OS X: Collection of Recommended Settings

[lightz39]

A brief guide to help you achieve an optimal playing experience on your Mac. My goal is to test various games and come up with "recommended settings" to help your OS X gaming experience.

The tests will be ran on a 2012 15" Macbook Pro Retina 2.7/16/768 running Mountain Lion 10.8.2. My hopes are that other users will chip in their results on different machines and even OS.

Diablo III - Very enjoyable experience. Good balance between performance and quality. Rock steady 30FPS. UI is crisp and readable.

Display - Full Screen
Resolution - 2068x1292 (16:10 Widescreen)
Letterbox - No
Vertical Sync - No
Max Foreground FPS - 30
Max Background FPS - 8
Gamma - 100%
Texture Quality - High
Shadow Quality - Low (Smooth)
Physics - High
Clutter Density - High
Anti-Aliasing - Yes
Low FX - No

MISTS OF PANDARIA - Mid 2010 17" Macbook Pro (GT 330m 512 MB RAM, 8GB RAM), Mountain Lion

Display
Display Mode - Fullscreen
Resolution - 1606x1004
Refresh Rate - 60.0Hz
Multisampling - 2x
Vertical Sync - Disabled

Textures
Texture Resolution - High
Texture Filtering - 8x Anisotropic
Projected Textures - Enabled


Effects
Shadow Quality - Fair
Liquid Detail - Fair
Sunshafts - Disabled
Particle Density - High
SSAO - Disabled

Environment
View Distance - Ultra
Environment Detail - Good
Ground Clutter - High

Performance - 30+ fps

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To be updated at a later date with more titles.

[SingularityG]

mid 2010 17" Macbook Pro (GT 330m 512 MB RAM, 8GB RAM), Mountain Lion

DIABLO III

Display - Full Screen
Resolution - 1294x808 (16:10 Widescreen, UI still crisp) 
Letterbox - No
Vertical Sync - No
Max Foreground FPS - 60 (more responsive imo)
Max Background FPS - 8
Gamma - 100%
Texture Quality - High
Shadow Quality - Medium
Physics - High
Clutter Density - Medium 
Anti-Aliasing - Yes
Low FX - No

Performance - 30+ fps

Not much difference there, apart from resolution. Blizzard knows.

[lightz39]

Thank you for contributing. The next game I will be doing is Mists of Pandaria.

[SingularityG]

MISTS OF PANDARIA

mid 2010 17" Macbook Pro (GT 330m 512 MB RAM, 8GB RAM), Mountain Lion

Display
Display Mode - Fullscreen
Resolution - 1606x1004
Refresh Rate - 60.0Hz
Multisampling - 2x
Vertical Sync - Disabled

Textures
Texture Resolution - High
Texture Filtering - 8x Anisotropic
Projected Textures - Enabled


Effects
Shadow Quality - Fair
Liquid Detail - Fair
Sunshafts - Disabled
Particle Density - High
SSAO - Disabled

Environment
View Distance - Ultra
Environment Detail - Good
Ground Clutter - High

Performance - 30+ fps

The gameplay is generally smooth. If I set resolution to 1920x1200, fps in MoP areas drops to ~25.

[WesRocks360]

27 inch imac late 2012

so far ive played WoW, LoL, Far Cry 3, Skyrim, and Dishonored everything maxed out runs great.

[SingularityG]

Originally Posted by WesRocks360

27 inch imac late 2012

so far ive played WoW, LoL, Far Cry 3, Skyrim, and Dishonored everything maxed out runs great.

Dude, even my 17" 2010 Macbook Pro can handle most modern titles pretty well under bootcamp.

In OS X however....

[cluthz]

Originally Posted by SingularityG

Dude, even my 17" 2010 Macbook Pro can handle most modern titles pretty well under bootcamp.

In OS X however....

It's all up to the user.
Some people can live with lower settings and Fps than others.

I find less than 60 FPS in first person games and some 3rd person games too low, but that is my opinion.

I had a 15 inch 2010 MBP, which had the 330M card, and I found it inadequate for gaming, so I sold that in the end of 2011. But, hey, that's me.

30 FPS is ok for me, when you don't need max accuracy, like games as Dragon Age Origins.

I could not play Borderlands 2, Skyrim or Far Cry 3 in 30 FPS.

[lightz39]

Originally Posted by cluthz

It's all up to the user.
Some people can live with lower settings and Fps than others.

I find less than 60 FPS in first person games and some 3rd person games too low, but that is my opinion.

I had a 15 inch 2010 MBP, which had the 330M card, and I found it inadequate for gaming, so I sold that in the end of 2011. But, hey, that's me.

30 FPS is ok for me, when you don't need max accuracy, like games as Dragon Age Origins.

I could not play Borderlands 2, Skyrim or Far Cry 3 in 30 FPS.

I am right there with you. This is why when I do try out FPS games i will push for 60 vs 30. A game like diablo is more than fine in 30fps. Even Bioshock on the xbox 360 was locked at 30fps.

[SingularityG]

Originally Posted by cluthz

I had a 15 inch 2010 MBP, which had the 330M card, and I found it inadequate for gaming, so I sold that in the end of 2011. But, hey, that's me.

You are right. It's got potential but it's definitely not for ~60 fps maxed out gaming.

I wish to replace it, too, but for me 17" is important and since they don't make them in that size anymore, I'm probably gonna have to settle down for the late 2011 MBP. Ah well...