MacBook Pro 2018 gaming?

[ginofresh]

so I am looking at the new MacBook Pro and it seems to me that Apple is trying to get into the “gaming” side for there MacBook they have a gaming tabs there witch features Fornite and even on the EGPU they have gaming on there, what are your guys take on this? You think Apple is taking gaming seriously.

 

[leman]

They have featured game benchmarks on their marketing material for some time now. Does Apple take gaming more seriously? Well, they developed Metal, which is a rather solid GPU API. They have also a number of game-oriented programming frameworks, making high-performing games for Apple platform has never been easier.

On the other hand, performance is still lack-lustre, compared to gaming machines. The GPU in the 2018 15" revision is basically still the old 455/460 from 2016...

 

[ginofresh]

They have featured game benchmarks on their marketing material for some time now. Does Apple take gaming more seriously? Well, they developed Metal, which is a rather solid GPU API. They have also a number of game-oriented programming frameworks, making high-performing games for Apple platform has never been easier.

On the other hand, performance is still lack-lustre, compared to gaming machines. The GPU in the 2018 15" revision is basically still the old 455/460 from 2016...

I didn’t know that I thought this was the first time

 

[Ethosik]

Direct X is still the king in terms of performance in gaming. Unfortunately, it is locked to Windows . Optimization also comes into play and it is up the developers to optimize their code for the platform. There is no built-in severe disadvantage to gaming on a Mac vs a Windows System if developers would just take the time to properly optimize their code. If iD/Bethesda was able to get the 2016 release of Doom running on a Nintendo Switch in handheld mode very very well, Macs can certainly do better at gaming with proper optimizations.

 

[MacBH928]

trust me... games and macs should not be in the same sentence. $2000 machine unable to run 5 year old games. Its just a sad state.

Apple though cares about what they call "casual games" on iOS devices where your average joe downloads candy crush for $5 and just play away on a game that uses '97 graphics.

 

[ESA]

Just to be clear.
Gaming is ok on a mac with BootCamp and with better drivers.

And for the graphics card, it´s very good! Why? Because it´s the best performance you can get out of 35W. I don´t think there is any other graphic cards that work that well on only 35W like 460, 560 and 560X.

You can´t compare with for example GTX 1060 that is 75W, it will never appear and work well in a thin laptop as a mac with that build quality.

I think Apple never will go back to Nvidia after the mess with all the the faulty grapghic cards from them on the 2011-2013 macbooks .

That is sad, because it would be amazing to get Nvidia on the iMacs, I have mine from 2012 left with GTX680MX. 1080 in the iMac would be a direct buy!

----

If you want to play games well, build a workstation, with a good gaming screen, and buy a Razer Core X and a stand for your mac, the processor in these new ones will work perfectly with the core X

DON´T buy the 699 dollar blackmagic one from apple, you CAN´T change the graphic-card in that one.
You can use Nvidia in the Core X, but it´s easiest to use AMD.

 

[Ethosik]

trust me... games and macs should not be in the same sentence. $2000 machine unable to run 5 year old games. Its just a sad state.

Apple though cares about what they call "casual games" on iOS devices where your average joe downloads candy crush for $5 and just play away on a game that uses '97 graphics.

People really need to stop these types of discussions. A $5,000 NVIDIA Quadro video card is NOT MUCH BETTER than a GTX 1080Ti at $700. These a professional grade systems using video cards primarily for professional work and not video games.

And again, optimization comes into play. There is no code in the macOS software that says if(playinggames) OnlyMaxAt5FPS();

iD Software and Bethesda were able to get the 2016 Doom release to be able to run on a Nintendo Switch in handheld mode very well. Optimization is a key here. There are games on Steam that even my GTX 1080 has trouble playing with a constant 60fps at even 1920x1080 resolution.

Oh and I guess I am imagining things running 2016 Doom on my 2016 MacBook Pro. Look you won't get max settings or 4K 60FPS performance, but these systems can certainly play games.

 

[Minxy]

I would like to know if the BlackMagic eGPU helps with playing games, if it works with VR and whether it's powerful enough to run PC games via Wineskin?

 

[dukebound85]

They have featured game benchmarks on their marketing material for some time now. Does Apple take gaming more seriously? Well, they developed Metal, which is a rather solid GPU API. They have also a number of game-oriented programming frameworks, making high-performing games for Apple platform has never been easier.

On the other hand, performance is still lack-lustre, compared to gaming machines. The GPU in the 2018 15" revision is basically still the old 455/460 from 2016...

And they are abandoning open cl. So no apples doesn’t care about gaming
[doublepost=1531580393][/doublepost]

I would like to know if the BlackMagic eGPU helps with playing games, if it works with VR and whether it's powerful enough to run PC games via Wineskin?

It’s an egpu.....

I’d build your own though so that you can upgrade the you and keep the enclosure.

