MacBook Air 2013 Gaming Performance (Intel HD 5000)

[Dookieman]

The MBA runs SC2 on high settings? My 2.3ghz quad i7 MBP kind of struggles to run it on high (30-40FPS) and it has a 1GB radeon 6750M in it. That's interesting.

I usually play the game on low settings when laddering anyway to reduce any potential lag. I was considering selling that machine and buying a MBA for the increased portability and battery life, but I love playing SC2, so that way my big issue.

It can not run on all high settings very well. I posted earlier in the thread explaining that the front page was not correct (At that time it had said Ultra settings were playable). I suggested at 1440x990 resolution the best is Medium settings with a few scattered high's, like Models, Terrain, and shaders or shadows (I don't remember which one).

When it first boots up on High Settings it gets ~25-30FPS, but quickly drops to ~10-15FPS once some units and action begin, and that is only with light action. It's not playable with a massive army, especially if you need to quickly move units and jump back and forth from your base to your army.

 

[Eidorian]

Thanks for the update! I'll have an i7 MBA on Monday, I'll give it a run too - I suspect BF3 is pretty CPU-heavy, so I wonder how much of a difference it'll make. I wouldn't use it as my go-to machine for BF3, but it could be nice in a pinch.

You just need a dual core with hyperthreading for Battlefield 3. Keep in mind this was back under Sandy Bridge in 2011.

 

[Doc Shultz]

I have been playing Guild Wars 2 on my 2013 MBA i7 W/8gb Ram. It plays at around 30-35FPS with all graphics settings set on their max, minus shadows (low) and anti-alias off.

It plays at 50-60FPS with everything on medium, minus shadows (low) and anti-alias off, but detail and background detail on high.

That's what I have seen thus far, quite impressive.

 

[jedolley]

I have been playing Guild Wars 2 on my 2013 MBA i7 W/8gb Ram. It plays at around 30-35FPS with all graphics settings set on their max, minus shadows (low) and anti-alias off.

It plays at 50-60FPS with everything on medium, minus shadows (low) and anti-alias off, but detail and background detail on high.

That's what I have seen thus far, quite impressive.

Bootcamp or the Mac port?

 

[Doc Shultz]

Bootcamp or the Mac port?

Mac Port

 

[mattdo93]

I have been playing Guild Wars 2 on my 2013 MBA i7 W/8gb Ram. It plays at around 30-35FPS with all graphics settings set on their max, minus shadows (low) and anti-alias off.

It plays at 50-60FPS with everything on medium, minus shadows (low) and anti-alias off, but detail and background detail on high.

That's what I have seen thus far, quite impressive.

Thanks for the info!

 

[crossi81]

Barefeats updated their benchmarks

http://www.barefeats.com/mba13b.html

Dirt 2 and cpu tests are disappointing (but imho expected), WoW basically doubled fps (still half compared to 650m - rMBP 15'').

Mine arrives tomorrow, I will install all OSX Valve and Blizzard games + something on bootcamp.

Edit: i7 haswell.

 

[kaellar]

Mine arrives tomorrow, I will install all OSX Valve and Blizzard games + something on bootcamp.

Edit: i7 haswell.

Is it 13incher? Would be glad to see more detailed D3 performance review. Would you be able to install Mavericks to check any improvements in terms of gaming?

 

[crossi81]

Is it 13incher? Would be glad to see more detailed D3 performance review. Would you be able to install Mavericks to check any improvements in terms of gaming?

- 13'' maxed out (i7/8GB)
- No Mavericks, I'm not a developer

 

[Soloduo11x]

How well Does the Intel HD graphics 5000 fair against the GT 640m le, I had a razor edge before but returned it i Wonder if this Could be a comparable replacement.

 

[DavidC1]

How well Does the Intel HD graphics 5000 fair against the GT 640m le, I had a razor edge before but returned it i Wonder if this Could be a comparable replacement.

