Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Starcraft 2 on a macbook pro 2.26GHz

D

davo03

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 3, 2010
3
0
Hey i'm have a macbook pro

Specs:
Processor: 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8400
Memory: 2GB RAM
Storage: 160GB hard drive
Optical Drive: DVD±RW
Screen: 13.3 inches (1,280x800)
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 9400M (256MB)
Weight: 4.5 pounds
Dimensions (HWD): 1x12.8x8.9 inches
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)

And i really badly want Starcraft 2 it comes out.
will this game function 'decently' on this? :apple:
 
davo03 said:
Hey i'm have a macbook pro

Specs:
Processor: 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8400
Memory: 2GB RAM
Storage: 160GB hard drive
Optical Drive: DVD±RW
Screen: 13.3 inches (1,280x800)
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 9400M (256MB)
Weight: 4.5 pounds
Dimensions (HWD): 1x12.8x8.9 inches
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)

And i really badly want Starcraft 2 it comes out.
will this game function 'decently' on this? :apple:
Click to expand...

I have the same specs and am wondering the same thing.
 
To make things worse, I've read in the beta testing OS X was having a trouble running it, even with a good rig. It could only play on medium to low settings. I hope this is fixed by now.
 
davo03 said:
Hey i'm have a macbook pro

Specs:
Processor: 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8400
Memory: 2GB RAM
Storage: 160GB hard drive
Optical Drive: DVD±RW
Screen: 13.3 inches (1,280x800)
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 9400M (256MB)
Weight: 4.5 pounds
Dimensions (HWD): 1x12.8x8.9 inches
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)

And i really badly want Starcraft 2 it comes out.
will this game function 'decently' on this? :apple:
Click to expand...

The recommended specs for Blizzard for Macs is 4GB ram, and I think that will be key. Everything else should be fine to play at medium. Also remember the problem with the beta was not Blizzard it was Apple and their crappy drivers. (I played the beta extensively and it ran great on high settings on MBPro, but I have a new maxed out 15 inch ;) )
 
When you played the beta, was this after apple released the OS update?
Also, what is your rigs specs?
 
This may not help much, but I played both betas on my MacBookPro5,1 - 2.53Ghz, 4GB RAM, 9600M

I played on High settings on an external monitor at 1920x1200 with no problems except in very large scale battles which created a significant amount of lag (felt like a drop to 10-15 fps). Battles rarely got that large unless I was playing a 4 player FFA or a 2v2. I never tried a 3v3 or 4v4.

The last beta had severe performance issues, at least on 10.6.4, that caused the game to be almost unplayable even on Low. They did not fix that before the beta was over.

My guess is that under normal circumstances a MacBook with a 9400M should be able to play at 1280x800 on Medium settings fine, but expect lag in large matches due to graphics and memory.

Tomorrow I'll test the game out on both my 9400M and 9600M, if that would be helpful :)
 
I have the 2.66ghz mbp 13" with the 320m. It ran Starcraft beta at medium high on native res. For you it would be better if you had the extra 2 gigs of ram. It did run well when I played ofcourse the issues with apple had not been fixed, so I can only imagen the extra boost starcraft will get when apple fixes the problems with osx. Anyways you should be able to play on medium as your default setting. Just expect a little lag, should be playable though. Hope this helps!:):apple:
 
While there is probably a correlation there, I can't specifically confirm it.

Beta Phase 1 ended, then I updated to 10.6.4 sometime before Phase 2. When Phase 2 started I was already on 10.6.4 so I don't have a basis for comparison.

I also know that Phase 2 had some issues already, like the Mac version not having pre-compiled shaders which caused issues. So if it was a driver issue, it was not only a driver issue. Many people reported lag issues even with the game reporting high FPS; possibly due to Battle.net latency, etc.
 
Got it, thanks for the info.
I think I should be fine. 4 GB RAM and decent graphics card. Hopefully I will have it on high with no problems.

So on a more positive note, who the **** is doing the midnight release? Yeeahhhh
 
You can pre-download the digital version (7GB) so I did that.

That means I'm not going to be able to play until noon my time, as the digital release is 10AM Pacific. :\

Oh well, I have to work that day anyway! doh!
 
REDVII said:
I have the 2.66ghz mbp 13" with the 320m. It ran Starcraft beta at medium high on native res. For you it would be better if you had the extra 2 gigs of ram. It did run well when I played ofcourse the issues with apple had not been fixed, so I can only imagen the extra boost starcraft will get when apple fixes the problems with osx. Anyways you should be able to play on medium as your default setting. Just expect a little lag, should be playable though. Hope this helps!:):apple:
Click to expand...

Yep, +1 on the RAM.

Yesterday I bought and installed 4 GB of RAM into my late 2008 Macbook (9400m) and now I'm playing smoothly on medium settings. It still recommends "low" in the options menu but it's running well on medium (whereas before medium was unplayable). I played a bunch of ranked games (Gold League 1v1 and 2v2) and a few more campaign missions and it hasn't choked.

So for those with 2GB of RAM (minimum SC2 Mac settings), I definitely recommend trying 4GB of RAM (recommended SC2 Mac settings). The SC2 performance difference was like night and day for me.
 
skypirate7 said:
Yep, +1 on the RAM.