 

[leman]

And they are abandoning open cl. So no apples doesn’t care about gaming

I suppose you mean OpenGL? OpenCL doesn’t have much to do with gaming. As to OpenGL, it’s a practically dead legacy API that has been superseded by more modern Vulkan. And Apples Metal is way more better abstraction than OpenGL, in addition to being much easier to work with than both OpenGL and Vulkan. Not to mention that it makes it simpler to write high-quality drivers, solving a fundamental issue of OpenGL.

 

[Sackofnickels]

so I am looking at the new MacBook Pro and it seems to me that Apple is trying to get into the “gaming” side for there MacBook they have a gaming tabs there witch features Fornite and even on the EGPU they have gaming on there, what are your guys take on this? You think Apple is taking gaming seriously.

I don't see why anyone would want to buy a $2k to $4k laptop to play games. If it does fine, but would not be one of the top criteria for me when considering a new laptop. I'd rather spend $400 and buy a Playstation or xBox.

As far as Fortnite, it's big with the kids in my neighborhood. When the grandkids come over all the iPads and iPhones are being used to play the game with the neighborhood kids. Interesting that my wife's iPad mini II doesn't to meet the specs to play the game. Too slow. We just added Fortnite to our xBox One S. Works great. Never considered playing it on our laptops.

 

[mr.anthonyramos]

Just to be clear.
Gaming is ok on a mac with BootCamp and with better drivers.

And for the graphics card, it´s very good! Why? Because it´s the best performance you can get out of 35W. I don´t think there is any other graphic cards that work that well on only 35W like 460, 560 and 560X.

You can´t compare with for example GTX 1060 that is 75W, it will never appear and work well in a thin laptop as a mac with that build quality.

I think Apple never will go back to Nvidia after the mess with all the the faulty grapghic cards from them on the 2011-2013 macbooks .

That is sad, because it would be amazing to get Nvidia on the iMacs, I have mine from 2012 left with GTX680MX. 1080 in the iMac would be a direct buy!

----

If you want to play games well, build a workstation, with a good gaming screen, and buy a Razer Core X and a stand for your mac, the processor in these new ones will work perfectly with the core X

DON´T buy the 699 dollar blackmagic one from apple, you CAN´T change the graphic-card in that one.
You can use Nvidia in the Core X, but it´s easiest to use AMD.

I second this. the Razer Core X is quite an awesome deal at 300 bucks (?) reviews are great and mac compatibility is great as well.

 

[Ethosik]

I don't see why anyone would want to buy a $2k to $4k laptop to play games. If it does fine, but would not be one of the top criteria for me when considering a new laptop. I'd rather spend $400 and but a Playstation or xBox.

As far as Fortnite, it's big with the kids in my neighborhood. When the grandkids come over all the iPads and iPhones are being used to play the game with the neighborhood kids. Interesting that my wife's iPad mini II doesn't to meet the specs to play the game. Too slow. We just added Fortnite to our xBox One S. Works great. Never considered playing it on our laptops.

I agree. I get these systems to do work. It is able to play games and I do that in my spare time when I am away from my main gaming PC. When I am at home, I have a dedicated Windows gaming PC with a GTX 1080.

Seriously, these types of comments that Macs cannot play games is equivalent to me saying the Nintendo Switch is unable to play games. IT CAN. It might not look as good as what a GTX 1080 can do or have the highest FPS, but it will certainly play games. And you might need to go to Medium settings or so.

 

[dukebound85]

I second this. the Razer Core X is quite an awesome deal at 300 bucks (?) reviews are great and mac compatibility is great as well.

I prefer the mantiz myself. I have one and it’s great

https://mymantiz.com/products/mz-02-venus

 

[mr.anthonyramos]

I prefer the mantiz myself. I have one and it’s great

https://mymantiz.com/products/mz-02-venus

Oh cool! And similarly priced to the Core X. How does this one compare?

 

[dukebound85]

Oh cool! And similarly priced to the Core X. How does this one compare?

I don’t have the razor but the mantiz is a nice enclosure. It’s essentially a docking station with a egpu capability. Ht hit all my requirements of having multiple usb 3 ports, Ethernet, 85w tb power for laptop charging and has the benefit of having a SATA connection inside the enclosure

 

[mr.anthonyramos]

I don’t have the razor but the mantiz is a nice enclosure. It’s essentially a docking station with a egpu capability. Ht hit all my requirements of having multiple usb 3 ports, Ethernet, 85w tb power for laptop charging and has the benefit of having a SATA connection inside the enclosure

I just took a look at the website...okay...outlook-wise, I find this better looking than the Core X. Very cool. Thanks for sharing. I might consider this. Will look at some reviews.

