Macbook Pro 13" 320M Gaming Performance

[iTootyFrooty]

Please post any performance statistics of your own if you have any
I've been searching the forums and youtube for a while trying to find some information as to how well the 320M performs with games.

I found this thread, but it focuses on the 15" and 17" MBP's. There may be some 13" stats buried deep in there, but I can't be bothered to go through the many pages that are in that thread.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/896454/

So I decided to make a dedicated thread just for the 13" MBP

Could anyone who has played games on their new 13" MBP's please post frame rates, quality played, Videos and Screenshots of what games they played
..
Oh and I know that shouldn't buy the MBP with the intention of using it for gaming, but I am just curious as to how it performs because I may get one if it can handle some slightly aged/relatively new games at half-decent settings with decent frame rates.

YouTube Channels dedicated to gaming on the MBP 13" 320m:

http://www.youtube.com/user/MacbookProGaming

http://www.youtube.com/user/KadMac25

Performance Results Gathered So Far:

Batman Arkham Ayslum - 2.4Ghz 13" - 42 FPS - High Settings

BioShock Demo For Mac - 2.4Ghz 13" - Just Playable - Lowest Settings
/\ I would not take this result seriously as Bioshock for Mac is a terrible port

Dragon Age - 2.66Ghz 13" - Smooth, Rocky in big fights - 1024*768, High textures, Medium Graphic setting w/ Ext. Monitor

Crysis - 2.4Ghz 13" - 20-25 FPS - Low/Medium Settings, Native Res

Just Cause 2 - 2.4Ghz 13" - 20 FPS - Medium Settings, Native Res

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion - 2.4Ghz 13" - 30 FPS -60 FPS - Native Res, Highest Settings

Anno 1404 - 2.4Ghz 13"- 30 FPS - Native, Terrain=Medium, Texture, Effects, GPU glothing, Post effects, Object Detail=High 2x AF, 0X AA, Everthing Else Low

Company of Heroes - 2.4 Ghz 13" - 25-40 - Shaders, Textures, Terrain on high. AA= OFF, everything else maxed out. Native Res

Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - 2.4Ghz 13" - 30-40 FPS - Medium Settings, Native Res

Starcraft 2 Beta on Mac, Left 4 Dead 2, Far Cry 2 , Borderlands, Portal on Mac - 2.4Ghz 13" - 25 FPS - Medium/High, Native Res

World of Warcraft - 2.4Ghz 13" - No FPS given but "Very Smooth" - Ultra Settings at 1200 x 800

Bioshock - 2.4Ghz 13" - Very Smooth - High at Native

Witcher - 2.4Ghz 13" - Smooth - Maxed out with No AA at Native

Fallout 3 - 2.4Ghz 13" - Smooth - High, Native

Test Drive Unlimited - 2.4Ghz 13" - Smooth - High, Native

Burnout Paradise - 2.4Ghz 13" - Smooth - High, Native

Gears of War -2.4 Ghz 13" - 20-30 FPS - High, Native

Lost Planet - 2.4Ghz 13" - 30 FPS - High, Native

Bionic Commando Rearmed - 2.4 Ghz 13" - 60 FPS - High, Native

Modern Warfare 2 - 2.4 Ghz 13" - 30 FPS - High, No AA, Native

Devil May Cry 4 - 2.4 Ghz 13" - Up to 60 FPS - Medium, Native

Sims 3 - 2.4 Ghz 13" - Smooth - Mostly High, Native

Lost Planet 2 - 2.4 Ghz 13" -10-20 Fps - Medium/High, Native

Need For Speed Shift - 2.4 Ghz 13" - Smooth - Medium/High, Native

Note: These results were not collected by myself, they have been submitted by other users, and therefore I am sorry if the results collected were not complete (Example No Frame Rate) as I just put what testers have told me. Also, assume that the ones where the operating system is not specified were run on W7.

Please post any performance statistics of your own if you have any

 

[KadMac]

It runs great! I was playing Batman Arkham Asylum on it the other day and it was very smooth. Got about an average of 42 FPS with all settings on high. I was quite impressed. I have a video posted on youtube of the performance. Feel free to check it out. My channel is KadMac25.

 

[iTootyFrooty]

It runs great! I was playing Batman Arkham Asylum on it the other day and it was very smooth. Got about an average of 42 FPS with all settings on high. I was quite impressed. I have a video posted on youtube of the performance. Feel free to check it out. My channel is KadMac25.

Great News ! Thanks for the info

 

[saschke]

Have a look at my thread:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/904300/

 

[iTootyFrooty]

Have a look at my thread:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/904300/

I did see this, but if I ever got a MBP, I wouldn't overclock it.

 

[saschke]

I did see this, but if I ever got a MBP, I wouldn't overclock it.

why not? these temps are completly fine. have you never oc'ed?

