Playing Starcraft 2/Civilization V in the 2011 13" MBP?

terrificbatman said:

Hey guys,

I know the Aspyr port for Mac is on hold right now but I'd like to know if you can still run Civ 5 via Boot Camp or Parallels. I'm also interested in Starcraft 2, which seems to run alright in Mac OS but I'd still like to know if it'll run better in Windows. Where do you do your gaming anyway? Is it OK to run these kinds of games with an external display plugged in? Sorry for asking too many questions but I'm really only interested in these kinds of games, because I have the XBox for everything else.

Thanks!

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I have a low end 15" 2011 mbp. One thing i can say for sure, SC2 runs alot smoother in bootcamp than in snow leopard. Using Parallels or vmware for my machine was not very smooth, the images kept jumping around for me. If i were to rate the experience, it would be:

1. bootcamp= most fluid, best game play, but a hassle to switch back and forth between windows and snow leopard.
2. snowleopard= convenient, little bugs here and there
3. vmware/paraells= convenient, but game play for me was not playable

I'm playing SCII at ultra with no issues on my 17" civilization V runs at low/medium. this is in os x

I'd like to know the answer to this question too - basically, whether the 13 can do recent games at all. Also what about TF2?! (My favourite game.)

And yes have to agree that experience of the 15/17 are not that useful here because they have vastly superior/dedicated graphics. And while I'd love to get the 15 portability and the massive price bump make it impossible.

room271 said:

Also what about TF2?!

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I take it TF2 is team fortress 2? - well it relies on the same engine as css in which i'm getting 100-200 fps.

I have the 2011 13 inch i5, and I play StarCraft II on low/medium settings in OS X. Nice and smooth for me. Perhaps it could go higher, but I haven't bothered to try. Though I admit, the first time I loaded SC2, it was pretty laggy, but after that, smooth sailing. Warning: it'll heat up. I average 86 degrees Celsius in-game.

P.S. Bit hard to see sometimes on a glossy screen...but it's playable. :]

I have the 2011 13" i7 with 8gb of memory. Civ 5 won't even start on osx, and in Bootcamp it is completely unplayable. The 2010 13" played Civ 5 adequately in both Osx and Bootcamp.

I am disappointed in the gaming performance of this new laptop. It is definitely a step backwards from last year. Hoping that this bottleneck gets resolved in the next refresh.

I have a 2011 15" 2.2 Ghz MBP and playing Civ V in OS X is very smooth on high settings, but like previous posters mentioned the computer gets very hot.

Ok, my summary so far from the above posts and independent research suggests that the most recent games won't really run on the 13 inch - except perhaps at native resolution (not a larger monitor) and at the lowest settings.

TF2 will probably run ok at low settings on a reasonable resolution. Hmm.

At least I am confident it will manage the wonderful Baldur's Gate 2

boylerman said:

I have the 2011 13" i7 with 8gb of memory. Civ 5 won't even start on osx, and in Bootcamp it is completely unplayable. The 2010 13" played Civ 5 adequately in both Osx and Bootcamp.

I am disappointed in the gaming performance of this new laptop. It is definitely a step backwards from last year. Hoping that this bottleneck gets resolved in the next refresh.

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The HD3000 is actually roughly comparable to the 320M – faster in some areas, slower in others. From what I've heard Aspyr simply doesn't support the new IGP with Civ V yet – but that they're working on it. No idea why Windows doesn't work.

Civ V bogs down (in the late game) on my desktop, which is significantly more powerful than any MBP currently in existence. At least this was the case when it was released last year. Perhaps patches have improved the situation since, but I shelved it many months ago; in my opinion, Civ IV is (on the whole) a better game anyhow. I wouldn't even bother to try on my 2011 13" MBP.

I don't own SC2 so I can't help you there. That's not my style of strategy game.

Look at it as an opportunity to play/enjoy some superb older games: Baldur's Gate series, Civ IV, Deus Ex (the original), Diablo 2, Age of Empires 1/2, Half-Life (both 2 and the original) and so forth. You can go farther back and fire up DOSBox and something like X-Com (arguably the greatest game ever made) or X-Wing/TIE Fighter. You can also get an SNES/Genesis emulator and some ROMs and a bluetooth enabled controller for some retro style console gaming. Even the 13" MBP can be a great gaming machine if you expand your perspective; if you can look past the graphics on these (though that's easy for me to say, because I remember them when they were new), you'll find that many of them are actually better games than the Call of Duty rubbish that we get today.

Aside: for some inexplicable reason, Minecraft actually runs better in OSX than Windows on this machine (whereas just about everything else runs better in Windows under Boot Camp). I can only surmise that Intel's Windows driver is poorly optimized for OpenGL.

akhbhaat said:

Civ V bogs down (in the late game) on my desktop, ...

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Same thing in the 13" 2011 i5. I just played it in bootcamp, it's fine in the beginning, but later it slows down significantly when you scroll in some busy areas, but it's still doable (at 1800 AD). This is on low setting and 1280x800. I'll try to finish it to see if it will be playable 'till the end.

I mean it works, but don't expect much, it will get choppy when you scroll in busy areas, but not unresponsive. It's definitely playable (so far). But don't forget that this is on minimum, so no fancy animations. I didn't try multilayer yet.

But this is really not a gaming laptop. If you are into that either go for 15" or look into hp envy 14", they got 1GB dedicated graphic.

Civilization V - Game of the Year Edition (Steam) Buy

System Requirements
Minimum Requirements

* Operating System - Windows XP SP3/ Windows Vista SP2/ Windows 7
* CPU Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz or AMD Athlon X2 64 2.0 GHz
* RAM - 2 GB RAM
* Disc Drive - Required for disc-based installation
* Hard Disk Space - 8 GB or more
* Video Card: 256 MB ATI HD2600 XT or better, 256 MB nVidia 7900 GS or better, or Core i3 or better integrated graphics
* Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card
* Sound Card: DirectX version 9.0c
* Peripherals: Macintosh mouse and keyboard

Recommended Requirements

* Operating System - Windows Vista SP2/ Windows 7
* CPU Processor - 1.8 GHz Quad Core CPU
* RAM - 4 GB or more
* Disc Drive - Required for disc-based installation
* Hard Disk Space - 8 GB or more
* Video Card: 512 MB ATI 4800 series or better, 512 MB nVidia 9800 series or better
* Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card
* Sound Card: DirectX version 11
* Peripherals: Macintosh mouse and keyboard


Other Requirements

Initial installation requires one-time Internet connection for Steam authentication; software installations required (included with the game) include Steam Client, Microsoft Visual C++2008 Runtime Libraries and Microsoft DirectX.

http://cd-pay.com/Civilization-5-Game-of-the-Year-Edition-Steam