What games do you want demo'd on the Air?

[St. G]

I'm not sure what I'm allowed to say about these videos, since talking about them got me banned...

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I'm going to try to record a Q&A addressing your questions, as well as those from other places (though THIS forum was really the reason I started making them).

Until then, I guess keep an eye on my channel, since I'm not allowed to alert you to new uploads.

Oh, and Macsarebetter, I may take you up on that offer. I'd be very curious how Codblops runs on this hardware. And maybe GTAIV, since I remember that one being very CPU dependent. I've actually got a TF2 video waiting to be uploaded and someone else has a L4D2 video on YouTUbe, so you may want to check that one out.

 

[MacsAreBetter\]

Okay Mr. G, if you don't mind downloading Bops. for 8GBS, PM me.

I was wondering though; is 2GB RAM enough for gaming? Or should I upgrade to 4gb? Also processor speed; what would you recommend as the best combination.

I play mostly Valve games, really wanna play GTA IV and Bops. and anything that's coming out 2011; like Hitman 5, GTA V, New COD.

 

[DudeMartin]

Okay Mr. G, if you don't mind downloading Bops. for 8GBS, PM me.

I was wondering though; is 2GB RAM enough for gaming? Or should I upgrade to 4gb? Also processor speed; what would you recommend as the best combination.

I play mostly Valve games, really wanna play GTA IV and Bops. and anything that's coming out 2011; like Hitman 5, GTA V, New COD.

Highly recommend 4GB.

 

[St. G]

That's certainly one of the questions that will be in the Q&A ep, but I'll give you my answer now, and it's likely the only honest answer you'll hear to that question on the internet: I don't really know.

The simple fact is that I haven't tested a 2GB model, so I don't know what differences there may be. I could hypothesize, but honestly that would make me no better than the legion of fools on boards like these who say things like "the Macbook Air isn't a gaming machine" or "yeah, but it won't run MODERN games" or "The specs for Game X clearly state that you need a 1.8Ghz cpu to play, so the MBA will never play THAT."

Those people haven't run the tests. I have.

I have yet to find a single game that won't run on this machine well enough to be a perfectly satisfactory mobile gaming platform. I'm sure I'll find some that do, eventually, but until then, we really don't know what the limits are.

 

[FCDP]

Just chiming in here. I've managed to get Bad Company 2 and Medal of Honor running on a 1.6Ghz, 4GB RAM, 11" MBA. Both run quite playable in online multiplayer. It's actually quite shocking considering how small and powerful this little guy is.

 

[Maven1975]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Install nVidia tools and set your video clocks to 575/1300. It will add a significant improvement to your FPS. Windows 7 64. (Default clocks are 450/900)

If your worried about drive space, install Windows 7 on a 20gb partition and use macdrive to share you space from your OSX partition. This way, if your working in OSX and need drive space for real work, you can just delete the game from the drive/folder to get your space back. This will not work with steam. If you use steam, you will be forced to make your windows partition larger. (Totaly sucks)

Modern Warfare 2 no shaders, or vsync 2x AA everything else high at native resolution is flawless.

Hell, I even have Street Fighter IV running high models, high backgrounds with INK at 1280x720 @ 60fps. This game is known for being a pig.

Forget black ops. C2D just does not have the guts for it. Also, that engine is not as effecient as MW2's.

Call of Duty WAW is works as well. I only play zombie mode, but I have a config file that makes the game run real nice on the Air.

This is on a 11" 1.6 4GB Air

 

[Icebreaker117]

@ St. G
Thanks for the TF2 upload. Really interesting find with the shadow effects, thats the one thing i hadnt turned down when testing on the 2GB version, i will change the settings so they are the same as your running and let everyone know how the 2gb version holds up.
Keep up the great work!

 

[champ01]

MB Air 11 inch, 1,4Ghz 4GB RAM 128GB SSD

Games so far under Bootcamp and Windows7: (all games are original)

- Mass Effect 2
Full screen, everything on max worked good enough.

- GTA 4
Full screen, everything on medium not so perfect
I need to do an update first (1.0.7.0 or something) and maybe than the game will run smooth.

 

[Icebreaker117]

I gave Just Cause 2 (full game) a whirl on the 2gb version, same settings as the video you posted, got the same FPS, average of 25-30. It looked really good and rarely slowed down.
Going one step further, i tried Black ops with settings turned on lowest, the intro rendering was good, about 30 FPS, but as soon as the guns started firing it dropped to 10-15 FPS and was unplayable. Does anyone have black ops they could try on a 4GB model?
Both where played under bootcamp running windows 7.

