Graphics capabilities gaming inquiry

[norakundi]

Hi Folks,

I am new to these message boards so forgive me if I am in the wrong section etc.

I am a longtime mac user (currently have a 2013/2014 model macbook air) and am looking into buying a macbook pro, mostly for gaming purposes since my older computer still does everything else fine. I have couple of questions for people out there who may know:

1. The 13" Macbook Pro has a new iGPUs (Intel Iris 640/650 Plus) and I am wondering if anyone has played Civilization 6 using this specific model and what their experience with it was? Asked Aspyr support on this and they were kinda useless.

2. Related to #1, can anyone provide me with a general idea of the graphics capabilities of the above (ie: what kind of games taxed the system)

3. Finally, I am planning to get a 13" Macbook Pro with the following specs and am wondering if anyone can render an opinion of whether it be good for handling most current and upcoming mac games: i7 dual core chip with the above iGPU, 16GB RAM, 256GB HD

Thanks

 

[mario-64]

All i can tell you is my 2017 15” 3.1ghz Radeon 560 is terrible at gaming. It does ok with WoW at 1650x1050 medium settings but Civ VI is unplayable as are most other games, even the Metal API ones. Macs aren’t gaming machines period

 

[bcave098]

I haven't played Civilization 6 before, but I can generally play recent games on fairly low settings (even Cities Skylines which doesn't support integrated graphics at all) and the occasional one with medium or high settings (like Farming Simulator 17) on my 2017 nTB 13". Not a great experience, but not that bad. Plus if you get an eGPU, the prospects improve.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

The 13 inch is pretty much imited to low settings on grade a games if they will run at all. The 15 inch is a medium level gaming laptop but to be honest if you are buying for gaming specifically then anything less than an Nvidia 1060 is better off being replaced with a console.

 

[Falhófnir]

Civ 6 is a surprisingly taxing game, it definitely runs better with a quad core cpu as there’s a significant amount of computing going on behind the scenes. On top of that, the port for Mac from Aspyr is relatively unoptimised. Dual core plus igpu probably mean the 13” won’t handle it brilliantly. I don’t know what they have done (optimisation I expect) but the iPad version runs way more smoothly than I expect you’d even get on a maxed out 15” MBP. Note the 15” is a poor gaming computer in itself though, especially given its cost. The cpu is there but the gpu isn’t even competitive with a GTX 1050 which is Nvidia’s entry level gaming chip. If playing this game specifically interests you, I really would suggest a Windows gtx 1050 gaming laptop (can be had for less than a 13” pro) or even trying it on your iPad Air 2 or Pro if you have one.

 

[Hanson Eigilson]

I tried civ6 on a mbp 15" with the 560 4gb gpu for about an hour, it did not run well and the fan noise sounded like the laptop wanted to die, ultimately i traded the laptop for a 2015 m370x model for other reasons and did not try civ6 on that.

If your reason to buy a new mac is gaming it might be a good idea to try out the games on it first, and settle with the fact that many current and most future games are not likely to run well on it.

Or look at windows alternatives that are drastically more capable at a similar price point.

 

[jerryk]

I haven't played Civilization 6 before, but I can generally play recent games on fairly low settings (even Cities Skylines which doesn't support integrated graphics at all) and the occasional one with medium or high settings (like Farming Simulator 17) on my 2017 nTB 13". Not a great experience, but not that bad. Plus if you get an eGPU, the prospects improve.

Until you try to buy a Nvidia card. Those are "unavailable" everywhere, or being sold at 3 times what they were a year ago. All due to cypto miners!

 

[Shamgar]

MacOS and iGPUs are both suboptimal for gaming. You can get a playable experience in boot camp, as shown by ultra book gaming, but if gaming is your priority, you’d get much better value with an entry level gaming laptop.

 

[alex00100]

Civ 6 runs great in native resolution in bootcamp on my 2016 15" with 460. Other games run in hd on med settings. But you have to use bootcamp.

 

[leman]

1. The 13" Macbook Pro has a new iGPUs (Intel Iris 640/650 Plus) and I am wondering if anyone has played Civilization 6 using this specific model and what their experience with it was? Asked Aspyr support on this and they were kinda useless.

