MacBook Air 2013 Gaming Performance (Intel HD 5000)

[Yixian]

Every time I see updates in this thread I think there's some actual results.
Hopefully this will be true sooner than later..

Sorry bro, pissing around with Bootcamp at the moment, as usual. Every time I try to install Windows I experience a fresh hell of problems that take hours to work around.

Today it's "error -254" and "invalid argument" when trying to use Disk Utility to restore a stripped down version of W7 to a USB drive. I've tried converting it from ISo to DMG, no luck, I've tried it on two different Macs, no luck.

I have my regular copy of Win 7 I will try if I can't find a solution, but I was hoping to save a bunch of SSD space.

 

[radiohead14]

Skyrim [HiAlgoBoost for Skyrim]

Dead Space 3
[/b]

i don't recommend using HiAlgo.. from my personal experience.. it caused more issue/graphical glitches than improvements. Skyrim already runs up to medium on my 2011 HD3000 Air. i don't see why you would need it with the HD5000.

as for Dead Space 3.. the HD5000 should be able to run it on medium, as the HD3000 can play it fairly smoothly on low.

i played both on Bootcamp

 

[Yixian]

i don't recommend using HiAlgo.. from my personal experience.. it caused more issue/graphical glitches than improvements. Skyrim already runs up to medium on my 2011 HD3000 Air. i don't see why you would need it with the HD5000.

as for Dead Space 3.. the HD5000 should be able to run it on medium, as the HD3000 can play it fairly smoothly on low.

i played both on Bootcamp

Good info, thanks man.

I have heard that both FC3 and Bioshock Infinite benefit greatly from ThrottleStop, as the periodic drops in FPS are usually due to the CPU pointlessly spinning down.

FC3 is pretty badly optimised but the first thing I'm trying when my god damn Bootcamp installation works!!££43%$!

 

[Astrofox]

I suppose everyone has seen this from the Apple Store specs page?

Regarding the "40% increase in graphics", this is how they benched it:

Testing conducted by Apple in May 2013 using preproduction 1.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i7-based 13-inch MacBook Air units and preproduction 1.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i7-based 11-inch MacBook Air units with Intel HD Graphics 5000 and 8GB of RAM. 2.0GHz dual-core Intel Core i7-based 13-inch MacBook Air systems and 2.0GHz dual-core Intel Core i7-based 11-inch MacBook Air units with Intel HD Graphics 4000 and 8GB of RAM were production units. All games tested at native resolutions. Half-Life 2: Episode Two v(5135)(420) and Portal 2 v(5247)(620) tested with 4x anti-aliasing and high graphics quality. Half-Life 2: Episode Two timedemo test file: Storm. Portal 2 timedemo test file: Laser stairs. Civilization V v(1.2.2) tested with the built-in leader benchmark with low leader scene quality. MacBook Air continuously monitors system thermal and power conditions, and may adjust processor speed as needed to maintain optimal system operation.

So it was the 2012 2.0GHz i7 Airs vs. the new 2013 1.7GHz i7 Airs.

The performance of the i5 over last year is not mentioned, and most reviewers will have the i5.

 

[sick z33]

I suppose everyone has seen this from the Apple Store specs page?

Regarding the "40% increase in graphics", this is how they benched it:

Testing conducted by Apple in May 2013 using preproduction 1.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i7-based 13-inch MacBook Air units and preproduction 1.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i7-based 11-inch MacBook Air units with Intel HD Graphics 5000 and 8GB of RAM. 2.0GHz dual-core Intel Core i7-based 13-inch MacBook Air systems and 2.0GHz dual-core Intel Core i7-based 11-inch MacBook Air units with Intel HD Graphics 4000 and 8GB of RAM were production units. All games tested at native resolutions. Half-Life 2: Episode Two v(5135)(420) and Portal 2 v(5247)(620) tested with 4x anti-aliasing and high graphics quality. Half-Life 2: Episode Two timedemo test file: Storm. Portal 2 timedemo test file: Laser stairs. Civilization V v(1.2.2) tested with the built-in leader benchmark with low leader scene quality. MacBook Air continuously monitors system thermal and power conditions, and may adjust processor speed as needed to maintain optimal system operation.

So it was the 2012 2.0GHz i7 Airs vs. the new 2013 1.7GHz i7 Airs.

The performance of the i5 over last year is not mentioned, and most reviewers will have the i5.

Good information. Surely someone will do some i5 testing eventually.

 

[Chouhen]

I have to say that I created this account, just because the MBA 13 with Haswell has swung my purchase into the land of Apple, pending the results of this thread. I want to make sure that I can run simple games such as WoW, League of Legends and Starcraft 2 on minimum settings, comfortably without ragging the system too much.

Best of luck in your endeavors.

 

[Yixian]

I will get testing as soon as I can install Windows 7, oh my GOD this has been the most frustrating Bootcamp attempt in my entire life, and that's saying something.

