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Half Life 2 on The GT 330m-- Prepare Yourself

rmbrown09

rmbrown09

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 25, 2010
949
1
USA
Today is a momentous occasion. HL2 has come to mac, natively.

On my i5 GT 330m 15", I decided to give it a shot. Valve just put out an update, to improve the graphics even in the original, so I wasn't sure how well it would run.

First the settings,
1440x900 native
everything else MAXIMUM, except 0 Anti Aliasing (15" screen doesn't need it)

The pics have the FPS in the bottom right, check it out! (This is Episode 2!) {Vsync is on, aka nothing over 60 FPS}
Guys if you have never played this game, it will change your life
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lol funny story about my history with hl2. prior to the past month of owning my 1st ever mac, i was on a crappy dell from like 2001. and i had gotten hl2 when it 1st came out around christmas. and i played it for a bit until my dell couldn't handle the more intensive levels. so ive had the game building dust over the past 7 yrs or so. im not waiting to get windows 7 and installing via bootcamp and finally playing this game that i heard/read such good reviews about!!!!!

ps.hl2 via steam of course. how the process with steam on macs? are u playing directly from os x on steam? if so, then +1 and i'll install steam and play tonight when i get back from work!!!!!
 
dsprimal said:
lol funny story about my history with hl2. prior to the past month of owning my 1st ever mac, i was on a crappy dell from like 2001. and i had gotten hl2 when it 1st came out around christmas. and i played it for a bit until my dell couldn't handle the more intensive levels. so ive had the game building dust over the past 7 yrs or so. im not waiting to get windows 7 and installing via bootcamp and finally playing this game that i heard/read such good reviews about!!!!!

ps.hl2 via steam of course. how the process with steam on macs? are u playing directly from os x on steam? if so, then +1 and i'll install steam and play tonight when i get back from work!!!!!
Click to expand...

Steam is basically 3 things in one
1: A chat program that allows for IM'ing, but also lets you see what games your friends are in, and you can even join them by right clicking their name.

2: Games distribution, buy games through Steam, never have to get a CD again or remember a serial.
All your games are stored in your account, that you can login anywhere and download to play. (you can only be logged into Steam in one place at a time though)

++ to boot, Steam will automatically keep your games upto date, and has the best game deals around. right now HL2 is 6 bucks.. 6!!!!! WTF

3: unexplainable. It's like using a mac, you have to sit down with it, use it for a while, and after about a week, you won't understand how you ever played games without it.

Edit; and yes HL2 runs natively now, they ported it to OpenGL from Direct X
 
dsprimal said:
lol funny story about my history with hl2. prior to the past month of owning my 1st ever mac, i was on a crappy dell from like 2001. and i had gotten hl2 when it 1st came out around christmas. and i played it for a bit until my dell couldn't handle the more intensive levels. so ive had the game building dust over the past 7 yrs or so. im not waiting to get windows 7 and installing via bootcamp and finally playing this game that i heard/read such good reviews about!!!!!

ps.hl2 via steam of course. how the process with steam on macs? are u playing directly from os x on steam? if so, then +1 and i'll install steam and play tonight when i get back from work!!!!!
Click to expand...
Yep, playing natively! Such a good game. Haven't downloaded it yet. Wonder how it'll play at native resolution on the high rez i7. Hopefully that extra graphics ram will help it along...
 
+1 to steam accounts. no need to install any cd's etc. as long as you got an account with games on it, you can load it up on any comp! any link to the mac download version of steam?
 
So you're saying your brand new 2010 GPU can run a 2004 game on HIGH SETTINGS?
 
On my 2.4 i5 HR AG I was averaging 60fps through the first part of the game. I had most setting on medium. I note that dust or spot lights shutter the game play. :mad:

Cannot wait for 10.6.4. Hopefully the GPU optimisations boost performance.
 
thanks! i still need to decide it steam on mac os x is worth it, or should i just buy windows 7 and install via bootcamp. i've read a couple of reviews saying the games available for play are slim as of now. games such as COD: WM2, or L4D 2.
 
