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MacBook Air 2013 Gaming Performance (Intel HD 5000)

thebrobrah said:
gonna try LOL finally

we will see if mavericks does anything

have d3 as well..but its painful to play that haha:cool:
Click to expand...

Just tested Fez (had slight performance issue as I noted above) and the 3d shift is silky smooth in Mavericks. Definitely an appreciable boost with the new drivers.

Also tested Starcraft 2, I bumped it up to 900p with ultra lighting and it seemed to handle it.

Looks like a significant increase, wonder how close the gap is now between OSX and Windows for HD 5000 performance...
 
MBA 2013 11" VS MBP 2013 13"retina

Hello all,

For a while now i've been dying to buy a MBP with the new haswell. After the release yesterday I was a bit annoyed that the MBP didn't come out with a Nvidia graphic card as well. So i've been thinking about getting the macbook air instead.

A have a few questions:

1)what is better for running windows based games? Parallels or bootcamp?

2)Is there going to much difference if I purchase the MBP 2013 13" R compared to the MBA 2013 "11? I know that the latter runs HD5000 and the former runs Intel iris (HD5100)

3) Does it matter how much RAM is purchased with Mavericks? I understand that both the MBA and MBP will allocated upto a 1GB of VRAM. If I add more ram will it boost the VRAM?

4)If I bought a Macbook pro (non-retina) will the HD4000 also run with 1GB of VRAM? would i need to purchase more ram?


Sorry about all the questions!

:D
 
DrCross said:
Hello all,

For a while now i've been dying to buy a MBP with the new haswell. After the release yesterday I was a bit annoyed that the MBP didn't come out with a Nvidia graphic card as well. So i've been thinking about getting the macbook air instead.

A have a few questions:

1)what is better for running windows based games? Parallels or bootcamp?

2)Is there going to much difference if I purchase the MBP 2013 13" R compared to the MBA 2013 "11? I know that the latter runs HD5000 and the former runs Intel iris (HD5100)

3) Does it matter how much RAM is purchased with Mavericks? I understand that both the MBA and MBP will allocated upto a 1GB of VRAM. If I add more ram will it boost the VRAM?

4)If I bought a Macbook pro (non-retina) will the HD4000 also run with 1GB of VRAM? would i need to purchase more ram?


Sorry about all the questions!

:D
Click to expand...

1. Bootcamp

2. The is better 5100 and there will be a difference, though I'm not sure how much. The 5000 suits my needs and performs great for the games that I play at medium to high, especially with the Mavericks upgrade.

3. I have 8GB and have 1GB for the 5000. I believe that is the case with 4GB as well.

4. I believe the 4000 is allotted 512MB.

Hopefully your answers will have more accurate answers once the new MBP are shipped.
 
DrCross said:
Hello all,

For a while now i've been dying to buy a MBP with the new haswell. After the release yesterday I was a bit annoyed that the MBP didn't come out with a Nvidia graphic card as well. So i've been thinking about getting the macbook air instead.

A have a few questions:

1)what is better for running windows based games? Parallels or bootcamp?

2)Is there going to much difference if I purchase the MBP 2013 13" R compared to the MBA 2013 "11? I know that the latter runs HD5000 and the former runs Intel iris (HD5100)

3) Does it matter how much RAM is purchased with Mavericks? I understand that both the MBA and MBP will allocated upto a 1GB of VRAM. If I add more ram will it boost the VRAM?

4)If I bought a Macbook pro (non-retina) will the HD4000 also run with 1GB of VRAM? would i need to purchase more ram?


Sorry about all the questions!

:D
Click to expand...

The 15" rMBP comes with the nvidia GeForce GT 750M
 
With my mac the few games iv played (League of legends, Sims 3, Civ 5, and diablo 3)
League of legends i get 60fps though i have it caped with everything on low. And about 30 with everything on Very High and shadows on.
Sims 3 runes smooth, loads a little slow the first time after my computers been shut off.
Civ runes good with everything on high. Not sure how much fps it is yet
And diablo 3 runes great with high graphics but the fan just screams and goes as loud as i could imagine. So its not as loud if i have it on low graphics.
 
