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Gaming on 15" Macbook Pro

adamvk

adamvk

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 29, 2008
1,308
0
Phoenix, AZ
How well does the base MacBook Pro handle gaming? How well would it handle the following games at 1440x900?

Oblivion
Test Drive Unlimited
Call of Duty 4
Spore
The Witcher

Would those games work well on the MBP?

and what about crysis?
 
You can play all these games:

Oblivion
Test Drive Unlimited
Call of Duty 4
Spore
The Witcher
Crysis

on maxed out graphics settings using the 9600M card, however in power save (battery) mode using the 9400 graphics card only average PC level graphics.
 
Maxed out? I had to dial cod4 down quite a lot in detail for it to feel smooth enough for network play on windows. I did get it playing satisfactorily though.

To note, I did seem to have huge issues with the apple trackpad driver in games under windows, to extent I had to disable it to stop games hanging.

and I'd be surprised if crysis ran playable with everything turned to max either, considering it doesn't on my desktop, that is considerably more powerfull.

Though I do agree that everything should be playable at some detail setting or other that's still reasonable.
 
iMacDragon said:
Maxed out? I had to dial cod4 down quite a lot in detail for it to feel smooth enough for network play on windows.
Click to expand...

Why dont you play the Mac version then?

and the windows version can only be played maxed out on XP on VISTA its no good because vista hogs too much of the laptops resources and leaves hardly anything for the game.
 
Ok Sweet that sounds good. Do you think MacBook Pro performance would be better than a 20" iMac with 2600 Pro?


Also it is possible to manually add ram? And is the Ram in the 15" version DDR3 as well?

Thanks.
 
adamvk said:
Ok Sweet that sounds good. Do you think MacBook Pro performance would be better than a 20" iMac with 2600 Pro?


Also it is possible to manually add ram? And is the Ram in the 15" version DDR3 as well?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

It is DDR3 and you can manually add it up to 6GB

and the imac would be better, but not portable.
 
kastenbrust said:
It is DDR3 and you can manually add it up to 6GB

and the imac would be better, but not portable.
Click to expand...

Ok, this is what I have never been able to get answered, HOW much faster would the iMac be compared to the MacBook Pro? Would I hardly be able to tell?

Also, Im wondering why would it be better?

The iMac has a slightly faster cpu, Yes

The iMac has the same amount of ram, but its DDR2 as opposed to DDR3 in the MBP

The iMac also has a 2600 Pro, which is super old, wouldn't the 9600 be faster even though it is the mobile version?
 
I'm crashing from time to time under gaming (although the latest firmware update helped a lot)

It is obviously from thermal issues

Is this just how it is, or something I should bring up with Apple?
 
kastenbrust said:
Why dont you play the Mac version then?

and the windows version can only be played maxed out on XP on VISTA its no good because vista hogs too much of the laptops resources and leaves hardly anything for the game.
Click to expand...

Because 90% of my pc gaming is done on a dedicated windows desktop, so it would be a ridiculous expense to buy the mac version too?

And I was running on XP not Vista, due largely to express card slot being entirely non functional on Vista. I found the frame rate at default graphics settings it gave when at native resolution at least far too slow to 'feel' smooth to me, I had to set most things to low and drop the resolution to 1280x720 before I felt it was truly playable, it may have possibly been smooth at higher detail if I'd have dialled the resolution right down, but I'd rather have lower detail and at least 720p
 
Again I ask,

Ok, this is what I have never been able to get answered, HOW much faster would the iMac be compared to the MacBook Pro? Would I hardly be able to tell?

Also, Im wondering why would it be better?

The iMac has a slightly faster cpu, Yes

The iMac has the same amount of ram, but its DDR2 as opposed to DDR3 in the MBP

The iMac also has a 2600 Pro, which is super old, wouldn't the 9600 be faster even though it is the mobile version?
 
The 9600m GT should be faster. Using 3dmark06, a 9600m GT scores around 5k @ 1280@1024 while a 2600 Pro gets around 3400.
 
I honestly think MBP with 9600M should run those games faster than the iMac with 2600... 2600 isn't the best card out there (in fact, it's a pretty low-mid-range card now), and it's certainly NOT better than the 9600M in MBPro.

