Gaming on your Macbook

Marky · 30 Oct 2007 at 21:42

Hey all,

Firstly, I'd like to appologise for the influx of threads that I've created in this forum. I just want to ask as many questions as possible about macs before I make the purchase. And I feel a new thread is a good idea :cool:

Anyways...

How many of you play games on your macbook? What do you play? How well do they run? And most importantly, what are your specs?

Thanks,

Marky

ingouk · 31 Oct 2007 at 08:32

playing on my macbook pro (specs: 2.16Ghz, 2GB ram, 100gb hdd, ATI X1600) diablo (on osx) and sauerbraten (sort of quake/doom kind of game). On windows via bootcamp i play guildwars and tried the demo of crysis last night and it was playable. going to try graw2 soon. also played warcraft under OSX for a while.

ingouk

Anewbe4u · 31 Oct 2007 at 10:32

I played WOW on my Mid Spec Macbook in OSX and it ran fine. I just hated the game.

FirebarUK · 31 Oct 2007 at 10:36

It's quite simple really. If your bothered about gaming DON'T get a Macbook, you'll only end up disappointed. You need to be looking at the MBP ideally with the 256MB 8600GT.

Mr_White · 31 Oct 2007 at 10:39

I played WoW on my original black MacBook, and that was with the 512mb of ram, I coped fine in 40 man raids as an MT.

It will run a lot of games on minimum settings to be fair to it.

pumaz · 31 Oct 2007 at 13:47

I've got a MacBook 2GHz, 2GB RAM & 160GB HD

I have the following games installed and run perfectly fine under Bootcamp

Half Life
Counterstrike
BF 1942 with DC mod etc.
Unreal Tournament
ET
Quake 3
Warcraft 3
Starcraft
Call of Duty 2

Basicly a MacBook will run Most game up to 2004 and a few after depending on how demanding they are. Gaming should be more of an afterthought were laptop gaming is concerened.

Vasquez · 31 Oct 2007 at 14:07

counter strike and halflife run ok, MBP is in a different league though.

Ender · 31 Oct 2007 at 22:59

if you really serious about gaming get the mbp, although it is possible to play games on the macbook , just there be on low res/detail due to the gma 950

theheyes · 31 Oct 2007 at 23:18

pumaz said:
I've got a MacBook 2GHz, 2GB RAM & 160GB HD

I have the following games installed and run perfectly fine under Bootcamp

Half Life
Counterstrike
BF 1942 with DC mod etc.
Unreal Tournament
ET
Quake 3
Warcraft 3
Starcraft
Call of Duty 2

Basicly a MacBook will run Most game up to 2004 and a few after depending on how demanding they are. Gaming should be more of an afterthought were laptop gaming is concerened.

I'm actually kind of impressed by that.

lofz · 31 Oct 2007 at 23:43

pumaz said:
I've got a MacBook 2GHz, 2GB RAM & 160GB HD

I have the following games installed and run perfectly fine under Bootcamp

Half Life
Counterstrike
BF 1942 with DC mod etc.
Unreal Tournament
ET
Quake 3
Warcraft 3
Starcraft
Call of Duty 2

Basicly a MacBook will run Most game up to 2004 and a few after depending on how demanding they are. Gaming should be more of an afterthought were laptop gaming is concerened.

I agree with this, for most PC notebooks this is true as well, unless you want to be carrying around a monster. I personally have an Acer Ferrari 4000 1.8ghz 2gb ram and an x700 ati graphics card. I can just about get away with Wow if i run at the native screen resolution. saying that though it is well over a year old, trouble with most laptops mac or pc is the screen is too good for the integrated graphics card so when you game you have to run it in a lower resolution and it doesn't look as good as it could.

I look forward to the day that when you buy a midrange laptop and it comes with a midrange screen. Who needs 1600 x whatever it is on a graphics card that only has 128mb ram?

I posted this off my new Mac btw, Os X seems so nice to use

Marky · 31 Oct 2007 at 23:53

I heard that the rumoured macbooks coming on the 6th November will carry the graphics card that is in the pro. If this is true, would the macbook be more suitable for games? Bearing in mind, I would bump the RAM to the max

Im not looking to play HUGE games... just stuff like WoW... I also heard about jedi academy, I enjoyed it on the PC, it's good enough for a replay

RobH · 1 Nov 2007 at 00:12

I have a MacBook with a 2.0Ghz Core Duo, 2GB RAM & 120GB HDD and I can run a lot of games on it at a reasonable framerate under OSX and Bootcamp. The games I play on it are:

Command & Conquer: The First Decade
Zoo Tycoon
Zoo Tycoon 2
Rollercoaster Tycoon 2
StarCraft
Diablo 2
Word of Warcraft
Warcraft 3
Dungeon Keeper
Dungeon Keeper 2
Black & White
Unreal Tournament
Half-Life
Theme Hospital
The Sims

They all run pretty well, some you have to play with the settings on but they mostly work at a good speed, definatly playable. You need a mouse to be able to play most of them properly though. C&C Generals (part of TFD) runs supprisingly well on it, I play it quite a lot.

iBear · 1 Nov 2007 at 00:56

2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
OSX Tiger, w/Bootcamp Vista
RadeonX1600

Games I'm running are:

Oblivion,
GTA San Andreas,
Black & White 2,
Quake 4,
BF 2142,
BF 2,
FIFA Manager 07,
Just Cause,
Halo 2

jim_e · 1 Nov 2007 at 19:59

New Macbook thats just been released has the X3100 graphics so should perform better in games - not sure how much better though.

Mr Jones · 1 Nov 2007 at 23:20

jim_e said:
New Macbook thats just been released has the X3100 graphics so should perform better in games - not sure how much better though.

Apparently, it runs "almost" the same as the 950s... just slightly better. I prefer to hear actual user's experience than a few site's comparison.

Ender · 2 Nov 2007 at 17:11

other benefits of the new graphics chip is a better video processor for dealing with hd

Marky · 2 Nov 2007 at 18:07

If anyone has a link to a comparison of the old and new macbooks (With new gfx card), link us please