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Gaming performance
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Well its not really watercooled...
my desktop pc's gfx card gets "hot" too.. 74 degrees at 100% use. (it has special cooler on though) but many older gfx cards i've had can easily run around 90 degrees (celcius ofc). ..
a small tiny laptop thats slimmer than my keyboard here that can run a whole game.. even at that temp(or higher) i would be impressed
and its not like you're gonna be playing for hours and hours... coz then you've bought the wrong computer..
So no one can tell me ? I'd hate to spend 30$ on the game and have it unplayable.
If you can wait a couple of hours, I'll install both and let you know. I don't hold out much hope for DA2 though.
I tried bc2-Multiplayer (Panama map) and got 14-35 fps at lowest settings. Not playable on MBA 11" i7 2011.Battlefield - Bad Company 2 on low settings i get 30 / 35 FPS..
Actually, kinda nice!
I don't worry. Deleted my Bootcamp partition anyway
.
Reading a few posts from MBP owners, it seems DA:O is much harder on the hardware than DA2 in part because DA:O is a Wine port of the game (they used Transgaming's translation library instead of doing a native port).
The MBA meets both games minimum requirements though.
Anyway, I'll wait for your report, I'm not in any rush.
about the thermal paste thing, as5 is great over others b/c it is not nearly as thick as other pastes. the heatsink on the air isnt very heavy and you cant get it as tight as you could on a desktop. the as5 allows you to easily use the grain of rice method and get a good spread on the cpu and gpu. as for the burn in time...prime 95 and crysis gpu benchmark overnight for only 1 or 2 nights should do it.
i think i also saw someone mention l4d2. i play it on a mix of med/high (mostly high) at native resolution with high frame rates. i have maxed it out with no issues when i did about a 20% overclock.
i think i also saw someone mention l4d2. i play it on a mix of med/high (mostly high) at native resolution with high frame rates. i have maxed it out with no issues when i did about a 20% overclock.
yeah i would say that its even more than enough
set it to 60 hz and vsync on. should make it less noisy
Tried tf2 with a maxfps config, my findings:
That was after about 20 mins playing.
fps ranged from 50-110, it had a few stutters the first minute of the first map but after that it was smooth sailing really.
It doesn't look that good in the ss, but really the gfx quality was pretty ok.
Gets hot around the wasd keys but not uncomfortably, at least if you keep your fingers on the keys and not let m touch the case.
Very smooth but at a price of loud fans, graphics quality and the unit heating up like mad.
Hope this contributes to the thread a bit
That was after about 20 mins playing.
fps ranged from 50-110, it had a few stutters the first minute of the first map but after that it was smooth sailing really.
It doesn't look that good in the ss, but really the gfx quality was pretty ok.
Gets hot around the wasd keys but not uncomfortably, at least if you keep your fingers on the keys and not let m touch the case.
Very smooth but at a price of loud fans, graphics quality and the unit heating up like mad.
Hope this contributes to the thread a bit
Seriously, you people need to stop fretting so much about 90 degrees C. That's nothing for these chips and won't even put a dent in their life expectancy.
every single time someone mentions heat...someone else says "it doesnt hurt the life of your laptop"
were not concerned about our **** frying or anything damn. cool = efficient = desired. thats all there is to it. we all have our personal heat threshold, so deal with it. i go to great lengths to keep all of my computers running cool. i do it because i want to, and i dont care about your opinions.
sorry for nerd raging...just had to vent
were not concerned about our **** frying or anything damn. cool = efficient = desired. thats all there is to it. we all have our personal heat threshold, so deal with it. i go to great lengths to keep all of my computers running cool. i do it because i want to, and i dont care about your opinions.
sorry for nerd raging...just had to vent
Nerd raging indeed. Efficient what ? As long as the firmware is not throttling the CPU, the heat doesn't matter.
But keep raging over heat, I'll keep not fretting about it because it doesn't matter, these things were designed for this.
I'm going through Mass Effect 2 and it plays really great on my 2010 11". At native resolution and all the extras turned on it rarely goes below 25FPS. If you turn off some of the goodies and lower the resolution a bit, it is even better.
So it needs to have a CPU version of a meltdown before it becomes an issue? It becomes a concern when it is coming close to being an issue. 90C+ is an concern. Keep pretending its not though.
Agreed! I have the same model and played ME2 all the way through. It played smooth as butter and medium settings. This is a great game to play on the Air!
You two do realize that we are talking about the 2011 Airs and not the 2010's, right?
The 2010's have the arguably better gpu in them.