Yesterday I bought and installed 4 GB of RAM into my late 2008 Macbook (9400m) and now I'm playing smoothly on medium settings. It still recommends "low" in the options menu but it's running well on medium (whereas before medium was unplayable). I played a bunch of ranked games (Gold League 1v1 and 2v2) and a few more campaign missions and it hasn't choked.

So for those with 2GB of RAM (minimum SC2 Mac settings), I definitely recommend trying 4GB of RAM (recommended SC2 Mac settings). The SC2 performance difference was like night and day for me.
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting this info! I've been wondering how my late 2008 Macbook would handle this. It's the lowest specced aluminum one available at the time... 2.0ghz, 2gb RAM, etc...

I've been thinking about upgrading the RAM for a while. Apparently it makes a huge difference for Steam games as well. So, if I expect to play Starcraft 2 on my laptop, I'll upgrade the RAM as well. Fortunately, I also have a gaming desktop... but it would still be nice to play some LAN games with friends. And I always turn to my Macbook for those sorts of things.

I'll be keeping my eye on this thread for any other impressions people with similar hardware might have.

Thanks again!
 
Ram is a huge factor as I have 8GB in my MBP and when running OSX/SC2 it's using up almost 5GB out of 8GB. So you're pretty much a dead fish in the water with 2GB. But with 4 you'll be fine.

As for most people with a 9400m you should be able to play at native resolution on low (very smooth) and medium (smooth with some dropped frames).
 
floobie said:
Thanks for posting this info! I've been wondering how my late 2008 Macbook would handle this. It's the lowest specced aluminum one available at the time... 2.0ghz, 2gb RAM, etc...

I've been thinking about upgrading the RAM for a while. Apparently it makes a huge difference for Steam games as well. So, if I expect to play Starcraft 2 on my laptop, I'll upgrade the RAM as well. Fortunately, I also have a gaming desktop... but it would still be nice to play some LAN games with friends. And I always turn to my Macbook for those sorts of things.

I'll be keeping my eye on this thread for any other impressions people with similar hardware might have.

Thanks again!
Click to expand...

I have the exact same Macbook as yours (aluminum, 2.0, 2GB) and I've been running the beta for months and I got the retail when it came out. I always always run on low, and it runs decently. I mean I wish it wouldn't lag up sometimes, but it does what it can pretty well.
 
Hi, I've 2.26, 9400m and 4gb ram.
I played the game today. When i chance sharder from low to medium(lightining:low, shadow:medium) fps is really drop, although other settings low and 1280*800.. but when i close shader i can play 1680*1050 and almoust all settings high except sharder(low) and models(low). Also i played game on bootcamp.

Anybody can play with medium shader,other settings low and 1280*800 at BC ?
 
I have a MacBook Pro 5,3 with Intel Core Duo 3.06GHz, 8GB RAM, Nvidia 9600M GT and 256GB SSD. Last year, it was the highest end MBP you could buy and up till now has played most modern games perfectly fine on Medium setting. However I can barely run Starcraft 2 on the default settings (1280x800, Medium graphics). Lag is unbearable. Fluid motion for 5 seconds and choppiness for another 5. Have played with all graphics settings and the only thing that gives consistent smooth gameplay is having all settings on Low. That really bums me out because I want to enjoy the time the designers put into this game.

I am going to install on my Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Boot Camp partition and see if performance improves. But it was very disheartening to say the least to finally get Starcraft 2 after years of wait and not even be able to play it comfortably with medium settings on this top of the line MBP.
 
steagle said:
I have a MacBook Pro 5,3 with Intel Core Duo 3.06GHz, 8GB RAM, Nvidia 9600M GT and 256GB SSD. Last year, it was the highest end MBP you could buy and up till now has played most modern games perfectly fine on Medium setting. However I can barely run Starcraft 2 on the default settings (1280x800, Medium graphics). Lag is unbearable. Fluid motion for 5 seconds and choppiness for another 5. Have played with all graphics settings and the only thing that gives consistent smooth gameplay is having all settings on Low. That really bums me out because I want to enjoy the time the designers put into this game.

I am going to install on my Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Boot Camp partition and see if performance improves. But it was very disheartening to say the least to finally get Starcraft 2 after years of wait and not even be able to play it comfortably with medium settings on this top of the line MBP.
Click to expand...

You'll be surprised how much better it is on Boot Camp :mad:
 
yep, i should have waited to post that message until i tried Boot Camp ... what a night and day difference ... i can play on High settings across the board with not a bit of latency in Windows 7. so i assume this is an Apple OS issue, probably related to OpenGL?
 
steagle said:
yep, i should have waited to post that message until i tried Boot Camp ... what a night and day difference ... i can play on High settings across the board with not a bit of latency in Windows 7. so i assume this is an Apple OS issue, probably related to OpenGL?
Click to expand...

yeah I think that's one of the issues haha

I find myself running the game on bootcamp a lot lately, especially for campaign since I have things turned up for campaign, like shaders high (shadows off) and it runs amazing. I capped it at 30fps for heat and it stays locked at 30fps no problems.

For MP, even 4v4 it's not as demanding I found as campaign seems to be. I can run in OSX with medium shaders, shadows off etc for MP games and still get 30FPS so if I'm just wanting to play mp games, OSX is fine still.

I partitioned 12gb on my SSD just to install SC2 on for my windows partitition lol... couldn't take the slow level loading =)
 
there are problems with nvidia drivers so expect performance to be artificially bad when using any nvidia hardware and mac to run sc2

waiting on patch......... ahhhhhhhhhh
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back