Macbook Air and Crysis 2

[St. G]

Congratulations, all of you who go on and on about the MBA being "not a gaming machine." I have, at long last, found a game that simply WILL NOT run on the Air.

The Crysis 2 demo will, upon being asked to launch, declare that the 320M is not a supported video card and that continuing risks instability and crashes. If you click through that warning, the game crashes to desktop and says that it failed to initialize.

So...that's, at last count, is 36 games that I've successfully run and 1 that wouldn't. Not a gaming machine, indeed.

 

[toondw]

Congratulations, all of you who go on and on about the MBA being "not a gaming machine." I have, at long last, found a game that simply WILL NOT run on the Air.

The Crysis 2 demo will, upon being asked to launch, declare that the 320M is not a supported video card and that continuing risks instability and crashes. If you click through that warning, the game crashes to desktop and says that it failed to initialize.

So...that's, at last count, is 36 games that I've successfully run and 1 that wouldn't. Not a gaming machine, indeed.

I doubt many desktops will run that! 35 out of 36, i'm glad as just ordered a specked out 13" air!

 

[impulse462]

Thats weird, Crysis had stricter system requirements and runs on the MBA fine.

 

[pnyx]

Thats weird, Crysis had stricter system requirements and runs on the MBA fine.

Crytek probably saw that vid and figured "we can make even worse"

 

[throttlemeister]

Thats weird, Crysis had stricter system requirements and runs on the MBA fine.

What's the slideshow interval?

 

[robotvan1980]

Congratulations, all of you who go on and on about the MBA being "not a gaming machine." I have, at long last, found a game that simply WILL NOT run on the Air.

The Crysis 2 demo will, upon being asked to launch, declare that the 320M is not a supported video card and that continuing risks instability and crashes. If you click through that warning, the game crashes to desktop and says that it failed to initialize.

So...that's, at last count, is 36 games that I've successfully run and 1 that wouldn't. Not a gaming machine, indeed.

Um.....the MBA is a fu**ing ultra-portable, not a gaming machine. Get a Mac Pro if you want to play real games at real acceptable FPS. Otherwise you are just spouting hot air. I don't buy anyone's b/s about being able to run Crysis 2 on a MBA. Pure crap.

Oh I forgot to mention the demo runs GREAT (120 FPS) on my Pentium M 1.6GHz Dell 410 Laptop.

 

[rekhyt]

Of course it won't run. It's CRYSIS!

 

[Rolfmaomachizli]

Of course it won't run. It's CRYSIS!

Hello.

Why are we even talking about an 11" slab of aluminium running the most demanding game out there, it simply, was not design for that type of stress.

There is absolutely no point in your post, except making us 11" owners look bad, .

On a more serious note though, 35 is a pretty good number, but what FPS on average, and were you running windows?

 

[toondw]

Congratulations, all of you who go on and on about the MBA being "not a gaming machine." I have, at long last, found a game that simply WILL NOT run on the Air.

The Crysis 2 demo will, upon being asked to launch, declare that the 320M is not a supported video card and that continuing risks instability and crashes. If you click through that warning, the game crashes to desktop and says that it failed to initialize.

So...that's, at last count, is 36 games that I've successfully run and 1 that wouldn't. Not a gaming machine, indeed.

Who would have thought your comment would provoke so much emotion in people?

 

[DeusEx]

How much more graphic-intensive is Crysis 2 than Crysis? Crysis Warhead runs fine on medium on my Air 13" Ultimate...

 

[St. G]

Wow, where to start....

1) What is a gaming machine but a machine that plays games? The MBA will plays lots of them.

2) Mac Pro? REALLY? That's your go-to example for a proper gaming rig? Hilarious.

3) It's not like this is my only rig, dude. I've also got an older desktop (Q6600/8800GTS512/8GB 1066Mhz) and an HTPC (i3 530/Radeon 5850 1GB/4GB 1333Mhz) that I game on. Weirdly, neither of those will fit in my man purse, though.

4) I don't spout hot air. I test, film and post those tests. Of the 36 games I've successfully run, I've posted videos for 12 so far.

5) I never said I could run Crysis 2. In fact, I said just the opposite. Reading comprehension is fun!

Um.....the MBA is a fu**ing ultra-portable, not a gaming machine. Get a Mac Pro if you want to play real games at real acceptable FPS. Otherwise you are just spouting hot air. I don't buy anyone's b/s about being able to run Crysis 2 on a MBA. Pure crap.

 

[St. G]

With the increased focus on the console versions of the game, I'm not so sure that Crysis 2 really IS the most demanding game out there, honestly.

It's not that the MBA won't run it well, it's that the game simply REFUSES to use the MBA's video card. That might be because the 320M isn't strong enough to do it, but it also might be because Crytek simply didn't include it on a list of supported cards (owing, most likely to its semi-custom status as an Apple exclusive).

I'm gonna go poking under the hood and see if I can find where those permissions are set and if I can change them. I had to do something quite similar to make Adobe CS5 use my GTX480 for hardware rendering at work.

As for average framerates, feel free to see for yourself. I'm disallowed from posting links to my videos by the mods here, but if you search relevant terms like "Macbook Air Gaming" you should be able to find both mine and lots of videos from others. Mine are the ones with FRAPS in the corner, so you can see exactly what the fps is. Well, except for that time I framed the shot wrong...

