Gaming on MBP Retina 2015 15 inch

[kokhoong0624]

I'm considering buying a MBP Retina high end model and I know it's not a gaming laptop.
Can anyone enlighten me if games like GTA V or Batman:Arkham Knight(ok this one probably wouldn't work at all) can fare well on the new MBP?
How about less intensive games like TS4 and TS3? Does it play well too?
I would be glad if someone can share their experiences with me!
Thanks!

 

[Wreckus]

If you want to play games like GTA & the new batman, get a windows gaming laptop.

BTW, don't bother with the new batman for PC, major issues with it and I don't think WB/rocksteady fully patched it (check out the steam or the official forums for updated info).

 

[duervo]

Last I heard, WB had all the copies of Batman: AK pulled from store shelves. I would stay away from that title until you can be certain they have fixed all the game-breaking issues.

http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/25/batman-arkham-knight-pc-pulled-from-shelves/

 

[garirry]

As a laptop, I believe that a high-end rMBP is going to be a great computer. That being said, keep in mind GTA V has not been released on Mac, so either you have to use Boot Camp, either you have to use a VM and cut the performance massively. Arkham Knight is apparently so glitchy they suspended the sales, but exists for Mac apparently.

If you want a laptop only for gaming, then there's no reason to invest for a Mac.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

The end of this review has some gaming benchmarks.


http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Pro-Retina-15-Mid-2015-Review.144402.0.html

 

[lewdvig]

I always game on my MBP. They are usually half as fast as a contemporary high end thin light gaming laptop. I have a GS60 with 970m and it is very fast (windows runs games better and the hardware is more powerful). But because I am almost always on my Mac I still prefer to play games on it.

The new one (and the last two) will run any game, with settings turned down and resolutions scaled down, very nice. Games look so good now that even medium settings will be impressive in recent games.

 

[kokhoong0624]

As a laptop, I believe that a high-end rMBP is going to be a great computer. That being said, keep in mind GTA V has not been released on Mac, so either you have to use Boot Camp, either you have to use a VM and cut the performance massively. Arkham Knight is apparently so glitchy they suspended the sales, but exists for Mac apparently.

If you want a laptop only for gaming, then there's no reason to invest for a Mac.

Yes I do after effects and I'm planning to invest on a Mac because it has a better screen and it has SSD.
Do you know if GTA V is playable on bootcamp with medium to high graphics?
I think I'll give up Arkham Knight for now because.. according to the benchmarks, only GTX 970 and above runs the game pretty smoothly..

 

[garirry]

Yes I do after effects and I'm planning to invest on a Mac because it has a better screen and it has SSD.
Do you know if GTA V is playable on bootcamp with medium to high graphics?
I think I'll give up Arkham Knight for now because.. according to the benchmarks, only GTX 970 and above runs the game pretty smoothly..

I don't own GTA V, but it should run like a PC with those specifications. Also, Arkham Knight is a total glitchfest, and you don't need to play the games on full settings.

 

[kokhoong0624]

Last I heard, WB had all the copies of Batman: AK pulled from store shelves. I would stay away from that title until you can be certain they have fixed all the game-breaking issues.

http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/25/batman-arkham-knight-pc-pulled-from-shelves/

Ya I am also aware of that.. How does the other Batman series run on the mac tho?

The end of this review has some gaming benchmarks.


http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Pro-Retina-15-Mid-2015-Review.144402.0.html

Thanks for sharing this! Good to know Sims 4 runs pretty good on it. Wonder what will happen if I install all those expansions. LOL

I always game on my MBP. They are usually half as fast as a contemporary high end thin light gaming laptop. I have a GS60 with 970m and it is very fast (windows runs games better and the hardware is more powerful). But because I am almost always on my Mac I still prefer to play games on it.

The new one (and the last two) will run any game, with settings turned down and resolutions scaled down, very nice. Games look so good now that even medium settings will be impressive in recent games.

What games you play and does the MBP have frame rate drops? They say that when it gets hot the frame rates and clock speed drops a lot...! hahah I only have money to invest on a machine and I hope I can get the best out of it! Gaming is not my priority though. thanks!

 

[kokhoong0624]

If you want to play games like GTA & the new batman, get a windows gaming laptop.

BTW, don't bother with the new batman for PC, major issues with it and I don't think WB/rocksteady fully patched it (check out the steam or the official forums for updated info).

I don't have money to invest on both the macbook pro and a gaming laptop.. :/

 

[kokhoong0624]

I don't own GTA V, but it should run like a PC with those specifications. Also, Arkham Knight is a total glitchfest, and you don't need to play the games on full settings.

