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Can I game on my MacBook Air??

H

houssein31

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 16, 2013
147
0
Hi,

I bought a MBA and not a MBP because I already have an iMac at home for heavy duty stuff.. Although im going on vacation soon, and I wanted to be able to play some games on the plane. Games like Sims 3, Civilization 5, Roller Coaster tycoon and GTA. Could I play theses games on my Macbook Air? Or will it be incredibly slow? Also how fast while my battery die (its the 2013 MBA)????
ALSO, I spected up my mac to 8gb ram and 256 gb ssd (if it changes anything)

Thanks in Advance!!!
 
Granted it's neglible, but more RAM may use more power and the CPU (which has the GPU built in) may use considerably more power when playing a game.

To get the most performance, I recommend playing your games in Windows on bootcamp. I've had the best experience there.

Regarding battery life, I personally wouldn't expect your MBA to last more than 1-2 hours playing a 3D game non-stop. It makes a *huge* difference.

Might be enough for a plane ride or something though.
 
dean1012 said:
Granted it's neglible, but more RAM may use more power and the CPU (which has the GPU built in) may use considerably more power when playing a game.
Click to expand...

wait what?? the raison I boosted up my mac to 8gb is because I thought it would be more powerful and less power draining, ur telling me that it will drain my battery????
 
dean1012 said:
Granted it's neglible, but more RAM may use more power and the CPU (which has the GPU built in) may use considerably more power when playing a game.

To get the most performance, I recommend playing your games in Windows on bootcamp. I've had the best experience there.

Regarding battery life, I personally wouldn't expect your MBA to last more than 1-2 hours playing a 3D game non-stop. It makes a *huge* difference.

Might be enough for a plane ride or something though.
Click to expand...

More RAM absolutely does not use more power. Power consumption remains the same.

You cannot play games properly on an MBA. It does not have a discrete graphics chip. Only the high end 15" rMBP has a discrete graphics card.
 
yjchua95 said:
You should refer here: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-5000.91978.0.html

These are a better representation of the Intel HD 5000 (Windows).
Click to expand...

I think that people's specific personal experiences running games are more relevant than a generic statement based on paper specifications.

Can the MBA run all games well at high resolution? No.

But it can run many, many games properly and many of them at the highest resolution even on an external 27" display. I know. I've run them. Many have to be tuned down to medium or low settings, but they will run and still look very good.

The thread I linked has a specific list of games and the settings they will run at. So yes, the MBA can run games. Not all of them at the highest settings, but many, many of them. :)
 
houssein31 said:
Hi,

I bought a MBA and not a MBP because I already have an iMac at home for heavy duty stuff.. Although im going on vacation soon, and I wanted to be able to play some games on the plane. Games like Sims 3, Civilization 5, Roller Coaster tycoon and GTA. Could I play theses games on my Macbook Air? Or will it be incredibly slow? Also how fast while my battery die (its the 2013 MBA)????
ALSO, I spected up my mac to 8gb ram and 256 gb ssd (if it changes anything)

Thanks in Advance!!!
Click to expand...

Back to your topic. Yes you can no prob. I'd use bootcamp though. I was able to run Black Ops 2 on medium and high settings at like 35-40 fps at least. I was also able to play bf3 on medium settings around 30 fps.

The games you want will be no problem. Battery will maybe 3 hours in bootcamp
 
My wife's 2013 13" MBA (i7, 8GB RAM 256GB SDD) plays Sims3 and Civ 5 without any issues.
She actually says Sims3 plays better than on her 2011 iMAC with a i5 8GB RAM 500GB HDD and 650M.

She also has started playing a little Guild Wars 2 on it and didn't have any issues at all.

So yes the MBA can play games without discrete graphics.
 
I have the new MBA i7, 8gb, 256gb and can play Civ 5 no worries. When there are lots of units and you first load a saved game it takes about 10seconds to load the entire map nicely but apart from that it runs pretty smoothly.

As for battery life i can't really say as i am always near my charger when playing but i reckon you could easy play for a couple of hours.

The only time i hear the fans is when playing games...
 
yjchua95 said:
More RAM absolutely does not use more power. Power consumption remains the same.

You cannot play games properly on an MBA. It does not have a discrete graphics chip. Only the high end 15" rMBP has a discrete graphics card.
Click to expand...

Are you for serious? The HD5000 is good enough for a lot of casual games. The OSX drivers suck tho, so bootcamp might be a good idea.
 
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