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Macbook Games (What I've tried)

macdim said:
Santa Rosa MacBook 2.2. Half-Life 2 -> 30fps indoors at 1280x800 everything on high except anti-aliasing, filtering (trilinear), and reflections set to "world". Gets massively choppy outdoors, but changing the texture quality to medium and model quality to medium (or low?) results in pretty amazing performance in DX8.1. CS:Source -> at least 30 fps in DX8.1, medium texture quality on de_dust2. Haven't tried other maps, but most are more demanding and would probably results in lower fps. Changing the resolution to 1024x768 results in silky smooth performance at max detail. On the OSX side, Call of Duty 2 plays extremely smoothly for me at mid-high settings at native resolution.

That's all for now.
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Does changing texure detail in any way impact your frames per second in CS:S? I can change texture and model detail from high to low on any given resolution, and my frames stay identical. The only way I can get better frames is if I change resolutions.

I'm not complaining, as I get 30-40 FPS at 1024x768 (high texture detail, high model detail, low shaders, simple reflections, DX 8.1, for those wondering). It' just interesting that texture detail has no impact on frames.
 
Having been a pretty hardcore PC gamer for about 5 years now it's funny reading this thread :D

Anywhere else in the gaming world framerates less than 30 are considered pretty much unplayable. My 3 year old PC that I built plays CS:S at over 100 fps with high settings @1280 8x AF 4x AA while a new MacBook can hardly get 30, in XP, on low :eek:.

Games seem to be the only area that Apple is much, much, much too far behind in. I'll be buying a MacBook this summer and in order to save it some embarrassment, an Xbox 360+32" LCD to go along with it :D
 
spriter said:
I think Gears running anything near smoothly on a maxed out MacBook is wildly optimistic, although I haven't tried. Expansive outdoor areas have time and again been the achilles heel of which, Gears has many.

The last game I tried was BF2142 and it couldn't even draw the world properly (no objects, vehicles, etc) due to the shaders. I'd love to be proved wrong, though :)
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Yeah I tried running UT4 demo on vista home premium on my SR MB and it runs but it's not playable.
 
zakee00 said:
Having been a pretty hardcore PC gamer for about 5 years now it's funny reading this thread :D

Anywhere else in the gaming world framerates less than 30 are considered pretty much unplayable. My 3 year old PC that I built plays CS:S at over 100 fps with high settings @1280 8x AF 4x AA while a new MacBook can hardly get 30, in XP, on low :eek:.

Games seem to be the only area that Apple is much, much, much too far behind in. I'll be buying a MacBook this summer and in order to save it some embarrassment, an Xbox 360+32" LCD to go along with it :D
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Having been playing games since DOOM, I'd say you're pretty much talking out of your ass. :D
 
Hi im running halo on white macbook 1 gb ram. I have model detail set to low but I still get really awful frame rates when their are lots of enemies onscreen. I don't have the universal binary and my ram isn't to great. How much faster could I get if I use intel version or upgrade ram. Also are my current configurations enough to handle sims 2
 
I have a new Macbook. 2.2gb and 4gig of ram. How do you guys think the Mac versions of Sim City 4 deluxe and Sims 2 would run on this set-up?
 
iBoosh said:
I have a new Macbook. 2.2gb and 4gig of ram. How do you guys think the Mac versions of Sim City 4 deluxe and Sims 2 would run on this set-up?
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I have Sim City 4 on my MB 2.2ghz with 1 gig of ram and it runs fine. So you should be fine with that...Not sure about Sims 2.
 
Soab said:
Hey i have tested a couple of steam games trough bootcamp on my SR macbook, 2ghz C2D, 1gb ram, GMA X3100 NEWEST GPU DRIVER FOR WINDOWS

CS:S
Totally laggy without some tweaking, 2-5 fps. Easily fixed with -dxlevel 81. Steady fps at 40 on de_cbble, at all settings at low or off, 1024x768 resolution. With EthanNixon's launch settings and cmd-file, pretty steady 60 fps at de_cbble, all setting at low or off, 1024x768 resolution. 47,98 FPS in the stress test at these settings.

HL2
Didnt work at all without the newest driver, so get it! its under 965 express family on the intel site. Plays nice even without using -dxlevel 81, but i have just played for a couple of minutes. The settings are mostly at high. totally playable!

Team Fortress 2
Not playable at all under dx 9.0, but is playable with -dxlevel 81 in the launch options. Fps drop at high distances.

Portal
Choppy when you enter a portal, game hangs for a couple of seconds(under dx 9.0) With -dxlevel 81, the game is playable fps-wise, but the portals look they are closed/have no exit. Prolly because dx 8.1 dont support that kind of effect. Im sure this game will work with some twaking, but i havent spent any time on it yet.

