer would use an XPS notebook, or any notebook for that matter. We'd use handbuilt rigs, like I said.

And I'm not saying your benchmarks are "invalid". You formulated your tests and carried them out -- that's a benchmark. However, I still question the merit of comparing a MacBook Pro to an XPS Notebook. It's like comparing a Toyota Camry and a Formula 1 by putting them both on the racetrack -- of course the Formula 1 is going to perform better. A better test would be to put the Toyota Camry and a Honda Civic on the racetrack and see who won that.

 

[truffle666]

Your review was useful to me as I'm thinking of picking up FEAR, that you had MP enabled in Quake is interesting too.

(any chance of running FEAR at lower rez n providing some rates?)

Unfortunately, it always comes down to weak vid cards apple puts in their machines...

You can definitely get above 30fps with the right settings in fear, because individual settings are ... well. ... such an individual choice I'm not sure if there is much point in benchmarking what I think are good settings.

 

[truffle666]

Try the current PTR and get back to me. I'm running Wow in OS X and BootCamp on my MacBook Pro C2D. I'm getting literally identical framerates in each -- so I don't see the point in going out to Bootcamp to get the same results.

It's great that you're getting identical performance in windows and os x and that supports my assertion that re-testing in OS X is not necessary to get a realistic comparision of the macbook pro and a dell xps m1710 in world of warcraft.

Anandtech does this for their benchmarking. Tom's Hardware occasionally does it. That's a couple I can think off the top of my head.

Actually no, they never ever do tests on private servers they set up. Quoting this anandtech article:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2381

Even on the highest populated servers (one of which we conducted our test), there are many areas where you can go that are devoid of any player controlled characters - making them ideal for benchmarking

Wow (no pun intended) that's *exactly* what I did, I went to an area devoid of player controlled characters and did my benchmarking. Thanks for your opinion on improving my benchmarks, but I'll trust Anand over you.

I don't doubt that people game with their MacBook Pros -- I do. However, it's not my primary gaming machine, and I don't think any serious gamer would use it as one.

You haven't offered any evidence to support this assertion beyond your opinion. It makes about as much sense as saying "I don't know why any serious car buyer wouldn't buy a Lexus". However as I'm already replying to your comment I'll explain why at least one serious gamer (my boyfriend) purchased an M1710.
* We prefer to game in our TV room so we can watch our 50" HDTV while gaming. We prefer to not set up gaming desktop PCs in that room because for us that room is not well suited to pc gaming.
* The M1710 runs every game we've played so far at over 60fps, with the option of a external keyboard and mouse there is no discernable advantage to a desktop PC. While a desktop PC will outperform a gaming laptop in the same price range - 60fps is good enough.
* My boyfriend wanted a 17" laptop anyway for non-gaming reasons, so having one machine for both gaming and other purposes worked well

I have no doubt that for you in particular a desktop just makes more sense for your own reasons, but for my boyfriend who is a serious gamer (as comical as that term is) the M1710 met his needs very well. I can strongly recommend this laptop - if I didn't want a 15" lap top, and if I didn't want a mac, I'd get one as well they are really quite awesome (and his only ran $2900 CDN not $4500 as someone else asserted).

And I'm not saying your benchmarks are "invalid". You formulated your tests and carried them out -- that's a benchmark. However, I still question the merit of comparing a MacBook Pro to an XPS Notebook. It's like comparing a Toyota Camry and a Formula 1 by putting them both on the racetrack -- of course the Formula 1 is going to perform better. A better test would be to put the Toyota Camry and a Honda Civic on the racetrack and see who won that.

As previously stated, time and time again, the goal was to determine the performance difference between the two with the understanding that one would outperform the other. I am puzzled by your continued insistance this is not a good benchmarking strategy, since there are endless examples of benchmarks involving comparing hardware of varying performance levels. Since your concern seems to be with the benchmarking industry as a whole as opposed to my benchmark in particular, perhaps you want to direct your feedback to Tom or Anand, I'm sure they would welcome your suggestions on how they do their job. Don't forget to tell Anand his wow benchmarks are all wrong.

