Macbook Gaming Myth!

[GfPQqmcRKUvP]

You are saying that as if it is an impressive accomplishment.

720p is a low res.

How large is your screen and how many inches are you away from it when you're using it?

Until that screen is gigantic and you're really far away you can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p and you're just thinking you're winning some kind of pissing contest.

 

[isauce]

g e t a c o n s o l e a n d a t v a n d d o s o m e t h i n g e l s e w i t h y o u r c o m p u t e r . . . . .

Such as ...

 

[NT1440]

How large is your screen and how many inches are you away from it when you're using it?

Until that screen is gigantic and you're really far away you can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p and you're just thinking you're winning some kind of pissing contest.

Shhhh-shh-shh-shhh

Come on now, let him have his specs that make no difference, dont shatter his world.


I laugh when I hear people argue over resolutions, if thats whats most important to you and for some reason you think a game isnt worth it unless you can play at 1080, whats that say about you?

Play the game, not the specs.

 

[Corvillus]

First of all, for all intents and purposes, Macs ARE PC's, and have been since 2006. The only real difference between them is the OS that comes pre-installed on them (which in my opinion, and in the opinion of most of the other people on this forum I'm sure, is far superior to Windows), and the build quality is higher than the average PC is. As a result, any Mac will be able to game just as well as any equivalently specced PC once Windows is installed on it, it's as simple as that.

As for the MacBook and gaming, it really depends. If you're looking to play games with settings cranked all the time, then no, obviously the MacBook won't be a good gaming experience if that's your benchmark. That said, now that it actually has an nVIDIA graphics chip it can at least run them at a playable level, which is currently more than can be said for most other comparably priced laptops with the same feature set and footprint. So if you're planning on buying a laptop that works great as a general purpose work machine but still be able to want to game in your spare time and don't mind turning down the settings, the MacBook does a fine job. If you need to be able to play every game maxed out, and that's your top priority, and you don't mind throwing portability and battery life out the window, get a higher end PC laptop designed specifically for gaming, or better yet, just get a desktop since you'll get more bang for your buck, not to mention more upgradability.

Personally, I'm content with having a compact laptop that runs OS X for work, but also has the ability to run games when I need it to, and then just go home to my desktop and game consoles to do serious gaming when I'm not working. So, I went with the MacBook.

 

[PeterQC]

First of all, for all intents and purposes, Macs ARE PC's, and have been since 2006. The only real difference between them is the OS that comes pre-installed on them (which in my opinion, and in the opinion of most of the other people on this forum I'm sure, is far superior to Windows), and the build quality is higher than the average PC is. As a result, any Mac will be able to game just as well as any equivalently specced PC once Windows is installed on it, it's as simple as that.

As for the MacBook and gaming, it really depends. If you're looking to play games with settings cranked all the time, then no, obviously the MacBook won't be a good gaming experience if that's your benchmark. That said, now that it actually has an nVIDIA graphics chip it can at least run them at a playable level, which is currently more than can be said for most other comparably priced laptops with the same feature set and footprint. So if you're planning on buying a laptop that works great as a general purpose work machine but still be able to want to game in your spare time and don't mind turning down the settings, the MacBook does a fine job. If you need to be able to play every game maxed out, and that's your top priority, and you don't mind throwing portability and battery life out the window, get a higher end PC laptop designed specifically for gaming, or better yet, just get a desktop since you'll get more bang for your buck, not to mention more upgradability.

Personally, I'm content with having a compact laptop that runs OS X for work, but also has the ability to run games when I need it to, and then just go home to my desktop and game consoles to do serious gaming when I'm not working. So, I went with the MacBook.

Exactly. You sir just won the thread.

 

[Schtumple]

Such as ...

Something productive?

 

[sangosimo]

g e t a c o n s o l e a n d a t v a n d d o s o m e t h i n g e l s e w i t h y o u r c o m p u t e r . . . . .

because console games are developed on consoles...

Until that screen is gigantic and you're really far away you can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p and you're just thinking you're winning some kind of pissing contest.

the screen has to be gigantic or really close; 720p is on the low end when it comes to resolution. It is easy to tell the difference between the two when you using it as a monitor.

 

[isauce]

Something productive?

I was hoping for another answer.

 

[LondonGooner]

ANYTHING can run World of Warcraft. The Mac Mini can run World of Warcraft...

Not true, Wrath expansion does not work very well (if at all playable) on the mini

 

[MH01]

I play Wow w/ BC expansion on the new macbook 2.0GHZ and it runs AMAZING! I ask people on WoW if anyone uses Mac's and people make fun of me and say Macs cant handle gaming. Why do people say this? If anything Mac's are better to game then on PC's!

In regards to wow, anything will run BC fine. WOLK brings in new graphics enhancements, and if crank up shadows and set everything up to max it does not run very well at all. I have tried it on the GF 2.0 MB.

You quote "If anything Mac's are better to game then on PC's" is just plain ignorant. Anyone who plays games on a MB/MBP will play it through bootcamp with XP, for the simple fact that OS X GPU drivers suck, you get much better performance in XP. Anyone who takes gaming seriously will not be doing it under os x.

