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MacBook Air 2013 Gaming Performance (Intel HD 5000)

Hi,

MacBook Air 13" i5 256/4 (early 2014) here!

I get 50-80 FPS on Minecraft with Optifine and VSync, and medium-high settings. Fan runs the whole time, but it only takes a minute or two to cool down.

I don't know what FPS I get on Skyrim, but it's perfectly playable and doesn't even make the fans run on low settings.
 
I know this, strictly speaking, isn't the thread to ask this question, but i didn't want to start a new one just for one question

How does the rMBP 13" 2014 handle Football Manager 14? It's the only game I play and my 13" MBP 2010 is starting to chug whilst playing it, and doesn't provide very good 3D or game performance (0.5* out of 5 on both in the system settings)

Thanks
 
So, right now I'm patching Diablo III: Reaper of Souls and my CPU is running 86C-89C and the fan is whirling on at 6000RPM-6500RPM and CPU load is at 51-55%. This is coming from iStat and Temperature Gauge, on a 2013 i7, 8GB, 512GB SSD MBA.

I have played Diablo III on the MBA and while it's definitely doable, IMO, it's just not very fun. The fan runs all the time (on my machine at least) and if that alone isn't enough to bother you, the fact that my CPU temps are in the mid to high 80's Celcius, shortening it's useful life, sure does harsh the fun.
 
bambooshots said:
So, right now I'm patching Diablo III: Reaper of Souls and my CPU is running 86C-89C and the fan is whirling on at 6000RPM-6500RPM and CPU load is at 51-55%. This is coming from iStat and Temperature Gauge, on a 2013 i7, 8GB, 512GB SSD MBA.

I have played Diablo III on the MBA and while it's definitely doable, IMO, it's just not very fun. The fan runs all the time (on my machine at least) and if that alone isn't enough to bother you, the fact that my CPU temps are in the mid to high 80's Celcius, shortening it's useful life, sure does harsh the fun.
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Where did you hear that running the CPU at higher temperatures shortens its life? As long as its within its operating threshold, does it matter? But, let's see your sources kindly. I'm not being crass, but I really want to know if that is a problem because I frequently run games that make the fan run such as Skyrim and Minecraft.
 
Jyby said:
So I played the Elder Scrolls Online on my Macbook Air 11" 1.7Ghz i7 w/ 8GB RAM on Mac OS X 10.9

It is decent on medium graphics with 1280x756 resolution. It could use some tuning by the devs. But don't expect this game to run with a good frame rate beyond medium settings, although it does run better than Skyrim. I was getting about 40-50 fps. To put it into perspective I get 20-30 fps on Diablo 3 with the setting max, including resolution.

A lot of the elements in the game require the internet obviously. Albeit, I did notice some of the graphics elements such as fires also need a good internet connection. Tight/laggy wifi might make your experience suffer a bit.

The game does have a minimum installation of 30GB. But my client is only 21GB.

In review, the Macbook Air 11" 2013 model is capable of running ESO and I fully enjoyed what I played. Although you may want to consider a better machine as your primary, the MBA is a good choose for its portability.
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Thanks for your advice and fwiw, page 34 of this thread has several answers to questions people ask in later pages.

I don't have a MacBook Air but I got a "laptop cooler" for my work laptop (Dell) and I must say, when the cooler was in use my laptop ran cooler, quieter, and throttles down less (gets more performance). Without it my laptop got so hot I had to place it on coasters to keep some airflow underneath or the entire frame, even the track pad got too hot to touch. That was only while typing emails. Dell is terrible but that is off topic.

I think maybe laptop coolers could also help the MBA while playing games. Depending on the brand they may be $15-$40 (mine was about $25 or $30).
 
bambooshots said:
Computer cooling:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_cooling#Damage_prevention
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... No. That doesn't mean that operating it at higher temperatures is necessarily dangerous. The CPU will attempt to throttle, shut off in emergency, etc. when necessary, but you shouldn't have any problems running games on your computer because that's all taken care for you. Any, shall I say, more reliable, resources? Because Wikipedia doesn't count >_>. Anyways, here's what you need to determine:

What's the safe operating temperatures as determined by Apple or another manufacture for my computer? In this case, Apple.

EDIT: 50C-95C.