Hello.

Why are we even talking about an 11" slab of aluminium running the most demanding game out there, it simply, was not design for that type of stress.

On a more serious note though, 35 is a pretty good number, but what FPS on average, and were you running windows?

 

[impulse462]

What's the slideshow interval?

None really, the MBA averages ~55fps in warhead on low. It might just be an issue of just supporting the GPU.

Obviously it's not a powerhouse, but considering the recommended requirements for Crysis 2 are for an 8800GT and the original Crysis requirements called for an 8800GTX, it's pretty surprising to me at least.

 

[rekhyt]

Wow, where to start....

1) What is a gaming machine but a machine that plays games? The MBA will plays lots of them.

Usually the term 'gaming machine' is reserved for a computer (Laptop or desktop) that can play games (Games released in the past year +) on... medium-high to high settings.

With the increased focus on the console versions of the game, I'm not so sure that Crysis 2 really IS the most demanding game out there, honestly.

Demanding or not, isn't this thread about MacBook Air and running games? (Specifically Crysis 2?)

None really, the MBA averages ~55fps in warhead on low. It might just be an issue of just supporting the GPU.

Obviously it's not a powerhouse, but considering the recommended requirements for Crysis 2 are for an 8800GT and the original Crysis requirements called for an 8800GTX, it's pretty surprising to me at least.

I believe the criteria mentioned is for Crysis 2 on lowest settings; aren't games meant to be played at medium to high?

 

[St. G]

Looks like the problem may be with the Steam version. I've found reports of people getting that error with the Steam download of the demo, but running the non-Steam version just fine. I will retest tonight. If it runs at all, expect to see a video soonish.

 

[impulse462]

I believe the criteria mentioned is for Crysis 2 on lowest settings; aren't games meant to be played at medium to high?

Well the recommended settings call for a 8800 GT. And besides, I wouldn't really expect the Air to run it all high. The fact that it DOES run pretty well on low gives leeway for some other older games (call of duty 4 being an example).

Either way, yes I do agree that games should be run on medium-high settings.

 

[DKfraDK]

I played the Crysis 2 demo from Steam just 2 days ago.

ON MY MACBOOK AIR 13" 4gb
Although i had to set the graphics to "Gamer" - which appear to be the lowest settings - and lower the resolution, it was very playable

So i don't understand why you can't even get into the game?
I also got a warning about the 320m, but it still worked

 

[St. G]

In my experience, the idea of the difference between settings levels is often greater than the actual difference. One of the things I try to look at in my tests is how various changes in the settings affect the framerate. For some games, I can crank everything up high; for others I have to turn them down low. For most, I can turn some things up high and leave other things off/low.

 

[St. G]

Now, that IS odd. I can't explain it. I can only report what I got. Thanks for the info, though. Gives me another point of data to consider as I try to get it working.

I played the Crysis 2 demo from Steam just 2 days ago.

ON MY MACBOOK AIR 13" 4gb
Although i had to set the graphics to "Gamer" - which appear to be the lowest settings - and lower the resolution, it was very playable

So i don't understand why you can't even get into the game?
I also got a warning about the 320m, but it still worked

 

[pandamonia]

Congratulations, all of you who go on and on about the MBA being "not a gaming machine." I have, at long last, found a game that simply WILL NOT run on the Air.

The Crysis 2 demo will, upon being asked to launch, declare that the 320M is not a supported video card and that continuing risks instability and crashes. If you click through that warning, the game crashes to desktop and says that it failed to initialize.

So...that's, at last count, is 36 games that I've successfully run and 1 that wouldn't. Not a gaming machine, indeed.

a gameboy runs games mate - Just not very good ones and not very well.

The point being the MBA just doesnt have a very good gaming experience on higher end games. Im sure things will run.

Try playing Assassins Creed 2 on your MBA and watch it die. it wont even run that well on my MBP i7

 

[St. G]

Are you saying the Gameboy isn't a gaming machine?

a gameboy runs games mate - Just not very good ones and not very well.

 

[gman901]

I just noticed this post and thought I would share I had similar issues with the demo not recognizing the gpu in my 11" Air; however I have been able to play on gamer settings a number of times and play at full resolution. The game is a bit choppy at full resolution on the 11" but it is playable in my opinion. It would be nice if they gave out a single player demo and some additional options to change the settings a bit more so we can optimize the playability. I continue to be impressed with the MacBook Air!

 

[Patrick946]

a gameboy runs games mate - Just not very good ones and not very well.

Hey, Link's Awakening is awesome!

 

[Gemütlichkeit]

I can run NES emulators on it, doesn't make it a "gaming machine" in the same sense that gaming laptops are.

 

[St. G]

The Radeon 5850 in my HTPC can't run games as fast as someone with SLI'd GTX580s, either. It's still, by virtue of all the games I play on it, a gaming machine.

So the existence of (much larger, much heavier) laptops that can outperform the Air doesn't diminish, in my mind, what the Air can do.

We're really hung up on the lexigraphic taxonomy of this thing, huh? Is it a netbook? Is it a gaming machine?

You know what? It's both.

I can run NES emulators on it, doesn't make it a "gaming machine" in the same sense that gaming laptops are.