 

[sebbo90]

I gave Just Cause 2 (full game) a whirl on the 2gb version, same settings as the video you posted, got the same FPS, average of 25-30. It looked really good and rarely slowed down.
Going one step further, i tried Black ops with settings turned on lowest, the intro rendering was good, about 30 FPS, but as soon as the guns started firing it dropped to 10-15 FPS and was unplayable. Does anyone have black ops they could try on a 4GB model?
Both where played under bootcamp running windows 7.

What config do you have? Has anyone tried balckops or battlefield bad company 2 on the 1.6 macbook air 11?

 

[aniketroxx]

I want to know if the Air can run Crysis. I'm want to get Crysis 2, so the most comparable benchmark would be running the Crysis. Wouldn't mind running everything on low.

MBA is not gaming machine , even my 9500GT PC won't run crysis nicely .

 

[ZentraediElite]

I've read through this thread twice, but I still don't see any links to your YouTube videos. Am I blind?

 

[Icebreaker117]

Search for 'Macbook Air Gaming, Episode 2: Borderlands' on youtube. it is posted under the user MediaSpecDesign. Enjoy!

Ohh and my config was a base Macbook Air 11 inch 1.4GHZ, 2GB RAM, 128GB, running OSX, the games i have tried have been running under windows 7 ultimate.

 

[MRU]

I want to know if the Air can run Crysis. I'm want to get Crysis 2, so the most comparable benchmark would be running the Crysis. Wouldn't mind running everything on low.

MBA is not gaming machine , even my 9500GT PC won't run crysis nicely .

Actually there isa great youtube video of crysis running on the 11.6" air

Surprisingly it looks great

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-bqbFRsgcI


I'd like to see the sandy bridge's HD3000 do better

 

[St. G]

This thread was actually started before I began making the videos. The links were originally posted in other threads, but posting said links was deemed a violation of the TOS of this forum and I was banned as a result.

So yeah, I can't post the links. Sorry.

I've read through this thread twice, but I still don't see any links to your YouTube videos. Am I blind?

 

[MRU]

This thread was actually started before I began making the videos. The links were originally posted in other threads, but posting said links was deemed a violation of the TOS of this forum and I was banned as a result.

So yeah, I can't post the links. Sorry.

Geez that seems harsh

 

[St. G]

Apparently, posting links to videos on a site that I don't administer, makes me no money, and answer a frequently asked question (ie, "Can the MBA play games?) is a violation of the "self-promotion" rule.

Yes, I think it's absurd, but if the mods here would prefer a constant stream of guesses and outright misinformation over actual testing of hypotheses, I am in no position to argue.


QUOTE=MacRumorUser;11922544]Geez that seems harsh [/QUOTE]

 

[St. G]

Statements like this are why I started making the videos (which I need to get back to, and will, this weekend).

WTF does "not [a] gaming machine" mean when it sucessfully runs game after game after game?

MBA is not gaming machine , even my 9500GT PC won't run crysis nicely .

 

[GT-R]

i cant get borderlands to run smoothly on my 11.6 4gb ram air, anybody have any recommended settings?

i turned everything low and even at lowest resolution it stutters when i look around in the game

 

[TheSandman2236]

Has anyone tried black ops yet?

 

[Psilocybin]

Has anyone tried black ops yet?

Check here
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1036295/

 

[ryanrhod]

Fallout New Vegas

Someone earlier asked about Fallout New Vegas. It's the only game I've bothered installing on my 11 inch mba but I can report that it runs pretty well at native resolution and everything set to low. I didn't check the fps at the time, but I would guess they were in the mid 20's worst case, and much higher than that best case. I actually haven't experimented much with bumping the settings up, planning to do that at some point, but I was just impressed that it would be playable. Also to note, I originally had the 2GB version of the macbook air, and it ran this game just fine. I've since returned it and bought the 4GB version for other reasons (including virtualization).

I actually got the mba coming from the Alienware m11x R1 and was a little bummed about giving up some mobile gaming capability. I actually installed New Vegas as sort of a joke, expecting it to not work at all, and was VERY pleasantly surprised. I have my core i7 desktop and xbox 360 to do my real gaming, but it is still awesome that this really portable machine can do a little too.

 

[St. G]

I recorded three new looks yesterday -- Dead Space, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, and Dragon Age II (Demo). The first of them is up, the second is exporting and the third will be edited....sometime later...maybe today.

 

[St. G]

Just edited DA2. Exporting now. Keep an eye out for it over you-know-where.

 

[impulse462]

Have all your tests been under windows 7 or OS X?

I'm curious to know how well CoD4 runs on OS X as it would be much easier to run from within OS x. (not asking you to test was just a comment )