 

[PeterC.]

I have been using my MBP 2.33ghz for occasional gaming and it does better than people want to believe. If the FutureMark Benchmarks are anything to go by, the MBP 2.33ghz outperforms comparable models from Alienware and Dell or any other touted "gaming" machines.

I recently ran 3DMark06 and 3DMark05 with methinks pretty darn good results.
3DMark06= 2139
3DMark05=3959(i may be a little fuzzy on the last two digits, I have to check)

Also, if it has any bearing, I ran SuperPi and calculated Pi to 2million digits in 55 seconds.

 

[thebeephaha]

Just to chime in on a couple of points:

1.) Comparing a MacBook Pro to a boutique-level gaming laptop is totally flawed. One is a desktop replacement, one is a mobile workstation. One is easy to carry, the other actually offers a backpack option instead of a standard case. One is built for gaming, the other isn't.

What you SHOULD be doing is comparing it to other media-class PCs with similar hardware. Dell Inspirons would be a good comparison, as would Toshiba Satellites (the home series).

When I purchased my MacBook Pro just now, I did a direct comparison with my former laptop: a Dell Inspiron 9300. That is a much closer comparison that an XPS. I found the MacBook Pro slightly outperformed it in 3DMark05, particularly on the CPU benchmark but also held its own on the GPU tests. This class of machines should get between 3000-4000 a nd the MacBook Pro almost got 4000 on the dot.

Finally, in terms of your comparison, I don't think anyone would be playing Fear on one of these machines. First off, the game sucks. But more importantly, it's unreasonable to assume any media class (non-boutique gaming machine) is going to play Fear well. I bought this laptop knowing what was reasonable (Wow, UT2003, Doom 3) and what wasn't (Fear, Farcry, etc).

I run F.E.A.R. and Farcry with the max settings [minus shadows] but at 1024x768 and get average 40-50fps no problems. The only game I've had real issues with is F.E.A.R. Extraction Point (the new expansion pack). I do however "overclock" to 400/400 and run the latest Omega drivers.

 

[gekko513]

I found these benchmarks interesting in the way that they highlight the difference between a hardcore gaming laptop and a general purpose laptop.

I think it would be even more interesting if you also tested the Macbook Pro on lower settings to see if you could make it approach the fps of the gaming laptop, and how much you have to sacrifice on graphics quality to do that.

 

[SiliconAddict]

Good point, that MBPs aren't for "hard core gaming," but for that, you'll need an 10 pound lapzilla, like an Alienware. I think that most people know that.

But most people buying a MBP, I think, are wanting an OS X notebook that can also do "casual" gaming, whether in OS X or WinXP via Bootcamp. And the MBP is "adequate" for that, particularly the C2D MBP, which has reportedly allowed the GPU to run much less crippled in speed than the Yonah units.

iBorg

Oh very much so. I can't live without a once a day "hit" of Civ IV under Bootcamp. If I don't get my dose of Civ I curel into a ball and whimper. The MBP is very capable of doing casual gaming. I thought the originator of the thread's point was how bad the MBP got thrashed and my point was that its not a gaming rig. I guess I should have appended that with its not a gaming rig but its more then capable at doing casual gaming.

 

[dornoforpyros]

First Off, I'm not a gamer, I have a few kicking around and I play for a few weeks at a time and then I won't play again for months.

But having said that Call of Duty 2 runs superbly with max settings and at full resolution on my new 2.33ghz MBP. So for the casual gamer who occasionally comes across a game I want to play this is great.

 

[Soullink]

World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft is one of the most important games to demo, and it also has a widely varying framerate. This results in many pointless comments like "ZOMG MY FRAMERATE IS USUALLY 40fps!!!!" The point is to compare in a consistent framerate challenging situation.

