Gaming performance on 2009 15" MacBook Pro, mainly CoD4, GTA IV + Burnout Paradise?

[applemax]

Hi

I'm thinking about getting a 15" MacBook Pro (£1699 configuration with 512MB 9600GT).

What is the performance for gaming, particularly titles like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Grand Theft Auto IV and Burnout Paradise, compared with what I'm used to on the Xbox 360?

Is it something they could demo for me in the Apple Store?

On a side note, any general things I should know before purchasing? I've been waiting ages for a Blu-Ray drive in a notebook and I'm bored of waiting now - can I replace the internal superdrive with a Blu-Ray one when the software/drivers in Mac OS X are released?

Thanks!

 

[phixiuz]

I think you could say performance is about the same +- compared to a 360 if you check the video's on YouTube with ppl playing the games you just summed up.

But why would you need a 9600M GT if you got a 360? Just asking .

 

[applemax]

I think you could say performance is about the same +- compared to a 360 if you check the video's on YouTube with ppl playing the games you just summed up.

But why would you need a 9600M GT if you got a 360? Just asking .

Well, I'm in the market for a new computer and it'd be quite useful to be able to play these games on the move

 

[MRU]

I have a 2.93 15" Unibody MBP with 9400+9600.

Realistically you would probably get a more 'rounder' experience on the 360. Yes you may be able to run at slightly higher res on your MBP, but you may have to sacrifice other aspects such as shadows, texture details etc.
Frame-rates on those games are pretty much locked on the 360, again you may find that having all the effects enabled, 1280x720 or 1440x900 res on your MBP the frame rate will have more fluctuations.

You have to remember, games on the 360 are optomised to run on that hardware. They have fixed settings, whereas on a PC there are so many variables it's not all about the GPU, even sound settings could effect your performance on pc side.

Personally, i'd stick to gaming on your 360

I'm not saying you wont be able to play your game, but you could spend as much time tinkering to get it as playable as your 360 version as you would actually 'playing' the game. Life™ is too short for the hassle.

 

[Freyqq]

in bootcamp (xp/vista/win 7), you should be getting 30+ fps on high graphics at native res with COD4. The others should be similar. That's pretty good. I recommend you go for the lower end one with the 9600GT 256vram though, b\c it's maybe a 5% increase in power for a lot of money. None of your games are really going to benefit from the extra vram b\c it will more likely be bottlenecked by the card before it runs out of vram.

 

[Hellhammer]

I would stick with console. I have iMac and PS3 and I've used iMac for gaming only couple of times. GTA IV is very demanding game especially for laptops so I wouldn't expect smooth gaming experience. I, personally, don't like PC gaming so much because by time to time, you need to update your rig and that'll usually be expensive. Just my opinions...

 

[applemax]

Thanks for all your replies

Just thought I'd mention - I'm not planning to replace the Xbox 360 at all - it's just a mobile alternative for when I'm on the move.

Also, any general things I should know before purchasing? I've been waiting ages for a Blu-Ray drive in a notebook and I'm bored of waiting now - can I replace the internal superdrive with a Blu-Ray one when the software/drivers in Mac OS X are released?

 

[phixiuz]

I have a 2.93 15" Unibody MBP with 9400+9600.

Realistically you would probably get a more 'rounder' experience on the 360. Yes you may be able to run at slightly higher res on your MBP, but you may have to sacrifice other aspects such as shadows, texture details etc.
Frame-rates on those games are pretty much locked on the 360, again you may find that having all the effects enabled, 1280x720 or 1440x900 res on your MBP the frame rate will have more fluctuations.

You have to remember, games on the 360 are optomised to run on that hardware. They have fixed settings, whereas on a PC there are so many variables it's not all about the GPU, even sound settings could effect your performance on pc side.

Personally, i'd stick to gaming on your 360

I'm not saying you wont be able to play your game, but you could spend as much time tinkering to get it as playable as your 360 version as you would actually 'playing' the game. Life™ is too short for the hassle.

You took the words right out of my mouth, was going to say this aswell, but had no time left .

And about the bluray-drive, sure it's possible, but it's still very expensive and it's not supported under OSX afaik so far, so you have to use Boot Camp to do it in Windows.

Good luck with your purchase!

 

[arudius]

I've actually been on the fence about getting GTA IV for my bootcamp'd drive for about a month now. I am pretty sure my computer can handle it, but it's my video card I'm unsure about. Here's my specs:

Mac Pro (1st gen) 2x2.66 Dual Core Intel Xeon
9GB Memory
ATI Radeon x1900 xt 512MB video ram (I'm well aware of the issues with this card)

Bootcamping with:
Vista 64-bit (so I can access all 9GB of my memory)

Since the GeForce 8800gt has been released for Mac, I'm curious if I'd be better off with that? I paid a PRETTY PENNY for this x1900xt though...I don't have severe issues as I've read, though I maintain it quite regularly (clean the dust out). Sure, it's loud at times, but it plays games like Far Cry 2, CoD4, Fallout 3 without any issues. The only game I turn settings down for is Far Cry 2. CoD4 is notoriously smooth with it's amazing graphics which makes it a difficult benchmark. Far Cry 2 gets pretty slow on the higher settings.

