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Impressed with 2016 MacBook Pro gaming performance

A

Andrew N

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 20, 2008
4
4
So, I didn't really get the maxed out 2016 MacBook Pro for gaming, but just for fun I loaded up bootcamp, windows 10 and the 'Witcher 3'. I had to download the third party AMD graphics drivers from http://www.bootcampdrivers.com to get the most out of it, but having heard all the whining online about the performance I was really pretty impressed. At 1680x1050 resolution and all the settings at high I get a smooth 35fps even in the busy town areas. Setting the graphics to 'Ultra' sees the FPS drop to around 25fps, but still totally playable and great especially for a laptop that isn't specifically designed for gaming.

Looking forward to some idle time now :)

20170101091615_1.jpg
 
35 fps is not "good" on PC (or Mac). I'd rather set the graphics to mid, and get better performance.

I tried Overwatch and was getting 35-40 fps, I can't play this game at those fps, after getting used to play at 60fps on PC. I'll try to set the graphics lower to see if I can get at least 50fps.

I'll download those drivers you said, didn't hear about them before.

BTW. Is it possible that I get worse performance when the laptop is on battery? Cause it seems that when I try to play something without being connected to the power cable the performance is worse
 
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MarcBou said:
35 fps is not "good" on PC (or Mac). I'd rather set the graphics to mid, and get better performance.

I tried Overwatch and was getting 35-40 fps, I can't play this game at those fps, after getting used to play at 60fps on PC. I'll try to set the graphics lower to see if I can get at least 50fps.

I'll download those drivers you said, didn't hear about them before.

BTW. Is it possible that I get worse performance when the laptop is on battery? Cause it seems that when I try to play something without being connected to the power cable the performance is worse
Click to expand...

That's an energy saving feature of laptops for the last ten years.
 
I've seen some promising videos of external GPU's on these machines. Perhaps we will see native support in the future?
 
25-35 fps is not impressive. Macs are severely underspec'ed compared to other high end windows laptops and desktops.
 
guy_mac said:
25-35 fps is not impressive. Macs are severely underspec'ed compared to other high end windows laptops and desktops.
Click to expand...

MacBook Pro are not 1.5-2 inch thick gaming machines so it's not worth the comparison.

I always say...compare to a Leica. Efficient, straightforward and well crafted workhorses. If you want extra knobs, bells and whistles there's the competition. But don't expect their machines to be as friendly or long lasting.
 
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^ I love how they add the price of the SSD and other upgrades that won't help in gaming for shock value, although i'm sure he'll make back more than the $1.2K storage upgrade simply from the clickbait title.
 
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SoyCapitanSoyCapitan said:
MacBook Pro are not 1.5-2 inch thick gaming machines so it's not worth the comparison.
.
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The Nvidia 1060 (and 1050 and 1050ti, coming in 4 days) are ultrabook dimensions. So it is worth the comparison, given all the comparable laptops will be running Wither 3 at twice the performance and likely run acceptably on ultra.
 
SoyCapitanSoyCapitan said:
Power consumption is higher. Nvidia blew their chances anyway getting into patent battles, producing a GPU that failed (8600GT) and having very poor OpenCL performance because they wanted to promote CUDA.
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I'm not sure power consumption is a very strong field to defend Apple's design decisions at the moment, given the on going battery life weirdness.

I'm also not sure attacking Nvidia makes much sense either, given Pascal blows everything else out the water at the consumer level, especially in Adobe pipelines.
 
acorntoy said:
^ I love how they add the price of the SSD and other upgrades that won't help in gaming for shock value, although i'm sure he'll make back more than the $1.2K storage upgrade simply from the clickbait title.
Click to expand...
He didn't even buy those upgrades. Must've been shock value alone, though he was quite positive in his review, of the 455 no less.
 
Pootmatoot said:
I'm not sure power consumption is a very strong field to defend Apple's design decisions at the moment, given the on going battery life weirdness.

