Gaming on Retina MacBook Pro (Video)

[melterx12]

I am pleasantly surprised to see that apple put a very capable gpu inside the retina macbook pro.

I have been playing Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition on bootcamp and to my surprise I am getting 76fps in the built-in benchmark at 2880x1800, 2xAA, 16xAF, and all max settings.

Outside the benchmark, the game is capped at 60fps to keep online matches fair. I played a few online matches and were all very smooth. Needless to say the graphics are very sharp as well.

I decided to record some gameplay with fraps, although I had to turn of anti aliasing while recording in order to keep 30fps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_OUzK8ajNg&hd=1

(Select "original" quality to watch it in 2880x1800).

The performance is already very respectable for a laptop, and I believe it will improve further once apple releases Nvidia's 300 series drivers for bootcamp.

[gekoo]

Originally Posted by melterx12

I am pleasantly surprised to see that apple put a very capable gpu inside the retina macbook pro.

I have been playing Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition on bootcamp and to my surprise I am getting 76fps in the built-in benchmark at 2880x1800, 2xAA, 16xAF, and all max settings.

Outside the benchmark, the game is capped at 60fps to keep online matches fair. I played a few online matches and were all very smooth. Needless to say the graphics are very sharp as well.

I decided to record some gameplay with fraps, although I had to turn of anti aliasing while recording in order to keep 30fps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_OUzK8ajNg&hd=1

(Select "original" quality to watch it in 2880x1800).

The performance is already very respectable for a laptop, and I believe it will improve further once apple releases Nvidia's 300 series drivers for bootcamp.

I installed the game from Capcoms install file but It seems it wont press any buttoms. Are you playing from steam version or something? Using a stick of some sort?

[01mggt]

Originally Posted by melterx12

I am pleasantly surprised to see that apple put a very capable gpu inside the retina macbook pro.

I have been playing Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition on bootcamp and to my surprise I am getting 76fps in the built-in benchmark at 2880x1800, 2xAA, 16xAF, and all max settings.

Outside the benchmark, the game is capped at 60fps to keep online matches fair. I played a few online matches and were all very smooth. Needless to say the graphics are very sharp as well.

I decided to record some gameplay with fraps, although I had to turn of anti aliasing while recording in order to keep 30fps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_OUzK8ajNg&hd=1

(Select "original" quality to watch it in 2880x1800).

The performance is already very respectable for a laptop, and I believe it will improve further once apple releases Nvidia's 300 series drivers for bootcamp.

Everytime I see how stunning this GPU is, I sit back and laugh at people who think the rmbp's UI lag is because the video card can't handle it. I haven't played a game yet that I can't run buttery smooth

[goodtime416]

Originally Posted by melterx12

I am pleasantly surprised to see that apple put a very capable gpu inside the retina macbook pro.

I have been playing Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition on bootcamp and to my surprise I am getting 76fps in the built-in benchmark at 2880x1800, 2xAA, 16xAF, and all max settings.

Outside the benchmark, the game is capped at 60fps to keep online matches fair. I played a few online matches and were all very smooth. Needless to say the graphics are very sharp as well.

I decided to record some gameplay with fraps, although I had to turn of anti aliasing while recording in order to keep 30fps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_OUzK8ajNg&hd=1

(Select "original" quality to watch it in 2880x1800).

The performance is already very respectable for a laptop, and I believe it will improve further once apple releases Nvidia's 300 series drivers for bootcamp.

Just wondering why am I getting super low fps (20<) with the max settings...
Only playable on 1280*800

Mine is a 2.6Ghz and 16GB ram config

[leman]

Originally Posted by goodtime416

Just wondering why am I getting super low fps (20<) with the max settings...
Only playable on 1280*800

Mine is a 2.6Ghz and 16GB ram config

Try resetting SMC

[shansoft]

Originally Posted by 01mggt

Everytime I see how stunning this GPU is, I sit back and laugh at people who think the rmbp's UI lag is because the video card can't handle it. I haven't played a game yet that I can't run buttery smooth

UI Lag is due to Integrated GPU and Design problem.

Also, 2D and 3D have a way different way to handle. It's just that simple as you think it is. Sometime 2D is much harder to render than 3D.

