Best games on PB

[JzzTrump22]

Hey everyone, I'm planning on getting a 15" 1.25 ghz PB in a month or so for college. I'm mostly using it for school and stuff but I am a gamming fanatic. I can't live without video games. I personally like FPS (i was reading the other thread on this topic) Especially Rainbow Six 3 (xbox live rules!!) But i'm willing to try almost anything. So what i'm asking, is what games will run well on the PB and not give me any problems. I'm probably buying the PB with no upgrades, eventhough i want more ram, it adds up and i can't afford more then $2300. So any tips or suggestion are hugely appreciated.

[jxyama]

emulated old console games... will not give your PB any problems whatsoever. :D

[porovaara]

I have the 1.25 and run/have run the following well:

Civ3
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
No One Lives Forever
Medal of Honor (a bit of frame drops near the end at native res HQ with tons of enemies on screen/also you must manually set the res if you want better than 1024x768, same on RtCW)
SNES emulators work well

Halo does not run well, the frame rate is so erratic regardless of resolution as to be unplayable.

Be warned the machine gets HOT after an intensive gaming session.

[JzzTrump22]

Also where do you all buy your games from. All the stores around me sell games just for PC.

[Grimace]

Unreal 2004 works flawlessly on my 1Ghz Powerbook. 1GB Ram helps I suppose - make sure you get at least 512MB

[JzzTrump22]

It comes with 512, i was thinking of mabey saving up some money and at the end of the summer buying another 512. How many slots does it have for ram? Because i'm not paying for the upgrade to have the ram in 1 stick of 512. It comes with 2 sticks of 256. So if it has more than 2 slots it will work out.

[aswitcher]

I have the 1.25 and run/have run the following well:

Civ3
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
No One Lives Forever
Medal of Honor (a bit of frame drops near the end at native res HQ with tons of enemies on screen/also you must manually set the res if you want better than 1024x768, same on RtCW)
SNES emulators work well

Halo does not run well, the frame rate is so erratic regardless of resolution as to be unplayable.

Be warned the machine gets HOT after an intensive gaming session.

How much ram are you running?

[porovaara]

768 meg.

By default your machine will come with 2 256meg sticks unless you pay for the upgrade to 1 512meg DIMM.

[Counterfit]

Well, the first major game I got for it was Max Payne. Not new, but still good. I can run it at native res, and full quality and it still runs smoothly. Medal Of Honor runs decently, but more than 24 or so people on a multiplayer and it starts to bog a little. I beat Halo, so it obviously can be playable. I played RtCW, but I didn't like it that much, same with the UT2k# games.

If you want to play SNES games, you should either set your keyboard up right for it, or get a gamepad. I also suggest you grab a NES emulator, I use RockNES, and play some really old ones :)

[aswitcher]

768 meg.

By default your machine will come with 2 256meg sticks unless you pay for the upgrade to 1 512meg DIMM.


Ok, so even with 768 Halo sux...not good. I should be getting a gig, and given this is the way things are now its more reason for me to wait until the G5 appears. Its not a primarily games machine but I want to at least be able to have the grunt to play Halo. Maybe if they put the 128VRAM in the next G4 it might go well...but G5 is my preferred for longevity.

[porovaara]

I played Halo completely on the XBOX, attempting to play it on my powerbook was pain. My PC friends basically said the same, if you want a solid Halo experience play it on the XBOX.

The game isn't system or video memory limited it is CPU. But it makes absolutely no sense in that some of the best running missions on the alBook were the outdoor ones while some of the indoor ones had framerates that were all over the damn place. Halo for the mac was probably one of the worst game purchases I've ever made.*

* Maybe if I hadn't already played it through on the XBOX it would have been okay.

[JzzTrump22]

I totally agree that Halo is definatly for the xbox. So is it really necessary to upgrade from 512 to run most games? And i didn't catch the amount of slots for ram. I don't really want to spend money for the upgraded 1 stick of 512 if not necessary.

[aethier]

Ok, so even with 768 Halo sux...not good. I should be getting a gig, and given this is the way things are now its more reason for me to wait until the G5 appears. Its not a primarily games machine but I want to at least be able to have the grunt to play Halo. Maybe if they put the 128VRAM in the next G4 it might go well...but G5 is my preferred for longevity.

