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Gaming on 16 inch MacBook pro
- Thread starter icyfire
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Agreed. The trick is to install them before any other Bootcamp drivers so that you don’t impact performance with the crappy stock drivers. There won’t be alternate drivers for a few weeks though for the 16”, so you may need to wipe Windows partition and start over then but no biggie.
I have the 2.3/5500 4g version at the moment while I wait for the 2.4/5500 8G. I've been pretty impressed with the GPU. I haven't been gaming on my macs in awhile but I hoped on Wow for a couple of minutes just to check it. It was getting a solid 40fps at native resolution with the settings at 10 (the highest). For a comparison I also had a Vega 56 eGPU hooked up to it and that was getting 30fps running on the internal display in the same spot. There's, I think, about 30% performance penalty running on the internal display with an eGPU but still I was impressed with how the 5500m is preforming. I also checked Diablo 3 real quick and at native resolution/high settings for everything it was able to do 58-60fps. These were all done in macOS.
Thank you very much for this info! Would you mind testing WoW at setting 6 or 7 and see what your FPS is? And also at 50% scaling?
Setting 7 and 50% scaling it is 100fps. I removed the default cap of 100fps and it went up to about 108-109. I should note this is in the Pandaran starting area. I don't have an active subscription atm so I can't load up the newest zones.
Thanks again. That’s quite good. Sounds like it could maintain 60fps at native res using 6-7.
No problem. Just checked. Its close but not quite. I was seeing 54-55. At that resolution it wouldn't surprise me if the 8gig version was a little faster.
So just tested a little Fortnite quickly. At native res and all low settings its running around 50-60fps. Dropping the resolution down down to around 1440p was pretty solid at 60fps with low settings. Anything resolution lower and the game runs around 100+fps with medium settings.
Thank you all for running framerate tests on games in MacOS.
These are really encouraging numbers. Once Bootcamp drivers are out, the performance should improve across the board by 10-25fps within Windows 10 if past results are any indication.
Looking forward to picking up my 2.4/32GB/8GB-VRAM/2TB MPB16 next Thursday (assuming the store doesn't get it sooner).
These are really encouraging numbers. Once Bootcamp drivers are out, the performance should improve across the board by 10-25fps within Windows 10 if past results are any indication.
Looking forward to picking up my 2.4/32GB/8GB-VRAM/2TB MPB16 next Thursday (assuming the store doesn't get it sooner).
How are you getting it so soon? I've been looking at ordering a 2.3/16/8GB/1TB since day one and it's shown nothing but December dates.
5500m is probably close to 1660, which is more than capable to play most of the games mac os have.
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I think there is a website that provides unofficial Bootcamp drivers, forgot what its called. Maybe you can give it a try
I waited until 11/15 to order knowing that was the "loaded" config that would be available in stores. The two base models and the 2.4/32/8GB/2TB model were the only ones that never had store pickup as an option until the morning of the official launch date.
I figure if anything's wrong with the laptop, the odds of them having one on hand to quickly swap out is pretty high with this config.
On launch day the config went from unavailable to delivers-November-27th. Within 24 hours it had updated to delivers-November-21st. I suspect the local store wants units on hand for walk-ins, but once a few days pass they'll release them for web orders.
In my experience they install just like any other driver... do you follow the instructions when installing them?
Any chances you can test it out and let us know? I only play WoW in Diablo and water to play but not sure whether to get the 4GB or 8GB version.
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What GPU do you have on the 16"?
I got the same config but online for EPP discount. But very good point reg. easier swappability (hoping not needed, but good to have).
Seeing that that desktop 5700XT is closer to a 2060 Super or 2070... I don't have high hopes for the 5500M, at least not running that high-res panel. I don't know about you guys, but I play games to also appreciate the visual artistry the game designers put into the game, not just play through things.