Civ 6 runs relatively well even on old 2015 13" MBP, so its definitely going to be playable. Just don't expect too much.

Related to #1, can anyone provide me with a general idea of the graphics capabilities of the above (ie: what kind of games taxed the system)

The Iris 640/650 is more or less equivalent to a Geforce 750M in the older 15" models. So if you need a comparison, thats it.

 

[Queen6]

In a word no, unless the games are not very demanding, even the 15" with Quad Core with dGPU struggles, Mac's are great, however they are not great for gaming unless your expectations are very low, play older games, with most modern 3D titles running slow as molasses and hot as hades..

Q-6

 

[mario-64]

Civ 6 runs relatively well even on old 2015 13" MBP, so its definitely going to be playable. Just don't expect too much.

Not unless you consider 10-12 fps as playable. https://www.macgamerhq.com/reviews/civilization-6-mac-review/

 

[alex00100]

It's true most games run on Mac OS are simply unplayable or run so badly it's hardly enjoyable. But as I said earlier, you can easily expect double the performance of the Mac OS port on bootcamp. MacGamerHQ said 2016 mbp gets 13fps on 800p in med settings. That's crazy to me as I got 30-60fps in 1400p on med to high settings if you run it on windows.

 

[leman]

Not unless you consider 10-12 fps as playable. https://www.macgamerhq.com/reviews/civilization-6-mac-review/

I never did the internal benchmark and honestly, I do not care about these scores. Its a turn-based strategy game, not a twitch-gameplay competitive shooter. I did play the game on a 2015 13" MBP and it runs smooth enough to be enjoyable. The only real performance issues are in the endgame where turns take ages, but that has something to do with the AI/animation programming team being a bunch of scrubs.
[doublepost=1517820649][/doublepost]

In a word no, unless the games are not very demanding, even the 15" with Quad Core with dGPU struggles, Mac's are great, however they are not great for gaming unless your expectations are very low, play older games, with most modern 3D titles running slow as molasses and hot as hades..

The 15" MBP has decent enough hardware to run any contemporary game. Of course not maxed out, but its a very different situation than just a few years ago.

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

The simple answer is MBP's and Macs in general are not gaming machines, whilst they share components and offer some potential, it is not what they are designed, specced, or built for.

So you can use them for games and often they handle them quite well, specifically models without a dGPU will struggle a lot more - however a lot of games will run on the 15" Pro, albeit at lower specifications.

You can use these for games, just as you can use a sports car for the school run. Technically they both have the capacity, but not what it's primary design function is. Macs are built for sustained performance over professional tasks, so they are often slightly underpowered (I.e. not overclocked) in order to maintain this performance.

If gaming is ever a primary concern then buy a Windows computer built for it. If gaming is like 10th on the list of priorities and you're happy to play older/less demanding games then it's normally okay. If however you plan on getting a 13" and relying on the iGPU, then whilst it's a lot better than it used to be, it's still really only designed to power the display and not a lot else...

 

[ilian92]

As some people have said previously, it's a completely different story when you run the games in Boot Camp on Windows 10. The software is much more suited to gaming and performance is noticeably better. You'd be able to play most games on Medium settings at least (15'' MacBook Pro). Having to switch OS is annoying of course, but at least with the current SSDs everything is so fast that restarts take seconds.

Of course if the games are super demanding (meanwhile even PUBG runs easily at 60-70-80fps, now that it's better optimised!), then it might be better to build a PC or get a gaming laptop. My experience is that if you want a Mac, and also want to do *some* gaming, it's not an impossible combo.

 

[elmacci]

As someone who first struggled with gaming performance on my mbp 2017 15“ with radeon 560, remember to reduce the display resolution in windows settings (to sth like 1680x1050) and not only from within the game itself.

I was first wondering why overwatch was barely playable even when i set it to the lowest resolution and graphic details on my machine. Till i realized that the resolution was still native (2800 x something) , and the game
just scaled that to 1024x768...so in fact i was playing at more than 1440p.



Now i get easily 80 Fps in Overwatch at 1600 Resolution
.

 

[CLS727]

Just keep the 2014 MacBook Air for work and buy a Xbox X.

Save yourself a ton of money and get a much better experience.