Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
List games that work on your MacBook Air
- Thread starter mykoljay
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Civilization IV (native Mac) runs but the disk must be in the superdrive
Also crashes if I turn the grid lines on.
Civ IV needs the superdrive for anti-piracy reasons, not for actual gameplay. There are fully functional hacked versions out there that run just fine with no drive and they run just fine on the Air.
Yet another case of anti-piracy controls only screwing people who actualy pay for a product & play by the rules.
I've tried playing a few old games via Boot Camp (Win XP) like Unreal 2, Star Wars, Painkiller, and all of them run fine for a while and start experiencing stuttering. Even the audio is stuttering. Moreover, I'm using RMClock to keep the CPU to 1.6 GHz full throttle. So, it's obviously not a CPU issue. I was thinking maybe the slow harddisk in the MBA cannot keep up. Still, I've defragmented it and disabled Windows paging. I'm a bit clueless. Whenever the stuttering occurs, the OS CPU usage peaks. That's weird.
Any positive experience running games under Boot Camp?
Any positive experience running games under Boot Camp?
The mac version of Ultima IV (now freeware) works great. One of the best RPGs ever imho and the price is right. 
http://xu4.sourceforge.net/
http://xu4.sourceforge.net/
HA! Good luck with that... integrated graphics don't really run modern games folks. Even the processor in the MBA is too weak for these games. Have fun trying though...
'Course it largely depends on how you define "runs well". I'm more of a hard core gamer, so my standards are a bit high.
Let's flame the person who can't read!
Diablo 2 works good
Warblade! Perfect!
www.warblade.as
I bought this years ago for the PC, and emailed him awhile back when I switched asking for Mac version. He's just done it, and it works a treat on the Air. I choose 'normal mac' for detail, and then drop the stars down to 350 from 750 in the settings.
Runs well then.
Full screen doesn't work on the Air yet, i've emailed him on this.
The game is much more than it at first appears, with many many hidden secrets and trips and it's just the right blend of difficulty and addition.
Recommended by me
www.warblade.as
I bought this years ago for the PC, and emailed him awhile back when I switched asking for Mac version. He's just done it, and it works a treat on the Air. I choose 'normal mac' for detail, and then drop the stars down to 350 from 750 in the settings.
Runs well then.
Full screen doesn't work on the Air yet, i've emailed him on this.
The game is much more than it at first appears, with many many hidden secrets and trips and it's just the right blend of difficulty and addition.
Recommended by me
The mac version of Ultima IV (now freeware) works great. One of the best RPGs ever imho and the price is right.
http://xu4.sourceforge.net/
You mean, mean person you. This post cost me a whole day figuring out how to get all the libraries and get the thing installed.
I finally got it all to work. Someone should really get the stuff together and create a new daily build for the Mac. I don't know if I built this one right to work with anything other than 10.5.2 though... I might document the steps I had to go through and post them in their forums, if I can find the time. (Gotta play the game after all
)BTW, I have the game set to VGA 4xscale 2xSaI video settings, and it looks great in fullscreen.
-Matt
Just been playing world of warcraft for an hour in my lonely hotel room on my 1.8/SSD this evening and its playable, got most of the settings at lowest and it slows a bit when there is lots of activity, but it certainly is okay for a bit of casual grinding.
i highly doubt the MBA will play COD4 due to the fact that it wont even let you instal guitar hero 3( for win, on bootcamp) .
WoW runs semi okay. I've played on my Air for a few hours with the settings cranked well down. Like others have said, for grinding and such it is bearable. PVP in a battleground setting can be tough. Averaging around 12FPS outdoors going way higher indoors. Fan is working hard.
Warcraft III - Runs great. No issue's to report. Played for about 3 hours
Starcraft - Runs great as expected.
Things left to try:
Civ 4 (Based on what you guys say, I feel pretty good)
Diablo II
Deus Ex (Through VMware Fussion. Eh why not...)
Ultima VII through Exult (can't imagine this won't work)
Sim City IV (small scale I would think things would be fine. Large scale could be the problem)
I really love this note book and would gladly trade some of the thinness for the ability to have a dedicated graphics card. Maybe someday.
Warcraft III - Runs great. No issue's to report. Played for about 3 hours
Starcraft - Runs great as expected.
Things left to try:
Civ 4 (Based on what you guys say, I feel pretty good)
Diablo II
Deus Ex (Through VMware Fussion. Eh why not...)
Ultima VII through Exult (can't imagine this won't work)
Sim City IV (small scale I would think things would be fine. Large scale could be the problem)
I really love this note book and would gladly trade some of the thinness for the ability to have a dedicated graphics card. Maybe someday.
You can install COD4, but it'll give you maybe 1-2 FPS even on the lowest settings. I've tried it. It runs though
Could you folks try and run Civ4 and turn on the Grid Lines (cmd-G) and let me know what happens? I've gotten used to playing without them, but sometimes my fingers do the thinking and I turn them on by habit and all goes bye-bye
They should be able to get a dedicated video card into the Macbook if they wanted, but not the Air. Not possible. All we can hope for is Intel making a GMA X3100 success that is vastly superior.
If the air had a dedicated 3d accelerator, good bye battery life! Gaming is the main reason i got a 17" MBP to start with, then realised I didn't play games much because I'd have to reboot into windows (although it did play Colin McRae DiRT and Crysis surprisingly well) and the MBP always sat on the table, not really something i could pick up with one hand and take into another room. So I got a cheap second hand playstation ii with modchip and a MBA.
I love the MacBook Air. I don't think I'll ever want a big laptop again. I've had an EEE pc, and a Toshiba Portege, and nearly bought a Libretto, but in actually use I think Apple really has hit the nail on the head with the ultraslim/light but full size screen and kb/mouse. I have done a complete 180 degreee turn on this though, I hated the Air at launch. Weird.
Frankly the MBA is a poor platform for gaming. The only time I have had a core shutdown was this past weekend when I tried running the demo of 'Build-a-lot' for about 45 minutes and the entire system went to sleep when the cpu hit 95 degrees. Horde of Orcs really runs the temp way up as well.
I have been playing battle for Wesnoth a bit (someone else pointed it out) and that game has me hooked, and runs just fine.
The conclusion I have reached is anything with graphics that involve constant motion really seems to pop the CPU and thus heat the system up an inordinate amount. Turn based stuff seems to be fine for the most part. As most games require constant motion this is certainly impactful on the effectiveness of the MBA as a gaming machine.
I can't imagine trying to fire up WoW for any period of time. I'm sure it would run, but I trust the system could only handle it for an hour at the most before overheating.
I have been playing battle for Wesnoth a bit (someone else pointed it out) and that game has me hooked, and runs just fine.
The conclusion I have reached is anything with graphics that involve constant motion really seems to pop the CPU and thus heat the system up an inordinate amount. Turn based stuff seems to be fine for the most part. As most games require constant motion this is certainly impactful on the effectiveness of the MBA as a gaming machine.
I can't imagine trying to fire up WoW for any period of time. I'm sure it would run, but I trust the system could only handle it for an hour at the most before overheating.
are you playing it on OS X or WinXP because i'm able to run it pretty sweet under boot camp and i've got the 1.6/80 macbook air.
i was running the osx version. but i returned it to the shop already.
ooh.. well i might try the windows version too sometime.. just not sure i want to give up that much hdd space up to windows just yet.