More games tested on 11.6" MBA

[St. G]

1.4Ghz/64GB/4GB

All games tested in Win 7 bootcamp, because I am not a masochist:

Audiosurf
Beat Hazard
Bejeweled 3
Borderlands
Plants Vs Zombies
Poker Night at the Inventory
Civilization V

All games playable. The only ones that tax the hardware at all are Civ V and Borderlands. In both of those, I had to turn settings down pretty low to get things smooth. But even loading a late-game save in Civ 5, with most of the map explored and dozens of units on the field, I was able to scroll around VERY smoothly. I have not run FRAPS, so I don't have specific framerates, but I wll do so within the next couple of days.

 

[phobic99]

Thanks for doing this. I've been on the fence on getting a baseline 11" MacBook Air since I can possibly get one for below $800 (AAFES).

 

[St. G]

Just experiemented with Fraps and Borderlands quite a lot, since it allows for changing settings during play. With Antistropic filtering and dynamic shadows turned off, I was able to increase the detail levels to HIGH, turn on all other effects and still have framerates hovering around 30fps. Never higher than about 35 and never lower than 25, at least in the areas I was in. I've heard people say that, for them, anything less than 60 (or, in one case, 100!) isn't playable, but...I guess those people never play consoles, since MANY games on 360 and PS3 play in the 30fps range.

To me, this was totally acceptable. Not as smooth as it is on my HTPC (Core i3 530, 4GB 1333Mhz RAM, Radeon 5850 1GB) or my desktop (C2Q 6600, 8GB 1066Mhz RAM,8800GTS 512MB) but absolutely playable.

Tried testing Civ V a bit, but it will take much longer for me to toy with the settings to see where the sweet spot is, as you have to quit out to make changes. Right now, I'm seeing framerates in the mid-high 50s while navigating my turn, with big drops while the computer processes the AI's moves (but who cares, as you can't do anything during that period anyway). That's with everything set to absolute minumums, none of which really negatively affects gameplay.

 

[St. G]

Very curious: just fired up Civ 5 again and am seeing framerates half those that I saw before. In both DX9 and DX10/11 modes, with minimal settings (quick test this morning was DX9 only). I'm not sure what's changed.

The good news is I don't think the bottleneck is with the textures, so I should be able to turn those up a bit without negatively impacting anything. But having to quit all the way out of the game every time to try out a new config makes this very slow, very tedious testing.

 

[gman901]

I am sure the answer is going to "hell no" but I thought I would ask... Has anyone tried running Windows games using the latest Parallels 6 on the 11.6"? I was wondering if any would run so that I do not need to go into Bootcamp. The games I play in windows is Lara Croft GOL and ME2. It's no big deal for me to bootcamp, but needed a reason to upgrade from Parallels 4 to 6. Thanks!

 

[BeyondtheTech]

I hereby again recommend GridWars 2, an awesome Geometry Wars clone.

http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/grid/wars.htm

The Mac download link is buried in the text, so here it is:
http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/grid/GridWarsOSX.zip

What's nice is that it's fully customizable, so when you download and extract the game to a folder in Applications, open the configuration file and change the screen and playable area settings to match your MacBook Air's resolution, 1366 or 1440 horizontal, and 768 or 900 vertical (for 11" and 13" models, respectively), then turn on full-screen mode.

Let me know how you like it!

 

[tahuds]

Oblivion plays well on the 11inch 1.4ghz 4gig ram. On lowish settings you can get over 60 fps.

 

[reddirt14]

Has anyone tried Red Alert 3 on an MBA yet?

 

[St. G]

More on Civ V: When I load a save or start a new game (or scenario), the framerates are in the 20s-30s, but after about five minutes of play, they SKYROCKET up to the high 50s and above. Not sure what's going on, but it seems like the game is thinking about something other than just the game for the first few minutes of play, and then settles down.

Also played a bit of The Polynomial last night. Unsurprisingly, it plays just fine. Have downloaded Civ IV and Torchlight, but haven't had a chance to play them yet. I don't anticipate any troubles.

 

[flexpinoy]

Thanks for doing this. I've been on the fence on getting a baseline 11" MacBook Air since I can possibly get one for below $800 (AAFES).

how can you get that price at aafes? I went to the Navy

exchange and they have the same prices as the apple store minus the tax.

 

[St. G]

Torchlight is running between the mid 50s and the low 90s, at medium-high settings. I'm seeing a little bit of screen tearing here and there, so I may just enable Vsync and lock it at 60. It's almost always over 60, so I think it can take the hit.

 

[St. G]

Civ IV is hovering around 60fps, with maxed detail but AA off. Mostly, it's just making me want to go back to playing Civ V, though.

 

[Hankster]

EVE Online runs 100% on high graphics and Starcraft 2 runs 100% on low-med graphics.

 

[zstar]

Has anyone tested TF2 on a 11.6" macbook air in OS X yet? I'm thinking about running it on my 13" ultimate but can't be bothered downloading the mac version and then finding out it can't run.

BTW: off-topic but the steam sales now are awesome! Grab your games on steam now

Merry Christmas to all!