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List games that work on your MacBook Air

raremage said:
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.
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Something is definitely wrong with your MBA because no Mac can overheat just from running something intensive.
 
mhaas said:
Are there any differences in performance of these games between the Macbook AIR and the Blackbook, considering that both have 2 GB Ram standard? I mean due to the processor for example?

Thanks!
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Fixed.

Of course MB is faster at games than MBA because the CPU has 800 MHz more clock speed, more L2 cache and faster hard drive (but the last only matters for loading times).

masterpace said:
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.
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Two words: graphics card.
 
Regarding some peoples questions about the Sims 2 on the Air.... I does not run very good. Barely playable. It runs pretty well on a Macbook because the Sims 2 is very dependent on the processor, and to a much lesser extent, the video card. I run it on a Penryn Macbook Pro and it runs flawlessly! My roommate runs it on the Macbook and it runs pretty well, I tried to run it on a friends Air and it sucked.
 
icchan said:
ive installed the sims2 on my 1.8ghz macbook air and it runs... but it is pretty horrible. i wouldnt consider it to be playable cept maybe the tutorials.

ive got all graphics to the lowest settings but everything feels like its in super lag mode.
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thats funny, ive installed and played sims 2 about about 2 weeks ago and it played fine, no problems, performance was on par with sims life stories ( which was desgined for laptops )
having said that i got the 1.8 ssd version, not sure if you have the same mac air
 
Hey guys! I've tried the Penumbra Black Plague demo. Although Intel integrated graphics are not supported, it runs surprisingly well and looks good too. So, I've bought the game online. Great storyline, atmosphere is quite creepy, even on a 13.3" monitor and mono speaker. I run the game on medium settings (that includes medium quality shaders) at 800x600, with shadows and bloom effects on. It's not super smooth but I guess I'm getting on average around 20 fps, which is o.k. for that type of game.
 
luffytubby said:
Ok. What about Guild Wars? Maple Story Gunz? Quake 3? Anyone know how these games run?


I heard someone say that the X3100 is worse than the intel 900! Can that be right? Aint x3100 the succesor to 900? is it a driver issue?
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(educated guesses)

Guild Wars- will run poorly/ok on low.

Maple Story- no problem. a computer with with 1/2 the MBA's power could play that game.

Gunz- isn't a very fun game. but it'll run fine.

Quake3- not sure. probably run OK.
 
Anderson3133 said:
Let's flame the person who can't read!

Diablo 2 works good
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How? I can´t install it on my MBA 1.6
I'am using remote disc, and i´ve tried both a mac and a PC for it.

I have downloaded the patch on blizzards page.

But when i have to change disc, from 1 to 2 during the install, it can't find disc 2 (play disc), eventhough it's in the the machine. It´s keeps asking for it, and wont go on whit the install.

I Hope you can help.
/Joakim
 
Enigmo 2 is grand as a puzzle game for the MBA, looks great and iPhone version coming soon i can't wait :)

Also Warblade is great for an old style shooter.
 
Sorry, can't help myself, but I'm only going to say it once...

"xxx runs well" (not "good")

I know, grammar police, I'm evil. But I'm catching a lot of posts with only one reply! That's semi-not-evil, right? :rolleyes:
 
Hey,
I'd like to ask about Sims 2 again because searching the web I find totally oppositional experiences. As Sims 2 runs well on the MacBooks, in my opinion it should do on MBA as well, because the MBA has the same graphics card as the MB. And the MBA meets the requirements for Sims 2 when it comes to processor and RAM. Therefore the slower processor of the MBA can't be the reason, when it runs bad, as having been stated in this thread. Furthermore it ran on older MacBooks with slower processor as well, didn't it?

So, are there any other experiences about the Sims 2 on MBA? Thanks :)
 
Rise of Nations for Mac runs.
Civilization 4 (All expansions) for Windows
X2 - The Threat for Windows
Age of Empires III for Windows (lags during battles)
Wolfenstein Enemy Territory for Windows and Mac
Second Life for Windows and Mac
CoD4 for Windows runs but extremely unplayable
Sins of a Solar Empire for Windows runs extremely well
Starcraft (Expansion) for Windows and Mac
Warcraft III (Expansion) for Windows and Mac
World of Warcraft for Windows/Mac (Runs 40+ fps if settings turned down)

Thats all the games I can think of off the top of my head that I've tried.
 
I have the MacBook Air ( dunno wat kind though...) I bought a super drive for it and later I bought The Sims Life Stories. It works fine! You have to make sur the game says Universal (or something) and is for Mac OSX. something. Cause I was gonna but this box set but it wouldn't work. And you don't ahve to have bootcamp, but you have to keep the superdrive in.
 
macbookairhelp said:
I have the MacBook Air ( dunno wat kind though...) I bought a super drive for it and later I bought The Sims Life Stories. It works fine! You have to make sur the game says Universal (or something) and is for Mac OSX. something. Cause I was gonna but this box set but it wouldn't work. And you don't ahve to have bootcamp, but you have to keep the superdrive in.
Click to expand...

Is it just me, or the last 2 sentences don't make sense?
 
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