This is how the Razer Edge performs:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6858/the-razer-edge-review/5

Notebookcheck benchmark suggests that its somewhat behind Trinity. In best cases it might be on par with Trinity, worst case with high settings and more demanding games Trinity would be 30-50% faster.

 

[BossHogg]

Anyone test this on some MMO's ? Wondering how Lord of the Rings Online (native) and Star Wars - The Old Republic (Bootcamp) run ?

 

[hadleydb]

Anyone test this on some MMO's ? Wondering how Lord of the Rings Online (native) and Star Wars - The Old Republic (Bootcamp) run ?

I would like to know this as well. Also Star Trek Online.

 

[Doc Shultz]

Anyone test this on some MMO's ? Wondering how Lord of the Rings Online (native) and Star Wars - The Old Republic (Bootcamp) run ?

What do you think guild was 2 is...... read my post earlier on this page of the thread.

 

[lv4q]

I thought it would be useful to make a thread collating the experiences...

Is it okay if you tried playing MapleStory? I don't really know what you have to run it on... I don't think it works with virtual machines like parallels... but could you try it out? thanks!

 

[dingaling007]

I think from what benchamarks ive seen. (barely any improvement over the HD4000, to over twice as good as the HD4000).

Comes down to the fact that memory bandwidth has not improved but the HD5000 GPU has with twice the EU's.

 

[TigerG]

I tested Star Trek Online last night. I have the 13" i7, 8GB, 512GB SSD. I'm pretty pleased with the performance. I copied the install from my Alienware desktop and even on max settings it was functional - but not playable in my eyes. It stuttered a little bit. I turned it to medium low settings and on high-performance plugged in (W8 Pro) I was consistently getting 42-59 FPS everywhere (based on built in FPS meter). On a whim I tried it on battery this morning on balanced. I maintained the 55ish FPS in social zones but it's 5:45am EST. I went into a deep space encounter and only during multiple warp core explosions did I dip below 40. With 3 Hirogen popping in view I dipped to 36. I'm very satisfied with that. I also showed 2:35 on battery remaining. I actually did buy this with STO in mind so I am pleased. I don't plan to play on battery but for a little DOFF'ing it will be perfect when I can't plug in. This isn't a replacement for my Alienware but it wasn't meant to be. I also didn't do any tweaks beyond verifying the power settings on maximum performance mode. I'll have better Star Trek Online "long duration" comments Saturday afternoon after I'm at a coffee shop for a couple hours while my SUV gets worked on.

Each computer has its purpose. This one is STO when traveling, running multiple VMs in Windows 8 Pro for work, and software development on battery (.NET).

As for the wifi issues... I had issues with wifi in OS X. I have had absolutely no issues in boot camp. That sounds like a driver issue to me. Hopefully they will get it corrected soon, but I think Apple makes the best Windows ultra-books from a style and quality perspective. In power save mode with low use Windows reported over 12 hours battery. With Chrome open on 4 tabs including Gmail I'm reporting 14 hr right now with screen dim and keyboard lighting off.

I'm fairly limited on my game collection but I will try to get a Civ V test in sometime this weekend. I have a large map late game cloud save I can test with. I'm an avid Windows player so all of my results will be in Windows 8 Pro boot camp.

 

[trondah]

Not only is the i7 cpu faster, so is the hd5000 by 100mhz compared to i5. Im still waiting for some in depth benchmarks on this before i splash out and buy.

I'm just making an educated guess, but since most games that can be played on an MBA isn't really CPU bound, the +600MHz on the i7 won't help much. I don't think an extra 100MHz on the IGP will do any wonders either.

Then again, I might be wrong! I'm curious to see the benchmarks too, but I don't expect much difference.

Anyways, did anybody try Diablo3 yet? How does it run? Will it be playable in 1366x768 with decent settings?

 

[kaellar]

I'm just making an educated guess, but since most games that can be played on an MBA isn't really CPU bound, the +600MHz on the i7 won't help much. I don't think an extra 100MHz on the IGP will do any wonders either.

