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MacBook Air 2013 Gaming Performance (Intel HD 5000)

Ok guys well as far as I can tell, nobody has managed to install Windows 7 onto a new MBA due to everything in these machines being USB3 and Windows 7 not having any native USB3 drivers, so the keyboard and trackpad are both dead and you can't get past the installer.

Until someone figures out a workaround there won't be any Windows gaming results..
 
I just popped open a new base model 13in with the i5. If there are any free mac benchmarks you want me to do, post a link or something.
 
Windows 8 would have most if not all of those drivers to get rudimentary support wouldn't it? Or slipstream drivers into a Windows 7 install media?
 
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Shrapnel said:
Windows 8 would have most if not all of those drivers to get rudimentary support wouldn't it?
Click to expand...

Yeah Windows 8 should do it but 1) I have never used that demon and I don't know if I want to start now and 2) I can imagine the GPU drivers will be a lot less optimised than the Windows 7 counterparts. It took years for Win 7 to catch up with XP in GPU driver performance.

Do you know how I can slipstream drivers onto the boot stick? I have never done such a thing.
 
Maybe try this for slipstreaming drivers, though I have not tried myself. http://www.rt7lite.com/

Vista/7/8 all share the same driver model if I recall correctly. So graphics performance I feel should be similar. Don't quote me on that of course. ;)
 
Yixian said:
Ok guys well as far as I can tell, nobody has managed to install Windows 7 onto a new MBA due to everything in these machines being USB3 and Windows 7 not having any native USB3 drivers, so the keyboard and trackpad are both dead and you can't get past the installer.

Until someone figures out a workaround there won't be any Windows gaming results..
Click to expand...

is that something Apple could update with the Bootcamp installer?
 
Shrapnel said:
Windows 8 would have most if not all of those drivers to get rudimentary support wouldn't it? Or slipstream drivers into a Windows 7 install media?
Click to expand...

As much as I agree with what you said I bought a Mac so i could stay clear of Windows 8 :)
 
I am confident the new MBAs will be able to run modern games at a comfortable framerate and quality to satisfy all casual gamers. You don't buy a MBA for hardcore gaming.

I ordered a new 13"/i5/8gb to play some current games (wow, league, diablo), as well as being able to run interesting future releases (elder scrolls online) at enjoyable settings. The i5>i7 upgrade didn't seem feasible to me to squeeze out an extra 5-8fps under more graphic-intense gaming conditions...on an MBA. If you care about that, build a dedicated gaming desktop and put that $140 upgrade money towards it.
 
radiohead14 said:
is that something Apple could update with the Bootcamp installer?
Click to expand...

Yeah I think so, I mean there has been no OS X update for the new Airs at all, not even the monitor is fully supported by OS X (you can't calibrate it).

Hopefully they will release an update soon, it should have been ready on the day of WWDC really..
 
Neeyul said:
I am confident the new MBAs will be able to run modern games at a comfortable framerate and quality to satisfy all casual gamers. You don't buy a MBA for hardcore gaming.

I ordered a new 13"/i5/8gb to play some current games (wow, league, diablo), as well as being able to run interesting future releases (elder scrolls online) at enjoyable settings. The i5>i7 upgrade didn't seem feasible to me to squeeze out an extra 5-8fps under more graphic-intense gaming conditions...on an MBA. If you care about that, build a dedicated gaming desktop and put that $140 upgrade money towards it.
Click to expand...

see, this is all i want, LoL, PoE, light games. but what i'm concerned about is the heat, and how bad it will get.

also, something that annoys me about certain ultrabook gaming benchmarks is they play games that no one in their right mind would play on a mba or any other ultrabook for that matter..

why can't they just test out the light - medium gaming load? like source engine for example. :mad:
 
Yixian said:
Yeah Windows 8 should do it but 1) I have never used that demon and I don't know if I want to start now and 2) I can imagine the GPU drivers will be a lot less optimised than the Windows 7 counterparts. It took years for Win 7 to catch up with XP in GPU driver performance.

Do you know how I can slipstream drivers onto the boot stick? I have never done such a thing.
Click to expand...

what you said about win8 is worse for games comparing to win7 is hard for me to believe. i have played games on win7 (my gaming pc is windows) for years and upgraded to win8 right when it came out. i did not notice ANY difference. (starcraft, black ops, civ 5, battlefields, etc.)

i used to do boot camp on my mac, but have moved to vmware because it's just WAY easier to use vmware. no performance loss whatsoever for me (office, adobe, etc.). for gaming i stay with my desktop windows machine.
 
ladeer said:
what you said about win8 is worse for games comparing to win7 is hard for me to believe. i have played games on win7 (my gaming pc is windows) for years and upgraded to win8 right when it came out. i did not notice ANY difference. (starcraft, black ops, civ 5, battlefields, etc.)

i used to do boot camp on my mac, but have moved to vmware because it's just WAY easier to use vmware. no performance loss whatsoever for me (office, adobe, etc.). for gaming i stay with my desktop windows machine.
Click to expand...

You may well be right, I'm just assuming based on the XP to Vista transition, and to a lesser extent Vista to 7, where gaming really took a hit.
 
You should be able to slipstream a few USB3 drivers into an installation ISO, similar to what a lot of people used to do for the XP-SATA drivers.

If you have a parallel or dedicated Windows machine to work on, it should be fairly straight forward. This link provides a great walkthrough:

USB3 slipstream into Windows7

This will be my first venture into a dedicated OSX machine, but looking forward to some of the MBA2013(i7) tests and benchmarks!
 
keatre said:
You should be able to slipstream a few USB3 drivers into an installation ISO, similar to what a lot of people used to do for the XP-SATA drivers.

If you have a parallel or dedicated Windows machine to work on, it should be fairly straight forward. This link provides a great walkthrough:

USB3 slipstream into Windows7

This will be my first venture into a dedicated OSX machine, but looking forward to some of the MBA2013(i7) tests and benchmarks!
Click to expand...

I tried an ISO that was described as having USB3 drivers built in and still no luck, I can't get past the very first screen of the installer.

I think I'm gonna have to go with Windows 8.
 
Keep in mind, the USB3 drivers are manufacture based - so you'd need to add multiple drivers to the ISO. I'm not sure who the board manufacturer is for the MBA, but it would most likely be their drivers.

Windows 8 will work, though... Despite it being annoying.
 
keatre said:
Keep in mind, the USB3 drivers are manufacture based - so you'd need to add multiple drivers to the ISO. I'm not sure who the board manufacturer is for the MBA, but it would most likely be their drivers.

Windows 8 will work, though... Despite it being annoying.
Click to expand...

Yeah I think Windows 8 is the solution, as far as I can tell nobody has managed to get Windows 7 working on the new Airs.

So long as gaming performance is on par and I can strip down the installation then it's fine. I just hope ThrottleStop and GameBooster work ok with Win 8.
 
Updated OP with current results, not including Crysis 3 as the guy had AA and textures on high.
 
Yixian, would you mind adding "Minecraft" to that list. I am sure it runs in a window, with settings turned down, but I am more interested in how it runs with the settings up high in a larger window/full screen.

Keep up the good work everyone in filling in the gaming info for this nice new machine. It's really helping me decide if I wait for the rMBP refresh or go with a 13" MBA
 
Sure I can do that in OS X for you, is that a command prompt to display FPS?

It should blaze it.
 
I am sure others are interested in the capability of the MBA13 to run in native OS instead of booting through windows. With an SSD I am looking at keeping my drive relatively clean - I want to have enough space to keep a few games on there, so having W8 lobbed on doesn't help.

Any thoughts on this or any results?
 
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