Hey guys, I wonder if there is a significant difference in gaming between air 13 on haswell and new pro 13 based on iris. Has anybody compared graphic performance of these models already? What is better for gaming?
 
Constantine.T said:
Hey guys, I wonder if there is a significant difference in gaming between air 13 on haswell and new pro 13 based on iris. Has anybody compared graphic performance of these models already? What is better for gaming?
Click to expand...

It's surely a little better (+20%?) the new Macbook Pro with Iris graphics (Intel HD 5100, if I'm not wrong) ;)
 
league of legends...60 fps constant

1440 x900 everything off or low.. no fan noise whatsoever


will bump up to find sweet spot where fans stay off :cool:
 
The fan noise isn't loud!! Unless you play your games with the volume off, then duh you can hear it. But everyone uses headphones right? So who cares...

I don't experience a "hot" computer. Although I live in the north and I'm used to extreme temperatures, specifically cold outside and warm and toasty inside.

I haven't noticed big gains in mavericks.

D3 runs amazingly... SC2 runs great on default settings. I've posted images on page 30. Note you will complain if your internet sucks obviously... If you have low latency and a gigabit connection like I have at school you won't have any issues.

Overall this is the best labtop hands down! I don't even feel it in my bag.

MBA 2013 11"
I7 8GB 512 SSD
 
hieronymuspool said:
Hi guys! Anyone already tried to play TW: Rome 2 or Europa Universalis 4 on the latest Air? Any comments on playability? :)
Click to expand...

jredubr said:
RTW2 on a Macbook Air?

ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FREAKING MIND?


Not even Napoleon Total War runs smooth enough.
Only Medieval 2 and RTW1 runs O.K.

RTW 2 is a very buggy game, not optimized at all. Even on high-end PCs (like GTX 760) it is forcing them to get on their knees.
I run it in a GTX 780, i7-4770k 16Gb RAM and it still isnt enough sometimes.
Click to expand...


I play RTW 2 on my MBA 2013 i7 and it actually runs ok, the new updates have made it a lot better.

The only time it got really slow for me was when all my guys were climbing the wall during a siege. However large battles usually run quite smoothly even with it on fast speed.

And thats with me running it on an external HDD :)

I am extremely impressed with this little thing
 
How does the 2012 13" rMBP compare to the 2013 13" MBA for gaming?

I was doing some testing yesterday and performance seemed pretty similar in Diablo 3 and World of Warcraft. Also tried out a 2013 13" rMBP which was a little bit better but not sure whether it's worth upgrading. I was thinking of down/side-grading to the 13" MBA and getting rid of my 13" rMBP. But I may just wait another year.

It's tough for me to make these sorts of decisions. How long does it usually take before refurbs show up? I know MBA refurbs are available.

I was surprised at how well Mavericks does w/ 4GB RAM. I was trying to stress it out. Had D3 going along with EVERY app in the dock started and didn't experience any issues. Maybe issues would have manifested after a few hours. Hard to say. To contrast, I owned a Zenbook Prime for a little while last year and would get low memory warnings w/ its' 4GB RAM when playing games and having a bunch of apps open.
 
ZenErik said:
How does the 2012 13" rMBP compare to the 2013 13" MBA for gaming?

I was doing some testing yesterday and performance seemed pretty similar in Diablo 3 and World of Warcraft. Also tried out a 2013 13" rMBP which was a little bit better but not sure whether it's worth upgrading. I was thinking of down/side-grading to the 13" MBA and getting rid of my 13" rMBP. But I may just wait another year.

It's tough for me to make these sorts of decisions. How long does it usually take before refurbs show up? I know MBA refurbs are available.

