Gaming Performance on MBP

[Delok]

Hi guys,

I just bought a MacBook Pro and I think that the gaming performance is pretty poor.
Is there any way to improve it or can you at least provide me some information about your experiences with gaming on a MacBook Pro?

I have the late 2013 retina version with a 2.4 Intel Core i5 and 8GB of RAM.
I know that this laptop isn't meant for gaming and I wouldn't mind not being able to play games on it, but I think that the performance should be better.

I tried playing Portal 1, Minecraft and The Cave and all three had a pretty bad framerate (I guess Minecraft is fine, but the other games aren't).
I just would like to know if I could do anything to improve it.

 

[leman]

Portal 1 should actually run very well on 1280x900 or 1440x900. No idea about The Cave as I never played it. All performance problems with Minecraft are because of their rather innefficient renderer.

 

[Cloudsurfer]

What do you mean Portal and bad frame rates? My 2010 13" MBP can run Portal with most settings maxed out with a good frame rate. (±60fps)

The Haswell MBP shouldn't have the slightest problem running Portal.

 

[iMacFarlane]

I'm gaming on the non-retina predecessor to your MBP, the 2012 13" with the HD 4000 graphics.

All games below are at medium gfx settings, native (1280 x 800) resolution:

Portal I and II, HL2 - buttery smooth framerates
Starcraft II - 20-30 fps
Skyrim - no ENB mods - 20-30 fps
Skyrim - Climates of Tamriel or an ENB - unplayable (2-8 fps)

YMMV since you are retina and your HD 5000 (better) has to push so, so many more pixels (worse)

 

[Delok]

Thank you for your replies, I don't know why but I just tried Portal and it worked better than ever. The framerate still drops occasionally though.
I guess I judged the performance a little bit too early...

 

[Barney63]

Thank you for your replies, I don't know why but I just tried Portal and it worked better than ever. The framerate still drops occasionally though.
I guess I judged the performance a little bit too early...

You say that you have just bought your rMBP.
Has it finished indexing?
That could cause some issues.


Barney

 

[Delok]

Indexing? I could tell you if i knew what that means.

 

[Freyqq]

Hi guys,

I just bought a MacBook Pro and I think that the gaming performance is pretty poor.
Is there any way to improve it or can you at least provide me some information about your experiences with gaming on a MacBook Pro?

I have the late 2013 retina version with a 2.4 Intel Core i5 and 8GB of RAM.
I know that this laptop isn't meant for gaming and I wouldn't mind not being able to play games on it, but I think that the performance should be better.

I tried playing Portal 1, Minecraft and The Cave and all three had a pretty bad framerate (I guess Minecraft is fine, but the other games aren't).
I just would like to know if I could do anything to improve it.

It's because you are running it at native resolution. Go down to 1440x900, and it will run very nicely.

 

[Barney63]

Indexing? I could tell you if i knew what that means.

When you first start using your MBP, Spotlight searches ALL the files on your Macintosh HD to enable fast searches, if it is still doing this it will slow down other processes.


Barney

 

[Vanilla35]

Hi guys,

I just bought a MacBook Pro and I think that the gaming performance is pretty poor.
Is there any way to improve it or can you at least provide me some information about your experiences with gaming on a MacBook Pro?

I have the late 2013 retina version with a 2.4 Intel Core i5 and 8GB of RAM.
I know that this laptop isn't meant for gaming and I wouldn't mind not being able to play games on it, but I think that the performance should be better.

I tried playing Portal 1, Minecraft and The Cave and all three had a pretty bad framerate (I guess Minecraft is fine, but the other games aren't).
I just would like to know if I could do anything to improve it.

You're probably running it at native resolution, which is double that of normal res. bring it down to 1440x900

 

[blooperz]

Your never going to be able to do any serious gaming on that machine, it's just not designed for it. That being said make sure you crank down the resolution, the integrated Iris just isn't capable of pushing that many pixels under those conditions.

 

[TechZeke]

Hi guys,

I just bought a MacBook Pro and I think that the gaming performance is pretty poor.
Is there any way to improve it or can you at least provide me some information about your experiences with gaming on a MacBook Pro?

I have the late 2013 retina version with a 2.4 Intel Core i5 and 8GB of RAM.
I know that this laptop isn't meant for gaming and I wouldn't mind not being able to play games on it, but I think that the performance should be better.

I tried playing Portal 1, Minecraft and The Cave and all three had a pretty bad framerate (I guess Minecraft is fine, but the other games aren't).
I just would like to know if I could do anything to improve it.

You have to make sure that games aren't set to the native resolution of the screen. Most dGPUs can't handle 2560x1600 native with high frame rates, let alone an iGPU.