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The CPU's in the MBA and MBP are not the same. Both use Sandybridge CPU's but the MBA uses the ULV variant which gives up some performance in the name of a lower TDP. To answer your question a MBP with a discrete GPU would be quite a bit better than the MBA for playing games. A MBP with an integrated GPU might be slightly better.
ksgant said:
The CPU's in the MBA and MBP are not the same. Both use Sandybridge CPU's but the MBA uses the ULV variant which gives up some performance in the name of a lower TDP. To answer your question a MBP with a discrete GPU would be quite a bit better than the MBA for playing games. A MBP with an integrated GPU might be slightly better.
Hi everyone, thought I'd show what a 13'' Ultimate 2010 would do in TF2 for comparison. I'm playing with it on my lap and it's not burning it at all, just a bit warm, and not at all uncomfortable. It heats up to about 84C max, and I've noticed that 84-85C is where it maxes out at intensive tasks.
The TF2 resolution is maxed at 1440x900 and I'm getting between 25-35 fps or so on a loaded server, it's pretty smooth.
Settings
Screenshot
Another screenshot
iStat Temperature after five minutes
What I'm extremely curious about is if anyone has Parallels they can try League of Legends in. I can play at high settings at 1440x900 resolution and the game runs very smoothly, but occasionally stutters for a second near the very end of the game during huge fights which is tolerable. In between stutters I get 30 fps.
The TF2 resolution is maxed at 1440x900 and I'm getting between 25-35 fps or so on a loaded server, it's pretty smooth.
Settings
Screenshot
Another screenshot
iStat Temperature after five minutes
What I'm extremely curious about is if anyone has Parallels they can try League of Legends in. I can play at high settings at 1440x900 resolution and the game runs very smoothly, but occasionally stutters for a second near the very end of the game during huge fights which is tolerable. In between stutters I get 30 fps.
How is it an issue ? Don't worry, modern systems have tons of failsafe and you'll never have a meltdown proper, the system will shutdown before that. 90C+ is nothing for these chips, they are designed to take much more heat abuse than that.
It's not even close to being an issue. The CPU gets throttled and the fans and heat sinks are designed to not even let it get close to a being where it could even start being a concern.
Seriously folks, you're way too paranoid about heat. I was a gamer with a built rig back in the days of the Voodoo Graphics when MMX was just vaporware. Back then cooling and heat mattered, we didn't have 3 tons of sensors and auto-throttling and other gizmos and we pushed systems with tons of dedicated processors (graphics, audio, cpu, dedicated disk controllers) for everything and milked them for every last frame in the then brand new GLQuake. Heck, we could overclock to our hearts content back then as Intel hadn't yet thought to multiplier lock the CPUs. The only people who fried systems were those who didn't know what they were doing and when they did, running software on a stock system was not even close to being the reason.
Apple didn't make the MBA capable of self-harm, you can be sure about that. Running the thing at 100% usage for hours and hours will heat it up for sure, but never to the point where it becomes an issue, close to an issue or even close to something you should be concerned about.
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DRAGON AGE 2 update
sorry for the delay, has been rather hectic.
I have not been able to try DA, as my copy is windows only and I don't have enough space on my windows partition to install it, Doh!
However I did install DA2 and am pleasantly surprised at how well it seems to run, res 1440x900 on low settings (still not bad looking though) and had perfectly playable frame rates through the prologue and up to and including the ogre battle that kills your sib'.
The fans starts being audible almost as soon as you start the game, and the case between the F keys and the hinge gets pretty hot, but apart from that all seems well.
Hope that helps a bit, though clearly not much help for DA
sorry for the delay, has been rather hectic.
I have not been able to try DA, as my copy is windows only and I don't have enough space on my windows partition to install it, Doh!
However I did install DA2 and am pleasantly surprised at how well it seems to run, res 1440x900 on low settings (still not bad looking though) and had perfectly playable frame rates through the prologue and up to and including the ogre battle that kills your sib'.
The fans starts being audible almost as soon as you start the game, and the case between the F keys and the hinge gets pretty hot, but apart from that all seems well.
Hope that helps a bit, though clearly not much help for DA
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CiV is playable, I just didn't find it enjoyable. I guess I'm just to spoiled playing on my Win7 box and 30" LCD. I just found the combination of the lower settings and the smaller screen ruined play for me. I'll give it another go in strategic mode and see how that feels
ZBoater said:
CiV is playable, I just didn't find it enjoyable. I guess I'm just to spoiled playing on my Win7 box and 30" LCD. I just found the combination of the lower settings and the smaller screen ruined play for me. I'll give it another go in strategic mode and see how that feels
It'll go up to 90ish after about 15-20 mins, that post of mine earlier is with a 13" ultimate as well