For those arguing about Gaming on a Mac or a PC, be mobile or desktop, the PC will always win for the same about of $$$ spent. There is just no argument here. For the money you spend on a MBP you can get a faster PC laptop.

And in the end, you will end up running it via bootcamp anyway....unless you are hardcore os x and then your game selection is just well...pathetic.

Mac Pro....this is even worse, take the $$$ and spend it on a PC and it will spank the Mac Pro in performance...no debate there at all. PC wise you looking at an i7 with SLI/xfire...

 

[MH01]

Do you own a new MacBook?

Seriously, you are flying out all these assumptions about Macs being not very good for gaming, yet you don't give any facts or show any experience.

I'm not denying the MacBook isn't the best for gaming, because obviously it isn't going to be as good as a huge, bulky dedicated gaming laptop, but it can run any game and has surprisingly good performance.

From experience I have a unibody MBP 2.53, and it suffers from constant black screens of death while playing wow, thing just plain overheats. So i have stopped gaming on it.

I use a dedicated PC gaming rig.

The better question to ask is, Do people who own a MB or MBP have a dedicated gaming rig. Sometimes it is a case of not knowing what you are missing. Frankly the MBP will ran most games, and the users maybe happy, but once you play the same games on a dedicated rig you realize how much smoother the experience is, sure a hyundai will get you around a race track and might be kinda fun, but jump in a ferrari and the same track is alot more fun.

As someone else here has posted. The guts of all PCs/macs are the same now. In terms of gaming, OS X suffers in game selection, and windows has a clear advantage in driver enhancements. So between game choice and faster drivers, gaming in XP is a clear advantage, does not matter if you run XP on a MB or sony etc.... a MB is just a PC in its guts, Nvidia sells the exact same logicboard / gpu to other vendors..

 

[MH01]

Start talking about 18 month old games and I'll start talking about six month old gaming rigs.

They're both outdated, in case you didn't catch that.

You're right. Macs "aren't" for games. I'll just use my Nehalem Mac Pro for professional work and you can buy new graphics cards every six months to stay behind the curve.

Let's not do this debate here because one, it's not the right place and two, it's not the purpose of this thread.

Do you know Steve jobs personally or something....you must be the only person in the world with a Nehalem Mac Pro

If anything the Mac Pro is the most outdated rig our there at the moment. Current PCs with Nehalem chips are really creaming it in performance.

 

[kolax]

From experience I have a unibody MBP 2.53, and it suffers from constant black screens of death while playing wow, thing just plain overheats. So i have stopped gaming on it.

You should install Fan Control and adjust the fans so they come on at a lower temperature.

Apple's messed up on that one...and they still haven't fixed it.

 

[Winni]

If anything the Mac Pro is the most outdated rig our there at the moment. Current PCs with Nehalem chips are really creaming it in performance.

The Mac Pro uses server technology, your "current PC" doesn't. We can discuss the performance under heavy load situations where a lot of data throughput is required. Probably even my Quad Core Mac Pro will shred your current PC to pieces in such scenarios.

When it comes to gaming, however, the Mac Pro loses. The extremely simple reason #1 is the lack of gaming graphics cards for Macs. The fastest thing you can get still is the 8800GT (which I have), and that baby was already old and out-dated when Apple began shipping it. Furthermore, you cannot connect multiple graphics cards in a Mac Pro as you can in a PC.

Or, well, yes, maybe you can, but then you lose the ability to run OS X and have to run your Mac Pro as a pure Windows-machine. Which kind of defeats the purpose. After all, we all usually buy Apple hardware because we want to run OS X.

I'm a gamer myself, and I prefer shooters like Gears of War 2, Far Cry 1 & 2, BioShock, Cod4, Dead Space - you name it. I solved the Mac-problem by buying an Xbox 360 which I run at 1080p on a 24" computer display. She cannot compete with a high-end gaming PC anymore (which is quite visible in the foliage in Far Cry 2), but she is nevertheless doing an excellent job and you just cannot beat her value for the money.

Gaming on the Mac, however, is a no-show. There are no games for OS X, so all we have is gaming on Windows on Apple hardware, and that translates to gaming on a mid-specced PC at best. My Mac Pro is an extremely powerful computer for grunt work and video and photo editing and certainly also for DVD ripping.

But like everybody else here who owns one I just have to admit that it is only a second or third choice for gaming: We don't have the required graphics power to play modern games on maximum details and high frame-rates. Who thinks that playing Crysis or Far Cry 2 at 20-30fps is even close to being acceptable is kidding himself - and it's definitely not a comment from somebody who's really into gaming. Just try your 20fps machine on a game level with a lot of enemies and action. Don't forget to bring a Kleenex, you'll need it for your tears.

Gamers can only buy a Mac when they also buy a console.

 

[kolax]

Gaming on the Mac, however, is a no-show. There are no games for OS X.

Say what?

 

[MH01]

You should install Fan Control and adjust the fans so they come on at a lower temperature.

Apple's messed up on that one...and they still haven't fixed it.