I'm also not sure attacking Nvidia makes much sense either, given Pascal blows everything else out the water at the consumer level, especially in Adobe pipelines.
Click to expand...

My desktop GPU is a 1070 so let's not get into primitive brand loyalty BS.

When it comes to raw compute power (NOT gaming) per watt and per clock, AMD is still ahead. I'm not going to waste time discussing that because we done it on the Mac Pro forums for ages. If you want to check then look at OpenCL performance on a 1Ghz Radeon Nano vs a 2Ghz 1080.

If the MBP had a 1050/1060 it would run hotter and have less battery life. You can NEVER make everyone happy when to comes to batteries - that discussion has been beaten to death ever since the invention of the battery.

These are not gaming machines. If people start discussing the MBP in a gaming context then they can't be taken seriously as professionals.
 
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All I can say is that my new MB Pro is a fabulous professional laptop for me which will pay for itself many times over. In a brief idle moment I still had a lot of fun playing the Witcher 3 on the top graphics settings and found it smooth and playable.

I do recommend you use those hacked AMD drivers at bootcampdrivers.com Makes a big difference.

Now if only I had more time to engage in such unproductive pastimes...
 
MarcBou said:
I tried Overwatch and was getting 35-40 fps, I can't play this game at those fps, after getting used to play at 60fps on PC. I'll try to set the graphics lower to see if I can get at least 50fps.
Click to expand...

Do you have the 460 Pro? A constant 60 FPS is certainly possible in Overwatch. Try tweaking your settings according to the following: http://on-winning.com/best-overwatch-competitive-play-video-settings/

1920x1200, 100% render scale, texture quality high, FXAA enabled, most other settings low/disabled. Constant 60 FPS.
 
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Andrew N said:
I get a smooth 35fps even in the busy town areas.
Click to expand...
I'm glad you're happy with the performance, but I think 35fps is a little low as stated by others. I'd recommend decreasing the resolution further to see if you can boost the fps.

Macs are not gaming machines, and I'm not picking on the 2016 model, specifically, they never were. I get decent performance on my iMac but then I have a decent dGPU, but I still need to downgrade the resolution. I'm not complaining because I bought the iMac for work and not play, I have a PS4 for that.
 
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Spoony Bard said:
Do you have the 460 Pro? A constant 60 FPS is certainly possible in Overwatch. Try tweaking your settings according to the following: http://on-winning.com/best-overwatch-competitive-play-video-settings/

1920x1200, 100% render scale, texture quality high, FXAA enabled, most other settings low/disabled. Constant 60 FPS.
Click to expand...

Yeah I have the 460. That's great news! Actually I just tested it for like 5 minutes, didn't spend much time configuring it. I'll install the custom AMD drivers and try those settings you said ;) Thanks!

BTW, wich are the proper resolutions for the Macbook? because I think it's different than a normal 1920x1080 screen. I just didn't manage to get a correct aspect ratio and the image was deformed. wich one should I pick? I don't need 1920x1200. And should I set 16:9 or 16:10?
 
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If you want to gain some extra oomph, the 460 Pro also seems to overclock easily, while staying cool.
I installed the custom drivers, used the built-in AMD Wattman to overclock (the MSI tool isn't really needed), and I got a +6.5% core overclock and a +300MHz memory overclock (maximum allowed value by AMD) with the card remaining stable (tested with 3DMark and Unigine). I also installed the free MacsFanControl app to have the fan depend on GPU temps (set both fans on the GPU diode, 55 °C/67 °C range). Temps stay on 75 °C max (the case keeps quite cool). It's really nice.
 
Aurora Wright said:
If you want to gain some extra oomph, the 460 Pro also seems to overclock easily, while staying cool.
I installed the custom drivers, used the built-in AMD Wattman to overclock (the MSI tool isn't really needed), and I got a +6.5% core overclock and a +300MHz memory overclock (maximum allowed value by AMD) with the card remaining stable (tested with 3DMark and Unigine). I also installed the free MacsFanControl app to have the fan depend on GPU temps (set both fans on the GPU diode, 55 °C/67 °C range). Temps stay on 75 °C max (the case keeps quite cool). It's really nice.
Click to expand...