Thank you for sharing your insights! Hahah maybe ill wait for the next MBP with skylake..
gaming is not my priority but for a premium machine I hope i could get something out of it at least.. hahah

 

[Wreckus]

I don't have money to invest on both the macbook pro and a gaming laptop.. :/

Thought you going to do more gaming then anything else. My apologies. If you are planning to do bootcamp and plan to play some games, it may not be a bad idea (if you can) go with a 512gb ssd drive so you have ample room for both OS X & windows.

 

[MartinAppleGuy]

Yes I do after effects and I'm planning to invest on a Mac because it has a better screen and it has SSD.
Do you know if GTA V is playable on bootcamp with medium to high graphics?
I think I'll give up Arkham Knight for now because.. according to the benchmarks, only GTX 970 and above runs the game pretty smoothly..

I have an imac with Windows 10 on bootcamp and I play GTA V. My graphics card is the nvidia GeForce GT 750m which is the same as what the highest end 15" MacBook Pro 2014 uses (10% slower than the new one). I play at 1080p; settings are between medium and very high with no AA. I get anything between 40fps and 80fps depending on the situation in game Honestly; runs like a champ!

Make sure to go for the dedicated GPU model; and you'll run pretty much any game just fine with bootcamp :!

 

[MartinAppleGuy]

Ya I am also aware of that.. How does the other Batman series run on the mac tho?




Thanks for sharing this! Good to know Sims 4 runs pretty good on it. Wonder what will happen if I install all those expansions. LOL



What games you play and does the MBP have frame rate drops? They say that when it gets hot the frame rates and clock speed drops a lot...! hahah I only have money to invest on a machine and I hope I can get the best out of it! Gaming is not my priority though. thanks!

I have Arkham City batman game and it ruined fine on Wondows 8 but has been the only game I have bad fps with on my upgrade to Windows 10 (Microsofts fault not the iMac). I used to get 90 fps with dips to 55fps on Arkham City but now I get 20fps on Windows 10 I'll maybe reinstall it lol All other games are running just fine though )

 

[Cuniac]

I own the 2015 15in MBP with AMD and I can run GTA v at 720p with very good settings. I can hit 1080p at low settings, but the point is its playable and looks good either way. Also, if your doing bootcamp, and if your doing games on make you should be doing bootcamp. Direct X 12 runs better with AMD. So when games start using Direct X12 you will see even better performance.

 

[austinpike]

I'm planning to invest on a Mac because it has a better screen and it has SSD.

Even if many windows laptops don't ship with SSDs, you can easily put one in. And there are certainly nice screens out there if you shop carefully. For gaming you are probably better off with 1080 anyway - the retina screen just taxes the video card more. Point being, you can pretty easily find equivalent performance for less $, or much better performance for the same $ as a high end rMBP.

That said, if you are set on the macbook and want to buy now, I would jump on this deal:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mid-2014-15-rmbp-with-dgpu-1750-at-b-h-photo.1910542/

 

[nStyle]

If your primary intention for buying the 15" is for gaming, you'll be sorely disappointed after the initial high of "I have one machine that can do it all!" If you don't have to have 15", then I would buy the 13" and use the money saved to build a gaming PC (<$1k) that will run circles around any MBP for gaming. Same cost and you get the best of both worlds.

I really tried hard to get by with just one machine for everything. In the end, the compromises just weren't worth it. Hopefully one day software will become so efficient and hardware will become so small and powerful that a baseline 13" could play any game possible at 60fps+. Today is not that day.

 

[inhalexhale1]

If you want to play games like GTA & the new batman, get a windows gaming laptop.

BTW, don't bother with the new batman for PC, major issues with it and I don't think WB/rocksteady fully patched it (check out the steam or the official forums for updated info).

I'm considering buying a MBP Retina high end model and I know it's not a gaming laptop.
Can anyone enlighten me if games like GTA V or Batman:Arkham Knight(ok this one probably wouldn't work at all) can fare well on the new MBP?
How about less intensive games like TS4 and TS3? Does it play well too?
I would be glad if someone can share their experiences with me!
Thanks!

I don't understand these questions. If the game you like is only available to play on a computer, then I understand that. But why spend the extra money for the MBP with a dGPU, when you could spend that on a console, and get a better experience. Even if you buy the Razer Blade. $3k to play a game that would more or less run the same on a PS4. I guess if your always in the go and want to play these games in a hotel, dorm, or whatever.

I totally get building a high end gaming PC though, the experience is very different.

