CS:S & HL2 Hitching Issue Mid-2010 i5 MBP (15")

[zer06ame]

Hi everyone!

I'm new to the forums and the Mac world so I have a few questions for you guys. I just recently bought the 2.4ghz i5 base model 15 inch MBP to replace my 5 year old Windows desktop.

I went to the Apple store various times and discussed with the employees what I wanted to do, telling them basically standard internet browsing, some 720p/1080p video editing, the ability to play at least 2 1080p videos at once without any performance issues, the ability to run parallels with some heavy programs, that I would be running an external monitor up to 1080p, and that I want the ability to play a few older games like CS:S and HL2 smoothly and that was mainly it as far as what I actually NEED from my MBP.

Three employees and the store manager all talked me out of buying the i7 claiming that I wouldn't see any benefits in the tasks I'm doing and that I would be "wasting my money."

So this then leads me to running CS:S and HL2 natively on OSX. They run at a solid constant frame rate with the settings basically maxed out but no matter what detail and settings I select, it seems to hitch when I look lightly left or right in the game. It was only annoying at first but after prolonged game play (1-2 hours) it seems to get worse and worse.

Now, I haven't tried running it natively in Windows via Bootcamp (which I assume would fix this issue because of it being optimized and having better drivers/direct X) but is anyone else having this same problem with the 256mb i5 MBP? Is no one experiencing this issue with the 512mb i7?

I'm not jumping to point my finger necessarily at the 256mb of ram considering I used to be able to play it on windows with a 128mb 6600GT with no issues but I'm wondering if this is an issue of unoptimized drivers/code that's running it natively on OSX?

I've searched the forums and various other sites and was unable to find anyone talking about the same issue so I apologize if there was another thread detailing this issue already.

Thanks for the help!

 

[zer06ame]

Update:

I just spoke with the Apple Store I purchased it from and they said that they would exchange it with no re-stocking fee for the i7 model. I'm nervous in general about the 256mb of vram not being enough for even the 1080p playback on my 1080p displays and in general I'm unhappy with the slow down that occurs when streaming more than 1 tab of hi-def content (and no, it's no an internet connection issue).

I don't know if they only are waiving it because they didn't have an i5 2.4ghz model on the floor for me to play with so I had to take their world or what but I'm very happy with their offer.

$180 restocking fee would've nearly been the difference between the models with student pricing.

I'll post in a few hours from the new one and let everyone know how the performance is (I'm guessing it's the unoptimized code and lack of vram causing the frame rate to drop to 0 every few seconds. Net_graph doesn't show the drops to 0 but being an ex-PC gamer, I can tell that's what's happening).

I still would like to hear what others experienced with the two models though.

-zer06ame

 

[zer06ame]

I went and exchanged my MBP without being charged the 10% restocking fee. I would have to say I'm happier with it already.

As far as random tasks go, it does seem slightly faster at opening programs from cold and the addition of the extra 180gb on the hard drive is nice.

I installed all of the latest updates from Apple and installed HL2. The hitching I was speaking of is now GONE, with it only doing a little bit of screen tearing. Before I went into the store I showed my buddy what was happening and he also thought it had to be random dropped frames, which he also thought was pretty noticeable and distracting.

Now, did I really need to spend $300 more just to play HL2 a little better? Probably not, but when I was already spending $1700 and it wouldn't play how I wanted, what's an extra $300 for a better processor, more cache, double the video ram, about 33% more hard drive space and a computer that can run Source games natively with no issues.

I still would like to hear other peoples experiences with HL2/CS:S/other Source games to see if maybe I just received a "bad" i5 unit. Either way, I was regretting the lack of HDD space so now I have nothing to worry about/regret .

 

[Jawwwwsh]

Glad to see you resolved your issue without any input from MRF!!!

 

[redbairn]

I ran bootcamp on my iMac back at home without any hitches and great fps.

It was the first aluminium model back in 2007, with the ATI 2600 XT PRO.

Since I'm abroad, I'm trying to get a laptop that would match it's performance, if not better.