No meaningful comparison can be made with comparing a 8400M with a Intel HD3000 and speculating about the 320M performance.. For one thing, the 320M has triple the amount of CUDA cores compared to the 8400M (48 vs 16). That alone could make it up to 3x faster.
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13" MBP Intel HD 3000 GPU
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No meaningful comparison can be made with comparing a 8400M with a Intel HD3000 and speculating about the 320M performance.. For one thing, the 320M has triple the amount of CUDA cores compared to the 8400M (48 vs 16). That alone could make it up to 3x faster.
Comparing relative levels of playability of real world games rather than benchmarks is definitely a meaningful test of the usefulness of the HD3000, we know more or less where the 320M is, somewhere between A and B, the exact location is not going to be known without benchmarks, which are frankly in themselves worthless, and in any case the 320M doesn't really matter, the point of the post is purely to demonstrate the playability of the HD3000.
Hmm. No stutter at all, when using Expose or Dashboard?
I have 13" i5, with 4GB RAM, connected to U2410 in clamshell mode. And it stutters quite annoyingly when OS's performing some graphical effects (most notably Expose, Dashboard).
I haven't gamed on it or anything but expose and dashboard are fine, I'm going mini-DVI -> DVI-D to a Dell 2407WFP-HC. Browser scrolling is smooth as well.
The only reason I can think of is because of your i7 processor. HD 3000's performance indeed varies, depending on the frequency of the processor.
I find it interesting, that with Steam running (just application, no games) those animations become smooth.
I'm wondering, if there's any way I can turn of those power saving options for the CPU, while MBP is powered by power adapter?
Oh, and also, are you using it in clamshell mode when connected to external monitor?
No, I'm using it in dual screen mode, even with CS:S running, when I hit the dashboard key, the 3D effects on the second screen are smooth, and I also frequently run VLC streaming an episode of top gear (720p) on the second screen while gaming to watch between rounds, all good. What connection method are you using just out of interest?
I often use my 27" LED Cinema Display in clamshell mode with my Nvidia 320m powered MBP (8GB memory), never seen the slightest stutter in OS X or even running Aero Glass on Windows 7 via Parallels Workstation (windowed mode @ 1280x1024).
For the heck of it, I've also done some gaming at the ACD's native resolution of 2650x1440 and was pleasantly surprised as some speeds I was getting with the few games I had nearby on my desk. Doom 3 ran amazingly smooth rarely stuttering from 60 fps with all of the effects pushed to the max, Prey (uses the Doom 3 engine but far more detail) I would say held around 25 with hits far lower when the action kicks in.
The best and smoothest experience was Halo:CE, then again Halo is pretty old too. Another (IMO the best) smooth gaming experience at 2650x1440 was Fable: The Lost Chapters. At the highest resolution the game ran wonderful even with 1x AA enabled. The fan was running like mad but I did get some screens.
I would upload and link them, but I'm posting from my iPad. I may try these games again as I played them all before the latest update for OS X, maybe there might be a bit of improvement to the Nvidia drivers
I wish I could get my hands on a comparable 2011 MBP for an honest comparison. On paper the hd3000 sounds great, but I wonder how it would hold up if it wasn't embedded in the CPU... Hmm
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I'm pulling it down right now, will give you a rundown once its done with average frame rates and general playability.
I agree. I haven't had any problems with my 13" MacBook Pro. Sometimes it makes a litte noise, that's all. I have not noticed any lags whie gaming or anything like that. It runs very well. Trust 
to ship me a quality product .
to ship me a quality product .Nothing special really, Apple MiniDP -> DVI adapter + DVI cable.
I'm thinking that maybe 8GB of RAM would help that GPU run things a bit more decent, because HD3000, or any integrated GPU in Apple laptops for that matter, reserves memory proportional to the size of RAM.
It shouldn't make any difference, I can use the Compiz Expose equivalent on my sister's Ubuntu Linux netbook with 1GB ram and an Atom 1.6Ghz chip with the same 1920x1200 monitor. The power needed to do it is so small its not worth considering.
@dsio: Could you post a short video, recorded with a camera (not capturing display picture) when you use Mission control, Launchpad (or SL equivalent, if you haven't upgraded yet) etc.? I would greatly appreciate that
And on external monitor, of course.
And on external monitor, of course.
@dsio: Could you post a short video, recorded with a camera (not capturing display picture) when you use Mission control, Launchpad (or SL equivalent, if you haven't upgraded yet) etc.? I would greatly appreciate that
And on external monitor, of course.
Will have to wait until I get back to the office next week but I could do a video of Star Craft II on medium settings in the mean time. Since lion the performance in games has gone up, most noticeably in SC2.
I currently have the 9400m MBP 13" mid-2009 model, and it runs quite fine actually, on everything Low, but Shaders/Shadows/Textures set to Medium.
Both SC2 and WoW: Cata lean far more on the CPU than the GPU and are surprisingly efficient, in the settings I have textures on high, anything physics or CPU heavy maxed, everything else on medium, and its a solid 56-60fps.
Blizzard really tune their games well including their OpenGL rendering path. The console designed games, and some that are designed by lesser developers chug, but will do so on anything.
I just wanted to throw my input out there.
Remember this Laptop's targets audience is for, for professional use.
(varies from people to people about 'professional use' but lets just use photographer, video editor, CS5.5 users and pro apple software(logic, aperture Final cut and so on) for this example)
in that field this video card is more then enough, and saying its a great UPGRADE from what some are use to. A little slow for video editors(the rendering part but its a laptop)
Now from a gamers point of view, I agree this card sucks and i'm the few that wish they stuck a better video card on it. But however I do have a own custom computer that does just that. 875k(quad core 8 threads) at 4.2ghz with 470s.
However putting that into consideration. HD3000 is a great card since it is integrated, besides what other option do you have when you have a 13" laptop with high performance CPU in it?
TF2: Everything on Low/off, 30fps a dip here and there nothing too bad, playable. 16v16.
Remember this Laptop's targets audience is for, for professional use.
(varies from people to people about 'professional use' but lets just use photographer, video editor, CS5.5 users and pro apple software(logic, aperture Final cut and so on) for this example)
in that field this video card is more then enough, and saying its a great UPGRADE from what some are use to. A little slow for video editors(the rendering part but its a laptop)
Now from a gamers point of view, I agree this card sucks and i'm the few that wish they stuck a better video card on it. But however I do have a own custom computer that does just that. 875k(quad core 8 threads) at 4.2ghz with 470s.
However putting that into consideration. HD3000 is a great card since it is integrated, besides what other option do you have when you have a 13" laptop with high performance CPU in it?
TF2: Everything on Low/off, 30fps a dip here and there nothing too bad, playable. 16v16.
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If you read carefully, nobody said it was the same chip, I said it was the same generation, and it is. It was the last rebadge of the Geforce 8 mobile series chips, and while having more shader units than the 8400M, it also has dramatically less memory bandwidth and overclocking headroom like the 9400M.
I'm sorry, but the 320m is not a "good jump" above the HD3000, no matter how much you would like to think that it was.