Then again, I might be wrong! I'm curious to see the benchmarks too, but I don't expect much difference.

Anyways, did anybody try Diablo3 yet? How does it run? Will it be playable in 1366x768 with decent settings?

Blizz guys say their games performance relies much more on CPU power than on GPU capabilities. That's why haswell i7 in MBA can be pretty much a must have for Blizzard games over the i5. But again, that's just my guess. Hopefully, Anand will shed the light on this when we'll see the detailed review of the 2013 MBA.

 

[leslee64]

hi all,

Apparently the upcoming Macbook Pro 13"Retina uses Core i5-4258U with Iris 5100 graphics .

Would that be a better choice than 13" MBA since the latter price is close after configuration to similar 256 GB storage, 8 GB RAM ? It got Retina screen after all, faster graphics and just 300g heavier ?

i really hope to play games like GW2 , Skyrim , Diablo on middle quality. Stepping down the resolution of 13" MBPr to play these is acceptable.

 

[kaellar]

hi all,

Apparently the upcoming Macbook Pro 13"Retina uses Core i5-4258U with Iris 5100 graphics .

Would that be a better choice than 13" MBA since the latter price is close after configuration to similar 256 GB storage, 8 GB RAM ? It got Retina screen after all, faster graphics and just 300g heavier ?

i really hope to play games like GW2 , Skyrim , Diablo on middle quality. Stepping down the resolution of 13" MBPr to play these is acceptable.

I'm sure it will be a lot faster, if you'll use the same resolutions as on MBA. It has almost twice the TDP of the CPUs used in MBA, that would without any doubt result in pretty decent performance increase.

 

[nariza7]

Hi, I've never owned a mac or used parallels software before. I am wondering, if I run a game like skyrim on parallels 8 over the mac air, will it degrade my mac's performance in the long run? Or does the mac air handle it quite well and will not have any problems running it?

 

[keatre]

Hi, I've never owned a mac or used parallels software before. I am wondering, if I run a game like skyrim on parallels 8 over the mac air, will it degrade my mac's performance in the long run? Or does the mac air handle it quite well and will not have any problems running it?

I have serious doubts that you'd be able to run Skyrim in parallel. Virtualizing a taxing thing like a game is hard to do even on the most advanced desktop computers.

You can give it a shot, though! But generally, bootcamp will be the best result for Windows gaming.

 

[hadleydb]

I tested Star Trek Online last night. I have the 13" i7, 8GB, 512GB SSD. I'm pretty pleased with the performance. I copied the install from my Alienware desktop and even on max settings it was functional - but not playable in my eyes. It stuttered a little bit. I turned it to medium low settings and on high-performance plugged in (W8 Pro) I was consistently getting 42-59 FPS everywhere (based on built in FPS meter). On a whim I tried it on battery this morning on balanced. I maintained the 55ish FPS in social zones but it's 5:45am EST. I went into a deep space encounter and only during multiple warp core explosions did I dip below 40. With 3 Hirogen popping in view I dipped to 36. I'm very satisfied with that. I also showed 2:35 on battery remaining. I actually did buy this with STO in mind so I am pleased. I don't plan to play on battery but for a little DOFF'ing it will be perfect when I can't plug in. This isn't a replacement for my Alienware but it wasn't meant to be. I also didn't do any tweaks beyond verifying the power settings on maximum performance mode. I'll have better Star Trek Online "long duration" comments Saturday afternoon after I'm at a coffee shop for a couple hours while my SUV gets worked on.

Thank you for testing that. That is my main PC game. I feel like I can definitely think about buying the MBA now.

 

[crossi81]

MBA (i7/8GB) arrived today. Now I'm configuring everything (account, preferences, enabling cryptography), tomorrow I will install WoW + D3 and TF2 + CS (all OSX) + Skyrim both bootcamp and parallels 8 (I have it cause I need to run Office).