Without Overclocking I'm getting GPU temperatures of around 70-72 degrees. increasing my frames per second from 60 to let's say 65 isn't worth risking a burned up GPU in my opinion... Rather invest in a eGPU enclosure like the one from Akitio, Razer, etc. and a RX480 or GTX 1060/1070 if I want more gaming power at home.


dapork said:
Why try and game on this garbage when you can blow it out of the water for a sensible price with this monster:

http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/3/14...-laptop-announced-price-release-date-ces-2017
Click to expand...

Do you get a free hernia with that beast?
 
MarcBou said:
35 fps is not "good" on PC (or Mac). I'd rather set the graphics to mid, and get better performance.

I tried Overwatch and was getting 35-40 fps, I can't play this game at those fps, after getting used to play at 60fps on PC. I'll try to set the graphics lower to see if I can get at least 50fps.

I'll download those drivers you said, didn't hear about them before.

BTW. Is it possible that I get worse performance when the laptop is on battery? Cause it seems that when I try to play something without being connected to the power cable the performance is worse
Click to expand...


35-40fps is fine on a game like The Witcher - bad for a game like Overwatch or BF1.

Overwatch runs on high, 2880x1800 at "auto" resolution scale at 70fps for me on my Pro 460. Really great performance and it's obviously not rendering the world at native res, but it's auto scaling it like it does on console to keep fps above 60, but it looks great.
[doublepost=1483492052][/doublepost]
Aurora Wright said:
If you want to gain some extra oomph, the 460 Pro also seems to overclock easily, while staying cool.
I installed the custom drivers, used the built-in AMD Wattman to overclock (the MSI tool isn't really needed), and I got a +6.5% core overclock and a +300MHz memory overclock (maximum allowed value by AMD) with the card remaining stable (tested with 3DMark and Unigine). I also installed the free MacsFanControl app to have the fan depend on GPU temps (set both fans on the GPU diode, 55 °C/67 °C range). Temps stay on 75 °C max (the case keeps quite cool). It's really nice.
Click to expand...


Is there a noticeable increase in performance in-game?
 
dapork said:
Why try and game on this garbage when you can blow it out of the water for a sensible price with this monster:

http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/3/14...-laptop-announced-price-release-date-ces-2017
Click to expand...
That is... AWESOME. 18lbs and kidding aside, I appreciate when manufacturers have the cajones to make computers like this. Pushes the envelope for all others as some of the lessons will pass on to serious production models. They'll probably sell a total of 12 of these, but still takes cajones to even offer this. Thumbs way up.
 
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MarcBou said:
Yeah I have the 460. That's great news! Actually I just tested it for like 5 minutes, didn't spend much time configuring it. I'll install the custom AMD drivers and try those settings you said ;) Thanks!

BTW, wich are the proper resolutions for the Macbook? because I think it's different than a normal 1920x1080 screen. I just didn't manage to get a correct aspect ratio and the image was deformed. wich one should I pick? I don't need 1920x1200. And should I set 16:9 or 16:10?
Click to expand...

The MBP has a 16x10 display, so any resolution that is a multiple of that will give you the highest clarity. BUT when it comes to Overwatch, while you should select a 16x10 display resolution (like 1920x1080), you must select the 16x9 aspect ratio setting (it's a different setting). This will result in some black bars on the top/bottom of the screen while in game. If you select the 16x10 option, the game removes the black bars by effectively zooming in and you'll actually lose a small amount of displayed content on the left/right sides of your screen.

Higher resolutions resulted in FPS dropping lower than I'd like. And messing with the render scaler resulted in a less than consistent experience for me. But hey, it's easy to play around with the settings, so figure out what works for you.

TL;DR, For Overwatch only: Select a 16x10 resolution. Select 16x9 aspect ratio setting.
 
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