Game Performance on a 12"PB G4

[jmarte]

I was looking to buy Call of Duty and Battlefield 1942, but I want to make sure that they are "playable" on my computer. I have a 12" powerbook 867mhz with 768 ram. Could I get some feedback about the playability? I am mostly concerned with the online gaming portions.
Thanks!!!

[nizz]

it ran pretty slow on my 1ghz 12inch powerbook, i didn't do any settings tweaking though.

[crazzyeddie]

Call of Duty should run fine on that Powerbook with medium settings. Medal of Honor has some weird performance issues (in the add-ons) but the original game will run fine.

[yoda13]

If you are willing to sacrifice some of the detail settings, maybe even turn them all the way down to low, then you will have a smooth experience. If you are picky about your level of detail, you might be dissappointed, but if not then play should be smooth and enjoyable.

[brap]

Call of Duty runs poorly with the "acceptable low" quality settings I use (32-bit colour, lowest res). I'm not even going to try 1942 on this thing. If you're able to - since there are no freking demos, pick up warez copies and see how they go - if they work, buy it. If not, meh.

[oingoboingo]

Originally Posted by jmarte

I was looking to buy Call of Duty and Battlefield 1942, but I want to make sure that they are "playable" on my computer. I have a 12" powerbook 867mhz with 768 ram. Could I get some feedback about the playability? I am mostly concerned with the online gaming portions.
Thanks!!!

I have run a set of Battlefield 1942 tests on my Rev C 1.33GHz 12" PowerBook, and the results are in this thread:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=79472

BF1942 is playable (FPS scores of around 20 at 800x600, low graphics detail), but really does not perform great...and that's on the latest 1.33GHz 12" PowerBook. I would estimate that your Rev A 12" PowerBook would have a hard time coping with BF1942 even on relatively low graphics settings.

[rareflares]

the thing with your tests oingoboingo is that you used OS update 10.3.4 for your benchmark tests (obviously you had no choice in mid-July) but if you didn't know already, the 10.3.4 nVidia drivers were absolutely abhorrent, practically killed gaming on the Powerbook 12" (not the 15/17" since that had ATI). 10.3.5 fixed these drivers and a lot of gamers are reporting tons of performance improvements on their laptops.

You are absolutely under no obligation to do so, but I would appreciate it if you could do some additional benchmark testing with the updated OS whenever you get the time. Thanks.

[vraxtus]

Originally Posted by rareflares

the thing with your tests oingoboingo is that you used OS update 10.3.4 for your benchmark tests (obviously you had no choice in mid-July) but if you didn't know already, the 10.3.4 nVidia drivers were absolutely abhorrent, practically killed gaming on the Powerbook 12" (not the 15/17" since that had ATI). 10.3.5 fixed these drivers and a lot of gamers are reporting tons of performance improvements on their laptops.

You are absolutely under no obligation to do so, but I would appreciate it if you could do some additional benchmark testing with the updated OS whenever you get the time. Thanks.

Funny... when I upgraded to 10.3.5. I got a 5% DROP in FPS rates... want to account for that?

[oingoboingo]

Originally Posted by rareflares

the thing with your tests oingoboingo is that you used OS update 10.3.4 for your benchmark tests (obviously you had no choice in mid-July) but if you didn't know already, the 10.3.4 nVidia drivers were absolutely abhorrent, practically killed gaming on the Powerbook 12" (not the 15/17" since that had ATI). 10.3.5 fixed these drivers and a lot of gamers are reporting tons of performance improvements on their laptops.

You are absolutely under no obligation to do so, but I would appreciate it if you could do some additional benchmark testing with the updated OS whenever you get the time. Thanks.

I'll try and get around to re-testing this weekend some time. I did notice that UT2004 was running a bit better than I remembered when I re-tested it on the 12" PB a few days ago, so maybe those nVidia drivers have had some magic wand waved over them after all...

[rareflares]

Originally Posted by vraxtus

Funny... when I upgraded to 10.3.5. I got a 5% DROP in FPS rates... want to account for that?

i dunno, for most people that i talked to, they were getting the same performance they were getting during 10.3.3 (ie leagues better than 10.3.4)


Try asking around to see what the problem is.

[vraxtus]

Originally Posted by rareflares

i dunno, for most people that i talked to, they were getting the same performance they were getting during 10.3.3 (ie leagues better than 10.3.4)


Try asking around to see what the problem is.

I dunno... I saw a decline in both my PB with the FX5200, AND in my G5 with a 9800 SE... most other people that I had read about saw declines in theirs as well... so where did you hear that it was back to 10.3.3 levels?

There were even XBench stats that showed that OpenGL rendering was lower than at 10.3.4...

[rareflares]

Originally Posted by vraxtus

... so where did you hear that it was back to 10.3.3 levels?

here:
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=223594

and here:
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=223582



and i'm positive there were a couple others....

[vraxtus]

Originally Posted by rareflares

here:
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=223594

and here:
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=223582



and i'm positive there were a couple others....

From Sideus (on MacNN)

After updating my dual 867, ran some UT2k4 benchmarks. Exactly the same FPS as 10.3.4. What is funny, is I get the same exact FPS on lowest to highest graphical settings. The demo I run always comes out to 14 FPS. Odd. Something must be b0rked in UT itself.

I found the same results on my tests as well... FPS rates were essentially the same. In Halo, benches were lower... most of the people that reported "better" play often have no proof to back it up... I've often found that with major updates, there's a placebo effect for those that *hope* something will be better.

There was one response saying that his computer was CPU bound... but for mine it shouldn't be. If I'm seeing proof that there's lower marks, on BOTH computers... then I reckon something is in fact wrong.

From iomatic (MacNN)

I'm seeing that, plus snappiness, more importantly, in Battlefield 1942. Finally.

Where's the proof in "snappiness"? I think many posters just use that as a buzz word to claim improvements but in reality have no facts to back it up.

From Ryan1524 (MacNN)

hm. as for snappiness, i'm not sure, i just ran xBench and it showed same results. at the moment i do feel everything is snappy, but that might just be because i haven't turned the CPU back to Automatic after benching.

Again, we do see more "proof" at least, that someone RAN XBench and got the same scores... so I don't think 10.3.5 has the effect you might *want* it to.

[rareflares]

Originally Posted by vraxtus

Again, we do see more "proof" at least, that someone RAN XBench and got the same scores... so I don't think 10.3.5 has the effect you might *want* it to.

true, there were no hard numbers given by those people, but i was simply going by them saying games are finally playable after the update to 10.3.5 (which i guess indicates better performance over 10.3.4).


Oh well, oingoboingo said he would try to do some benchmarks when he had the time so we'll just wait to see what he has to say.

[vraxtus]

Originally Posted by rareflares

true, there were no hard numbers given by those people, but i was simply going by them saying games are finally playable after the update to 10.3.5 (which i guess indicates better performance over 10.3.4).


Oh well, oingoboingo said he would try to do some benchmarks when he had the time so we'll just wait to see what he has to say.

Err... again.. I *did* benches on both of my computers, and found that for Halo there was about a 3 FPS drop from 21-18 on my laptop, and a drop from 24 to 22 on my G5. I don't have the UT2K4 benches ATM but it *feels* no different than in 10.3.4.