I usually just play World of Warcraft on the PC platform (the rest I play on console usually besides EA/Ubisoft titles via their monthly service)
I'm looking forward to occasionally play some WOW and Civ while on holidays
MBPs can usually play all major AAA titles released within a year or two of the MBP’s release. This one can probably play pretty much anything released to date but come 2020 or 2021 and it will really struggle with the newer games.
Could anyone theorize how the MBPs 8gb 5500 would compare to the iMac with the 8gb 580X? Since I game so much I wonder if I would be better off with the 27” iMac now or even waiting for the next update.
Expect about half the performance based on geekbench 5 scores.
My 2017 imac with the 580
34579 Metal
2019 16' MMB - Base 5300m
21,328 Metal
If you upgrade to the 5500 that'll help a bit but it's unlikely that the 16" can sustain that during a prolonged gaming session without having to throttle down from the heat.
Even if it does, this is still not close to the 2017 imac and even THAT isn't a game machine, it's only about in line with the ps4 pro for real world gaming experience. Expect ps4 levels of graphic ability on this laptop
Here is some numbers from an RX 5500M. The Pro 5500M is downclocked a bit but has 2 more compute units, so I'd assume they'd probably be pretty close in performance.
Here's some Unigine Heaven benchmarks I found on YouTube for the new 16" MBPs, alongside my iMac 5K with Vega 48 and another iMac 5K with 580X. As you can see, both the 5300M and 5500M are slightly faster than the iMac 5K with Pro 580X for gaming, but not as fast as the Vega 48. Note, I haven't found benchmarks of the 8 GB 5500M, but with such an old benchmark, I think it will be about the same as the 4 GB 5500M here.
Unigine Heaven (OpenGL, Ultra quality, Extreme tessellation, 1600x900 8xAA) / Extreme Preset
2019 iMac 5K, i9 9900K, Pro Vega 48 - 71.3 fps (33% faster than MBP 16" with 5500M)
2019 MBP 16", i9 9880H, Pro 5500M 4 GB - 53.3 fps
2019 MBP 16", i7 9750H, Pro 5300M 4 GB - 47.7 fps
2019 iMac 5K, i9 9900K, Pro 580X - 45.6 fps (14% slower than MBP 16" with 5500M)
Interestingly enough, the 5300M is VERY close to the performance of the 5500M and still beats the Pro 580X. However, if you actually plan to game on you're computer, I would recommend getting the 8 GB 5500M. A couple modern titles like RDR2 need more than 4 GB if you want to turn texture quality all the way up.
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That's not a good representation for gaming though. That benchmark measures compute performance, which can be quite different. The new AMD 5000 series cards are more optimized for gaming, whereas AMD was more focused on compute performance with the old 400/500 and Vega series. As you can see in my Unigine Heaven benchmarks above, the 5300M and 5500M actually beat out the 580 in that gaming focused benchmark.
Unigine Heaven (OpenGL, Ultra quality, Extreme tessellation, 1600x900 8xAA) / Extreme Preset
2019 iMac 5K, i9 9900K, Pro Vega 48 - 71.3 fps (33% faster than MBP 16" with 5500M)
2019 MBP 16", i9 9880H, Pro 5500M 4 GB - 53.3 fps
2019 MBP 16", i7 9750H, Pro 5300M 4 GB - 47.7 fps
2019 iMac 5K, i9 9900K, Pro 580X - 45.6 fps (14% slower than MBP 16" with 5500M)
Interestingly enough, the 5300M is VERY close to the performance of the 5500M and still beats the Pro 580X. However, if you actually plan to game on you're computer, I would recommend getting the 8 GB 5500M. A couple modern titles like RDR2 need more than 4 GB if you want to turn texture quality all the way up.
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That's not a good representation for gaming though. That benchmark measures compute performance, which can be quite different. The new AMD 5000 series cards are more optimized for gaming, whereas AMD was more focused on compute performance with the old 400/500 and Vega series. As you can see in my Unigine Heaven benchmarks above, the 5300M and 5500M actually beat out the 580 in that gaming focused benchmark.
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