2011 HD3000 gaming?

[Young Spade]

Hey just asking a question to all you guys with the baseline MBP. How's the gaming? The HD3000 is hated by some but for baseline gaming (Portal 2, Starcraft 2, etc.), how does it hold up? Thanks.

 

[superericla]

It's usable. Definitely not ideal but it will run at a decent framerate at lower quality settings.

 

[Young Spade]

It's usable. Definitely not ideal but it will run at a decent framerate at lower quality settings.

Ah thanks. So I'm thinking smooth on low settings (most stuff off) and laggy on mid settings?

 

[superericla]

Ah thanks. So I'm thinking smooth on low settings (most stuff off) and laggy on mid settings?

Depends on the game. I'll do a few tests in Portal 2 using the HD3000 and tell you how it goes and the frame rates I get.

 

[Young Spade]

Thanks a ton man; Portal 2 is actually the first game I'm planning to instal whenever I get a new laptop.

 

[superericla]

I get a constant 35+ fps running Portal 2 at 1280x800 with no anti-aliasing, anisotropic 2x filtering, shaders on medium, effects on high, and model/texture detail on medium. This of course means you would be able to run Portal 2 on medium to high settings with good frame rates.

 

[Young Spade]

I get a constant 35+ fps running Portal 2 at 1280x800 with no anti-aliasing, anisotropic 2x filtering, shaders on medium, effects on high, and model/texture detail on medium. This of course means you would be able to run Portal 2 on medium to high settings with good frame rates.

Thanks a ton. I would love to play games but of course, I don't require something that plays games on MAX settings. That right there is good enough for me. Now all I have to do is find a way to sell this MB I have now lol.

 

[superericla]

I just turned filtering down to bilinear and turned shader detail to very high and model/texture detail to high and get around 20fps average. The HD3000 doesn't seem to be a bad graphics card at all. One thing to note here is that I'm running this on a base 15" MacBook Pro with graphics set to the HD3000 with gfxcardstatus so it may be a tad different from what you would get.

 

[Young Spade]

Cool; well I thought about getting the MBP 13 and that's only a dual core i5 so I'm sure it would be slightly less powerful, however the graphics card plays a large part in this so I'm sure it would be the same.