I was surprised at how well Mavericks does w/ 4GB RAM. I was trying to stress it out. Had D3 going along with EVERY app in the dock started and didn't experience any issues. Maybe issues would have manifested after a few hours. Hard to say. To contrast, I owned a Zenbook Prime for a little while last year and would get low memory warnings w/ its' 4GB RAM when playing games and having a bunch of apps open.
Click to expand...

You'll get a little better performance out of the Air since it has the Intel HD5000 versus the rMBP Intel HD4000.
 
Mavericks 10.9 - Blizzard Hearthstone (beta), running at native resolution in full-screen. Works quite well, although this is not a 3D game and is a simple digital collectible card game. It does use animations and plays music and sounds, but it is far less taxing than many other games out there.

I do not plan to use this Air as a gaming platform; I use my desktop for World of Warcraft and other games. Hearthstone is a good "stretch out in bed" game that gives me access to Battle.net chat, and that's my only gaming need on the Air right now.

Quite happy with that end result. I have not tested any other games (e.g. chess). I did not test Hearthstone's effect on battery life, although I imagine that it's quite taxing, so it's something to mostly run while plugged in. I did not attempt to find a way to display frames per second -- this type of game doesn't depend on high FPS rates.

11", 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD.
 
Dookieman said:
You'll get a little better performance out of the Air since it has the Intel HD5000 versus the rMBP Intel HD4000.
Click to expand...

Got any benchmarks? 35w HD 4000 vs 15w HD 5000. Not all HD 4000s are made equally.

HD 4000 on the Air last year would be 350 MHz clock speed. HD 4000 on the 13" rMBP would be 650 MHz. So while the HD 5000 in the Air would be better than the HD 4000 in last year's Air. Would the HD 5000 in the Air be better than the HD 4000 in last year's 13" rMBP?
 
Does anyone else have heat problems playing LoL with their Air? I usually run with everything set on Very High and get about 30 fps, but once I get into the second and third matches, my Internet connection starts dropping out and the game actually crashes sometimes. So I'm not sure if this is an Internet problem because I play late at night, assuming there is more traffic then, or if it is throttling because it's overheating. Any thoughts?
 
My 2 cents.

I've got an Air with the i7, 8GB ram, and 256GB SSD. The only games I've played so far have been the BF4 beta, Planetside 2, and Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (best game IN THE WORLD). One possible explanation for my complaints could be that I'm running Windows 8.1. I'm wondering if I shouldn't've made that upgrade.

What I don't know if I should be concerned about is the performance on some modern games. I wasn't *too* disappointed with BF4, but, I was kinda hoping Planetside would fair better since it seemed to have worse visuals. Then again, I'm just getting back into playing PC games (I know it isn't the most appropriate hardware in the world to get readjusted to) so I may have higher expectations of this HD5000. Still, I was hoping for better given the i7 gives the integrated graphics a 15% boost (I think).

BF4, surprisingly for me, only got like 12-25 FPS on max resolution with everything else on low (averaged out around 20>). The draw distance was low too. When I dropped it to lower resolutions, the FPS didn't increase by much. Then again, it was a beta so things might not have been optimized. I was also running Windows 8 at the time.

Planetside 2, which I thought would've performed better than BF4, actually was worse in certain cases. I also just upgraded to Windows 8.1 when I installed. I had to cut the draw distance by half in order to get anything even remotely playable at the max resolution with everything else on low. It's still not all that fun to play with constant stuttering. Getting close to the action is guaranteed to drop the frame rate to unplayable levels. I'm forced to snipe to get any decent playability.

Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (SCCT). Yes, it's from 2005, but it's still freaking amazing! As I was expecting, I'm able to run everything on max and get some insane FPS. If I throw 8xAA into the mix, the frame rate drops substantially, but it's still highly playable if there's not too much going on in the environment. There's a ton of rain in the first level. If I go into the rain with full 8x AA, the frame rate goes between 20-25 FPS. If I go back inside the frame rate skyrockets. The perfect balance seems to be 2x AA with everything else maxed out.