Conclusion: A really pleasent surprise for a casual gamer like me, who didnt really buy this notebook for gaming. Im not so sure about you, if you are playing CS:Source at a high level. I assume that you want a macbook because of the great OS and stuff. If you just need a laptop for gaming, dont buy a macbook! Its not built for gaming at all and the graphics card is actually made to get better performance watching movies and stuff. It preforms surprisingly well for beeing a non-gaming machine, but dont expect this to run any new game on high quality settings. Alltho, if you are gonna use it for more then gaming, i totally recommend it! Leopard is great, and the whole computer (both hardware/case and software is so well thought trough) Its my first mac, and i didnt really buy it for games but im gonna play alot on it now that i see how well it works! To me you seemed like a hardcore gamer who needs a machine that runs CS:S perfectly, but its really up to you and you needs :)
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I am really interested to see the results of my FPS config with this computer. If I can save a lot of money by getting a MacBook and not a MacBook Pro, then I would be REALLY happy. I do play extremely competative, and I will be traveling to Europe during the spring to attend I33. If I do this and I don't get a sponsor to cover for a laptop or a computer for the weekend, then I am going to buy a laptop that can play this game. I will probly still end up getting a MacBook Pro, simply because there is a chance I can play Counter-Strike via VMware's Fusion and that would be incredible.
 
I lol'ed when I read about people mad that the X3100 cant play games.

Its an integrated video card. Ick. Good luck playing games from 2004 decent, much less UT3. Haha lolerskates.
 
iBunny said:
I lol'ed when I read about people mad that the X3100 cant play games.

Its an integrated video card. Ick. Good luck playing games from 2004 decent, much less UT3. Haha lolerskates.
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You are pretty ignorant. Google "New x3100 Drivers from Intel". You will see why people will expect to play these games when Intel demonstrates them on much of the same hardware as the MacBook. Although it only T&L support, but not all games take advantage to that.
 
Homm V Issue

Hey guys, I have a Macbook with 2 GHz core 2 Dou and i have HOMM V, and when ever i try to play it no matter what setting, the screen is too dark. not even a gamma adjustment fixes it... the game is completely unplayable.. anyone experience this or have any ideas how to deal with it.
 
Hey everyone.

I just wanted to give a HUGE thankyou to all the people who put helped put this thread together. I've been wondering if there was any way to play games on my new mac, and this was the first thing to pop up on google. It's all been very very helpful.
 
civ iii complete on macbook pro running leopard?

Hello all.

I'm a civ iii fanatic. I've been playing on an old pc, but I'm thinking of buying a new macbook pro (intel core 2 duo processor) running leopard (OS X 10.5 I think). Will Civ iii complete for macs run ok on this machine?
 
I recently bought a new 2.0GHz Macbook (with the X3100 graphics chip) and it played World of Warcraft almost exactly as well as my old 1.25Ghz Powerbook G4 with Ati 9600 Mobility. With most settings at low, but with high resolution textures and terrain draw distance at about 1/4 of max (any lower and it looks like everything is in a fog), it got about 15-25 fps. It was playable, but I was hoping for better from the X3100, and if I lowered the settings any more, I found it to be too ugly to play.

I actually ended up returning the Macbook (mostly because of the horrid viewing angle) and keeping my old Powerbook, and bought an iMac 2.4 with 256MB 2600 Pro graphics for the same price - it plays WoW fantastically :)
 
Dawn of War

Hey everyone,

Just a heads up on Dawn of War. Despite not being compatible with Intel's integrated graphics chipset, with a few changes to the driver config, it not only runs, it runs very well indeed. With medium to high settings, it looks great and is only choppy during large fights.

2.2 ghz, 2 gb ram, GMA X3100

I've really been impressed so far at the number and quality of games playable on my macbook. I'm pretty satisfied!
 
Just thought I'd let everyone know that Europa Universalis III runs great on my Macbook.

There are occasions where the animations don't come off as well as they do on more powerful computers but the general gameplay works exactly the same.

This is with all the optional graphics off (the game isn't much more fancy looking with them on anyway).
 
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault

has any one tried MoH?

I have a black macbook, 2gb ram on roder..just shipped today :D
 
Hellgate London: just tried this out tonight on 1.6/80 Macbook Air (using Windows XP / Bootcamp with newest X3100 drivers).

Had to turn everything to Low but left native resolution of 1280x800. In one of the traditionally worst zones with lots of pets and NPCs running around, I was getting in the range of 10-15fps. Unit definitely started heating up though, I could feel the heat on my fingers :)
 
For all you strategy fans out there, some more good games I've recently installed on the MBA (1.6/80/X3100/Windows XP SP2/1280x800):

Fantasy Wars - turn based, nice 3D graphics, gameplay similar to the original Fantasy General game from SSI. Runs very well in low details, well enough I'll probably experiment with increasing the quality.

Space Ranger 2 - turn based with some RPG-ish features mixed in. Haven't played a lot but has had good reviews and runs well.

Sins of a Solar Empire - RTS with 4X-ish gameplay, brand new release! Runs well so far in mostly High detail. Reviews seem generally favorable so far, looks like a good game.

Best thing is all 3 games I purchased had downloadable versions, and thus require no disk, very nice for the MBA.

I had really not intended to use the MBA as much of a gaming machine, but now it's looking like it's much more powerful than I'd originally imagined. Very pleasant surprise!
 
eve online

i was wondering if anyone tried running eve online on the macbook via bootcamp on an intel gma 950

and has anyone managed to get the hammer editor running properly ?
 
Tiger woods 2008?

Will this game play with the 2.2 Ghz MacBook? It has the GMA x3100 video card. I will be upgrading to 4 GB of ram ($99 from Other world computing). Any suggestion on sport games? I will not be using bootcamp.
Thanks
 
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