Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

List of games working great on a Macbook pro 13 inch 2.26Ghz, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M

I'd like to add something. I have a MacBook Pro 13" and COD4 and CODMW2 do not run well on this machine. I turn the settings down and I only get about 30fps most of the time.

Also, Left 4 Dead 2 runs the same way... 30fps with everything on low.

On my Mac Pro (ATI Radeon 4870), I get over 60fps constantly in all of these games on Max settings so I know how the game feels when it's running smoothly.

So therefore when someone says the game is running smoothly, they must mean "I have nothing to compare it to, so to me it runs smoothly".

30fps is crap. You need at least 60fps to call it smooth.

LawrenZza said:
hey ppl, i was wandering which gameplay would be better if u were to play some game ( for example, gta on mac os and gta on window xp ) which will give a better gameplay experience?

i'm currently a mac 13", 2.4 Ghz , 4GM ram with NVIDIA 9400M

running window xp on boot camp.

another thing will window 7 give a better performance compare to window xp on boot camp? am wandering can the spec meet the requirement.
Click to expand...

I have Windows XP and Windows 7. Windows 7 performs better than Windows XP and Vista. Hope that helps.
 
reardoma said:
before you redirect me...... please read below...

I got the new unibody WHITE macbook for Christmas.... almost the same specs as this macbook pro...

has the 9400M graphis card....


I have one question....i ONLY PLAY left 4 dead (the original version)

can this new macbook handle this on MAX SPECS or close to it?:)





Thanks in advance for your help......
Click to expand...

Short answer, yes

It runs (like any Source game) at medium and above on the macbook at a steady 30 fps+
 
nick1516 said:
Bioshock runs very well at max res. and settings on my 9400m.
Click to expand...

How well is well? The only reason I ask is that I just got Bioshock on Steam in bootcamp, and I have everything set to high except resolution, which is set to 1280. The game experiences lag when I do things like shatter a frozen enemy.

I have dedicated graphics card (the 9600) which isn't great, but I think it should still perform better than the 9400, especially since I'm running it on Windows.
 
well, you try to play game with your macbook pro 13inch? good luck. it doesn't have dedicated graphic card (unfortunately NVIDIA Geforce 9400M is customized shared graphic just like intel intergated card). so if you think some seriuos games, forget about all that. it won't play well at all. as a matter a fact, even if you have macbook pro 15inch, it's still not solution at all. only you could be satisfied with performance of game, it will be new imac (and other desktop). not laptop. so mac is not still good for gaming no matter what. very expensive unlikely. you assume that machines with that price should be enough played any games, right. no. NOT Mac. if you want to 'enjoy' game, get PC. it's cheaper, got more high spec with low price. it's simple.
 
TheSpaz said:
I'd like to add something. I have a MacBook Pro 13" and COD4 and CODMW2 do not run well on this machine. I turn the settings down and I only get about 30fps most of the time.

Also, Left 4 Dead 2 runs the same way... 30fps with everything on low.

On my Mac Pro (ATI Radeon 4870), I get over 60fps constantly in all of these games on Max settings so I know how the game feels when it's running smoothly.

So therefore when someone says the game is running smoothly, they must mean "I have nothing to compare it to, so to me it runs smoothly".

30fps is crap. You need at least 60fps to call it smooth.



I have Windows XP and Windows 7. Windows 7 performs better than Windows XP and Vista. Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

if you need 60fps for gaming, forget about mac. mac is crap anyway. if you consider gaming, no matter what mac is, PC is way better. I never heard that mac is good for gaming. never. but if you still want mac, well, you have to give up fantastic performance of gaming. I don't play any game with my macbook pro 15-inch (NVIDIA geforce 9600GT in it) because I know it won't be beautiful. I juat use my PC laptops which are way greater than macs.
 
archurban said:
well, you try to play game with your macbook pro 13inch? good luck. it doesn't have dedicated graphic card (unfortunately NVIDIA Geforce 9400M is customized shared graphic just like intel intergated card). so if you think some seriuos games, forget about all that. it won't play well at all. as a matter a fact, even if you have macbook pro 15inch, it's still not solution at all. only you could be satisfied with performance of game, it will be new imac (and other desktop). not laptop. so mac is not still good for gaming no matter what. very expensive unlikely. you assume that machines with that price should be enough played any games, right. no. NOT Mac. if you want to 'enjoy' game, get PC. it's cheaper, got more high spec with low price. it's simple.
Click to expand...

archurban said:
if you need 60fps for gaming, forget about mac. mac is crap anyway. if you consider gaming, no matter what mac is, PC is way better. I never heard that mac is good for gaming. never. but if you still want mac, well, you have to give up fantastic performance of gaming. I don't play any game with my macbook pro 15-inch (NVIDIA geforce 9600GT in it) because I know it won't be beautiful. I juat use my PC laptops which are way greater than macs.
Click to expand...

