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MacBook Air 2013 Gaming Performance (Intel HD 5000)

Y

Yixian

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 2, 2007
1,483
135
Europe
I thought it would be useful to make a thread collating the experiences of users here in various games. Please state which OS you are in (OS X or Windows, with gaming performance of course much much better on the latter), your specs, the game and it's video settings and the FPS and/or general gaming performance you get.

Let's try and fill this list in with results (Last updated: 18/06/13):

FarCry 3 - (Win 8) 20-35fps in DirectX 11, all medium/high but shadows low, 1280x800 (vid)
Bioshock Infinite [FPS Drop Fix]
Battlefield 3
Team Fortress 2 - (OS X) 50-80fps on all max settings (vid)
Black Ops 2 - (OS X) 40-55fps on all max settings (vid)
Modern Warfare 3 - (Win 8) 45-60fps on all max settings, 1360x768 (vid)
Minecraft - (OS X) 30-60fps on all possible graphics settings set to max, 1440x900
Sim City
Star Craft 2 (OS X) 25-35fps on high settings, 1440x900 (vid)
Diablo 3 (OS X) 20-40fps on all high settings bar shadows, no AA, 720p (15-25fps at 1440x900 with AA) (vid)
The Walking Dead
Europa Universalis V (release date 8/13)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Skyrim
The Witcher 2
Civ 5
Portal 2 - (Win 8) 60+fps in all conditions, all settings max, native resolution (vid)
World of Warcraft - (OS X) 35-45fps in all conditions, all settings max, 1080p external display
Tomb Raider
Dead Space 3
Crysis
Crysis 2
Crysis 3

Don't forget MegaVolatic's 6 Ways to Boost Gaming Performance on the Intel HD iGPUs. These steps can give you between 10-20 additional frames per second during games (Windows only).
 
Last edited:
Yixian said:
I've just ordered a 13" MacBook Air 2013 and am looking forward to using the device for some light gaming.

I thought it would be useful to make a thread collating the experiences of users here in various games. Please state which OS you are in (OS X or Windows, with gaming performance of course much much better on the latter), your specs, the game and it's video settings and the FPS and/or general gaming performance you get.

Remember that on certain resolutions and games like FarCry 3 ran on medium at about 15-25 FPS on the previous Intel HD 4000 Airs and the HD 5000 is touted as being a significant improvement. If it turns out we can run FC3, BF3, Skyrim etc. on half decent settings on the new Airs then I think that will go down as a watershed for the line...

But on the other hand we could still be **** out of luck. Let's see...

Some requests:

FarCry 3
Battlefield 3
Sim City
Star Craft 2
The Walking Dead
Europa Universalis
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Skyrim
Civ 5
Portal 2
Dead Space 3
Crysis (the original)
Click to expand...

According to preliminary reports, the HD 5000 should be able to play Battlefield 3 at the lowest settings at the Resolutions the 13" MBA has. This is from looking at the Iris Graphic card. FPS will be around 25-30. HD 4000 could only play it at a max of 15 fps and dropped to around 2 but stable around 10 fps average. Using the same settings mentioned. Better than the HD 4000 by far for gaming.
 
RoboWarriorSr said:
According to preliminary reports, the HD 5000 should be able to play Battlefield 3 at the lowest settings at the Resolutions the 13" MBA has. This is from looking at the Iris Graphic card. FPS will be around 25-30. HD 4000 could only play it at a max of 15 fps and dropped to around 2 but stable around 10 fps average. Using the same settings mentioned. Better than the HD 4000 by far for gaming.
Click to expand...

I haven't seen any footage of BF3 specifically on the HD 4000 but this guy has many videos of games, bootcamped on his MBA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LZ-1ZpdbbA

Here he is playing Bioshock Infinite on a mixture of low/high with about 25fps......... Farrrr better than most people seem to claim that card was capable of, so I am optimistic about the HD 5000, but would be nice to hear what early adopters are finding for real.
 
First bench results are in for intel HD 5000, taken from laptopmag. If this result is accurate(plausibility a mistake since the score is so low), perhaps the lower tdp is really hurting the frame rates. 21fps on the newer HD 5000 is not an encouraging result compared to last year 11" i7 model that i have which clocks 22.6fps in the same test.
 

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MacLappy said:
First bench results are in for intel HD 5000, taken from laptopmag. If this result is accurate(plausibility a mistake since the score is so low), perhaps the lower tdp is really hurting the frame rates. 21fps on the newer HD 5000 is not an encouraging result compared to last year 11" i7 model that i have which clocks 22.6fps in the same test.
Click to expand...

I hope that's a mistake. Was thinking we'd get around 30 this time around.
Anyone with the new MBA willing to run Cinebench for a sec?
 
I just got mine. I should have some results by Friday. I posted this is another topic, but on Notebookcheck.com, they ranked the Intel 5000 HD GPU above the Nvidia 540M discrete card. Now I have no idea yet how that compares in terms of benchmarking an integrated GPU to a discrete GPU; however I know I was able to play the Witcher 2 on my laptop with the 540M with frame rates around 30-35 at low-medium settings and at the native resolution for the M11x. I actually have another gaming laptop, Sager NP6110 with the M650 GPU - which does awesome with every game; however it's nice to get some gaming on the go without having to lug the 120 Watt power adapter with me.
 