[redshovel]

Running the 2.6/16 and loaded my first game - Half Life 2 via Mac Steam
It runs just about perfect at high settings - apart from from 3 or 4 - five second intervals of play during the Water Hazard levels (in large open areas when both helicopter and guards are shooting poor Gordon) when the thing grinds to almost a stand still and even losses sound too.

Even setting everything to lowest makes no difference when I replay these parts.

Hope its not reflective of other games like GTA3 or Bio Shock 2 as I really thought the rMBP could handle a game like Half Life 2 without lag. Or is it just the lag caused by the retina display?

[iEnvy]

Originally Posted by redshovel

Running the 2.6/16 and loaded my first game - Half Life 2 via Mac Steam
It runs just about perfect at high settings - apart from from 3 or 4 - five second intervals of play during the Water Hazard levels (in large open areas when both helicopter and guards are shooting poor Gordon) when the thing grinds to almost a stand still and even losses sound too.

Even setting everything to lowest makes no difference when I replay these parts.

Hope its not reflective of other games like GTA3 or Bio Shock 2 as I really thought the rMBP could handle a game like Half Life 2 without lag. Or is it just the lag caused by the retina display?

Reset your SMC and NVRAM. Don't worry the rMBP can handle a lot of games better than expected. I play Starcraft 2, which was considered GPU heavy at a time, on ultra settings with 50-60 FPS.

[redshovel]

Originally Posted by iEnvy

Reset your SMC and NVRAM. Don't worry the rMBP can handle a lot of games better than expected. I play Starcraft 2, which was considered GPU heavy at a time, on ultra settings with 50-60 FPS.

Thanks I will try that to see if it makes any difference

[Dyno-Mike]

Originally Posted by 01mggt

Everytime I see how stunning this GPU is, I sit back and laugh at people who think the rmbp's UI lag is because the video card can't handle it. I haven't played a game yet that I can't run buttery smooth

Try running The Witcher 2 at 1920x1200 on high. Not buttery smooth then lol

[reery]

I played Rage on 2880x1800, max details, extremely stunning graphics and foresight. You can see almost every detail in things hundreds of yards away.

Also WoW looks great on 2880x1880 (25-40fps on high), but I prefer a high quality setting and 1920x1200 for this game and 30+fps.

[joshhedge]

Originally Posted by iEnvy

Reset your SMC and NVRAM. Don't worry the rMBP can handle a lot of games better than expected. I play Starcraft 2, which was considered GPU heavy at a time, on ultra settings with 50-60 FPS.

SC2 is more CPU bound than GPU bound. Shadows in SC2 are the main factor which destroys FPS.

[goodtime416]

Originally Posted by leman

Try resetting SMC

Works like a charm Thanks a lot!
(out of interest: why does this happen???)
(So is it advisable to reset the SMC regularly?)

And wondering does you guys' fan starts spinning at max speed (noise are significant and keyboard is getting warm) after playing SFIV for a while (5 mins) or other high demanding games??

Is this normal?

[leman]

Originally Posted by goodtime416

Works like a charm Thanks a lot!
(out of interest: why does this happen???)
(So is it advisable to reset the SMC regularly?)

Nah, its a known bug with the retina MBP firmware. It appears to have quite some power management problems anyway (I believe that much of the infamous UI lags actually comes from it). Sometimes I hate Apple for the lack of transparency with issues like these - it has been known for at least a few month yet they neither acknowledged it nor published a fix.

Originally Posted by goodtime416

And wondering does you guys' fan starts spinning at max speed (noise are significant and keyboard is getting warm) after playing SFIV for a while (5 mins) or other high demanding games??

Is this normal?

Well, the GPU gets hot and needs to be cooled. So yes, its normal. Nothing to worry about though.

[SchuettS]

Originally Posted by goodtime416

Works like a charm Thanks a lot!
(out of interest: why does this happen???)
(So is it advisable to reset the SMC regularly?)

And wondering does you guys' fan starts spinning at max speed (noise are significant and keyboard is getting warm) after playing SFIV for a while (5 mins) or other high demanding games??

Is this normal?

The more you play the less you will worry about the heat or damaging your computer, atleast in my case.

[goodtime416]

Originally Posted by SchuettS

The more you play the less you will worry about the heat or damaging your computer, atleast in my case.

what you really mean is i will get use to it?
and you have been playing so much that you have not noticed any damage at all?

If this is the case, Thanks