What temperature does yours get to?
 
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joshlalonde said:
... No. That doesn't mean that operating it at higher temperatures is necessarily dangerous. The CPU will attempt to throttle, shut off in emergency, etc. when necessary, but you shouldn't have any problems running games on your computer because that's all taken care for you. Any, shall I say, more reliable, resources? Because Wikipedia doesn't count >_>. Anyways, here's what you need to determine:

What's the safe operating temperatures as determined by Apple or another manufacture for my computer? In this case, Apple.

50F-95F.

What temperature does yours get to?
Click to expand...

I'd check with Apple and see if you can get a refund on that computer that can only operate between 50F and 95F.

Wikipedia is all I really care to look up, if you don't believe it or it's not enough for you, you're welcome to come up with your own sources to edjumacate me. Just because you can doesn't mean you should, or it's a good idea.

This was enough for me:

"A computer with thermal sensors integrated in the CPU, motherboard, chipset, or GPU can shut itself down when high temperatures are detected to prevent permanent damage, although this may not completely guarantee long-term safe operation. Before an overheating component reaches this point, it may be "throttled" until temperatures fall below a safe point using dynamic frequency scaling technology."

Sure, APPL may set the thresholds for safe processor temps, but did they tell you how long it can sustain that kind of heat? Maybe it is designed to go up to that temp for short periods of time but not sustained. And yes, I am well aware that these processors can throttle down if heat gets excessive, but you're not really getting all the benefits of such a powerful system if a computer gets hot enough to the point where it has to down clock/throttle down and take a performance hit. I call that a clue.

Until Apple has definite literature on how long it can last running at those temps day in and day out, I'd rather stay on the safe side with my $1850+ laptop and use something a little more suited for playing games, for example a larger monitor and more thermal headroom of an iMac.

As always, YMMV.

ETA: Just finished some Rift Runs in DIII on my MBA while waiting for my replacement iMac and had the fan whining at me the entire time. 10 minutes later, my MBA is at a nice and cool 37C :cool:
 
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D3 doesn't seem to play very well with Yosemite. Just patched up and gave it a go, massive instant throttling and very loud fans. Unplayable.

edit: Just did a quick hunt on the Blizz Mac Tech support. Found that enabling V-sync should help. It does. Appears that Max Foreground frames doesn't seem to work.
 
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bambooshots said:
I'd check with Apple and see if you can get a refund on that computer that can only operate between 50F and 95F.

Wikipedia is all I really care to look up, if you don't believe it or it's not enough for you, you're welcome to come up with your own sources to edjumacate me. Just because you can doesn't mean you should, or it's a good idea.

This was enough for me:

"A computer with thermal sensors integrated in the CPU, motherboard, chipset, or GPU can shut itself down when high temperatures are detected to prevent permanent damage, although this may not completely guarantee long-term safe operation. Before an overheating component reaches this point, it may be "throttled" until temperatures fall below a safe point using dynamic frequency scaling technology."

Sure, APPL may set the thresholds for safe processor temps, but did they tell you how long it can sustain that kind of heat? Maybe it is designed to go up to that temp for short periods of time but not sustained. And yes, I am well aware that these processors can throttle down if heat gets excessive, but you're not really getting all the benefits of such a powerful system if a computer gets hot enough to the point where it has to down clock/throttle down and take a performance hit. I call that a clue.

Until Apple has definite literature on how long it can last running at those temps day in and day out, I'd rather stay on the safe side with my $1850+ laptop and use something a little more suited for playing games, for example a larger monitor and more thermal headroom of an iMac.

As always, YMMV.

ETA: Just finished some Rift Runs in DIII on my MBA while waiting for my replacement iMac and had the fan whining at me the entire time. 10 minutes later, my MBA is at a nice and cool 37C :cool:
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Calm down it was a mistake. I corrected my post
 
Tom8 said:
I know this, strictly speaking, isn't the thread to ask this question, but i didn't want to start a new one just for one question

How does the rMBP 13" 2014 handle Football Manager 14? It's the only game I play and my 13" MBP 2010 is starting to chug whilst playing it, and doesn't provide very good 3D or game performance (0.5* out of 5 on both in the system settings)

Thanks
Click to expand...

