OS Neutral 2013 MBA gaming performance

[jlmcclellan]

Hey everyone, my brother is considering picking up a 13" MBA but is concerned about gaming performance (rightly so I wager). Was curious for those of you who have a 2013 13" MBA how is it with games like Skyrim, Borderlands 2, WoW, etc?

If anyone runs bootcamp for games on this machine I'd love to hear some thoughts as well. Thanks so much!

 

[Confusius]

Hey everyone, my brother is considering picking up a 13" MBA but is concerned about gaming performance (rightly so I wager). Was curious for those of you who have a 2013 13" MBA how is it with games like Skyrim, Borderlands 2, WoW, etc?

If anyone runs bootcamp for games on this machine I'd love to hear some thoughts as well. Thanks so much!

There's a thread for this: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1594690/

Also, BL2 runs fine under OS X on my 13" 2013 Air (i7/8/256).

 

[jlmcclellan]

My apologies, I tried searching thinking there would be one but I didn't find anything, so I must have used the wrong term or something. I appreciate the link.

 

[Confusius]

My apologies, I tried searching thinking there would be one but I didn't find anything, so I must have used the wrong term or something. I appreciate the link.

No worries, you're most welcome.

 

[Huntn]

Thread revival...

On vacation, I've left my 2011 MBP (signature) at home, but I do have my wife's 2013 MBA (1.3GHz i5, 8 GB Memory, Intel HD Graphics 5000 1536 MB) and have had a couple of opportunities to play some games via a portable TB drive I've brought along with Steam installed. The following report is for MacOS based games.

Biggest surprise- Subnautica is playable on this hardware, and not too bad, although I've not tried anything intense with it in the game.

Half Life runs well, but the damn sight for my weapons is so dim, it's very hard to hit anything with a pistol so I'm frustrated with that. I've played with both the in-game brightness and gamma adjustments but they don't make much if any difference.

Portal runs like a champ.

Soon I'll try out Half Life 2 see how that goes. I was disappointed when reminded that Vampire: The Mascarade is PC only.

 

[txa1265]

I play a bunch of stuff on my 2014 11" MBA (in OS X, not Bootcamp) ... Divinity: Original Sin, Wasteland 2, Pillars of Eternity ... Doom 3, Half Life 2, playing Jedi Knight II again right now and finished Knights of the Old Republic II last month. The MBA does much better than I ever expected.

 

[fabiodrums]

I've a MacBook Air 2013 with i5, 4 gb memory, HD 5000 graphics, and 120 Gb hard disk. I played to:

Half Life Black Mesa (cider port)
Half Life 2 (Ep1-Ep2)
Bioshock (1,2 and Infinite)
Borderlands 2 and Pre-Sequel
Grid 2
Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
Metro 2033 and Last Light Redux
Rage
Outlast
Portal and Portal 2
Left4Dead 2
Team Fortress 2
GTA San Andreas
SOMA
Dead Island (very low framerate)
Alien : Isolation (I'm playing in these days)
Dirt 2
Doom 3

And I don't remember the others...

 

[Huntn]

Thread revival...

On vacation, I've left my 2011 MBP (signature) at home, but I do have my wife's 2013 MBA (1.3GHz i5, 8 GB Memory, Intel HD Graphics 5000 1536 MB) and have had a couple of opportunities to play some games via a portable TB drive I've brought along with Steam installed. The following report is for MacOS based games.

Biggest surprise- Subnautica is playable on this hardware, and not too bad, although I've not tried anything intense with it in the game.

Half Life runs well, but the damn sight for my weapons is so dim, it's very hard to hit anything with a pistol so I'm frustrated with that. I've played with both the in-game brightness and gamma adjustments but they don't make much if any difference.

Portal runs like a champ.

Soon I'll try out Half Life 2 see how that goes. I was disappointed when reminded that Vampire: The Mascarade is PC only.

Half Life 2- Runs well on the MBA.

 

[Noble Actual]

Half Life 2- Runs well on the MBA.

Should run well on pretty much anything...

I mean...its HL2...so old the its name actually suits it.

Which means...HL3 confirmed.