Done that. It just delays the crash, problem with wow is that its not a came you play for an hour or so, especially if you raid, it just became unplayable with random crashes. I have just accepted that I use the MBP for business and not games, realistically heat kills electronic systems so I am not keen to run the MBP at temps that cause it to have core shutdowns.

The new funky design comes at a cost of cooling efficiency. Though i would not rule out nvidia as a cause of the problem here...apart from their top end cards the rest of the lineup have been lackluster, i was disappointed that apple went with them.

 

[kolax]

Done that. It just delays the crash, problem with wow is that its not a came you play for an hour or so, especially if you raid, it just became unplayable with random crashes. I have just accepted that I use the MBP for business and not games, realistically heat kills electronic systems so I am not keen to run the MBP at temps that cause it to have core shutdowns.

The new funky design comes at a cost of cooling efficiency. Though i would not rule out nvidia as a cause of the problem here...apart from their top end cards the rest of the lineup have been lackluster, i was disappointed that apple went with them.

Hmm, maybe you should get in touch with Apple as you might have a defected product.

My CPU can be at 200% and GPU pretty much maxed out and the temperatures never reach any higher than 85'C. Average at that load is 78'C with fans on full. And I can really feel the heat being blasted out of the exhaust at the back.

Are you using your MBP in clamshell mode?

 

[MH01]

The Mac Pro uses server technology, your "current PC" doesn't. We can discuss the performance under heavy load situations where a lot of data throughput is required. Probably even my Quad Core Mac Pro will shred your current PC to pieces in such scenarios.

I am trying to keep this conversation on the topic of gaming, and PCs shred the Mac pro at present. Frankly they always will. And that is at default configurations, with decent cooling and overclocking this gap just gets bigger.

Though i think we both agree on that. Gaming is about crazy amounts of GPU power... Video editing and Gaming have two very different CPU/GPU requirements.

 

[MH01]

Hmm, maybe you should get in touch with Apple as you might have a defected product.

My CPU can be at 200% and GPU pretty much maxed out and the temperatures never reach any higher than 85'C. Average at that load is 78'C with fans on full. And I can really feel the heat being blasted out of the exhaust at the back.

Are you using your MBP in clamshell mode?

Hmm do you run wow on it?

This is my third MBP, all had the same issue so i just accepted the fact I cannot play wow on it. Mind you at 6000rpm it is kinda loud

Nope not in clamshell.

 

[kolax]

Hmm do you run wow on it?

This is my third MBP, all had the same issue so i just accepted the fact I cannot play wow on it. Mind you at 6000rpm it is kinda loud

Nope not in clamshell.

I don't play WoW, but it isn't really a power intensive game.

On OS X, I play Tiger Woods 08. However, via BootCamp, I play the likes of Need For Speed Pro Street, Pro Evolution Soccer, Flight Sim X etc. All of these are really intensive games, especially NFS.

My old MBP (Santa Rosa) had shutdown issues when playing NFS, but that was because of the fans being clogged up with crud and it wasn't cooling it properly.

That's one advantage of the Unibody MBP's - you can take the bottom shell off really easily and clean the fans yourself to make sure the air flow is fine. Course, if you can feel the hot air being blasted down then the air flow is fine.

And 6000rpm is noisy, but compared to the previous generation that sounded like a wonky hoover, they are quiet

 

[thejadedmonkey]

ANYTHING can run World of Warcraft. The Mac Mini can run World of Warcraft...

Actually, I played WoW on a G4 mini (the slower, 1.25ghz one). Unfortunately, it only had a 40 gig hard drive, so I was forced to install it onto my iPod. And yes, WoW on a G4 mini running off an iPod worked great. So uh, lets not use WoW as a benchmark.

If you're looking at newer games... Macs are just as good as any PC for gaming, assuming you're willing to spend almost triple the price on the Apple tax so that you can have a good video card

 

[aznguyen316]

I have steam on my TinyXP bootcamp and HL2 runs great! First game I've tried on it. yipee. Installing the full Orange Box now, waiting for L4D in the mail. I know it wont' do all high settings, but I don't PC game a lot, tis why I have a ps3 and 360.

 

[Wolfpup]

My 2.4GHz/533Mhz P4 Northwood with a Geforce 4, all circa 2002 runs WoW at full settings (except no AA) beautifully at a 'medium' resolution (ie 1280x1024ish) so...

 

[poozer115]

I was hoping for another answer.

 

[miggitymac]

Haha..the original post made me laugh.

My early 2008 MBP can't even handle WC3-TFT (released in 2003) on medium settings. When I'm playing online, the program will crash or freeze every 2 games or so...

I have 3 other friends who I play with and they use macs too...they all have the same problem as me, so it's not an issue with my internet.

We tried to solve the problem by quitting and restarting the program after every game, but that didn't resolve anything. When we're all in the same game and one of us gets a "lag screen", the others know that his mac has frozen and he'll be dropped from the game. It's happened so often we just say "friggin' macs..." and keep playing on.

I got smcFanControl hoping that would solve the issue, but it didn't.

My point is the macbook/macbook pro is horrible for gaming (relative to their PC counterparts) and the OP is just too much in love with his mac to concede that.

EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I love my mac too...for things other than gaming, macs are the way to go! But for gaming, they suck.