Gaming on MacBook Pro

[Patriks7]

So I will be buying a unibody MacBook Pro pretty soon. But one thing I still haven't resolved (and yes, I did search! I in fact spent the last 3 hours searching, while I should be studying for exams ). How does the 2.4 and 2.53 differ in heat, battery life and gaming (obviously in Windows)? I'm not planning to play games like Crysis on high, but generally games that are not available for PS3 (for example TDU, C&C 3, World in Conflict, UT and some real time strategies). I don't generally need to be playing them on high, but it would be nice. Also, how would the 2.4 MacBook work with these games? I'm thinking about the MacBook due to its portability, but the MacBook Pro seems better to me because the components are better (ie. screen) and it seems more future proof than the MacBook.

 

[bay2sacto]

heat & battery usage will be negligible between the 2.4 & 2.53. But games will probably benefit some from the 2.53's 6mb cache vs the 2.4's 3mb.

For gaming you'll definitely want the pro for the discreet GPU. The integrated 9400 is decent for most non demanding games, but the 9600 will give you *much* better performance.

I have a 2.53 MBP I bought the first week they were out in Oct. I play C&C 3, COD4, Battlefield 2 and Half-Life 2 and all perform fine. I Have XP installed in Boot Camp and a VMWare Fusion 2 VM.

 

[johata3]

I have the same settings with bay with bootcamp of xp and vmware fusion (except mine is the 2.8 GHz MBP unibody).

I have no problems when I play games on xp and on osx. It's just the decision between the 2.4 GHz and 2.53 GHz and choose which one you can afford.

 

[Trivial rock]

I think it really just up to you as to which machine you would like to buy. I have the 2.4 unibody MBP in standard config and I play TR Anniversary, AOE3, RA3 and COD4 all great.

As you can see from my signature that I have an iMac also which is why I plumped for the 2.4. If you have the money and it will be your only / primary machine I think the real question is how will the 2.4 with its 256mb graphics chip preform in say 3 years time. I expect in 3 years the 512 will still be able to play the latest games (on lower settings) but maybe not with the 256, also our friend above commented on double the size cache in the 2.53 MBP.

of course if you don't intend on keeping it that long then maybe longevity isn't an issue (in terms of usefulness of hardware).

I hope this helps

 

[Patriks7]

Thanks a lot guys Just the answers I was looking for.
But I'm still undecided :x