How well does Macbook handle games like Age of Empires 3? (RTS)

[Kinkokoro]

How well does the Macbook play games like Age of Empires 3? as well as other RTS games? (Real time stradagy) Aside from some D2 that's all the gaming I really do.

Thanks,

Josh

 

[benpatient]

well, AOE3 is fairly modern. The GMA950 in the macbook is not very powerful, and AOE3 can use quite a lot of graphics card power at higher settings.

You should be able to play it at the macbook's native resolution with most of the effects set to "medium" or lower and have a pretty playable experience, at least if you have more than the original amount of RAM. as with all things on OS X, the more RAM the better.

Most modern RTS games use a lot of graphics power and a lot of processor power, too. For example Company of Heroes runs pretty slowly on my PC which has a 6600 GT.

To put it mildly, the GMA950 is not as good as the 6600 GT.

But if a game is from the AOE3 era or OLDER, the MB will play it just fine if you're willing to make some graphical concessions.

 

[Kinkokoro]

well, AOE3 is fairly modern. The GMA950 in the macbook is not very powerful, and AOE3 can use quite a lot of graphics card power at higher settings.

You should be able to play it at the macbook's native resolution with most of the effects set to "medium" or lower and have a pretty playable experience, at least if you have more than the original amount of RAM. as with all things on OS X, the more RAM the better.

Most modern RTS games use a lot of graphics power and a lot of processor power, too. For example Company of Heroes runs pretty slowly on my PC which has a 6600 GT.

To put it mildly, the GMA950 is not as good as the 6600 GT.

But if a game is from the AOE3 era or OLDER, the MB will play it just fine if you're willing to make some graphical concessions.

Thanks for the reply,
I will up the ram on the Blackbook 2 GB, will that help things out?
So you suggest it would run things on medium settings well? That's good.
I like the Age series, AGe of empires 3 is a must, an the expansion is coming out soon too.

Thanks again,

Josh

 

[Zel]

I guess this isnt useful, but I still want to chime in some info.

MBP 2.4 with the nvidia 8600 256 here

AoE3 runs perfectly with all settings maxed out.