I have an aluminum powerbook with a 1gig stick of ram (i upgraded so that one day i can put another stick so that i can have 2 gigs) anyways everything goes fine, halo hovers at around 20 fps, but is playable. online play is good too. currently i am playing MOH:AA and Spearhead ( i know, old but still fun) and it runs fine, it is still just the quake 3 engine...

anyways, so you shouldn't have any problems aside from poorly coded games like Halo, and when we start getting more FarCry/Doom3 type games...

aethier

[cb911]

yeah, Max Payne runs good... and then there's also heaps of mods if you want to extend the playability.

i've also played a bit of Alien Vs Predator 2. it's not on full graphics, but if you turn it down a bit it's definitely playable. actually, i may not be the most picky person when it comes to 'playability' especially with AVP2, i'm too busy crapping my pants to watch the framerate.http://www.portedmods.com/modules/Forums/images/smiles/icon_eek.gif http://www.portedmods.com/modules/Forums/images/smiles/eusa_pray.gif

also, UT2004 demo seems to run better than the full version of UT2003, for me at least.

i also use GeoMAME quite a bit, the Metal Slug games are just legendary. i've also got the MacAlly iShock(2?) gamepad. it's a bit 'bulky' and doesn't really feel like a precision instrument.

BTW, i've got a 1.25GHz PB, 1.5GB RAM. :D

[Kingsnapped]

I'm in Florida now, which means I have a lot more Applestore-ige avalible, so I picked up Sim City 4. It's my first major game beyond emulators (which I am a huge fan of) and it runs great. The only problem is that it's glitchy as all hell. Is there a patch or something to make it work? Otherwise, will the Apple store give me store credit or something.

Good to know about Max Payne and whatnot.

[zodiac]

I once played halo on a 800mhz pbG4 running 10.2.8 and halo ran fine on the low and medium settings.

[jxyama]

I totally agree that Halo is definatly for the xbox. So is it really necessary to upgrade from 512 to run most games? And i didn't catch the amount of slots for ram. I don't really want to spend money for the upgraded 1 stick of 512 if not necessary.

ha ha... for the price of a 512 MB RAM, you can almost buy an xbox. ;)

[JzzTrump22]

Dude i know, ram is really expensive for macs. Is the upgrade to 1 stick of ram really necessary? I mean i could use the 2 sticks of 256 which is fine for regular use and all but for gaming would i really need more???

[aethier]

Dude i know, ram is really expensive for macs. Is the upgrade to 1 stick of ram really necessary? I mean i could use the 2 sticks of 256 which is fine for regular use and all but for gaming would i really need more???

i guess you don't realise that ram for macs is the same as ram for PC's... do just go to a random store like tigerdirect and get some ram there


aethier

[Phatpat]

I just wanna add my input on halo on the powerbook. It runs perfectly fine for me. Granted I'm running it at 1024x768 (beautiful black bars on the sides), but its perfectly playable. One aspect that's better than xbox is the ability to get a quick 8v8 ctf game going.

[JzzTrump22]

So how come it costs about $120 for 512 MB of ram, i can get that for about 80 or $90 for pc.

[cb911]

you're obviously talking about laptop RAM?

are you comparing the RAM used in the PBs with the same spec RAM used in PCs?

i'm not sure, but maybe some PC laptops use the larger sticks of RAM, not laptop size RAM? well now we know why PC laptops are so huge. :p

[7on]

PCs use laptop RAM, Macs use laptop RAM
laptop RAM = SODIMM (I believe)

[Peej]

Right, RAM is RAM, but make sure you're comparing the right class. My powerbook takes DDR SDRAM, which is also used by a few other laptops. Basically, the smaller the RAM chip is in size, the more it will cost per MB. The chips for PB's are timy, therefore they cost more to produce. I would try to buy it from a reputable company, since bad RAM can cause problems, it's happened to me. The Apple store (online and retail) usually charges more, so another distributor will be cheaper.

peej

[mateybob]

emulation is the way to go on mac... mame and snes stuff being the best...
that and the occasional blizzard game...