When it comes to RAM, 4GB should be quite sufficient. You get Dual Channel support for smoother rendering and shading (although I would turn shadows and water effects OFF for smoother online gaming play)

I run CoD4 at Medium-High (almost everything at high except for 2xAA and no shadows) and it runs flawlessly with a playable FPS count (40-50fps)

GPU matters more than CPU when it comes to gaming, the difference between iMac's CPU and MBPro's CPU isn't greater than performance leap from 2600 to 9600M.
 
adamvk said:
So why is the iMac still faster for gaming? The MBP has a better video card, and DDR3 Ram.
Click to expand...

iMac should NOT be faster for gaming, I'm sure someone made a mistake and they may have thought of iMac with 8800M GS
 
Oh, and by the way;

Make sure you lift up the MBP a little bit by wedging something under it, where the screen is.. like, make it slanted XD.. that effectively cools off the laptop by quite a lot. and you'll need it while gaming...
 
akbc said:
Oh, and by the way;

Make sure you lift up the MBP a little bit by wedging something under it, where the screen is.. like, make it slanted XD.. that effectively cools off the laptop by quite a lot. and you'll need it while gaming...
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. Would it be worth it to get a laptop cooler perhaps?
 
Well, I've done lots of research and most laptop coolers aren't efficient.. not just with the MBP, but with ANY laptops... :(

I was looking at the Moshi Zefyr Pro, but I really couldn't justify the price of US$86 just to cool off my laptop...

For now, I just wedge something underneath and turn up the fan to the max. And it works for like 2-3 hours of intense gaming/3D applications.. then it starts to lag... :( But you leave the game off for like 10 min, it's back in the game.. Haha

Anyways, if you have extra $86 to shell out, the Zefyr Pro gets pretty good reviews and seems pretty effective. So go for it XD
 
akbc said:
Well, I've done lots of research and most laptop coolers aren't efficient.. not just with the MBP, but with ANY laptops... :(

I was looking at the Moshi Zefyr Pro, but I really couldn't justify the price of US$86 just to cool off my laptop...

For now, I just wedge something underneath and turn up the fan to the max. And it works for like 2-3 hours of intense gaming/3D applications.. then it starts to lag... :( But you leave the game off for like 10 min, it's back in the game.. Haha

Anyways, if you have extra $86 to shell out, the Zefyr Pro gets pretty good reviews and seems pretty effective. So go for it XD
Click to expand...

Well I was gonna get a $1700 imac originally so the MacBook Pro alone is already a little more than I want to spend. Also, A question about the battery. If I leave it in, could I leave it plugged in for long periods of time?
 
Well, when I'm home I leave it plugged in all the time.

With my PC Laptop (Fujitsu), I take out the battery while it's plugged into AC Adopter. But some people say for MBPro's, it's better to leave the battery in.

so.. I just leave mine in :D and so far, I had no problems.

I've had 20 cycles so far, my battery health is still 100% according to iStat.
 
And if you're worried about budgetting, keep in mind that 512MB of High-end MBPro isn't as cost effective as the 256MB of VRAM on the base model.

9600M GT operates on 128-bit, so anything more than 256MB becomes not as efficient. Unless you play GTA IV or use lots and lots of 3D Applications and rendering softwares, you won't need the extra 256MB of VRAM.

so, there's another way of possibly saving $400 if you were looking into the 2.53GHz model just for the 512MB of VRAM
 
akbc said:
And if you're worried about budgetting, keep in mind that 512MB of High-end MBPro isn't as cost effective as the 256MB of VRAM on the base model.

9600M GT operates on 128-bit, so anything more than 256MB becomes not as efficient. Unless you play GTA IV or use lots and lots of 3D Applications and rendering softwares, you won't need the extra 256MB of VRAM.

so, there's another way of possibly saving $400 if you were looking into the 2.53GHz model just for the 512MB of VRAM
Click to expand...

Well I was just planning on getting the base one because I've heard that about the 9600m.

Also how many batteries does the MBP have and is it cheap to replace or buy a secondary one?
 
MBPro comes with 1 battery. I can last for about 3 hours watching DVD-ripped XViD movies. But I last a quite more when I'm just surfing and stuff..

And as for the secondary battery, I think it's around $139 on Apple Canada online store :) Not sure about the US store.

To be honest, I find the MagSafe adopter really really portable. Specially when you have the front prong wire removed for the "compact" version. So you won't have much problem carrying that around as well.
 
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