Games

[jonny5009]

Just got my 1.2/512 yesterday and was really curious as to what games would be playable. Loaded up Steam and have downloaded Left 4 Dead 2 and Team Fortress 2 so far. Believe it or not both are totally playable (albeit everything on low) but frame rates are smooth 30+.

Has anyone else tried any games yet?

 

[vanimal]

Just got my 1.2/512 yesterday and was really curious as to what games would be playable. Loaded up Steam and have downloaded Left 4 Dead 2 and Team Fortress 2 so far. Believe it or not both are totally playable (albeit everything on low) but frame rates are smooth 30+.

Has anyone else tried any games yet?

I doubt you'll be able to play anything recent or fairly popular at least not without really lowering everything considerable. Which at that point? Same even goes for even the more powerful MBPR with the 6100 iris pro gpu.

You can probably play some Indie games like Shovel Knight or Titan souls. Or maybe some NES emulators and SNES etc.

But that's what a Xbox One and PS4 are for WHILE you have the MBR in lap browsing while you play or between matches

Xbox One is dirt cheap compared to a new MBR and I use the hell out of it for games and streaming services. Also the new Sling TV on it. Well spent $350, have two in my house if you count my kids.

 

[Dekimasu]

I'd be interested in hearing how it does with something a bit older like Civ5.

 

[barefeats]

Has anyone else tried any games yet?

I ran some in-game benchmarks at 1280x800 with high quality settings:

Batman Arkham City averaged 22 FPS
GRID 2 averaged 19 FPS
Tomb Raider averaged 11 FPS

Probably would get acceptable frame rates if I used lower quality settings.

Thankfully I have another Mac with much more powerful CPU and GPU for serious gaming.

 

[dexterbell]

I downloaded that Mickey's castle of illusion. runs fine at 1440x900 and its got some pretty impressive graphics

 

[Mcdevidr]

I would imagine civ v would be ok. I ran it on an atom tablet before. Not great but ok.

 

[Kars]

Hi, can you upload some video when playing TF2? I also want to get one MBr for daily use and for playing TF2.

 

[tech324]

I am also interested in seeing a video of TF2 on the MacBook. Hopefully you can do better than low settings.

 

[rittchard]

I tried out Diablo 3 and it ran fine for me, only tried single player so far. Granted I am not really picky when it comes to frame rate, etc. - just wanted to make sure it was responsive and didn't pause or lock up at all. I played at a fairly low res and normal detail IIRC and didn't try pushing it further.

The unit did start heating up but that was expected. Again, performance was stable for the half hour or so I played. I'll probably try pushing it further when I get a chance.

 

[Anand953]

I have an rMBP 2014 model and very soon I realised that this machine is not games. Yes, you can do away with light games, but the ones which you are really interested in (consuming more GPU etc). The machines starts making strange sounds (fan) and it becomes very hot. Even the battery drain rate becomes 2-3 times its norm.

 

[Aphid Acer]

I would imagine civ v would be ok. I ran it on an atom tablet before. Not great but ok.

As a top Civ5 player, I can say that the game is more dependent on CPU than anything else in the system. Graphics don't matter because pros play on tiles anyways Every ms counts in simultaneous turns.

The most appropriate stat would be the Geekbench3 multicore score, and comparing that to your current rig. Sometimes I lay in my hammock and play public matches on a 2011 MBA on tiles with no problems at all. Atom though...wow...would love to spawn next to you and shift move through your lands.

 

[marky110]

Hearthstone?

Could anyone try if "Hearthstone" is playable? And if it is reasonable in retina resolution?

 

[MagnusB]

can anyone try Legue of legends?

 

[iSheep5S]

Warcraft! Just curious.

I still play that on Windows, i haven't even bothered installing it on my rMBP.

 

[Serban]

Starcraft 2 HOTS 1024x768 low 120 fps
CS GO 1024x768 low 70 fps
Diablo 3 1024x768 low 32 fps

 

[3bs]

Yeah can someone try out League of Legends please? It's free

 

[Mcdevidr]

As a top Civ5 player, I can say that the game is more dependent on CPU than anything else in the system. Graphics don't matter because pros play on tiles anyways Every ms counts in simultaneous turns.

The most appropriate stat would be the Geekbench3 multicore score, and comparing that to your current rig. Sometimes I lay in my hammock and play public matches on a 2011 MBA on tiles with no problems at all. Atom though...wow...would love to spawn next to you and shift move through your lands.

I've never played a public match. Sounds cool though. Simultaneous turns you still have to wait for everyone to move right?

 

[3bs]

Could anyone try if "Hearthstone" is playable? And if it is reasonable in retina resolution?

I think I read in one of the rMB reviews that Hearthstone works fine but I can't remember which. I guess it couldn't hurt for someone else to try and report back.

 

[SBruv]

As long the 1.3 can handle Civ V, Frozen Synapse and the amazing Sunless Sea (which it certainly should), I'll be a happy Bruv.

 

[Serban]

hearthstone works fine on mobile platform as well. There are no retina resolutions for the game
heartstone is working just fine on the 2012 macbook air with HD 4000 so..

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I am curious as to how Civilization 4 BTS runs on it.

 

[fatefulwhisper]

I am also interested in seeing a video of TF2 on the MacBook. Hopefully you can do better than low settings.

Unfortunately, I won't have much time to play with my new MacBook much as I have too much stuff going on this weekend, therefore, didn't have time to do a video of me playing TF2, but I did have time to experiment with several settings for about 5 mins and get it working. Here were my settings:

1440x900 resolution, with all settings on high except shadow detail (med), and all settings were default except Antialias which I set at 2x. Game ran at 30% CPU with 60 FPS throughout. Very playable. Setting Antialias higher than 2x and shadow detail to High dropped the FPS down to 30, and setting antialias to 8x (max) made the game very choppy and down to about 10-15 FPS. Hope this helps.

note: I have 1.2GHz/512 version of rMB

 

[timcrook]

longshot, but has anyone tried playing Football Manager 2015 on this?

 

[fatefulwhisper]

Yeah can someone try out League of Legends please? It's free

Finally got around to this, but didn't have too much time to play. I fiddled around with the various resolution and quality settings. Here's my assessment:

@ 1024x768 & 1280x800
- Med: 60 FPS
- Med High: 50 FPS
- High: 30 FPS
- Very High: 20-24 FPS

@ 1440x900
- Med: 50-60 FPS
- Med High: 40-45 FPS
- High: 20-24 FPS
- Very High: 10-15 FPS

and for sh#ts and giggles:
@ 2880x1800
- Med: 40-50 FPS
- Med High: 24-30 FPS
- High: 15-20 FPS
- Very High: 5-10 FPS

 

[3bs]

Finally got around to this, but didn't have too much time to play. I fiddled around with the various resolution and quality settings. Here's my assessment:



@ 1024x768 & 1280x800

- Med: 60 FPS

- Med High: 50 FPS

- High: 30 FPS

- Very High: 20-24 FPS



@ 1440x900

- Med: 50-60 FPS

- Med High: 40-45 FPS

- High: 20-24 FPS

- Very High: 10-15 FPS



and for sh#ts and giggles:

@ 2880x1800

- Med: 40-50 FPS

- Med High: 24-30 FPS

- High: 15-20 FPS

- Very High: 5-10 FPS

Did you at any stage notice this slow down because of throttling? Did you get any temperatures by any chance? Thank for doing this! Doesn't look too bad but I'm assuming you only tried a custom game for a few minutes? Have you tried playing a full game to see if there's any degradation of performance?