I have two ISOs, one of my full Windows installation, the other of a stripped down version. Neither of them are recognised by the Bootcamp Assistant, both of them give "error 254" and "invalid argument" when attempting to restore them to a USB stick.

I tried burning them to a DVD and plugging in an external drive, but the drive powers down during the installation process.

I have wasted about 3-4 hours on this, I am about ready to jump out the window. The last thing I can think to do is plug a double ended USB cable into the external drive, plug one end into the Haswell MBA and the other into my old MBA, leaving the old MBA to keep the drive powered.

If that doesn't work look for news of my suicide in tomorrow's papers.

Any other suggestions are so so so welcome at this point...

EDIT: YUP THAT DIDN'T WORK I even tried partitioning a 2GB FAT drive on my SSD and restoring the ISO to that, but my old friend error -254 said hello... Please help someone ;(

 

[sick z33]

I've seen a couple of posts about Bootcamp issues on the new Air. One person ended up downloading the ISO again and setting up flash drive to install and it worked. :/ Hope you figure it out man!

 

[Chillaz]

The 2013 should nail easy games as LoL, WoW etc. I have the 2011 basic one, and I play LoL with 60-70 steady fps.

I'm curious as well how the 2013 will do, as I'm planning on selling this one! I love the improvements to this one compared to 2012.

 

[Yixian]

I've seen a couple of posts about Bootcamp issues on the new Air. One person ended up downloading the ISO again and setting up flash drive to install and it worked. :/ Hope you figure it out man!

I have two ISOs and a flash drive, I can't get the ISOs to restore onto anything, not the flash drive, not an SDD partition, nothing. Error 254 or invalid argument every single time.

I could burn it on another Mac, and I could mount that on the Air with an external drive, but the drive is USB powered and powers down as soon as the Installer loads and everything freezes.

I'm 100% stumped.

 

[sick z33]

The 2013 should nail easy games as LoL, WoW etc. I have the 2011 basic one, and I play LoL with 60-70 steady fps.

I'm curious as well how the 2013 will do, as I'm planning on selling this one! I love the improvements to this one compared to 2012.

LoL is a pretty awesome game Pretty cool that the 2011's handle it at that FPS!

 

[HiDEF]

Reviews also indicated substantial increases in both CPU and graphics performance on both benchmarks and real world tests. Laptop Magazine found the 13" MacBook Air returned 44.6 fps in a World of Warcraft test on 'good' settings, comparing favorably to similar Windows machines that returned between 30 and 33 fps in a similar setup.

Just read this on the front page of MacRumors

EDIT: here's the link to Engadgets review http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/13/macbook-air-review

 

[Selfdestrukt]

add diablo 3 to that list, curious to see how that runs

 

[radiohead14]

I will get testing as soon as I can install Windows 7, oh my GOD this has been the most frustrating Bootcamp attempt in my entire life, and that's saying something.

I have two ISOs, one of my full Windows installation, the other of a stripped down version. Neither of them are recognised by the Bootcamp Assistant, both of them give "error 254" and "invalid argument" when attempting to restore them to a USB stick.

I tried burning them to a DVD and plugging in an external drive, but the drive powers down during the installation process.

I have wasted about 3-4 hours on this, I am about ready to jump out the window. The last thing I can think to do is plug a double ended USB cable into the external drive, plug one end into the Haswell MBA and the other into my old MBA, leaving the old MBA to keep the drive powered.

If that doesn't work look for news of my suicide in tomorrow's papers.

Any other suggestions are so so so welcome at this point...

EDIT: YUP THAT DIDN'T WORK I even tried partitioning a 2GB FAT drive on my SSD and restoring the ISO to that, but my old friend error -254 said hello... Please help someone ;(

been a while since i had to install windows via bootcamp.. i have my ISO copy of Win7 in an external.. and from what i recall, it was such an easy process.. probably a 3 click one after you've gathered the drivers. must be something up with your Win7 copy?

 

[outphase]

The 2013 should nail easy games as LoL, WoW etc. I have the 2011 basic one, and I play LoL with 60-70 steady fps.

I'm curious as well how the 2013 will do, as I'm planning on selling this one! I love the improvements to this one compared to 2012.

What are your settings to get 60 fps? I'm on all medium/high at 1440x900 and only pulling 35-40 on the 2013 i5/4 GB model

 

[omgitscro]

Portal 2 / Team Fortress 2 / CS: Source ran perfectly at maxed-out settings on native resolution. 2013 MBA, i7, 8GB, 512GB, 13". Windows 8 Pro.

 

[Yixian]

been a while since i had to install windows via bootcamp.. i have my ISO copy of Win7 in an external.. and from what i recall, it was such an easy process.. probably a 3 click one after you've gathered the drivers. must be something up with your Win7 copy?

I know right, normally this is effortless. I think it's something to do with the fact that the ISOs are UDF rather than HFS+, but I would have thought all Windows ISOs were UDF? I have even tried downloading more.. elsewhere, because I just want to get this to work, but they are all UDF.

I'm digging out Toast and reinstalling that after however many years to see if I can get that to restore the ISOs to my USB stick.

