Macbook Air and Crysis 2

[Alfieg]

Installed Crysis 2 demo on my 11" air for jokes. At 1024x768 it is really smooth. I then installed crysis. At medium settings with native resolution it is really smooth and looks great.

Not bad all things considered.

 

[St. G]

Well, good news/bad news:

Good news: I dl'd the demo from EA's website and was able to get it to run.

Bad news: It runs like absolute **** at 1280x720, the lowest res 16:9 format offered. Framerates are hovering right at 15FPS. Never dropping much below, but never climbing much above either. WAY too low to feel smooth, much less competitive in a multiplayer shooter.

So, I'm still calling this one a failure for the MBA.

 

[Acronyc]

That's too bad about Crysis II, but at least it could run! I’ve continually been impressed with the gaming capabilities of the MBA, and I think it’s perfect for casual portable gaming. This past weekend I just finished Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands on it without any problems at medium settings, I’ve had many a great Starcraft II battle on it, and right now I’m playing Amnesia and Lara Croft Guardians of Light on it nice and smoothly. Honestly, out of my game collection there’s not much that this machine hasn’t been able to run, and I’d bet that it can play a good portion of modern games out there, albeit at low to medium settings.

I sold my Alienware M11x to get the MBA, and so far I’ve been able to play all of the games I had on my old M11x on my MBA just fine. I’m more than happy to trade a little hit in graphical quality and frame rates for an extremely well built, light, aesthetically pleasing ultraportable.

 

[RichS]

Crysis 2 works great for me on my MBA, I play at 30-40 fps - which is very acceptable. I've made a little video how to set it up so it plays well.

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wIbEXqtq1HA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

http://www.youtube.com/embed/wIbEXqtq1HA

I describe how to set it up so it looks good.

 

[neteng101]

I describe how to set it up so it looks good.

800x500? Seriously?

Gaming to me should be at high/ultra settings with the ability to turn on AA, and on LCD monitors, run at native resolution (that being 1440x900 on the MBA), and run at 30+ fps or beyond.

I know well enough to not even bother trying on the MBA, given my expectations. Most laptops don't cut it... but on a decent cheaper than MBA desktop PC build does it just fine as long as you don't have a super huge LCD display. A Mac Pro is so not the platform I'd use for gaming either... its just way too much money wasted.

 

[RichS]

I, of course, also prefer to play at 1920 by 1080 with extreme settings, but not everyone has the hardware to do so.

The game actually looks great on the MBA at 800 by 500. I recommend giving it a try before knocking it. Shadows, AA, SSAO, etc are all enabled on High and the frame rate is great. 1440 by 900 would be ideal but its 100% playable at the lower res.

 

[Maven1975]

Download (Cyrysis 2 Advanced Graphic Options)

This will make it WAY more than playable.

Report back with findings for all others!