Does the rMBP 15 handle heavy games?

[Shmoham]

Im coming from a 2011 15 inch pro

I am thinking of purchasing a 15 inch retina as i heard It's better at gaming on windows boot camp. At the same time It's better for me to buy the 512 flash rMBP 13" because It's more portable as I've had enough with the hugeness of the 15 inch. So does the 13" retina handle games like the 15" retina? Such as Cities XL - SimCity - Truck Simulators? Will both devices handle windows on boot camp smoothly?

Thanks a lot


Sent from my iPhone 5 using Tapatalk 2

 

[B...]

The 13"is limited by its HD 4000 whereas the 15" has a much better 650M. If you want games on the 13", wait a week for the Haswell machies which should have much better GPU performance.

 

[pgiguere1]

The games you mention should run between Low and Medium on a 13" rMBP and on High on a 15" rMBP, assuming both run at non-Retina resolution.

Either way you should wait until WWDC (June 10th) to see if new models are announced, they usually are released the day they are announced and will offer better graphics performance for sure.

 

[Newfiejudd]

Why not look at the Razer 14" gaming laptop.. I have to give Razer credit there. I think they have winner on their hands, if they can keep it cool and the GPU from throttling that sucker will sell good.

There are just as many Apple haters as there are Apple lovers, so now they have a portable gaming laptop that will give Apple a run on that side. And I wonder how long it will be before that Hackintosh it.

 

[leman]

I am a bit confused because you have 15" in the thread title but you seem to talk about the 13" model. Anyway - the games you are talking about here are far from being heavy games, they are casual games with average hardware requirenments. The 15" rMBP will play any game currently on the marked with decent performance at reasonable quality settings. The 13" will struggle with most demanding games because of the IGP, but it will still play them (at reduced quality settings). New Haswell models should bring significant graphical improvements.

 

[Serban]

i think macbook air 13" with hd4000 has a bit lower IGC than macbook pro 13",it is right?

So there is my experience on mACOS: starcraft 2 on native resolution with everything at medium+shadows low you can play it,and so for diablo 3 and i think this games are a lit more demanding like your games mentioned.

but like i said you probably get a little better performance thanks to hd4000 from PRO version. Both are on 512 vRAM but i think the PRO has a better cpu

 

[dusk007]

I suppose he wants to know how much worse the 13" rMBP is compared to his old 2011 15".

What the HD 4000 can do you see here.
http://www.notebookcheck.com/Intel-HD-Graphics-4000.69166.0.html
generally more the higher values as the 35W HD 4000 is quite okay while the ULV like MBAir CPUs is slower.

The 6750M in comparison here.
http://www.notebookcheck.com/AMD-Radeon-HD-6750M.43836.0.html

You can swtich the language in the top right corner but it is just numbers you need to read. Strategy games are usually fine at 25-30 fps. Ego shooters IMO need to show 45 in these tests to be considered to run decently.


Wait for the Haswell 13" rMBP. Chances are it gets a GT3 part which will be quite close to a 6750M and much faster than a Hd 4000. Even a HD 4600 is a quite a big step up. Also Haswell drivers seem much better.
You might wait a few weeks or months. Many people expect a new rMBP is right around the corner. I don't think so. I think it will take a little while. With a 13" definitely worth a wait given that you have a 15" anyway which you can probably live with in the mean time. I assume you just want something smaller and more mobile.

 

[Krazy Bill]

MBP and gaming in the same sentence... it just sounds too expensive and all wrong to me.

 

[takeshi74]

Then don't do it if stereotypes really bother you that much.

Meanwhile, others will happily game on their MBP's.

 

[Interstella5555]

MBP and gaming in the same sentence... it just sounds too expensive and all wrong to me.

While I'm a console gamer myself I understand that people want to play games on their laptop, but no games that the OP mentioned are "heavy" in any sense of the word.