I recently broke down and bought a Macbook with a broken LCD from one of the closing CompUSA's. It worked fine except where someone had tried to close it while the security bar was over the keyboard and cracked the LCD. It is a Core 2 Duo running at 1.83Ghz. I upgraded the RAM to 2GB of Kingston Value Select and replaced the LCD. Micro Center has a rebate on that RAM of $20 which made the purchase a no-brainer, $37.99 after rebate. I got the screen off eBay for $170.
I am going to try and not turn this into a lovestory about my Macbook, but it continues to impress. As a 'PC Gamer' I build most of my computers and the Macbook fixerupper let me experience OS X and Apples hardware philosophy without plunking down a significant amount of money.
I 2-box a Shadowknight and a Druid right now and that combination works very well for me. The Shadoknight is my main character and the Druid is there for buffs, heals and porting. I use them both in groups and raids. I was thinking about starting up a third box, and after my experiences with the Macbook, I will probably sell some of my extra unused PC gear and get another Macbook as my third box. Since most of the action is happening on my main PC I don't have a need to have fast FPS on the Druid's box. Basically I just hit a button or two when I want to heal or DoT.
Running around Plane of Knowledge, Walls of Slaughter and Muramite Proving Grounds I got anywhere from 15-39 FPS. It seemed to like the 17-20 range though. I only ever got 39FPS when no one else was on screen. Staring at walls didn't seem to help in that regard which I found odd. All this is based on the default installation of EQ at the Macbooks' resolution of 1280 X 800. I have to say that I have played EQ since 1999 so I have a feel for the game. I have played it on low-end PC's and high-end PC's. My current rig is an AMD Athlon X2 4200 + 2GB PC3200 Ballistix Tracer + 2 ATI X1900XT (Crossfire) + X-Fi Fatal1ty + Win XP + Dell 24" LCD and most games run and look great.
The reason I am mentioning this is because on some machines there seems to be 2 different kinds of video lag. There is the 'frame stutter' where the movement is all choppy and it looks like you are looking at a very fast slideshow. This is caused by a bottleneck in the graphics card where it can't draw the frames fast enough to make the images on the screen flow smoothly. The other kind of video lag comes from a memory bottleneck. It happens when you enter a new area or suddenly turn around to face a bunch of on-screen toons and your system freezes while all the new textures load. Even though the Macbook produces relatively low framerates, the video was smooth and I didn't see any of the memory lag. Yes, I know, low framerates and smooth don't exactly go together, but I have been playing EQ forever and there is an odd quality I can't put my finger on yet, but I'll get to the bottom of it.
Spell particle effects were turned on and looked great on the Macbook and while I only played around for a little while, there was no framerate hit when I cast spells. I haven't raided yet on the Macbook so I'll have to see what happens when 30 people are all casting spells.
In short, the Macbook with Vista and 2GB of RAM is a great little machine for portable EQ or if you want to multi-box. I haven't given it a thorough testing yet, but the few hours I played around with it left me very impressed. I will post a more thorough review after I have had a chance to raid and run around in Norrath for a while. If there is anything specific you want me to check out let me know and I'll try and work it in.
I am going to try and not turn this into a lovestory about my Macbook, but it continues to impress. As a 'PC Gamer' I build most of my computers and the Macbook fixerupper let me experience OS X and Apples hardware philosophy without plunking down a significant amount of money.
I 2-box a Shadowknight and a Druid right now and that combination works very well for me. The Shadoknight is my main character and the Druid is there for buffs, heals and porting. I use them both in groups and raids. I was thinking about starting up a third box, and after my experiences with the Macbook, I will probably sell some of my extra unused PC gear and get another Macbook as my third box. Since most of the action is happening on my main PC I don't have a need to have fast FPS on the Druid's box. Basically I just hit a button or two when I want to heal or DoT.
Running around Plane of Knowledge, Walls of Slaughter and Muramite Proving Grounds I got anywhere from 15-39 FPS. It seemed to like the 17-20 range though. I only ever got 39FPS when no one else was on screen. Staring at walls didn't seem to help in that regard which I found odd. All this is based on the default installation of EQ at the Macbooks' resolution of 1280 X 800. I have to say that I have played EQ since 1999 so I have a feel for the game. I have played it on low-end PC's and high-end PC's. My current rig is an AMD Athlon X2 4200 + 2GB PC3200 Ballistix Tracer + 2 ATI X1900XT (Crossfire) + X-Fi Fatal1ty + Win XP + Dell 24" LCD and most games run and look great.
The reason I am mentioning this is because on some machines there seems to be 2 different kinds of video lag. There is the 'frame stutter' where the movement is all choppy and it looks like you are looking at a very fast slideshow. This is caused by a bottleneck in the graphics card where it can't draw the frames fast enough to make the images on the screen flow smoothly. The other kind of video lag comes from a memory bottleneck. It happens when you enter a new area or suddenly turn around to face a bunch of on-screen toons and your system freezes while all the new textures load. Even though the Macbook produces relatively low framerates, the video was smooth and I didn't see any of the memory lag. Yes, I know, low framerates and smooth don't exactly go together, but I have been playing EQ forever and there is an odd quality I can't put my finger on yet, but I'll get to the bottom of it.
Spell particle effects were turned on and looked great on the Macbook and while I only played around for a little while, there was no framerate hit when I cast spells. I haven't raided yet on the Macbook so I'll have to see what happens when 30 people are all casting spells.
In short, the Macbook with Vista and 2GB of RAM is a great little machine for portable EQ or if you want to multi-box. I haven't given it a thorough testing yet, but the few hours I played around with it left me very impressed. I will post a more thorough review after I have had a chance to raid and run around in Norrath for a while. If there is anything specific you want me to check out let me know and I'll try and work it in.