It's usually not the Mac's fault that games run bad. It's the poor porting job that the company does when they port the game over to OpenGL. Most PC games are designed with DirectX and that has to be all converted to OpenGL in order for them to run in Mac OS X and I don't see Microsoft licensing DirectX to Apple any time soon.

My Mac Pro is capable of playing high end games in Windows 7. Call of Duty 4 runs well most of the time in Mac OS X, but it never EVER stutters at all in Windows with all settings cranked to their highest. Like I said before... the games are first developed with Windows and DirectX and in order to get those titles over on the Mac OS X side, some companies port it over while taking their time (blizzard) and some companies just stuff it inside a Cider package and give it an icon. Cider is terrible for gaming. It decodes the Windows code on the fly... I suppose it's like emulation.

Macs are perfectly capable of playing hardcore games... you just have to use BootCamp. However, the integrated 9400M is not very good and even in Windows it sucks. I wouldn't buy a MacBook to play 3D games on. That's why I have to have a desktop Mac.
 
TheSpaz said:
30fps is crap. You need at least 60fps to call it smooth.
Click to expand...

And you need to run it on a 240hz TV/monitor too? In 3D? Anything less is crap.

30fps feels perfectly smooth for many games, especially when you are talking about running them on a non-gaming laptop. Sure 60fps is nice, especially in shooters but really, do you need 60 frames in games like the Sims?
 
A good game that I am playing at the moment on me uMBP is Heroes of Newerth. It works great on highest resolution with all effects turned off and shaders at Medium.
Only downside is you got to get a beta key to play it :(
 
Yep. Perspective of 30fps means a lot for the type of game you're playing. If you're playing an RPG, or a Strategy Game, or any kind of Empire-style game where you control forces, many ships in a galaxy, or an MMO, it's smooth and very playable. However, if it is a fast paced FPS game on the lines of Unreal/Quake and others, then yes that wouldn't be playable for a lot of folks. Note that some arcade racers get by on 30fps, of course, as many racers even through the past gen of 360/PS3 has been made to run at that speed.

Of course, some of the racers on those systems, and previous gen (depending on the graphics used and such) did run at 60fps, but those games are selective games, and not all of the popular racer games. There's always been a number of popular racers, on consoles, reserved for 30fps.

Of course, a good number of games compared here, are not of the lot of faced paced competitive FPS shooters. However, consoles are also even more lenient on those often running some pretty darn popular ones, at the lower frame rate. Of course, PCs have different standards. And those needing to keep up either turn various graphic options up, or are in the habit of constantly upgrading graphics hardware to meet those 60fps and up standards with higher graphics.

Then again, if you are doing that a lot, and you are even considering using a Laptop for them; then you're likely to consistently spend the money on gaming laptops anyway. I know, I bought a great Gateway gaming laptop, top of its class, but it certainly didn't take long before I'd have to buy something else to keep up with the framerates of the latest games.

So case in point, if you want a machine for high-end FPS gaming and such, laptops in general (not just Mac ones) aren't the way to go, unless you want something temporarily on top until the next season rolls around. That's when you go to desktops.

However, topics like this aren't made for the idea of saying, "This is a gaming laptop" But more like. "I bought this nice utilitarian Macbook Pro, and I was wondering if I were to play games on it, are they playable enough to enjoy them, and which ones?"

And to get back on topic. "Spore (Mac) gets a nice bit of a performance bump, for the same settings, when upgraded to 4GB as opposed to 2GB ram. It makes stuff like the tribal stage and up, much more playable."

At 4GB, I also tested WoW with most details set to high. It generally maintains a framerate over 30fps, with that setup.
 
there are some games optimizing for main stream PC or mac no matter how they equip spec. I don't know many. modern warfare 2, left 4 dead 2 (or 1), mass effect 1,2. these games are very smooth at least for your macbook with NVIDIA 9400. I don't use my macbook pro for gaming. to me, gaming is still for PC. so I use my sony vaio FW (intel core 2 duo 2.66Ghz) which is equipped with 1GB ATI radeon mobility 4670 graphic card. it's beast. my vaio plays all games in the market no matter what. windows index experience went up 6.2 after upgrading memory (8GB), hard drive (750GB).
 
Re: MacBook

I’m a huge fan MacBook.
But i lost all my data in recently.I have been
told that it cost several thousand US dollars to recover the data.
The hard disk is not even recognized when connected. If I wanted
to recover the data, who is responsible?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back