I am interested in purchasing a new machine in the next few months for school, and personal use. I just wanted to know exactly how poor the macbook's graphics were. I am constantly hearing that they are poor and slow. Thanks for any input!
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Exactly how crummy are the Macbook's graphics?
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They are perfectly fine for photo editing, iMovie, Final Cut, and almost anything else you throw at it.
They are not good for intensive gaming, some gaming, just not GPU intensive, and also 3D animation. Most everything else does not need a dedicated GPU.
However b/c the VRAM is using system RAM, which is still a fixed amount, the more RAM the better.
They are not good for intensive gaming, some gaming, just not GPU intensive, and also 3D animation. Most everything else does not need a dedicated GPU.
However b/c the VRAM is using system RAM, which is still a fixed amount, the more RAM the better.
I don't play games on my c2d macbook. The graphics are great for everything else. The machine is head and shoulders above my powerbook which has a dedicated/discrete card.
Good enough for Core Image, which is the important thing. For gaming, it handles Doom 3 engine games (e.g. Quake 4) on the lowest setting and WoW on medium, but nothing fancier. The screen has less pixels than I'd like (1280x800), but it's no big deal.
If you can wait a few months though, I'd recommend waiting until it's refreshed. The graphics are expected to improve a lot in the next revision.
It blows.
Lego star wars drops down to unplayable rates, 5 to 10 fps, during faster paced scenes.
WoW is better than my Powerbook 1.25 with 64mb graphics, but not by much.
Three to four years ago = PPC, then you run into rosetta.
Macbook = C2D Black with 2gb ram.
Lego star wars drops down to unplayable rates, 5 to 10 fps, during faster paced scenes.
WoW is better than my Powerbook 1.25 with 64mb graphics, but not by much.
Three to four years ago = PPC, then you run into rosetta.
Macbook = C2D Black with 2gb ram.
Name your games and maybe I can help. I occasionally play some older games with a friend of mine and my 12" powerbook definitely performs better than his macbook. Sometimes they are playable, and others not.
BF1942 immediately comes to mind as an unplayable game. Age II/III, Rise of nations, Age of Mythology, Ghost Recon, Jedi Knight II/Outcast, and Quake III are all fine on lower settings. Rainbow 6 is a little slow.
Sims 2, Civilization III, and Neverwinter Nights are the only ones I'm really concerned about.
Those will work great. I don't have a MacBook, but my mini has the same graphics card.
I recomend getting at least 1 GB of RAM, My parents bought my Mini at an Apple store, so I still have the original 512 MB, which can be a little slow at times.
Ok, nevermind. I haven't played any of those.
If Civ III is anything like Civ IV, I hate that game. I am still in the middle of the same game I was in like 2 weeks ago. I just don't like turn-based games...
Civ III and NWN play fine, but I haven't heard much about the sims 2. But what I have heard hasn't been that great. YMMV
what is going on here? this is like the 3rd person on this forum that has said that the c2d macbook can play age of empires 3, when everywhere I read says it "requires" hardware T&L to play or even intall. what is going on? am I missing something?
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Nope. The Intel GMA950 is an integrated GPU and uses system ram instead of discrete graphics ram.
I can verify it does work. However, update Age III ASAP as the 1.0 version has a problem with syncing player 0 (Gaia) on intel platforms. Basically, you can play for about 45 minutes, but just when the game really gets going it goes out of sync and crashes.
It does, however, perform better on a 2-year-old Powerbook 12" than on the new blackbook...
A Tip: With the type of GPU in the Macbook it is important to use RAM in matched pairs of DIMMs for best performance. Apple only sells MB configurations with matched pairs, but if you buy third-party RAM, be sure to buy two identical DIMMs. i.e., two 512MB DIMMs are better than one 1GB DIMM.
My MacBook runs everything great (read Signature for Specs)
i run a bunch of games such as Call Of Duty 2, Halo, Need For Speed Carbon And Most Wanted, WoW and others,
Windows Vista Ultimate in BootCamp (With Flip 3D and Aero Spit), Photoshop CS3, Parallels, VMware, CrossOver Mac, etc.
They all run great, and for the Intel GMA its great, and fine for me,
i run a bunch of games such as Call Of Duty 2, Halo, Need For Speed Carbon And Most Wanted, WoW and others,
Windows Vista Ultimate in BootCamp (With Flip 3D and Aero Spit
), Photoshop CS3, Parallels, VMware, CrossOver Mac, etc.They all run great, and for the Intel GMA its great, and fine for me,
You're crazy, aren't you? COD2 runs at about the same speed at lowest possible graphics and 800x600 as my iMac G5 on highest 1440x900, which is about 10-18 fps most of the time in combat.
Halo is crappier; didnt play WoW or NFS.
To say Intel GMA is great, urgh...
It doesnt even support Hardware T&L, which makes it incompatible with a lot of games, not to mention it runs awefully.
I'm not sure why you are having problems.
I promise you though, I have played Age III multiplayer with a guy on his blackbook.
P.S. I just looked the game up on the Apple store and there are at least 2 users in the first page of comments that are using macbooks and say it runs fine.
Stumbled across this page, where Intel lists some games that work/don't work on the GMA945. This is probably when running Windows, but the difference should be pretty small.
http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/intel945g/sb/CS-020666.htm
http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/intel945g/sb/CS-020666.htm
My MacBook runs everything great (read Signature for Specs)
i run a bunch of games such as Call Of Duty 2, Halo, Need For Speed Carbon And Most Wanted, WoW and others,
Windows Vista Ultimate in BootCamp (With Flip 3D and Aero Spit
They all run great, and for the Intel GMA its great, and fine for me,
Haha, oh wow. You must be delusional or something
Haha, oh wow. You must be delusional or something
I think he just has a very different standard of 'great'.
WoW will run more or less serviceably with all the pretty options turned off, but it doesn't run nearly as well as it does on my CD MBP.