I plan on buying a MacBook Pro as soon as the new ones are announced at WWDC(if they are, which is highly likely). I'm going to be using it for mostly music recording and school, and also gaming, but I'm not sure if it would be worth the extra money. I've seen the Yonah vs. Merom benchmarks, and it seems to me that there is absolutely no difference as far as gaming goes. If this is the case, and Apple doesn't update the graphics chip as well, would I be better off opting for the current generation MacBook Pro at a cheaper price?
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Merom vs. Yonah for gaming
- Thread starter bluetorch18
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I haven't seen "the benchmarks" so i don't know. My understanding is that Merom will be 20% faster than Yonah while using the same, if not less, power. That Merom will run cooler than Yonah. And that Merom is a drop-in replacement for Yonah.
The fact that it will run cooler than Yonah is big for me...but if it makes no difference in gaming, it would seem wise to just buy the cheaper one.
The fact that it will run cooler than Yonah is big for me...but if it makes no difference in gaming, it would seem wise to just buy the cheaper one.
I'm more interested in what graphics card they're going to use in the MBP. I have a 17" MBP, and it handles games beautifully, with the exception of Oblivion and Black and WHite 2 which are a little choppy. I suspect the CPU has plenty of headroom, but the GPU is choking the performance.
I'd expect only CPU-bound games to see a benefit from using Merom, so it depends on which games were benchmarked on Merom machines.
MovieCutter said:
Hmm...I was under the impression that the MBP ran Oblivion fairly smoothly...maybe I'd just be better off getting a MacBook instead...
bluetorch18 said:Hmm...I was under the impression that the MBP ran Oblivion fairly smoothly...maybe I'd just be better off getting a MacBook instead...
It does run it smoothly, just not at the highest res with all the options turned up. I'm not happy until I get at least 30fps with all options at max res.
Well, hopefully Apple updates the graphics chip in the current line...any ideas what kind of chip they could use?
Adding a x1800 would give them a huge boost! I hope the macbook gets a dedicated gpu, or that a 13" macbook pro gets announced.
While oblivion donesn't run perfect under OS X is it not that if you switch to Bootcamp, it runs alot better? Just thought I read it somewhere in a different thread.
I too wish they'd step up their pro line... I had my fingers crossed for a 512 vcard at the release of the 17"
I too wish they'd step up their pro line... I had my fingers crossed for a 512 vcard at the release of the 17"
poppe said:
Oblivion isn't for OS X, it only runs under bootcamp...a 512mb vcard option in the 15" models would be a very nice thing...but I would be very happy if they upped their cards to the x1800....please apple....please....
MovieCutter, how many FPS would you say you get with everything at max? Also, have you tried turning some things to medium, such as grass, water, etc...after doing some of that, isn't performance extremely smooth and stutter free?
bluetorch18 said:
I don't know, I just got it two days ago. Addicting as crack
. I played with the settings a bit yesterday on my 20" iMac which is my dedicated gaming machine (until next week that is ). Same GPU and similar CPU (2.0 vs. 2.16). At full 1650x1050 resolution with everything turned up, no antialiasing, it was really stuttery. I don't know how to check FPS. But I pulled it down to 13xx x 720 and got it a lot smoother. Turned off tree rendering at a distance and turned off the bloom stuff and it was much more playable and much smoother, but with noticeably less sexy detail.Just out of your personal opinion, do you think it would be better for me to just buy a 360 and opt for the low end MacBook Pro or a MacBook, since I'm not going to be using it for just gaming...I want to play Oblivion without turning too many of the settings down...
I'd wait until WWDC to see what is unveiled. My biggest problem with gaming on my Mac is the necessity to reboot. It's not a big deal, and I bought an iMac just for boot camp, but the reason I don't game with my 17" MBP which is faster than the iMac is because I don't want to have to reboot to check my email. I refuse to buy a 360 because I'm not convinced the quality is worth the money, same with the games. But that's just me.
bluetorch18 said:
Oh man... Talk about sounding dumb there.. My bad.
I doubt we'll see a better VCard until we see a completely redesigned MBP, and/or at least a year from now. Is it just me or does it seem like they put outstanding high top of the line stuff in their computers except when they get to the GPU? I suppose the G5 is evidence of me being wrong but still...