Gaming on 2012 MBA 13 i7/8/256

[isrefel]

Just received my new MBA (13/i7/8/256), and I am happy to report that it can run source games (Left 4 Dead 2, Half Life 2, etc.) incredibly well.

I'm currently running at native res 1440x900 with all settings on med-high and 2x anti-aliasing getting ~60 fps in Left 4 Dead 2 and upwards of 90 in Half Life 2. Portal also runs very well with similar settings.

This was one of my largest inquiries pre-purchase, with L4D and HL2 being favorites of mine, so I thought I'd break up any skepticism for potential buyers.

While, obviously, this is no dedicated gaming powerhouse, for casual gaming and semi-modern titles, the new air works like a charm.

I plan on installing Win7 and testing out a few games. If anyone has any requests, please feel free to ask.

 

[Wokis]

Good to hear! Planning on playing some vindictus on mine. Afaik it's based on the source engine but has no mac client, so it'll run in DirectX9 and in windows only. Hope it will work out well.

 

[goinskiing]

The gaming in windows 7 on the new airs won't be near as good due to the new i7 not turboboosting and the clock multiplier being wrong at a clock of 1.9GHz. Apple acknowledged as bug and is working on a fix. The i5 however is currently correct and turbo boosts properly.

 

[oxfordguy]

The gaming in windows 7 on the new airs won't be near as good due to the new i7 not turboboosting and the clock multiplier being wrong at a clock of 1.9GHz. Apple acknowledged as bug and is working on a fix. The i5 however is currently correct and turbo boosts properly.

Hopefully this will just be a temportary problem, otherwise i7 buyers like me have been screwed :-(

 

[Trunks87]

2012 MBA 13 i5/8/128 here

I couldn't play Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst on a W7 x64 Parallels VM because the audio had issues (otherwise it was good!). Installed an XP VM with this game and sound/audio is perfect. Playing in windowed mode using Coherence and listening to tunes/surfing/checking mail is pretty cool

To get the function keys to work proper I did have to enable in system preferences > keyboard > Use all F1, F2 keys as function keys.

Now off to read the other thread about BF3 as I've been wanting to play that for a while now.

 

[Wokis]

Tried vindictus (in w7 bootcamp) and it worked beautifully at above medium settings. Beyond what I expected. Go HD4000! I doubt the "64MB bug" was there as I cant imagine the game surviving on so little VRAM.

Also good call by apple to put in 1600MHz DDR3 and not cheap out on 1333 or lower. Wouldn't matter much for system memory operations but when used for video memory it sure does.

 

[tweaknmod]

Tried a few graphics intensive games and it performs surprisingly well.

BUT... It gets HOT. Not too hot to hold on your lap or anything, but the bit of aluminum just below the screen to the left get too hot to touch. This worries me, so I won't be using it for much intense gaming... Just some SNES goodness (just got my new iControlpad)

 

[RightMACatU]

Based on info here, I'm assuming that Starcraft II (and gouging expansion packs) is not an issue!?

 

[PuckRienks]

I plan on installing Win7 and testing out a few games. If anyone has any requests, please feel free to ask.

Would you mind trying out League of Legends? I'm wondering wether or not the MBA will be able to handle it at high settings while maintaining a framerate of above 30 per second. Thanks in advance!

 

[lukekarts]

Based on info here, I'm assuming that Starcraft II (and gouging expansion packs) is not an issue!?

I play Starcraft 2 on my 2011 MBA i5 4GB, and although I run it on 'low' settings, I get a constantly high frame rate - no slowdown - so you should be good to run on medium settings at a guess.

 

[asting]

Would you mind trying out League of Legends? I'm wondering wether or not the MBA will be able to handle it at high settings while maintaining a framerate of above 30 per second. Thanks in advance!

I play it at med-high settings with iLoL under osx. It gets the 30fps very easily.