General Use question of MacBook Pro 13 i5

[darkgremio]

Hello, I recently just purchased a MacBook Pro 13 i5 off the Apple Store. I have some general questions about this computer fulfilling my computing needs, as well shipping times and what people typically experience for getting there products from the Apple Store.

I purchased this my MacBook Pro on Saturday (July 17th) and selected overnight, or which ever option had the fastest shipping method available. How long will it take to receive my Mac? I mean is Apple pretty quick with processing shipping and such?

My intending usage on this computer is mostly for college and portability. While mostly doing word processing and surfing the web. The one concern I have is that I play World of Warcraft and I am hoping I can decently run this to where its playable at decent FPS and I am willing to sacrifice not running it on super uber high settings just like a medium where its enjoyable.

Is it possible to do all this stuff with this computer?

 

[PurrBall]

Yes.

 

[blackbinary]

Anandtech did a benchmark of the 13" i5 with the hd3000 on WoW.

It recieved 48 FPS on 1024x768 on fair quality settings (weather turned all the way down).

However, this was on a lightly populated server in an area with no one else around.

What this means is you'll probably get around 45 FPS just running around on fair and with no weather.

Once you get to fairly populated areas or during larged fights you should still be ok with 30 FPS or so.

However, my concern would be areas like Iron Forge, where you will see a tonne of traffic, and raids.

 

[darkgremio]

I mean FPS wise the average human eye can only depict 24 - 30 FPS and most games are capped at 30 FPS on consoles due to limiting it being a resource hog. I mean right now I have a Radeon HD 4200 which is integrated but on this is Windows though, and it runs WOW on medium no problem.

It is true that OS X is more smoother and less resource intense as Windows? Or is that my misconception?

 

[blackbinary]

I'm just telling you what the benchmarks have shown (I also saw some footage on Youtube).

You can probably play most of it, it will just be the more intense situations where it may start to stutter.

I'm not sure if there is a setting lower than fair, or if there are any other tricks to lower the quality to increase speed.

OSX being 'smoother' isn't really a trait that you can measure. Being less resource intensive is, but that will depend on a specific version of OSX versus a specific version of Windows.

By the time you compare Snow Leopard to Windows 7, they are probably close to the same efficiency, with both being able to survive on under 2GB of ram if they had to, and being optimal with about 4GB.


Also the 24fps is a myth. We had gotten use to 24fps from film, but when home video came out, it was capturing at a full 60fps. People accepted this, but it looked different to the 24fps of film. Because of this it was taken as being lower quality, when in fact it was the opposite.

The eye can recognize 60fps. It may not be able to see every frame, but it does have an impact.

But that isn't even a question here, the question is if your alright with it dipping to 15 or 10 fps every so often.


With all said and done, here is a video of a person playing WoW on the same model as your, with only an SSD to increase load speeds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCxQri1j-Ds

I just browsed it quickly, but for sure around 4 minutes he pulls up the FPS window and you can watch it.

30 is smooth enough to be playable, 15 is stuttery, 10 and below is unplayable.

 

[dmccloud]

I run WoW on my MBP 13" i5. The worst framerate I've had is 35 FPS in Stormwind (Ironforge is basically a ghost town now).