im looking to get one in november, possibly october, and the only thing i can think of is gaming might be a problem. Only games i can see myself playing thou is Warcraft 3 and WoW. Will they run well enough to play? i dont need the best looking settings or anything, playable is fine
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Gaming on a Macbook
- Thread starter JosephEsquivel
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Even if they bump the processors to Santa Rosa, the Macbook is still not good for games. The graphics card will make almost any game lag a lot. I would only recommend games with a Macbook Pro or an iMac at least. I have a Macbook and a iMac; and the Macbook have a better processor than the iMac, but the graphics card makes the total difference. You can only hope for a dedicated card on the next release of the Macbook.
Halo
Halo is playable on my 1.83 GHz CD MB with 1.25GB of RAM, but only on the lowest graphics settings. The only way to make it play/look flawless at the same time is to restart and ONLY open Halo. Even then, you'd eventually have to tone down the graphics a bit, otherwise, it gets laggy.
:/
Halo is playable on my 1.83 GHz CD MB with 1.25GB of RAM, but only on the lowest graphics settings. The only way to make it play/look flawless at the same time is to restart and ONLY open Halo. Even then, you'd eventually have to tone down the graphics a bit, otherwise, it gets laggy.
:/
If you can't afford the Macbook Pro, buy the low-end iMac when it releases (probably on AUGUST 7TH), which will work better than the top-end Macbook. Take my say. Buy the iMac.
re: current replys
it's easy to rubbish the macbook when you have better and don't have to put up with it.
however if it's portabiliy you require and very lite gaming (eg wow and wc3 as you mantioned) then there is no reason why the macbook could not handle it.
if you don't need the portability then yes a imac is a better choice but if you do want portability and dont expect miricles from the macbook then it's fine for what you need.
hey i even played wow for a while on my macmini core solo when it had the stock 512mb ram, and beyond very crowded areas it was playable.
trouble is playable means a lot of things to a lot of people!
as long as you have 1 or preferably 2 gb ram in the macbook you should be fine unless you feel insecure and need to have the best machine ;-)
it's easy to rubbish the macbook when you have better and don't have to put up with it.
however if it's portabiliy you require and very lite gaming (eg wow and wc3 as you mantioned) then there is no reason why the macbook could not handle it.
if you don't need the portability then yes a imac is a better choice but if you do want portability and dont expect miricles from the macbook then it's fine for what you need.
hey i even played wow for a while on my macmini core solo when it had the stock 512mb ram, and beyond very crowded areas it was playable.
trouble is playable means a lot of things to a lot of people!
as long as you have 1 or preferably 2 gb ram in the macbook you should be fine unless you feel insecure and need to have the best machine ;-)
I am selling my white MB CD 2.0 because the games just don't cut it. Already ordered MBP 2.2 to replace it. No comparision for games. High- end games like Company of Heroes only playable at the lowest settings and then with only one enemy. GMA950 is just too slow!
I was very tempted to just by a Windows based laptop for mobile gaming ($1650 bought a very nice system with nVidia 8600M GT 256MB ram with 3 yrs of warranty and accidental damage coverage) but I just couldn't bear to give up OS X for my day to day work and general tasks which meant I would need to keep my MB and carry two systems if I needed to work and have my gaming goodness.
Save a little longer, try the education price or other resellers that don't charge full list. You can get the MBP 2.2 for just over $1800. It is worth it. 9 months of gaming slowness or fuzzyiness was just too much!
Cheers,
Tim
i dont do much PC gaming, last thing i bought was Battle for middle Earth, im sure i would play Warcraft 3, might try WoW but i dont know if ill get into it.
will a macbook play War3?
will a macbook play War3?
The MacBook will run WarCraft III and World of Warcraft well. I've played both of those on a 3 year old HP laptop (in sig.) and they worked fine. Just make sure you get at least 2GB RAM, or 4GB if possible (the MacBook can handle up to 3.3GB).
Also, there have been rumours that new MacBooks might be released at a similar time to Leopard. So if you are only buying in October or November, most likely you will be getting a better machine than the current ones. We can always hope that these new MacBooks will lose their Intel GMA 950s and finally have some dedicated VRAM.
If you are looking for more games to play, MacBooks run Half Life 2 surprisingly well, and if you like Warcraft III, you should try StarCraft too.
Also, there have been rumours that new MacBooks might be released at a similar time to Leopard. So if you are only buying in October or November, most likely you will be getting a better machine than the current ones. We can always hope that these new MacBooks will lose their Intel GMA 950s and finally have some dedicated VRAM.
If you are looking for more games to play, MacBooks run Half Life 2 surprisingly well, and if you like Warcraft III, you should try StarCraft too.
i haven't had too much trouble playin vids on my blackbook...2 gigs of ram really helps.
i play
Lego Starwars 2
Civ 4
Star Wars Empire at war
i play
Lego Starwars 2
Civ 4
Star Wars Empire at war
Have you considered getting a refurbished MacBook Pro? A Core Duo MacBook Pro usually pops up on the refurbished store for $1300.
Macbook User here, WoW and WC III work just fine on the GMA 950. For FPS I got Tremulous for free off of the Apple website and am in love with it. Any heavy gaming I do I go to a computer arcade and pay $4 for an hour of play, it takes a lot of hours of playing on constantly updated machines to equal the price difference that you would be paying to get the superior video card of the MacBook Pro.
the current MB would play most of these games.... however if you wait a little while until the new MB updates come out, im sure the games will be able to play pretty well...
There're a few threads in the gaming forum which discuss the playability of Warcraft 3 and WoW - in the case of the latter there are example FPS etc.
I don't do WOW but W3 runs fantastically well on my 2.0GHz MB (I normally use my desktop for Mac games, so I do have something to compare it too) - and I've tested this with both 2x512MB and 2x1GB of RAM.
I don't do WOW but W3 runs fantastically well on my 2.0GHz MB (I normally use my desktop for Mac games, so I do have something to compare it too) - and I've tested this with both 2x512MB and 2x1GB of RAM.
re: 4GB RAM, I don't suppose you've any benchmarks re: graphical performance?
The only ones I've seen comparing this in different memory configurations is the OWC ones, but I would like to see more. With its Halo test, it found the fastest FPS was from a MB with 2GB of RAM; the 4GB RAM configuration came in third (I think), which surprised me as they got better results from unmatched sticks - although there wasn't too much in it.
What any game?
Why wouldn't a game that's very graphically demanding but CPU intensive, such as Football Manager, play well on a MacBook?
Considering that the GMA 950 is used in a huge number of PC consumer laptops and can handle older games such as Call of Cthulhu (2006) very well, why should the MB be different?
Presumably, the posters (such as myself) who have reported about good playing experiences are completely wrong