Do you have the 256Mb vRam GPU or 512mb?

I have the 256mb GT330m on my Macbook Pro and find that HL2 is unplayable with the high texture detail setting. Only on medium can I play it with good FPS but it looks like pants.

I hope Left 4 Dead 2 is not like this! I can play that just fine with high texture detail on bootcamp!
 
so is this directly a steam issue on mac osx? cause if my 512mb 330m gt gpu can't run a 5 year old game on high settings and graphics on high, then that's purely ridiculous. i've seen core i5 mbp's run call of duty: MW2 on max settings smoothly....so....
 
I was able to download the episodes fine on my Mac, but Steam seems too busy to download HL2 right now.

My advice to everyone is to just buy The Orange Box. HL2 and Portal are great, but the best Valve game of all time (in my opinion) is Team Fortress 2. I've played it since release and it's still amazingly fun.
 
For the person having trouble running HL2. There seems to be a bug that occurs when you adjust resolution. For me at least, I played in 1680x1050 with about 60 fps and then switched to a lower 1280x800 res and my frames tanked to 10-20. I really can't see HL2 running poorly unless a bug was causing it.
 
Maximus434 said:
Do you have the 256Mb vRam GPU or 512mb?

I have the 256mb GT330m on my Macbook Pro and find that HL2 is unplayable with the high texture detail setting. Only on medium can I play it with good FPS but it looks like pants.

I hope Left 4 Dead 2 is not like this! I can play that just fine with high texture detail on bootcamp!
Click to expand...


really? that's so lame. so much about graphic card. well, it is the different story though. with my Sony F vaio laptop, I can go up to 90fps with everything max setting out. it's very smooth. I believe that new Apple macbook pro uses the same graphic chip NVIDIA GT 330M? or maybe not. that's why I don't play any game with mac. I can't believe that new macbook pro only gives you that performance?
 
archurban said:
really? that's so lame. so much about graphic card. well, it is the different story though. with my Sony F vaio laptop, I can go up to 90fps with everything max setting out. it's very smooth. I believe that new Apple macbook pro uses the same graphic chip NVIDIA GT 330M? or maybe not. that's why I don't play any game with mac. I can't believe that new macbook pro only gives you that performance?
Click to expand...

I've been playing through HL2 again on my i7 MBP with 512MB VRAM, smooth as butter at 1600x1050 and everything set high. /shrug
 
archurban said:
really? that's so lame. so much about graphic card. well, it is the different story though. with my Sony F vaio laptop, I can go up to 90fps with everything max setting out. it's very smooth. I believe that new Apple macbook pro uses the same graphic chip NVIDIA GT 330M? or maybe not. that's why I don't play any game with mac. I can't believe that new macbook pro only gives you that performance?
Click to expand...

Windows used Direct X, while all these Source games have been re written in Open GL. They have some optimization updates to roll out still. Things will get better.

Vaoi's are cool and all, except for the whole operating system part. :cool:

In Bootcamp it would destroy the game
 
Guys, the drivers in 10.6.3 are not great...

Wait until you see what the drivers in 10.6.4 do... Apple has after all asked us developers to "focus" on graphics drivers for the last four 10.6.4 seeds.
 
I need to upgrade, my 9400m isn't doing to well. I can only play HL2, HL2:EP1, and Portal on medium/low at 1024x768. I hope some optimization updates come out...

Killing Floor runs great though on the default high settings at 1280x800 :D
 
Revelation78 said:
Guys, the drivers in 10.6.3 are not great...

Wait until you see what the drivers in 10.6.4 do... Apple has after all asked us developers to "focus" on graphics drivers for the last four 10.6.4 seeds.
Click to expand...

They said the same thing about 10.6.3 seeds.
 
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