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I've just ordered a 13" MacBook Air 2013 and am looking forward to using the device for some light gaming.

I thought it would be useful to make a thread collating the experiences of users here in various games. Please state which OS you are in (OS X or Windows, with gaming performance of course much much better on the latter), your specs, the game and it's video settings and the FPS and/or general gaming performance you get.

Remember that on certain resolutions and games like FarCry 3 ran on medium at about 15-25 FPS on the previous Intel HD 4000 Airs and the HD 5000 is touted as being a significant improvement. If it turns out we can run FC3, BF3, Skyrim etc. on half decent settings on the new Airs then I think that will go down as a watershed for the line...

But on the other hand we could still be **** out of luck. Let's see...

Let's try and fill this list in with results:

FarCry 3
Bioshock Infinite [FPS Drop Fix]
Battlefield 3
Team Fortress 2 - 50-80fps on all max settings (vid)
Black Ops 2 - 40-55fps on all max settings (vid)
Sim City
Star Craft 2
The Walking Dead
Europa Universalis
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Skyrim
Civ 5
Portal 2
Dead Space 3
Crysis (the original)


Don't forget MegaVolatic's 6 Ways to Boost Gaming Performance on the Intel HD iGPUs. These steps can give you between 10-20 additional frames per second during games (Windows only).


That doesn't look like light gaming to me.:eek:
Either way, good luck with it, if you make the purchase.
Don't know the settings on that youtube video but the frame rate is definitely good.
 
Sure I can do that in OS X for you, is that a command prompt to display FPS?

It should blaze it.

If you meant "Is there a command prompt to display FPS?" then all you need to do I believe is press F3 which should show memory usage and FPS among many other things.

I am hoping it blazes, because heavily modded version of minecraft eat up a lot of memory and power and I hope those will run smoothly as well.
 
yes we need diablo 3 tested

a serious test not just running around town -- get into a game with lots of people and lots of effects and monsters dying etc.
 
Awesome so my Windows 8 iso isn't recognised as being 64bit by Bootcamp Assistant (which it is) and trying to restore it to the USB key gives the same error -264, so I'm going to have to go through reams of ISO online again until one works. This is agony.

In the meantime:

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

Just ran Minecraft under OS X at 1400x900, all video settings set to max (furthest draw distance, advanced open gl, "fancy" graphics, all particules etc. etc. everything max basically) and got 30-50fps. That includes in mines, in villages, on the tops of hills looking out over the world and during combat.

Not FPS drops visible to the human eye.

This is fullscreen and with Safari running in the background. 13" 4GB i5.
 
Diablo 3 plays very well on max settings except Shadowing. I had to set it to medium. Didn't get any FPS numbers, just logged in, killed a few mobs, then logged off to finish setting up my laptop :)
 
Diablo 3 plays very well on max settings except Shadowing. I had to set it to medium. Didn't get any FPS numbers, just logged in, killed a few mobs, then logged off to finish setting up my laptop :)

Can you jump back in, press command-R to display FPS, run around the map, then get into a large fight, and give us the FPS for each scenario?

Also what resolution, and this is OS X right?
 
Keep that info coming !

Thanks for those who are posting numbers/results. I'm debating picking up a i7 MBA, and handing down my '09 MBP to my son. My needs are not high end .. but this info is helping cement my decision.

Most played games on my MBP17 : Civ IV, C&C Tiberium Wars, and ( dont laugh ) Unreal Tournament 2004.
 
Thanks for those who are posting numbers/results. I'm debating picking up a i7 MBA, and handing down my '09 MBP to my son. My needs are not high end .. but this info is helping cement my decision.

Most played games on my MBP17 : Civ IV, C&C Tiberium Wars, and ( dont laugh ) Unreal Tournament 2004.

lol, don't worry it will smoke those, they're ancient. Probably get about 300fps in UT2004.
 
lol, don't worry it will smoke those, they're ancient. Probably get about 300fps in UT2004.

That'd be pretty funny to see. Nice seeing it handle the modern stuff in an acceptable range. However, at my adoption rate of new games I may be good for a while :) !
 
May as well add a few requests!

Max Payne 3
Batman Arkham City
Just Cause 2
Tomb Raider
Left for Dead 2
Resident Evil Revelations

And because I own the systems and the games:

Dolphin
Smash Bros Brawl, Melee
Mario Kart Double Dash, Wii
Donkey Kong Country Returns

:)
 
Anyone done graphically demanding WOW raiding yet with these on high/ultra settings?

I really had to throttle settings on an early '11 MBP i5/8gb non SSD. Thinking Haswell and the new SSDs will make this happen!
 
Anyone done graphically demanding WOW raiding yet with these on high/ultra settings?

I really had to throttle settings on an early '11 MBP i5/8gb non SSD. Thinking Haswell and the new SSDs will make this happen!

I've done 25 man raiding on WoW on a 2008/2009 Macbook pro and it was fine, but I keep my settings on low.
 
Yeah likewise on my former machine. I was just wondering if users were able to turn on the fireworks with this new hardware. :)
 
First bench results are in for intel HD 5000, taken from laptopmag. If this result is accurate(plausibility a mistake since the score is so low), perhaps the lower tdp is really hurting the frame rates. 21fps on the newer HD 5000 is not an encouraging result compared to last year 11" i7 model that i have which clocks 22.6fps in the same test.

Are you sure that's correct? The i7-3667 is the Ivy Bridge chip.
 
Just got my MBA 13' 8GB i5. Booted up Starcraft 2 and set the settings to high. Been playing for about 30 min. FPS hovering around 35FPS at 1440x900 Resolution! OSX!

Very impressed!
 
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also..how hot is it getting and how loud are the fans
While playing a game of SC2, the computer is very quite. You can obviously hear the fans, but its nothing like my 2007 MBP (which sounds like a wind tunnel) that my MBA replaced. I felt under the computer and it wasn't very hot, not sure how it compares to new MBPs, but my 2007 MBP would leave red marks on my stomach while laying in bed and watching a Flash movie. A significant drop in heat compared to what I was used to dealing with.
 
I got a couple of questions before I jump ship and purchase my first mac device. I am a uni student, so the laptop is for uni work most of the time. I see that the MacBook air esp the 2013 is perfect for me, considering I have a full hd monitor at home, the lack of retina display doesn't really fuss me.

However, the problem with the 2012 model was that I do play abit of games at times. Especially dota 2, and I'm not sure if it will be able to run dota 2 smoothly on 1080p. So if someone can test it out for me, I'll be quite grateful.

Also, dota 2 only runs on windows, is there any problems with bootcamp on the new air?
 
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