13" MBP HD Video & Gaming?

[The Final Cut]

so Im trying to figure out if you can watch 1080p MKV movies on the the base 2.4ghz model via vlc flawlessly. As well as play the following games on at least medium settings(using windows xp only on bootcamp, can you overclock the 320m?)

mass effect 1,2
fallout 3, vegas
l4d, l4d2
mafia 2
starcraft 2


and can someone test reassure me that HD movies don't look bad on the low res 13" screen, and that resolution is not to large for the screen size.

 

[spinnerlys]

1080p HD movies are no problem.
The MB's resolution is 1280 x 800, so a little bit more than 720p, thus 1080p movies get downscaled to 50% of its original size anyway.
And the resolution of 1280 x 800 is NOT small for the 13" display, in my eyes it's even too large (1440 x 900 would be fine).
Also try Movist instead of VLC Player, it handles .mkv files much better.

I don't know about the games though, but as this is one of the regular questions, maybe MRoogle might bring something up.

 

[gianly1985]

Use Plex for 1080p MKV, it's way faster than VLC. (unless you pimp some option in VLC)

Also, the lastest version of Plex should support hardware h.264 acceleration with these GPUs: 9400M, 320M, GT 330M. (thanks to the API that apple has just released)

But even on the CPU only, you should be able to play 1080p mkv OK.

A lot of people use a 2.0ghz Core2Duo MacMini for that.

 

[cys920622]

mass effect 1,2
fallout 3, vegas
l4d, l4d2
mafia 2
starcraft 2


and can someone test reassure me that HD movies don't look bad on the low res 13" screen, and that resolution is not to large for the screen size.

Haven't tried Mass Effect
Fallout 3 vegas isn't out yet but the original + dlc works on high.
Haven't played L4D
Mafia 2 isn't out yet either. Release: August
SC2 beta works on high.
All this is on Windows 7 boot camp.
Crysis also works on medium-low settings. Oblivion on high. Dragon Age on high.

 

[oplix]

If you want to game, get Windows 7 using Boot Camp. Seriously, it's much more open in terms of performance and drivers and there are just a lot more games you can play.

I just MSI Afterburner tool which does a safe overclock on the graphics card and works great without any headaches.

I'm playing Mass Effect 2 right now running native res 1280x800 with medium/high settings and it's really smooth. It's almost amazing that this laptop can make a game look so good.

 

[plaztikrhino]

I picked up my first MBP today and am excited to read what it is capable of doing. Thanks for anyone that gave input for a newb like myself to read.

 

[cys920622]

If you want to game, get Windows 7 using Boot Camp. Seriously, it's much more open in terms of performance and drivers and there are just a lot more games you can play.

I just MSI Afterburner tool which does a safe overclock on the graphics card and works great without any headaches.

I'm playing Mass Effect 2 right now running native res 1280x800 with medium/high settings and it's really smooth. It's almost amazing that this laptop can make a game look so good.

Interesting... So you can use MSI Afterburner for any NVidia graphics, not specifically MSI only?

 

[Arondel]

so Im trying to figure out if you can watch 1080p MKV movies on the the base 2.4ghz model via vlc flawlessly. As well as play the following games on at least medium settings(using windows xp only on bootcamp, can you overclock the 320m?)

mass effect 1,2
fallout 3, vegas
l4d, l4d2
mafia 2
starcraft 2


and can someone test reassure me that HD movies don't look bad on the low res 13" screen, and that resolution is not to large for the screen size.

I'll leave a link to a pretty good video of the MBP 13" playing Mass Effect 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5XHK79yZfA

Hope it helps!

(...)Dragon Age on high.

What are the exact settings for Dragon Age and at what resolution? You're playing through Bootcamp, right?
I've been on the fence here and have to make a decision. I'm hoping it runs at native on with with frame buffer effects on and no AA (but I'm fond of dreaming, so... xD).

Thanks in advance!

 

[oplix]

Interesting... So you can use MSI Afterburner for any NVidia graphics, not specifically MSI only?

Yes it works with Macbooks. It is one of the two applications right now that let you overclock. The other being nvidia tools. The thing with MSI Afterburner though is that it is extremely easy to use and it automatically adjusts the clock frequency anytime you are gaming. With Nvidia tools I believe you have to manually set up profiles for games.

MSI Afterburner also persists throughout reboots so it's really a no-hassle performance booster.