I doubt Football Manager is as graphics intensive as League of Legends (which I play on my late 2013 13" rMBP) and it runs great.
 
I just bought Driver San Francisco off the amazon store (download purchase) and the game runs buttery smooth on medium settings with full resolution. Older game but graphics are still pretty great. The HD5000 graphics are much better than the 3000 in my mac mini.

Ill also add that it is a great driving game for anyone who like racing/GTA style games.
 
can anyone recommend a realistic first person shooter that will run well on this Mac? I am open to installing boot camp but would rather not.
 
fedecape said:
What about the new Call of Duty? :D
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Hey I've tried it on Windows 8.1 using Bootcamp and I've successfully played with native resolution 1440x900 (sometimes I've played at 1280x800 though) and with medium/low texture settings, with low to zero shadows and lights.

Well, the game is playable and enjoyable with the single player campaign and it plays in a range of 8-30 fps to me.

The most annoying thing though is that, probably due to Intel HD graphics driver not updated to support this game, there're some artifacts/glitches on the screen in a lot of situations during the game and it seems due to some lights or antialiasing system.

Other than that, it's for sure gorgeous on a PS4/XboxOne and on higher-specs PCs.

Even though I haven't tried it, I don't recommend playing it for the multiplayer on ours MacBook Air.
 
WoW

I know WoW is a 10 year old game but props to Blizzard for keeping us mac users playing with their native game clients. Looking forward to WoD and my air has ran everything up to it great for the little machine it is.
 
I have a MacBook Air Early 2014 13", 128GB SSD, 4GB RAM, and I regularly play Team Fortress 2, Portal 2, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive with no problems. Occasionally TF2 will give me problems, like not opening the steam interface and some performance issues.

However I have run into a major issue with the Steam Overlay. Even though I have Assistive Devices enabled, Steam still tells me it is not enabled and asks me this every single time I open it. Can someone help me with this please?
 
CYB3RBYTE said:
I have a MacBook Air Early 2014 13", 128GB SSD, 4GB RAM, and I regularly play Team Fortress 2, Portal 2, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive with no problems. Occasionally TF2 will give me problems, like not opening the steam interface and some performance issues.

However I have run into a major issue with the Steam Overlay. Even though I have Assistive Devices enabled, Steam still tells me it is not enabled and asks me this every single time I open it. Can someone help me with this please?
Click to expand...

There seems to be an issue with recent Steam update, I get the same problem, it also asks me to allow/deny internet access every time I start it up.
 
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I have no trouble with other source engine games... but with DOTA2 it feels unusually sluggish (Native OS X). It could be the fact i have the 4gb model?

Anyone else experiencing this?
 
Aegelward said:
I have no trouble with other source engine games... but with DOTA2 it feels unusually sluggish (Native OS X). It could be the fact i have the 4gb model?

Anyone else experiencing this?
Click to expand...

Why guess at the reason? Just run Activity Monitor.
 
i was playing dota 2. the temp is extreme high 90 - 97° C on both original screen and on full hd ext screen. i used gaming boosster on it. it can get on average 60++ fps(playable fps for me) on 40% render and all effects on exclude vsync and anti aliasing on both resolutions. i am quiet dissapointed with the temp though.

my spec :11'' - i7 - 1,7Ghz - 8gb ram - 256gb ssd.
 
macnewbieee said:
i was playing dota 2. the temp is extreme high 90 - 97° C on both original screen and on full hd ext screen. i used gaming boosster on it. it can get on average 60++ fps(playable fps for me) on 40% render and all effects on exclude vsync and anti aliasing on both resolutions. i am quiet dissapointed with the temp though.
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Your temps are normal for the workload you're running.
 
macnewbieee said:
i was playing dota 2. the temp is extreme high 90 - 97° C on both original screen and on full hd ext screen. i used gaming boosster on it. it can get on average 60++ fps(playable fps for me) on 40% render and all effects on exclude vsync and anti aliasing on both resolutions. i am quiet dissapointed with the temp though.

my spec :11'' - i7 - 1,7Ghz - 8gb ram - 256gb ssd.
Click to expand...

You can use a program like smcFanControl to manually increase your fan speed and cool your computer down if you don't like the CPU temps.
 
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