In Ashenvale in Raynwood Retreat at coordinates (53,45) is a moonwell. Sitting in the moonwell while looking through the entryway arch seems to thrash the FPS on many computers including my old desktop PC.

I have to disagree at this point... That scene looking through a moonwell in Ashenvale seems more like being bugged. I also have a heavy drop of FPS with the green fog effect of abominations in Undercity when there are two of them at once.

What's interesting is the frame rate in typical situations that you encounter most of the time, i.e. questing, PvPing, raiding.

On my MBP C2D I have maxed all settings except distance (a little more than middle) and I activated 2x anti-aliasing.

Solo farming (max. 10 mobs on the screen): 60 fps and more (the FPS counter in TitanPanel is not capped to 60?). In extreme situations up to 100fps.

5man instances, PvPing (Warsong, Arathi...) constantly between 40 and 60fps, in very heavy scenes it drops to 35. But you see every detail, everything is fluid, no stutter, nothing.

I only did an Onyxia raid so far and couldn't pay attention to the FPS all the time (I had to heal because the healers thought they didn't need fire resistance, normally I'm a shadow priest), but should be around 40 all the time.

Of course, when you set distance to max in barrens the FPS are lower...

I can run WoW, video skype and a video and the game is still playable (questing for example). So I'm more than happy, on my Powerbook WoW with all settings to min and no other app opened I had max. 20 fps...

 

[rbarris]

2.) Blizzard just released the pre-expansion patch to the test realms for Wow. It's a ~400 MB monster that prepares the game for the expansion. One of the major improvements for Mac users is multithreaded OpenGL support. These OpenGL libraries have been included in recent Intel Macs. The difference is pretty impressive. With all settings on max, full resolution, I was pinning to 60 fps. In heavy traffic, it never dipped before 30. Considering this feature will be active for all users in a month, you may need to revisit your Wow test.

QFT

(I posted a followup on the OP's blog as well)

 

[madyaks]

I think we all know if you want a gaming laptop you need to look toward a Dell or an Alienware (some others), but the question in why?
Why doesn't Apple offer a better video card? Even in the MacPro a 7300 is just.... well.. cheap. It's a top of the line desktop, a monster, and you get a crappy video card. Come on.

Both the MBP and MacPro need to have a higher standard video card.

 

[prism]

I think we all know if you want a gaming laptop you need to look toward a Dell or an Alienware (some others), but the question in why?
Why doesn't Apple offer a better video card? Even in the MacPro a 7300 is just.... well.. cheap. It's a top of the line desktop, a monster, and you get a crappy video card. Come on.

Both the MBP and MacPro need to have a higher standard video card.

Have you seen how chunky the Dell and Alienware laptops are? I dont know about you but, coming from a Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop, I am very impressed with the results of my new MBPC2D 2.16ghz lappy!

 

[arnolf]

The mbp c2d 2,16 with 120 mb vram runs oblivion well.
the auto detect setting detects high quality but in outdoor environnement the game is too laggy. so a medium or low seeting allow to play the game fine everytime in 1024 * 768

 

[elcapo]

Hi! everybody

Thats my first of many post in this forum(I hope..).

Well my MBP is arriving soon, and I think that when you buy a MBP it's not for gaming. Is true that it has a good performance, but de 2,16GHZ MBP is not specially for gaming because of de GPU.

The comparison with de XPS I think it's a bad comparison, they only have equal procesor an memory, bur GPU (that's for gaming) are very diferent. However the biggest difference is the PRICE.

XPS is more expensive than MBP, maybe if you pay for a MBP 17" with 3GB RAM, it will be more competitive, but the XPS again will be better because of the GPU.

wow, so a 9lb. laptop with a better video card outperformed a MBP in gaming tests?

thats a revelation.

So I think, it's not a revelation...if you get a better GPU it will move games better...

Good post's I've read, good topic!

Bye!