 

[iTootyFrooty]

why not? these temps are completly fine. have you never oc'ed?

Not really. I was under the impression that it shortened the life of your computer, isn't that true?

 

[Cheeseshred]

I got my MBP today. Haven't installed Windows on it (not sure I will) nor any of the software I'll be using daily. How ever, I too was curious as to what kind of performance the 320m could offer. So I ran the Bioshock demo for Mac. The result was not good. At medium settings, bellow the native resolution(1024x768), the game was slow. Bumping the settings down didn't change that a lot. Only on the lowest settings, with the resolution set to 640x480 did I find that the performance was remotely agreeable. But even then there were stutters.

Now, I know there were some complaints about the PC version being a moderatly bad Xbox port when it came out -- and I don't know anything about how the game got to the Mac platform. That being said the 320m did not earn a passing grade in my book.

 

[iTootyFrooty]

I got my MBP today. Haven't installed Windows on it (not sure I will) nor any of the software I'll be using daily. How ever, I too was curious as to what kind of performance the 320m could offer. So I ran the Bioshock demo for Mac. The result was not good. At medium settings, bellow the native resolution(1024x768), the game was slow. Bumping the settings down didn't change that a lot. Only on the lowest settings, with the resolution set to 640x480 did I find that the performance was remotely agreeable. But even then there were stutters.

Now, I know there were some complaints about the PC version being a moderatly bad Xbox port when it came out -- and I don't know anything about how the game got to the Mac platform. That being said the 320m did not earn a passing grade in my book.

Kk thanks for the input

 

[saschke]

I got my MBP today. Haven't installed Windows on it (not sure I will) nor any of the software I'll be using daily. How ever, I too was curious as to what kind of performance the 320m could offer. So I ran the Bioshock demo for Mac. The result was not good. At medium settings, bellow the native resolution(1024x768), the game was slow. Bumping the settings down didn't change that a lot. Only on the lowest settings, with the resolution set to 640x480 did I find that the performance was remotely agreeable. But even then there were stutters.

Now, I know there were some complaints about the PC version being a moderatly bad Xbox port when it came out -- and I don't know anything about how the game got to the Mac platform. That being said the 320m did not earn a passing grade in my book.

Well that's another way to disseminate preconceived opinions. Bioshock for Mac was a CIDER port, which means it was a port of a port, really. (XBOX360->PC->CIDER/MAC). You can't seriously expect a game that was half-heartedly ported from XBOX360 to PC and then in another iteration to Mac to run in a decent way on a mobile computer.

Please install Windows and have a look at some games. Install the newest nvidia driver, too - you will find, that the GPU is not so bad. I've managed to score 5340 3dmark06 points with my 13" MBP.

 

[Cheeseshred]

Well that's another way to disseminate preconceived opinions. Bioshock for Mac was a CIDER port, which means it was a port of a port, really. (XBOX360->PC->CIDER/MAC). You can't seriously expect a game that was half-heartedly ported from XBOX360 to PC and then in another iteration to Mac to run in a decent way on a mobile computer.

Please install Windows and have a look at some games. Install the newest nvidia driver, too - you will find, that the GPU is not so bad. I've managed to score 5340 3dmark06 points with my 13" MBP.

I have no preconceived opinions as to what this GPU should be capable of and I don't really care if information I'm "disseminating" is validating the preconceived opinions of others - for as long as it is true and relevant. Neither have I said that the 320m is universally useless. All I said was that it did no good in Bioshock - worse than I expected actually, since it's a nearly three year old game and I ran it on very low settings. There's no need for you to consider that an attack on you nor your hardware. And I did take into account that it was a port.

I probably will install Windows at some time, and I definitely will install more games. How ever I've used bootcamp for some casual gaming in the past and didn't care too much for it. It sort of eliminates the "casual" part of it.

 

[Beric]

How's the heat with this 13-incher under stress? Specifically with Flash and CPU-stressing games? I use my Macbook on my lap/chest a lot.

BTW, pretty neat that you can overclock. Any idea how much this reduces battery life? It'd be pretty cool if I could game 3-4 hours (without throttling) in Windows on battery, seeing as this thing supposedly has a 10-hour battery.

 

[jnc]

I've used bootcamp for some casual gaming in the past and didn't care too much for it. It sort of eliminates the "casual" part of it.

Can't wait to be able to play Geometry Wars and Peggle, and without having to turn my machine off inbetween

 

[DestroMedia]

Dragon Age works with 1024*768, high textures, medium graphic setting and with a extern monitor very smoothly, its only in big fights a bit slow

tested with a 2010 macbook pro 13" and 2.66 ghz

 

[Eldia]

I am curious if anyone with the new 13" have tried playing World of Warcraft. I am curious what the performance is like in Dalaran, and in 10/25 raid settings, using native resolution. Also, is this on OSX, or on Win7.