Bootcamp Assistant just completely ignores my ISOs.

Portal 2 / Team Fortress 2 / CS: Source ran perfectly at maxed-out settings on native resolution. 2013 MBA, i7, 8GB, 512GB, 13". Windows 8 Pro.

Nice, now try something more recent if you can!

 

[fenderbass146]

I will get testing as soon as I can install Windows 7, oh my GOD this has been the most frustrating Bootcamp attempt in my entire life, and that's saying something.

I have two ISOs, one of my full Windows installation, the other of a stripped down version. Neither of them are recognised by the Bootcamp Assistant, both of them give "error 254" and "invalid argument" when attempting to restore them to a USB stick.



I tried burning them to a DVD and plugging in an external drive, but the drive powers down during the installation process.

I have wasted about 3-4 hours on this, I am about ready to jump out the window. The last thing I can think to do is plug a double ended USB cable into the external drive, plug one end into the Haswell MBA and the other into my old MBA, leaving the old MBA to keep the drive powered.

If that doesn't work look for news of my suicide in tomorrow's papers.

Any other suggestions are so so so welcome at this point...

EDIT: YUP THAT DIDN'T WORK I even tried partitioning a 2GB FAT drive on my SSD and restoring the ISO to that, but my old friend error -254 said hello... Please help someone ;(

I am not getting the exact a same problem as you but I had issues with boot camp on my 2013 air. Normally I just partition it and pop In a windows disc. I tried 10 times and could never get it to complete install it freeze in expanding files or if it finished the mouse and keyboard wouldn't work.

So I actually used an external hdd (I'm sure flash be fine to) with apple boot camp assistant and used the windows support software option to and then it worked no problem for me.
I used the windows 7 ultimate iOS off of microsofts site and I have a key and it's working no problem now

 

[Yixian]

I have no idea at all what to do anymore so I'm resorting to just downloading a load of ISOs and hoping one works.

Does anyone know how I can create a bootable Windows 7 disc using an ISO, that doesn't involve restoring to the flash drive with Disk Utility?

 

[ladeer]

I have to say that I created this account, just because the MBA 13 with Haswell has swung my purchase into the land of Apple, pending the results of this thread. I want to make sure that I can run simple games such as WoW, League of Legends and Starcraft 2 on minimum settings, comfortably without ragging the system too much.

Best of luck in your endeavors.

you know those games can be run in OSX in macbook two generations ago? i was running sc2 on medium FINE with my wife's mbp13 2011....trust me the games you list will DEFINITELY run SMOOTHLY on medium.

----------

I have no idea at all what to do anymore so I'm resorting to just downloading a load of ISOs and hoping one works.

Does anyone know how I can create a bootable Windows 7 disc using an ISO, that doesn't involve restoring to the flash drive with Disk Utility?

you should go to the windows on mac forum of macrumors.com there are people who are trying to install boot camp on mba and they seem to know a lot more than i do. (they are facing problems too.)

btw, why not play the osx version of your games? (unless they didn't make one.)

 

[blesscheese]

I have no idea at all what to do anymore so I'm resorting to just downloading a load of ISOs and hoping one works.

Does anyone know how I can create a bootable Windows 7 disc using an ISO, that doesn't involve restoring to the flash drive with Disk Utility?

Man, what a hassle. You have my sympathies.

The only suggestion I can make, that you may not have already tried, would be to use (if you have your Bootcamp partition up and running on another rig) Winclone to copy the partition over to the new rig...all you would have to do then would be (after installing the key) update all the drivers.

You probably need a large, stiff drink by now...

 

[MikePembo951]

where is everyone getting these isos from?
My oem copy of win 7 is disk(dvd) and need to get a usb dvd drive :/

 

[thebrobrah]

need diablo 3 tested

and some of these can be run natively

mp1 of course with the new density on inferno

 

[Yixian]

btw, why not play the osx version of your games? (unless they didn't make one.)

Games will usually run far far better under Windows than OS X.

Man, what a hassle. You have my sympathies.

The only suggestion I can make, that you may not have already tried, would be to use (if you have your Bootcamp partition up and running on another rig) Winclone to copy the partition over to the new rig...all you would have to do then would be (after installing the key) update all the drivers.

You probably need a large, stiff drink by now...

Yup, you know that feeling when you find yourself banging against wall after wall, it's like the gods of computing just refuse to let you make something work, and before you know it, 5 hours have passed and you've done nothing else with your brand new Mac

where is everyone getting these isos from?
My oem copy of win 7 is disk(dvd) and need to get a usb dvd drive :/

You can download the ISOs on the digital stores, I think without having to pay upfront, then you can use your activation details afterwards? Not sure, my ISO is from days gone by, made from a physical disc.

 

[Yixian]

Ok so I made a Win 7 USB boot stick simply by doing it on my old MBA, for some reason the new one just gave me all those Disk Utility errors.

Anyway now I can boot to it, but it freezes/the kayboard and trackpad cease working when the installation screen appears.

USB3 issue?