Macbook Retina Gaming Q&A

Metalface Mark · 19 Jul 2012 at 12:19

Ive had my Retina since launch, put up a few videos in the retina thread, I know people are now looking at these as desktop replacements and want to know how they perform, so i thought id give a brief rundown on the games I have installed and the frame rates they achieve.

This is the base model, so perhaps performance will be slightly improved with the better processors.

Max detail has AA and AF turned off at max res as I cant see any point in it at this.

2880x1800 with max details (through bootcamp)

Fifa 12 (60fps)
Modern Warfare 3 (60fps)
Diablo 3 20-25fps (1600x900 50-60fps high detail)
Trine 2 30fps (1920x1200 - 60fps max detail)
Fallout Vegas - 30fps - (1920x1200 - 60fps max detail)
Max Payne 3 - 15-20fps (1600x900 - 50fps - high detail)
Alan Wake - 20-25fps (1600x900 - 50fps - high detail)
Civ V - 25-30fps max detail (1600x900 60fps - high detail)
Kingdoms of Amalur (20-25fps) (1920x1200 30fps) (1440x900 60fps)
I will add to this as I go along.

Ive actually been so impressed with the gaming performance on it that Ive scrapped my desktop pc in favour of it, the scaling works really well in game so max payne looks great still even at 1600x900 or 1440x900 (needed for 60fps)

nlr · 19 Jul 2012 at 12:20

Is there any game which struggles with it?

randal · 19 Jul 2012 at 12:21

How hot/noisy does it get?

Metalface Mark · 19 Jul 2012 at 12:22

Not that I have tried yet, Max Payne and Diablo struggle at 2880x1800 but both run great when you half the resolution.

Metalface Mark · 19 Jul 2012 at 12:27

randal24 said:
How hot/noisy does it get?

The fan turns on, I wouldnt say its noisy though. It does get hot though to the touch, for stuff like Fallout Vegas I play that with a gamepad (and fifa) so its not an issue, but it can get pretty toasty under the old fingers on MW3.

randal · 19 Jul 2012 at 12:33

Considering what they are, and the design of them I was always impressed with the MBP for gaming (had a 15" 9600GT based 2008, and a 13" 320m 2010) but you're right they do get blimmin' hot whilst doing so. Not surprising the 2007 generation suffer BGA failures!

mr.sly · 19 Jul 2012 at 16:08

I'd still like to see a Civ V and Football Manager video if you get chance. Especially Football Manager at 2880. Just wondering how the text will scale if at all.

Marky · 19 Jul 2012 at 16:32

Thanks for this information dude

And thanks for the videos!

Have you tried playing any games using retina resolution, on a TV?

Would be interested in how it runs.

Metalface Mark · 19 Jul 2012 at 16:45

mr.sly said:
I'd still like to see a Civ V and Football Manager video if you get chance. Especially Football Manager at 2880. Just wondering how the text will scale if at all.

I have just done a FM one - its like windows at that resolution, its small in full screen, but you can read it okay - video makes it kinda hard to make out though with my shaky cam, maybe a screen grab will give you a better idea.

Civ is uninstalled at the moment and Ive ran out of space just now (unless I install it on the mac partition) - so ill probably stick that back on when i get max payne completed since its taking up 30gb.

Marky said:
Thanks for this information dude And thanks for the videos!

Have you tried playing any games using retina resolution, on a TV?

Would be interested in how it runs.

If you run it on the TV it just shows it at 1920x1080, which most games will run fine at, Im installing Kingdoms of Amalur next to try out, so ill do a video for that one too.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Gives you a sense of the real estate you get with it.

Metalface Mark · 19 Jul 2012 at 18:30

Added Kingdoms of Amalur

Marky · 19 Jul 2012 at 19:57

Metalface Mark said:
If you run it on the TV it just shows it at 1920x1080, which most games will run fine at, Im installing Kingdoms of Amalur next to try out, so ill do a video for that one too.

Ah cool - is that the max resolution you can run on a TV then?

Also, do games that aren't "retina" display as slightly distorted? Like if you have an app that isn't retina on an iPhone and the images look terrible quality

Supercow · 19 Jul 2012 at 20:40

Can you repost your videos in here too please?
If you add more could you update this thread with them?

Supercow · 19 Jul 2012 at 21:30

ps: is Diablo 3 in Bootcamp, or OSX?

mr.sly · 19 Jul 2012 at 22:49

Thanks for that. From the videos I've seen of Windows 7 running at 2880 I'll probably end up running Football Manager at a different resolution until they release a retina ready version. Which probably won't happen till the next release.

joeyjojo · 19 Jul 2012 at 22:58

So you could only run two of the games at native resolution? Sounds like a waste of money to me.

mp101 · 19 Jul 2012 at 23:12

Excellent, thanks for the test results, looking to get mine around October, unless a 13" version is made

Metalface Mark · 19 Jul 2012 at 23:14

joeyjojo said:
So you could only run two of the games at native resolution? Sounds like a waste of money to me.

Trololol. Its not a gaming laptop. For the record, running at a lower resolution doesnt look in any way bad anyway, so its not a problem running at lower resolutions since the scaler works so well.

Marky said:
Ah cool - is that the max resolution you can run on a TV then?

Also, do games that aren't "retina" display as slightly distorted? Like if you have an app that isn't retina on an iPhone and the images look terrible quality

No, the scaling is superb, 1920x1200 in game looks as good as it does on my 24" pva, very impressive.

Supercow said:
Can you repost your videos in here too please?
If you add more could you update this thread with them?

Supercow said:
ps: is Diablo 3 in Bootcamp, or OSX?

Diablo was in Mac,

mr.sly said:
Thanks for that. From the videos I've seen of Windows 7 running at 2880 I'll probably end up running Football Manager at a different resolution until they release a retina ready version. Which probably won't happen till the next release.

if you ran FM2012 in mac mode it would look more normal as the max resolution in that is 1920x1200. You can only use the full res in windows at the moment but its really too small for every day use unless you whack up the font size.

joeyjojo · 20 Jul 2012 at 00:35

Metalface Mark said:
Trololol.

Caught

Supercow · 20 Jul 2012 at 08:21

Cheers Mark!
Out of interest, how much Hard drive allocation did you assign your Bootcamp partition?

It's been some time since I've had a windows machine with games installed and have no idea how much space a PC with 3 (ish) games installed + Office etc would take.

KiiYzOo · 20 Jul 2012 at 10:05

You can install stem games and run them on an external drive to cut down the partition size, although the loading times will be longer