Very Quick gaming question

[kain125]

I plan on buying the new MBA that comes out next week and i just have a quick question. Based on the projected processors and whatnot, how well do you guys think that they will play Team Fortress 2? Thanks!

[tbobmccoy]

Originally Posted by kain125

I plan on buying the new MBA that comes out next week and i just have a quick question. Based on the projected processors and whatnot, how well do you guys think that they will play Team Fortress 2? Thanks!

Very well. My uMBP with a Nvidia 9400m plays it smoothly on medium settings. The new IGP will be at least as good, so no worries for you.

[Young Spade]

A quick search will tell you it's not going to be very good. Just look around; they're rumored to have a ULV graphics card, similar to the HD3000 but at a lower clock.

For gaming, the last generation will probably be better.

[ri0ku]

not very well at all... my current MBP doesnt even run it that great... its ok... but at a low res on low settings... unless something is seriously up with my install of snow leopard...

Half life 2 works fine but tf2 and css run quite bad in osx for me on the mbp.. they run MUCH better in windows. But even the 9600 in my mbp struggles... so yeah the macbook air isnt going to run it "fine" but probably "playable"

[blesscheese]

Originally Posted by tbobmccoy

Very well. My uMBP with a Nvidia 9400m plays it smoothly on medium settings. The new IGP will be at least as good, so no worries for you.

This has been discussed in other forum topics. The typical fps rates for the new integrated graphics chip have *not* been as good as the fps rates for the Nvidia 9400 (previous gen MBA) or the 320 (current).

I would guess (but can't promise) that in a year or so, there will be an updated driver released for the integrated graphics, that will raise the performance at least somewhat. But....no guarentees. (So much for the cpu "upgrade").

[tom vilsack]

compare the two ...if gaming,i would buy the current model asap.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...M.28701.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-H...0.37948.0.html

[major7]

I wouldnt buy ASAP....lol

I would wait to see what comes out....and then decide.

If thats the graphic then you cant wait for miracles....but you can get a current MBA for less money when the new comes out....

Don't really see the point of view of apple....the MBA was almost reaching perfection and now they go back to being a cool notebook that is just lighter than the others.

Might as well keep the hype and dont release anything until Christmas...that would make a lot of "angry birds" out here

[stevja1]

Originally Posted by kain125

I plan on buying the new MBA that comes out next week and i just have a quick question. Based on the projected processors and whatnot, how well do you guys think that they will play Team Fortress 2? Thanks!

The current MBA runs TF2 fairly well, but its not spectacular. It runs well with lower settings. If you're really serious about playing many hours of TF2 - get a PC with a decent video card and play it. If you want a light machine with good battery life that has just enough power to occasionally play TF2 - the MBA is the only choice.

One of the things Apple is selling with the Macbook Air is this "gaming" ability - which leads me to believe that they're not going to just stick everybody with an Intel 3000. If they DO release it with the Intel 3000, I would recommend you pick up a refurbished MBA (same warranty and everything) from the Apple store. You'll save a bunch of money, and they'll be even cheaper once the new ones come out.

I've typically found the refurbs cheaper than the used ones on craigslist with a lamer warranty.

[Young Spade]

Originally Posted by stevja1

The current MBA runs TF2 fairly well, but its not spectacular. It runs well with lower settings. If you're really serious about playing many hours of TF2 - get a PC with a decent video card and play it. If you want a light machine with good battery life that has just enough power to occasionally play TF2 - the MBA is the only choice.

One of the things Apple is selling with the Macbook Air is this "gaming" ability - which leads me to believe that they're not going to just stick everybody with an Intel 3000. If they DO release it with the Intel 3000, I would recommend you pick up a refurbished MBA (same warranty and everything) from the Apple store. You'll save a bunch of money, and they'll be even cheaper once the new ones come out.

I've typically found the refurbs cheaper than the used ones on craigslist with a lamer warranty.

They are going to stick a ULV HD3000 in the machine. What else would they put in there? Logically it wouldn't make sense to put something better than what's in the baseline pro and they aren't putting last gen's chips in there because they aren't implementing those graphics cards anymore.

They "could" just give us something good, but that would mess with the MBP sales. That's why they won't.

[stevja1]

Originally Posted by Young Spade

They are going to stick a ULV HD3000 in the machine. What else would they put in there? Logically it wouldn't make sense to put something better than what's in the baseline pro and they aren't putting last gen's chips in there because they aren't implementing those graphics cards anymore.

They "could" just give us something good, but that would mess with the MBP sales. That's why they won't.

That's true. They have to be careful not to overpower the MBA too much or else it will draw sales away from the more expensive MBP, and also impact battery life.

I think though that if they want to maintain this rep of being able to run popular games at a decent FPS, they'll need something more powerful than the Intel card.

