Gaming on MacBook Without Boot Camp...

[SamIchi]

Do games like The Sims 2 and Sim City 4 work smoothly with the MacBook? I saw another topic that said it worked well with Boot Camp, but what about without it on the mac?

[benyaimin]

i would think it probably would, as long as the games are universal.

[wyrmintheapple]

It depends, some are good, some aren't.

My MacBook is a 2Ghz with 512Mb. I hear 2Gb RAM makes a big difference to framerate. particularly for opengl, up to double the framerate for some games.

I found quake 3 very smooth in low settings, this is a game that benefits from more RAM. This is using the universal binary.

Marble blast was great under rosetta.

WoW was smooth as universal binary, 20-30fps, occasionally dropping to 15... more than playable.

Warcraft 3 under rosetta... unplayably jumpy at best detail level, but smooth at 1024x768. A unibin would undoubtedly run better (does in XP and WoW runs good too. WC3 is soo close tbh)

Starcraft is fine. Q3A:TA is same as Q3.

UT2004 has to be dropped to a low resolution with quite low settings but it runs really smoothly, around 40-80fps depending on maps.

[MacRumorUser]

Do games like The Sims 2 and Sim City 4 work smoothly with the MacBook? I saw another topic that said it worked well with Boot Camp, but what about without it on the mac?

Sims 2 & SimCity 4 yes.
The Movies & Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 yes...

Those style of games worked fine for me. There is a thread about it somewhere in this section. :)

[dextertangocci]

Marble blast was great under rosetta.

But have you noticed that the icon in the dock looks a little weird? Like a very low resolution photo?

[Mord]

I found quake 3 very smooth in low settings, this is a game that benefits from more RAM. This is using the universal binary.


quake 3 ran at 60fps or so on my 600MHz ibook >_>

[dextertangocci]

Can quake 4 run on a 2Ghz MB with 2GB RAM?

[Mord]

just about on the lowest possible settings.

[jsousa]

It depends, some are good, some aren't.

My MacBook is a 2Ghz with 512Mb. I hear 2Gb RAM makes a big difference to framerate. particularly for opengl, up to double the framerate for some games.

I found quake 3 very smooth in low settings, this is a game that benefits from more RAM. This is using the universal binary.

Marble blast was great under rosetta.

WoW was smooth as universal binary, 20-30fps, occasionally dropping to 15... more than playable.

Warcraft 3 under rosetta... unplayably jumpy at best detail level, but smooth at 1024x768. A unibin would undoubtedly run better (does in XP and WoW runs good too. WC3 is soo close tbh)

Starcraft is fine. Q3A:TA is same as Q3.

UT2004 has to be dropped to a low resolution with quite low settings but it runs really smoothly, around 40-80fps depending on maps.


how is warcraft 3 unplayable at all? that game is YEARS old. and of course, starcraft will be, along side diablo II, 100% playable.

[wyrmintheapple]

how is warcraft 3 unplayable at all? that game is YEARS old. and of course, starcraft will be, along side diablo II, 100% playable.

Its "helpful" comments from "experts" such as yourself without any first hand experience of the macbook that muddy the waters. No wonder everyone is confused over whether these things play games or not.

Warcraft 3 WAS playable at all, as I said. Can you not read whole sentences, or just bits of them.

Warcraft 3 played great at lower resolutions, with mid - high graphics options. at the native res of the MacBook tho.... it was too jerky to be playable.

Diable 2 is only playable in software rendering mode. The openGL mode is slow on the MacBook too.

[jsousa]

Its "helpful" comments from "experts" such as yourself without any first hand experience of the macbook that muddy the waters. No wonder everyone is confused over whether these things play games or not.

Warcraft 3 WAS playable at all, as I said. Can you not read whole sentences, or just bits of them.

Warcraft 3 played great at lower resolutions, with mid - high graphics options. at the native res of the MacBook tho.... it was too jerky to be playable.

Diable 2 is only playable in software rendering mode. The openGL mode is slow on the MacBook too.


how does that make any sense.
ps: dont get edgy with me - there is no need