Games "Optimized" for Intel HD 3000

[Blondie :)]

Okay,

So I know there have been a boatload of posts on the new MacBook Pro Intel HD 3000 cards. Everyone is complaining about how terrible they are and what have you.

However, I have yet to experience a problem. In my opinion, the graphics I experience are way better than what I've experienced on a lot of other computers. Personally, I only play SCII and a few other games, mainly League of Legends (Natively on the mac btw ).

So when I heard all of everyone's dismay with the new Intel HD 3000 graphics, I began to do some digging. I found this: http://www.intel.com/technology/graphics/intelhd.htm

If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, it says that SCII is "Optimized" to run on the Intel HD 3000. So my question is, just how "optimized" is this?

Personally, I can run SCII on my 2011 2.3GHz 13" MacBook Pro with everything set to high. Literally, everything set to high. And I have yet to have a problem.

 

[christeeezy]

How did you get LoL to run natively on OSX, may I ask?

 

[Blondie :)]

there is a community-effort patch that has been made available. Just search "League of Legends Mac" on google and you should find some information.

 

[badtzwang]

Okay,

So I know there have been a boatload of posts on the new MacBook Pro Intel HD 3000 cards. Everyone is complaining about how terrible they are and what have you.

However, I have yet to experience a problem. In my opinion, the graphics I experience are way better than what I've experienced on a lot of other computers. Personally, I only play SCII and a few other games, mainly League of Legends (Natively on the mac btw ).

So when I heard all of everyone's dismay with the new Intel HD 3000 graphics, I began to do some digging. I found this: http://www.intel.com/technology/graphics/intelhd.htm

If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, it says that SCII is "Optimized" to run on the Intel HD 3000. So my question is, just how "optimized" is this?

Personally, I can run SCII on my 2011 2.3GHz 13" MacBook Pro with everything set to high. Literally, everything set to high. And I have yet to have a problem.

Do you play SC2 online? I find it hard to believe that you're playing with everything on High settings without any problems. Is this only in the campaign?

 

[2hvy4grvty]

It's not so much optimized "for Intel HD 3000", but rather Apple "optimizing" OS X to run certain games better (reasonable, considering there's only a handful that run on Mac in the first place). Furthermore, SC2 is a CPU taxing game, so the SB picks up the slack that the IGP leaves behind.

 

[BlaqkAudio]

Do you play SC2 online? I find it hard to believe that you're playing with everything on High settings without any problems. Is this only in the campaign?

Me too. I play a lot of 4v4 on medium (w/ a 6490M) and my FPS drops a lot when there's a lot of action going on.

 

[Freyqq]

however optimized it is for the intel 3000, a real discrete card would be optimized "better"

 

[RainCityMacFan]

I have the 1GB 6750M model and I play on medium online and I get around 40~80 FPS.

There is no way you can play online with settings on High. The lag is horrible. I played on High as well and I around get around 30-40 FPS, which is pretty much unacceptable when trying to micro. On Ultra, I get around 20-30 FPS, which on campaign isn't that bad...

 

[Blondie :)]

Do you play SC2 online? I find it hard to believe that you're playing with everything on High settings without any problems. Is this only in the campaign?

I don't play online. As much as I love the game, I don't have the time to get good. I only play campaign. When I do play online though, I have everything set to medium and it's fine.

The post was relating to graphics performance while in campaign mode though. Being online never even crossed my mind haha

 

[prism]

I agree with Blondie, the HD 3000 is very underrated, some say it is inferior to the 320m but that is not true on the OSX side of things which suggests that it is an optimization issue. I've been playing HL2 on native rez, it actually was running better than on my former MBP which was a 2010 15" with a discrete 330m! If you don't believe me, check the anandtech review which basically says the same thing!