There is also a chance that the Intel card provides a dramatic efficiency boost and Apple may sacrifice the gaming feature to get another 2-3 hours of battery out of the machine.

Either way, it will be interesting to see what comes out this week. I'm planning on buying a second MBA. If they have the Intel chip, I'll buy another refurb.

[Young Spade]

Originally Posted by stevja1

That's true. They have to be careful not to overpower the MBA too much or else it will draw sales away from the more expensive MBP, and also impact battery life.

I think though that if they want to maintain this rep of being able to run popular games at a decent FPS, they'll need something more powerful than the Intel card.

There is also a chance that the Intel card provides a dramatic efficiency boost and Apple may sacrifice the gaming feature to get another 2-3 hours of battery out of the machine.

Either way, it will be interesting to see what comes out this week. I'm planning on buying a second MBA. If they have the Intel chip, I'll buy another refurb.

Sadly, none of those things you stated will come true. It will have about the same battery life with the ulv chip inside that gives subpar graphics performance. I'm hoping they give us an option to have a better graphics chip but I doubt it will happen ...

[striker33]

Originally Posted by Young Spade

A quick search will tell you it's not going to be very good. Just look around; they're rumored to have a ULV graphics card, similar to the HD3000 but at a lower clock.

For gaming, the last generation will probably be better.

Yeah, you have no OSX benchmarks to prove that.

[striker33]

Originally Posted by Young Spade

Sadly, none of those things you stated will come true. It will have about the same battery life with the ulv chip inside that gives subpar graphics performance. I'm hoping they give us an option to have a better graphics chip but I doubt it will happen ...

Sadly, none of those things you stated will come true.

[CFoss]

Originally Posted by stevja1

One of the things Apple is selling with the Macbook Air is this "gaming" ability - which leads me to believe that they're not going to just stick everybody with an Intel 3000.

Apple has NEVER been about "gaming", unless you consider casual games as gaming (such as Angry Birds). I highly doubt the MacBook Air will have anything better than the MacBook Pro GPU (Intel 3000), which is not very adequate for games.

To answer your question TC, you will most likely be able to "run" Team Fortress on low settings, but whether its playable or not is another question entirely. The old MacBook Pro with the nVidia 9400GT struggles to run the game. If you're looking for casual play, it should suffice. But I wouldn't look for anything more than that.

[da3dl3us]

Originally Posted by CFoss

Apple has NEVER been about "gaming", unless you consider casual games as gaming (such as Angry Birds). I highly doubt the MacBook Air will have anything better than the MacBook Pro GPU (Intel 3000), which is not very adequate for games.

To answer your question TC, you will most likely be able to "run" Team Fortress on low settings, but whether its playable or not is another question entirely. The old MacBook Pro with the nVidia 9400GT struggles to run the game. If you're looking for casual play, it should suffice. But I wouldn't look for anything more than that.

Never been about gaming?

[Young Spade]

Originally Posted by striker33

Yeah, you have no OSX benchmarks to prove that.

You should really read more

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1178594

Here's a link to some real world results.
http://www.techyalert.com/2011/02/25...book-pro-2011/

Originally Posted by striker33

Sadly, none of those things you stated will come true.

Same here. You really should read around before you throw out statements of which you think are true. Just read a few pages... or the whole thing, heck it will only do you some good at this point.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1178594

Originally Posted by da3dl3us

Never been about gaming?

Not when you have to pay over 1.5 grand for a separate graphics card. You can pay a grand right now and get a laptop with a separate graphics card and so much more. With Macs, you have to buy at least a 15 inch upgraded to get discrete graphics.

They have never cared about gaming. Hence everyone running Bootcamp and Windows 7 to actually PLAY video games at a decent rate and setting.

[shurcooL]

Originally Posted by Young Spade

They have never cared about gaming. Hence everyone running Bootcamp and Windows 7 to actually PLAY video games at a decent rate and setting.

Not everyone. The vast majority, maybe. But there's a fair share of users of Steam on OS X, OnLive on OS X, etc. and it's growing.

Also, with HD 3000, some games run better in OS X than Windows...

[striker33]

Originally Posted by Young Spade

You should really read more

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1178594

Here's a link to some real world results.
http://www.techyalert.com/2011/02/25...book-pro-2011/




Same here. You really should read around before you throw out statements of which you think are true. Just read a few pages... or the whole thing, heck it will only do you some good at this point.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1178594



Not when you have to pay over 1.5 grand for a separate graphics card. You can pay a grand right now and get a laptop with a separate graphics card and so much more. With Macs, you have to buy at least a 15 inch upgraded to get discrete graphics.

They have never cared about gaming. Hence everyone running Bootcamp and Windows 7 to actually PLAY video games at a decent rate and setting.

None of them are relevant benchmarks.

Yes, they can be used to provide estimates, but nothing concrete.

