How well does windows run on the macbook?

[JamesSykes]

Im considering moving up from my 12" 1.5Ghz Powerbook up to a 15" Macbook Pro.

Is it worth me going for the Pro to get the better gfx card to play some games? Or just go for the Macbook and get the shiny screen?

If i can play decent games on the Pro then it would be worth me doing it, but if i cant well no point!

Just to add - i mean windows games running on XP!

 

[Macer]

just buy a pc if all you want to do is play games

 

[JamesSykes]

Thanks for your input, it has given me alot..and i mean ALOT of insight.....

I've been told Windows on the MB/MBP runs well and that games are playable.... I want to know how playable, are the new latest games playable or not?

Of course i can just buy a PC.. but thats not what i'm asking...

 

[rspeaker]

Windows runs wonderfully on the Mac. For games, certainly they'll run better with the MacBook Pro, as the MacBook just has integrated graphics (as I'm sure you know.) If the primary thing for Windows is to play games, I'd say PROBABLY to get the Pro... but I have an iMac, so I can't say with certainty as to how poorly the integrated graphics are. But the X1600 in my iMac works MAGIC!

 

[plinden]

Im considering moving up from my 12" 1.5Ghz Powerbook up to a 15" Macbook Pro.

Is it worth me going for the Pro to get the better gfx card to play some games? Or just go for the Macbook and get the shiny screen?

If i can play decent games on the Pro then it would be worth me doing it, but if i cant well no point!

Just to add - i mean windows games running on XP!

What games are you interested in? The most recent first person shooters probably won't play well, and I've heard that Civ4 has hefty hardware requirements even for the PC.

But I've had no problems with AoE or MOH:AA (both 3-4 year old games) or SimCity 4 (although that did slow down with big cities, it was mostly due to the comparatively slow CPU) on a Dell with a Geforce4 MMX GPU that I'm pretty sure isn't any better than the GMA950 in the MacBook.

I haven't tried Boot Camp - since I no longer play games, I have no need for Windows - so I can't tell you how well they play on the MB. Besides our MB is my wife's and she's told me to keep my hands off it. My iMac would certainly work fine.

 

[velocityg4]

Based purely on the hardware that is on the Macbook and Macbook Pro. I will say that the Macbook would be horrendous at playing games. Unless you set it at 800x600 with every graphic extra turned off. However, the Macbook Pro should be amicable. It won't be the greatest but you could play the latest games at 1024x768 with Anti Aliasing turned off and most shaders and textures on high detail.
If you want gaming and a portable your best bet would be to get the lowest end Macbook then build an el cheapo gaming PC. In the long run you'll be able to stay current in the gaming market for a lot less money. The Macbook Pro would only get you by for a year to a year and a half.

 

[JamesSykes]

Thats good enough for me i think!

I've already sold my home PC, i dont really want to justify spending another £1000 on a home PC just to play a few games - i'd rather spend my money on a MBP and that way i can play the occasional game and be ok!

 

[dukebound85]

Thanks for your input, it has given me alot..and i mean ALOT of insight.....

I've been told Windows on the MB/MBP runs well and that games are playable.... I want to know how playable, are the new latest games playable or not?

Of course i can just buy a PC.. but thats not what i'm asking...

Besides the fact this topic has been discussed many times over I say he gave you enough insight if you decided to look up past threads about the issue

 

[dukebound85]

cool another person from fort collins heck yes

 

[cyberdogl2]

i assume macbook won't be any worse than a dell, for running windows, at around the same price range

 

[Felldownthewell]

The MBP that I have plays HL2 at 45-80 FPS depending on what is going on on-screen. I belive that the most common video test is when you first walk out of the train station at the very beginning of the game and see the huge square with lots of movement- which played smoothly and beautifuly.

Other games like AoE III played nicely- could have been better, but my problem with that game is the size of the UI...the video was awesome though.

My copy of windows (which came with the family's dell PC) wouldn't activate so my 30 days are up, but I enjoyed it while it lasted. It is definatley worth the time of the bootcamp install.

The MBP played games twice as good (well?) as my desktop PC (2.2ghz P4, 512RAM, geForce 5200), although it did get quit hot... I say go for it!

 

[Rickay726]

so u have a choice of a mbp and a regualr mb?, what are u waiting for get the mbp

 

[okwhatev]

so u have a choice of a mbp and a regualr mb?, what are u waiting for get the mbp

I run Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 in Windows at full res (which, remember, on Macbook is max 1280x800, which isn't too hard on integrated graphics), with all effects on, and it's incredibly playable on my Macbook (2GHz, 7200RPM HD, 2GB RAM). Not into first person shooters, so that doesn't bug me much. But at least for this game it does great (although gets REALLY REALLY HOT!).

Now, if you were to hook up an external monitor and try to play a game on a better screen (at higher res) I'm sure the Macbook would choke and scream (maybe even blow up ), But if you're just playing on your normal laptop screen, all the Windows games I've played so far play pretty darn well. The best I've ever seen for a small laptop (windows or mac).

 

[Acehigh]

Im considering moving up from my 12" 1.5Ghz Powerbook up to a 15" Macbook Pro.

Is it worth me going for the Pro to get the better gfx card to play some games? Or just go for the Macbook and get the shiny screen?

If i can play decent games on the Pro then it would be worth me doing it, but if i cant well no point!

Just to add - i mean windows games running on XP!

Buy an Xbox 360 for games.

 

[jaxstate]

A xbox 360 wasn't one of the options he mentioned, so why say get a Xbox360. The nerve of some of these people on this forum.

Buy an Xbox 360 for games.

Anyway, back on topic. I say get a MBP, I've seen post on this site and other sites that suggest the MBP can handle most of the current top games that's out now.

 

[brbubba]

I've had numerous issues running XP on my macbook. For starters it wouldn't take my media, it would freeze at every imaginable step of the installation. I finally inserted a burned copy and not the official copy and it worked like a charm. Second driver support is apparently not complete, I had unrecognized devices in the device manager and no amount of reinstallation helped find them. And lastly there is an odd stutter occasionally when using the trackpad, never used a mouse although I highly recommend it due to the right click alone.

I eventually gave up on my windows install and might install it again when dual boot gets out of beta.

 

[Felldownthewell]

I've had numerous issues running XP on my macbook. For starters it wouldn't take my media, it would freeze at every imaginable step of the installation. I finally inserted a burned copy and not the official copy and it worked like a charm. Second driver support is apparently not complete, I had unrecognized devices in the device manager and no amount of reinstallation helped find them. And lastly there is an odd stutter occasionally when using the trackpad, never used a mouse although I highly recommend it due to the right click alone.

I eventually gave up on my windows install and might install it again when dual boot gets out of beta.

Thats odd...I installed mine without a problem- the hardest part was slipstreaming SP2 onto my SP1a disk. I think you are probably right and that its a beta problem.

Having Windows was a great party trick ("but dude...wait...its a mac...how'd you get windows on there?1?!/1!one!eleven!) and its nice for the games, but I found myself almost never booting to it, if I wanted to play a game I would play CoD; I was just to lazy to restart.