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macbook future-proofness

i-unit123

i-unit123

macrumors member
Original poster
May 26, 2006
78
0
Hey,

Just looking into getting a macbok mostly for work but i had a few questions about how it will serve me in the future and vista which I may or may not install.

First, does the current, say, 2.16ghz 2.0GB, macbook run Aero in vista?

Will the current macbooks take advantage of the top to bottom 64-bit in vista? To what degree?

Can i play games such as battlefield 2/2142 or age of empires 3, or command and conquer 3 on the macbook in vista WITH ALL LOWEST SETTINGS? or med settings? just how bad are integrated graphics. Yeah i suppose this question has sorta been asked a lot but what about those specific games? Basically, how future-proof is the system? I know obviously much less than macbook pros (god i wish they had a damn 13.3 inch mbp).

Thanks a lot for your time:)

ah, also, im guessing that santa rosa macbooks wont be coming out for a while seeing as they were just upgraded but would they likely update the macbooks after the promotion for university students?

would the end of the university promotion OR the beggining of school bring on any more upgrades to the macbooks potentially?

thanks again
 
You might as well run all of those games from the Mac OS when they come out... didn't you hear that EA is going to release the PC and MAC version of those games at the same time?

Other than that it looks like you really need the MacBook Pro, running all of those games (high-end games) with an integrated GPU will kill your machine.

And yeah... no SR in the MacBooks for another 6 months.
 
thats true about EA i forgot about that. i do have concern that the thing with EA wont go far enough, like, it better not end with those 4 games they announced but im hopeful

yeah, i know that those games would kill integrated graphics but what about lowest settings?

back to my original questions tho which worry me most. can the macbooks take advantage of top-to-bottom 64bit in leopard, and can they run aero in vista?

anyone? i searched more online to not be redundant but i keep finding conflicting answers?
 
The macbook should be able to take full advantage of the 64-bit technology in leopard since the the newer core 2 duo processors are 64-bit.
 
Basically as everyone says your grand as far as the macbook goes CPU, memory etc... but


if your chief concern is the performance of gaming - then no matter what, you should avoid any laptop with integrated graphics. Gaming is one of the driving forces for re-invention of hardware and in 6 months time even the top card on the market now, will have been superseded by something even more mighty, and as developers get lazier and lazier, the optimization required to run on lowly GPU's disappears.

What might run on 'low' today - will inevitably not run new games at all in 6-12 months, therefore future proofing which in it's own sense a complete oximoron - is even more redundant in this regard.

Your macbook is not a gaming rig. Yes you can play a game on it - but you will have to accept that in the future it may not run new releases. If you can live with that.. the Macbook is great... if you can't... then it's not the right laptop for you and an extra $500 spent today - is a far wiser investment for 'future proofing'......
 
Since the MB only supports 2GB, 64 bit will bring you no benefit. Furthermore, I would expect the opposite.

MB is the the entry level model of Apple. If you are looking for a high end gaming platform, it is definitly the wrong system. If you are looking for a decent notebook for your daily business, it is great device.

Why don't you visit your local mac dealer and run some tests.

Jochen
 
I would go with the macbook pro. My macbook can't even handle a small transparency app with out major slow down. I asked a mac expert about it and the integrated graphics are the problem.
 
i-unit123 said:
thats true about EA i forgot about that. i do have concern that the thing with EA wont go far enough, like, it better not end with those 4 games they announced but im hopeful

yeah, i know that those games would kill integrated graphics but what about lowest settings?

back to my original questions tho which worry me most. can the macbooks take advantage of top-to-bottom 64bit in leopard, and can they run aero in vista?

anyone? i searched more online to not be redundant but i keep finding conflicting answers?
Click to expand...

You will find conflicting answers since Vista couldn't run under bootcamp about a few months ago but Apple has since fixed that so you should be okay when it comes to running Aero and Windows Vista. As for the games in their lowest settings.... maybe? :confused: I am no serious gamer, Civilization 4 and C&C mainly... might at Battlefield 2/2142 to my list like you, so I don't know if there will be a serious improvement in performance if you put the graphics at their lowest setting.

It may not be in your budget but you may want to consider a MacBook Pro since you won't have much to worry about in terms of graphics, or dare I say it.... Go and buy a good PC laptop with dedicated graphics... there are times when Apple just can't give you what you want and you have to go somewhere else to buy the tools and toys that you need/want.

Or... if portability is not a big deal for you... you can get an iMac which has a dedicated graphics card and faster HDD. It can handle the graphics power that you need and you get a bigger screen and more HDD space.
 
hey thanks a lot for the advice.

the games arent that big of a concern i was just curious it it were possible but my promary purpose is not for games, and i agree that i should be fine with the macbook for what i need. interesting that 64-bit might not help that much but still nice to have i suppose. glad that aero works even if not well. thanks a lot for the advice
 
To the OP,

I too decided back in Feb this year that i wanted a mac, but i thought the pros were just too expensive but i wanted something cheaper, and really only wanted to play WoW.

So i bought a MB back then, and WoW ran terribly. The integrated graphics and the 64mb of shared memory just dont cut it for any games, unfortunately.

Two days ago, I picked up a new Santa Rosa MBP, WoW gets very nice frames, and Doom 3 under Boot camp just blew my mind! Trust me, i know your only really looking at casual gaming, but the entry MB's just dont cut it, its a pure slideshow (Seriously, like 5fps max). Just go get a pro and you'll be completelyi satisfied, or even like someone said above, go to an apple retailer and run some tests.
 
joehack said:
Since the MB only supports 2GB, 64 bit will bring you no benefit. Furthermore, I would expect the opposite.
Click to expand...

Memory and 64bitness are two completely different things. The original Macintosh had a 32bit processor and all address arithmetic was done in 32bits but it could only address 24bits (16MB) externally. The real advantage to 64bit technology is not so much in the address space but in the data space. Being able to do 64bit integer arithmetic will help some applications immensely improve their performance.
 
Arkanok said:
So i bought a MB back then, and WoW ran terribly. The integrated graphics and the 64mb of shared memory just dont cut it for any games, unfortunately.
Click to expand...
Of course, that depends on the game itself.

Although I don't doubt your experience, more than a few people on MacRumors have reported that they're playing WOW rather happily. Likewise, the thread(s) in the gaming forum argue that the MB can be surprisingly reasonable for (certain) gaming.
 
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