So my question is this: Will I have a positive experience with GTA IV on my existing rig? Or should I wait until I can swap the gfx card for the 8800gt?

Or am I completely paranoid about nothing?

 

[kasakka]

I
So my question is this: Will I have a positive experience with GTA IV on my existing rig? Or should I wait until I can swap the gfx card for the 8800gt?

Or am I completely paranoid about nothing?

Depends on your display resolution. I used to have a 3 GHz dual core with the 8800GT and it ran it quite well on medium textures (not enough VRAM for high) and 1920x1200. Moving to a quad core processor helped a lot but the max resolution for smooth gameplay was still 1920x1200. I got a GTX260 and it would run very nicely in 2560x1600 and now runs smooth as butter in 1920x1080 on my 40" HDTV.

GTA IV is very CPU dependant so if it can use both processors you should be fine in that area. I'd try it first with the current graphics card and get a GTX2xx series card if it doesn't run well enough. I ran a Hackintosh with the GTX260 and it worked fine, don't know how it is with a real Mac but afaik Snow Leopard should have support for it. There is also some Mac version of GTX285 I think.

 

[arudius]

Depends on your display resolution. I used to have a 3 GHz dual core with the 8800GT and it ran it quite well on medium textures (not enough VRAM for high) and 1920x1200. Moving to a quad core processor helped a lot but the max resolution for smooth gameplay was still 1920x1200. I got a GTX260 and it would run very nicely in 2560x1600 and now runs smooth as butter in 1920x1080 on my 40" HDTV.

GTA IV is very CPU dependant so if it can use both processors you should be fine in that area. I'd try it first with the current graphics card and get a GTX2xx series card if it doesn't run well enough. I ran a Hackintosh with the GTX260 and it worked fine, don't know how it is with a real Mac but afaik Snow Leopard should have support for it. There is also some Mac version of GTX285 I think.

Very good info indeed. I'm thinking that having four CPU's should do well. I read that that's optimal for GTA's multi-threading (8 CPU's are good as well but I read that the noticeable difference is not very extreme). So I think I'm ok with the processors I have. The 9GB of RAM in 64-bit Vista should be plenty as well. I suppose it really does come down to whether or not the ATI Radeon x1900 xt 512mb really cuts it. I just recall that the GeForce 7300gt I had originally back in late 2007 when I first purchased my Mac Pro was terrible for gaming, and the difference when moving to the Radeon x1900 xt was literally like pulling the curtains off the windows night and day.

So just to clarify would you say that I should be ok to at least pull some low-medium or medium graphics settings on my rig? My monitor's native is 1400x900 so I'd never go further than that.

Thanks again for your very informative response, too.

 

[applemax]

Very good info indeed. I'm thinking that having four CPU's should do well. I read that that's optimal for GTA's multi-threading (8 CPU's are good as well but I read that the noticeable difference is not very extreme). So I think I'm ok with the processors I have. The 9GB of RAM in 64-bit Vista should be plenty as well. I suppose it really does come down to whether or not the ATI Radeon x1900 xt 512mb really cuts it. I just recall that the GeForce 7300gt I had originally back in late 2007 when I first purchased my Mac Pro was terrible for gaming, and the difference when moving to the Radeon x1900 xt was literally like pulling the curtains off the windows night and day.

So just to clarify would you say that I should be ok to at least pull some low-medium or medium graphics settings on my rig? My monitor's native is 1400x900 so I'd never go further than that.

Thanks again for your very informative response, too.

Has anyone got any experience running GTA IV on the latest MacBook Pros? Is performance better in Boot Camp or Parallels? Also, any news on it being released for the Mac? Thanks

 

[arudius]

Has anyone got any experience running GTA IV on the latest MacBook Pros? Is performance better in Boot Camp or Parallels? Also, any news on it being released for the Mac? Thanks

Do a quick websearch, the majority of users I've noticed in forums across the internet are MBP users. I have a really hard time finding info for the Mac Pro running GTA IV, only one thread so thus why I'm here asking my question.

EDIT:

check this out, this may be super usefull!

http://www.gtagaming.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111454

Hope that helps.

 

[revelever]

GTA on MBP

Has anyone got any experience running GTA IV on the latest MacBook Pros? Is performance better in Boot Camp or Parallels? Also, any news on it being released for the Mac? Thanks

I am running a ported version of GTA, on os x 10.6 and I am happy with it. Its smooth, doesnt crash, fps bogs down very rarely. I am about to install windows on bootcamp and see how it compares. MBP 2.5 ghz, 4gb ram