 

[inhalexhale1]

If your primary intention for buying the 15" is for gaming, you'll be sorely disappointed after the initial high of "I have one machine that can do it all!" If you don't have to have 15", then I would buy the 13" and use the money saved to build a gaming PC (<$1k) that will run circles around any MBP for gaming. Same cost and you get the best of both worlds.

I really tried hard to get by with just one machine for everything. In the end, the compromises just weren't worth it. Hopefully one day software will become so efficient and hardware will become so small and powerful that a baseline 13" could play any game possible at 60fps+. Today is not that day.

Great post.

 

[pscl]

Yes I do after effects and I'm planning to invest on a Mac because it has a better screen and it has SSD.
Do you know if GTA V is playable on bootcamp with medium to high graphics?
I think I'll give up Arkham Knight for now because.. according to the benchmarks, only GTX 970 and above runs the game pretty smoothly..

it is playable.
i played it on my late 2013 rMBP with 750m. Runs surprisingly very well! Way better than Battlefield 4... i didnt expected that.

 

[n1smo]

I am able to run GTA V at 1050p in pretty high settings. The issue with these rMBPs is that it'll most likely throttle after playing the game for a while (over 30 mins). Before it throttles though, it runs silky smooth. The throttling was unbearable running Yosemite to the point where I thought there was something wrong with my laptop so I opened it up and repasted only to discover that Apple did a pretty good job with the thermal paste. However, installing El Capitan fixed most of the throttling issue. In El Capitan Public Beta 1 (PB1), it absolutely fixed the throttling issue, and the rMBP will allow the GPU to run past 90c. The subsequent PBs were hit or miss, Apple was definitely playing around with the throttle settings. PB5 ran GTA V pretty good, even when it throttled, it doesn't drop all the way down to 400mhz so the choppiness isn't as obvious. I haven't tried PB6 yet, been playing GTA V on my Lenovo Y500 SLI. I ran it on Windows 8.1 initially and then upgraded to Windows 10, both gave similar performance. I might mess around in GTA V on my rMBP today just to see if PB6 changed anything.

 

[lewdvig]

What games you play and does the MBP have frame rate drops? They say that when it gets hot the frame rates and clock speed drops a lot...! hahah I only have money to invest on a machine and I hope I can get the best out of it! Gaming is not my priority though. thanks!

I actually returned my 2015 rMBP with RADEON. But I did try a few games. GRID 2 ran medium at 900p nicely (40ish FPS) and Borderlands 2 run same Rez with everything maxed except ambient occlusion and AA (4xMSAA was fine). I never experienced the throttling, but I also did not do marathon gaming sessions on it.

Sorry!

 

[lewdvig]

I am able to run GTA V at 1050p in pretty high settings. The issue with these rMBPs is that it'll most likely throttle after playing the game for a while (over 30 mins). Before it throttles though, it runs silky smooth. The throttling was unbearable running Yosemite to the point where I thought there was something wrong with my laptop so I opened it up and repasted only to discover that Apple did a pretty good job with the thermal paste. However, installing El Capitan fixed most of the throttling issue. In El Capitan Public Beta 1 (PB1), it absolutely fixed the throttling issue, and the rMBP will allow the GPU to run past 90c. The subsequent PBs were hit or miss, Apple was definitely playing around with the throttle settings. PB5 ran GTA V pretty good, even when it throttled, it doesn't drop all the way down to 400mhz so the choppiness isn't as obvious. I haven't tried PB6 yet, been playing GTA V on my Lenovo Y500 SLI. I ran it on Windows 8.1 initially and then upgraded to Windows 10, both gave similar performance. I might mess around in GTA V on my rMBP today just to see if PB6 changed anything.

How is El Capitan affecting your GTA V playability? There are no firmware updates.

 

[n1smo]

How is El Capitan affecting your GTA V playability? There are no firmware updates.

It does and was the reason I signed up for El Capitan. OS X controls a lot of the underpinning to include GPU throttling.

 

[VesselA]

I'm considering buying a MBP Retina high end model and I know it's not a gaming laptop.
Can anyone enlighten me if games like GTA V or Batman:Arkham Knight(ok this one probably wouldn't work at all) can fare well on the new MBP?
How about less intensive games like TS4 and TS3? Does it play well too?
I would be glad if someone can share their experiences with me!
Thanks!

I bought a 13" RMBP and have managed to get 50 FPS on Arkham CITY at HD 720p and medium graphics settings and it looks great - that is running on windows 10 bootcamp, and seems just as smooth and fast when running on mac (the version I bought on the mac app store).
This game is a few years old but Im surprised at how good the graphics are - not tried the more recent batman game that is probably more taxing - I have it on PS4 though and it runs perfect