I ordered new 2013 air 13" (8GB ram) (iwork preinstalled) about 2 hours after the announcement, and the order is still 'processing' :S
How long does 'processing' usually take?

Anyway, as soon as it arrives, i'll post some results :D
 
gman901 said:
I just got mine. I should have some results by Friday. I posted this is another topic, but on Notebookcheck.com, they ranked the Intel 5000 HD GPU above the Nvidia 540M discrete card. Now I have no idea yet how that compares in terms of benchmarking an integrated GPU to a discrete GPU; however I know I was able to play the Witcher 2 on my laptop with the 540M with frame rates around 30-35 at low-medium settings and at the native resolution for the M11x. I actually have another gaming laptop, Sager NP6110 with the M650 GPU - which does awesome with every game; however it's nice to get some gaming on the go without having to lug the 120 Watt power adapter with me.
Click to expand...

Might be hard to compare considering we have a new chipset also, but it can only be better.

Also, whilst overclocking doesn't seem much of an option with iGPUs, tweaking settings and using apps like GameBooster and ThrottleStop literally make the difference between 10 and 30fps in some cases so with a little tinkering I am hoping the new MBAs could actually be pretty impressive.

MikePembo951 said:
I ordered new 2013 air 13" (8GB ram) (iwork preinstalled) about 2 hours after the announcement, and the order is still 'processing' :S
How long does 'processing' usually take?

Anyway, as soon as it arrives, i'll post some results :D
Click to expand...

Ordered mine (UK) yesterday afternoon and it's despatched and due to be delivered tomorrow.
 
I eagerly await any and all of your benchmarks!

If somebody could benchmark Skyrim with the new MBA, I would really appreciate it! :)
 
blesscheese said:
I eagerly await any and all of your benchmarks!

If somebody could benchmark Skyrim with the new MBA, I would really appreciate it! :)
Click to expand...

I'll be giving Farcry 3 and perhaps Bioshock Infinite a go tomorrow, I'll take a vid with my iPhone.
 
MacLappy said:
First bench results are in for intel HD 5000, taken from laptopmag. If this result is accurate(plausibility a mistake since the score is so low), perhaps the lower tdp is really hurting the frame rates. 21fps on the newer HD 5000 is not an encouraging result compared to last year 11" i7 model that i have which clocks 22.6fps in the same test.
Click to expand...

The 2012 model got 17.18 points from Laptop Magazine(the same site that got 21 for the 2013 model), so that's a 22% improvement.

According to preliminary reports, the HD 5000 should be able to play Battlefield 3 at the lowest settings at the Resolutions the 13" MBA has. This is from looking at the Iris Graphic card.
Click to expand...

Iris Graphics 5100 is a higher version on the 28W U chips. That one is expected to be 80-90%(up to 2x) over the HD 4000.

Over the HD 4000 on the 17W Ivy Bridge

HD 4400: 15-25%
HD 5000: 35-45%
Iris 5100: up to 2x
 
The last Airs could already play BF3 above "low" so I would be disappointed if that's all the HD 5000 could manage lol.

Still waiting for my delivery >_<
 
Can't wait

Would love to see some FPS on different games. please post video settings, and your model with CPU GHZ and RAM. Can't wait to hear back from you guys. :)
 
How do you guys feel about casual/indie games on the MBA? For example, I have purchased a few humble bundles, but they only run on my work computer (not my 2007 macbook). Games like Hotline Miami, Braid, etc. I get the impression that most indie games are not that hard on the graphics card. How about older pc games, like TF2?

I might pull the trigger on a new macbook air to replace my 2007 black macbook soon. It's on it's last legs.
 
beel said:
How do you guys feel about casual/indie games on the MBA? For example, I have purchased a few humble bundles, but they only run on my work computer (not my 2007 macbook). Games like Hotline Miami, Braid, etc. I get the impression that most indie games are not that hard on the graphics card. How about older pc games, like TF2?

I might pull the trigger on a new macbook air to replace my 2007 black macbook soon. It's on it's last legs.
Click to expand...

There won't be any problem to run games like Hotline Miami, and even TF2. I saw some videos on YouTube of TF2 gaming (on MBA 2012, 2011), and the game was running very smoothly !
Just type "tf2 macbook air" in YouTube and you'll see. :)
 
Nice find Ninjaw,

Very interesting result considering in that test he was unwittingly running some sort of AA as well as textures on high, with FRAPS running which can cause a small hit. Plus a guy in the comments notes the rain scene in Crysis 3 is quite demanding. Drivers also need to be considered with the intel HD series, in this case they would be unoptimised based on previous intel IGPs.

Looking good for those of us that want to play the occasional RTS.

Wonder how the i7 will fare with the extra 100MHz on the GPU...
 
Pewou said:
There won't be any problem to run games like Hotline Miami, and even TF2. I saw some videos on YouTube of TF2 gaming (on MBA 2012, 2011), and the game was running very smoothly !
Just type "tf2 macbook air" in YouTube and you'll see. :)
Click to expand...

Figured as much. Thanks!
 
looking for some WoW results.....specifically 10mans and LFR. Would love to hear from any of you. Thanks
 
Every time I see updates in this thread I think there's some actual results.
Hopefully this will be true sooner than later.. :rolleyes:
 
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