I want to know whether the game is playable with the 13" with low settings... essentially I am deciding between this, or the Alienware M11x for some lightgaming on a portable laptop when I am not home (traveling, at friends place, etc).

I understand that the MBP is never intended for gaming, but I really like the overall design of the MBP...

Thanks!

 

[Smalss]

I am curious if anyone with the new 13" have tried playing World of Warcraft. I am curious what the performance is like in Dalaran, and in 10/25 raid settings, using native resolution. Also, is this on OSX, or on Win7.

I want to know whether the game is playable with the 13" with low settings... essentially I am deciding between this, or the Alienware M11x for some lightgaming on a portable laptop when I am not home.

I understand that the MBP is never intended for gaming, but I really like the overall design of the MBP...

Thanks!

Interested in this also.

 

[vcmystery]

help new macbook pro 13 inch

Hey I just bought a macbook pro 13 inch 2.4 ghz 4g ram and the new 320M
anyways long story short, i bootcamp windows seven onto it, and the experience index gives me a 1.0 because of graphics and gaming... how can this be? I cant get crysis to even open... someone please tell me why im such a failure

 

[mikeo007]

Hey I just bought a macbook pro 13 inch 2.4 ghz 4g ram and the new 320M
anyways long story short, i bootcamp windows seven onto it, and the experience index gives me a 1.0 because of graphics and gaming... how can this be? I cant get crysis to even open... someone please tell me why im such a failure

Can't tell you why you're a failure But as for the graphics rating, did you install all of the bootcamp drivers? If so, you should try running the Windows performance assessment again, making sure that your computer is plugged into a power source first.

 

[mikethebigo]

Hey I just bought a macbook pro 13 inch 2.4 ghz 4g ram and the new 320M
anyways long story short, i bootcamp windows seven onto it, and the experience index gives me a 1.0 because of graphics and gaming... how can this be? I cant get crysis to even open... someone please tell me why im such a failure

Definitely make sure you install the bootcamp drivers, otherwise Windows 7 doesn't know what to do with the hardware.

As to the topic of this thread, I'm much more curious to see how steam games like portal run once that's released as native code for osx.

 

[-Nick]

Dragon Age works with 1024*768, high textures, medium graphic setting and with a extern monitor very smoothly, its only in big fights a bit slow

tested with a 2010 macbook pro 13" and 2.66 ghz

Good to know that Dragon Age works. This and The Witcher and are the two games I'm most interested in as far as performance on the 13".

 

[trucapace]

I am curious if anyone with the new 13" have tried playing World of Warcraft. I am curious what the performance is like in Dalaran, and in 10/25 raid settings, using native resolution. Also, is this on OSX, or on Win7.

I want to know whether the game is playable with the 13" with low settings... essentially I am deciding between this, or the Alienware M11x for some lightgaming on a portable laptop when I am not home (traveling, at friends place, etc).

I understand that the MBP is never intended for gaming, but I really like the overall design of the MBP...

Thanks!

My MBP 13" - 2.66 arrives tomorrow. Checking out how WoW performs is on my list of to dos.
I am running WoW on a 2008 2.8ghz 4gb iMac right now and it is very nice (relatively high settings). I plan on starting with the settings on the iMac as an initial comparision. I will let you know how it goes.

 

[inhalexhale]

My MBP 13" - 2.66 arrives tomorrow. Checking out how WoW performs is on my list of to dos.
I am running WoW on a 2008 2.8ghz 4gb iMac right now and it is very nice (relatively high settings). I plan on starting with the settings on the iMac as an initial comparision. I will let you know how it goes.

How did it go?

 

[iTootyFrooty]

Update the page with more results

 

[BenManchester]

Guys, I see you've been testing Windows games with the 320m. How did you get the chipset working?

I've just installed Windows 7 on my MacBook 13" 2010 the system only recognises a 'VGA adaptor' with 16MB video memory.

 

[Simmity]

You might want to install the windows 7 drivers which can be found on the osx install disc. After installing everything should be working properly. (except for the headphones jack, but there is a workaround for that)

Now on topic ,I can tell you guys a bit about the framerate of 2 games on my base macbook pro 13 " on its native resolution running bootcamp windows 7 64b.

Anno 1404

Using a mixture of settings I am able to get a pretty constant framerate of 30, which is very playable. I fully disabled shadows since one way or another this causes severe framerate issues. I have set texture , effects, gpu glothing, post effects and object detail to high, terrain detail on medium. I use 2x AF and 0x AA. Everything else is off or at its lowest setting. I also turned off vsync.

Company of Heroes

I am playing the game in max directx9 mode, which means shaders are on high as well textures and terrain. (instead off ultra which is only available on directx10) AA is off, and everything else is on its max settings. (except for those 3) I am getting a framerate of 40, 25-30 when a lot is happening on the screen. The ingame bechmark rated these settings as Great.

I wil try to add screenshots soon.