Also, on any of the 3 games I've listed, the fans kick in immediately even when running SCCT on the lowest settings. Even then the keyboard under the WSAD keys gets pretty warm and the aluminum frame above the F1/F2 keys almost gets hot to the touch. Then again, I've got overly sensitive fingers.

Is this performance normal for the MBA with the i7, 8GB RAM, and 256 SSD (it's faster than the 128 so I figured it might play a part)? Based on what I've read from these forums, I was kinda hopeful to get playable frame rates at even the lowest settings.
 
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From what I can guess BF4, SCCT, and Planetside 2 are among games not optimized for laptops... Like Simcity, these games instruct the computer to go full throttle.

As for the performance, what you get is what you paid for. I for one don't get why BF4 is so demanding. If you can play counterstrike and team fortress on max graphics you should have no problems running BF4 on low. But from what I guess is that their game engines aren't made to look ugly or even run on basic models i.e. DX 9. EA doesn't care about supporting older machines they are in it for the money.... On the other hand Blizzard wants their games to run on as many machines as possible. So they keep older shader frameworks in their code. That is why I can run D3 on high settings with native resolution on inferno with hordes of baddies... Check out page 30 of this thread for pictures.

These machines are incredible powerful when put into the hands of developers who know how to engineer software... Unoptimized software is just plane lazy. I'm going to college as a Software Engineer and I see poor code all the time. Developers can do better, but it's hard when you're not the one who gets to call the shots... So we're left with games that are bloated and poorly engineered. Sure they look nice but they aren't engineered well enough to be "efficient."

It's like driving a sports car, sure it can get you 0 to 60 in 5 seconds, but your going to spend a whole lot on gas. And all cars aren't the same, this is what makes a Mercedes better than a Subaru...
 
ZenErik said:
Got any benchmarks? 35w HD 4000 vs 15w HD 5000. Not all HD 4000s are made equally.

HD 4000 on the Air last year would be 350 MHz clock speed. HD 4000 on the 13" rMBP would be 650 MHz. So while the HD 5000 in the Air would be better than the HD 4000 in last year's Air. Would the HD 5000 in the Air be better than the HD 4000 in last year's 13" rMBP?
Click to expand...

I dont have them off hand but if you look through this forum you can find benchmarks, or google it. They are out there.
 
jdmachogg said:
I play RTW 2 on my MBA 2013 i7 and it actually runs ok, the new updates have made it a lot better.

The only time it got really slow for me was when all my guys were climbing the wall during a siege. However large battles usually run quite smoothly even with it on fast speed.

And thats with me running it on an external HDD :)

I am extremely impressed with this little thing
Click to expand...

That sounds like great news actually, thank you! :)
 
I didn't run any benchmark, but Mavericks seems to have positively impacted World of Warcraft on my Air 2013.

During intensive 25 men raids, I had to run it at LOW (full hd resolution, external monitor) not to fall below 25-30 fps, now I can run it at FAIR for the same fps.

As a side note, Skyrim under Parallels 8 + Windows 8 is now playable (always full hd resolution), of course at low to medium settings. Quite an accomplishment.
 
If anyone knows how to cap frame rates in Civ V, in OSX or bootcamp, let me know, as it is a turn based game I don't need great FPS, rather keep temps down. Vsync doesn't really help much. Still seeing 98C on my Air in OSX with Civ V, so I don't play it much. Graphics settings all the way down.
 
Just to see how amazing is the new macbook air here is a video not playing but spectating a lol game (when you spectate the fps drops like 20-30% so imagine that in a 5v5 playing / aram / 3v3 i am around 30) .

the setup is almost the usual one. 2013 model with 8gb of ram and mavericks. i play on max settings everything and still the game is 100% playable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikJQ5ywqXb8
 
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