Until someone has the new Airs in their hands ready to test, then its pretty much a guessing game.

[voigtstr]

Originally Posted by da3dl3us

Never been about gaming?

I for one am keen to see how EVE performs on the HD3000.
It doesn't have to be brilliant but it does need to be able to load, and allow me to fly from one area to another on low settings. If the hd3000 can do that, I'll buy it at launch.

[da3dl3us]

Originally Posted by voigtstr

I for one am keen to see how EVE performs on the HD3000.
It doesn't have to be brilliant but it does need to be able to load, and allow me to fly from one area to another on low settings. If the hd3000 can do that, I'll buy it at launch.

I think it would be funny in a sad way if it performs poorly compared to the c2d mba. As you can see, they used that and portal as benchmarks for their system, and for the next iteration to be lower would be sad.

[blipmusic]

Originally Posted by da3dl3us

Never been about gaming?

I'd guess that when Apple can (e.g. having the 320M on board) they more than gladly show the gaming capabilities, just to emphasize versatility. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if the upcoming MBA pages on Apple.com is all about the CPU with a just small note on the "energy efficient, HD capable" GPU.

Originally Posted by voigtstr

I for one am keen to see how EVE performs on the HD3000.
It doesn't have to be brilliant but it does need to be able to load, and allow me to fly from one area to another on low settings. If the hd3000 can do that, I'll buy it at launch.

Daddy needs new Taranises (pl. ?)!

[johndoejohndoes]

I'm not a gamer but have obviously read about the new 2011 graphics card not being as good as the current 2010 model.

1) How do people know whats going to be inside since there hasn't been any hard evidence other than Lion/Air releasing together?
2)I don't game, so these graphics probably won't effect me...but will this effect movies? I.E. how good they look?

[Young Spade]

Originally Posted by shurcooL

Not everyone. The vast majority, maybe. But there's a fair share of users of Steam on OS X, OnLive on OS X, etc. and it's growing.

Also, with HD 3000, some games run better in OS X than Windows...

There's obvious gaming through Steam, however not all games are on that. Most games only come out for Windows but for the few that are on both systems, people get better results (vastly better I might add) while playing in Bootcamp.

"Some games run better..." What games might those be?

Originally Posted by striker33

None of them are relevant benchmarks.

Yes, they can be used to provide estimates, but nothing concrete.

Until someone has the new Airs in their hands ready to test, then its pretty much a guessing game.

Obviously. The point is that the new Air will probably have a ULV HD3000 in it. Judging by that you can assume performance will be the same or less than what's given.

Go read the "HD3000 in the new Air" thread floating around here.

Originally Posted by blipmusic

I'd guess that when Apple can (e.g. having the 320M on board) they more than gladly show the gaming capabilities, just to emphasize versatility. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if the upcoming MBA pages on Apple.com is all about the CPU with a just small note on the "energy efficient, HD capable" GPU.

It will be all about the CPU; that and how integrated touch is to bring the MBA and iPad closer together. The launchpad thing and full screen apps + instant saves and resume all put emphasis on this. The next gen air's graphics card will be worse than the 320 (or the same, hopefully) and we'll get a SNB processor, hopefully 4 gigs baseline RAM (although that would be a stretch), and hopefully a backlit keyboard.

Originally Posted by johndoejohndoes

I'm not a gamer but have obviously read about the new 2011 graphics card not being as good as the current 2010 model.

1) How do people know whats going to be inside since there hasn't been any hard evidence other than Lion/Air releasing together?
2)I don't game, so these graphics probably won't effect me...but will this effect movies? I.E. how good they look?

I don't' think NVIDIA and Apple are close together anymore? This is one of those guesstimates that I read somewhere but I haven't read an article or anything. If you read the "3000 in the Air, really?" thread here somewhere people give reasons as to why they won't have the 320 in the next version.

2) No. My 07 black macbook with a X3100 (couldn't run Portal 1 on it / 128 megs of integrated memory) ran 1080p videos flawlessly. I constantly had multiple browsers open (~15 windows), iTunes, Excel, Word, and played 720p video without it ever going over 30 percent CPU or no lag at all. Most of the work was done by the RAM (4 gigs) but the graphics card handled everything but gaming quite well.

I did a little bit of photo editing (mostly touching up pictures of me and my GF) and although it would take maybe 2-3 seconds for the effect to take place, I did a lot of light editing on that machine. The only reason I got rid of it is because of the horrid graphics card (gamer) and I want something with a longer battery life (college student).

[voigtstr]

Originally Posted by blipmusic

I'd guess that when Apple can (e.g. having the 320M on board) they more than gladly show the gaming capabilities, just to emphasize versatility. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if the upcoming MBA pages on Apple.com is all about the CPU with a just small note on the "energy efficient, HD capable" GPU.



Daddy needs new Taranises (pl. ?)!

I can make Ishkurs!