 

[fokmik]

I would like to know if the BlackMagic eGPU helps with playing games, if it works with VR and whether it's powerful enough to run PC games via Wineskin?

ofc it helps...it is using Amd 580 desktop gpu, an eGPu that is the only one that can power your 5k monitor and charge your macbook pro at the same time..also the quietest out there...the only downside is if you want a new gpu in 4-5 years, you have to take another eGpu

 

[AdamA9]

I was going to start a similar thread, more aimed at eGPUs in general, but I think this one will suit my needs. Hopefully I'm not crashing it.

I just ordered the below. I wanted a 15" but having seen it today, I don't think I can increase the size of the machine I use, the 13" is so much better for my needs, sans the dGPU.

• 2.7GHz quad-core 8th‑generation Intel Core i7 processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.5GHz
• Retina display with True Tone
• Touch Bar and Touch ID
• Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655
• 16GB 2133MHz LPDDR3 memory
• 1TB SSD storage

I don’t have the razor but the mantiz is a nice enclosure. It’s essentially a docking station with a egpu capability. Ht hit all my requirements of having multiple usb 3 ports, Ethernet, 85w tb power for laptop charging and has the benefit of having a SATA connection inside the enclosure

I'm looking at an all-in-one solution for an eGPU, I'd like a docking station for all the ports etc, e.g., I need to plug in a dongle for mouse, external SSD, monitor, charge leads for the phone. I want something that can daisy chain all these peripherals to my mac, while also acting as an eGPU. The Blackmagic was top of the list, but now I'm seeing the Razor and Mantiz.

There doesn't seem to be a place which lists all the best eGPU solutions for a mac, are there some brands that are the 'go-to' for this sort of thing.

Ideally, I wouldn't want to spend more than £500-600 if I can help it, having just dropped £2,800 on the laptop itself.

 

[mattcube64]

How well does Windows in Bootcamp work with an eGPU?

 

[Gudd]

Put simply, a MBP can play games reasonably OK. But unless you're cool with it sounding like you're playing in a wind tunnel on a laptop that gets very hot indeed then you are not likely to want to sit there and play those games. Every time I decide to give it a try I quickly say screw that and uninstall the game. It's just very noisy and very hot.

Admittedly I have a 13" i7 MBP which has the Intel Iris 650 graphics, so it's not a "dedicated" mobile graphics chip. Things might be better on the 15" models but IMO they are still pretty gimped in the graphics chip department and they were too big for my requirement. What I really wanted was a new 11" MacBook Air to replace my 11" 2013 as that was the ultimate in portable machine that could still easily power 3x 1080p screens when plugged into my Dell dock (note: not since 10.13.4 however!) and compile my projects nice and quick for work.

Now what I want to know is pretty simple: I've been looking at eGPUs for ages now. Nowhere have I seen any review that talks about whether the laptop fan still goes crazy when playing a game through the eGPU to an external monitor. Everyone just talks about the FPS and the noise of the eGPU. While those are important factors, I would hate to spend the price of the eGPU enclosure AND a graphics card only to find the noise of the laptop and the heat of the laptop are just as bad as they were before. Nobody mentions this.

 

[Maven1975]

Put simply, a MBP can play games reasonably OK. But unless you're cool with it sounding like you're playing in a wind tunnel on a laptop that gets very hot indeed then you are not likely to want to sit there and play those games. Every time I decide to give it a try I quickly say screw that and uninstall the game. It's just very noisy and very hot.

Admittedly I have a 13" i7 MBP which has the Intel Iris 650 graphics, so it's not a "dedicated" mobile graphics chip. Things might be better on the 15" models but IMO they are still pretty gimped in the graphics chip department and they were too big for my requirement. What I really wanted was a new 11" MacBook Air to replace my 11" 2013 as that was the ultimate in portable machine that could still easily power 3x 1080p screens when plugged into my Dell dock (note: not since 10.13.4 however!) and compile my projects nice and quick for work.

Now what I want to know is pretty simple: I've been looking at eGPUs for ages now. Nowhere have I seen any review that talks about whether the laptop fan still goes crazy when playing a game through the eGPU to an external monitor. Everyone just talks about the FPS and the noise of the eGPU. While those are important factors, I would hate to spend the price of the eGPU enclosure AND a graphics card only to find the noise of the laptop and the heat of the laptop are just as bad as they were before. Nobody mentions this.

The fans are silent on the laptop when using an eGPU.

Been using one for years now. Thank the heavens Apple finally dropped a Quad in the MBP!

 

[Gudd]

The fans are silent on the laptop when using an eGPU.

That’s good to know. With the Core X being a sensible price I might finally be tempted to get one for work and replace the display link dock that no longer works with the latest os version.

 

[fokmik]

since the blackmagic eGPu is the only one on the market that can power a 5k monitor, i wonder if it can power the internal display of an macbook/imac ?1

 

[MacBH928]

People really need to stop these types of discussions. A $5,000 NVIDIA Quadro video card is NOT MUCH BETTER than a GTX 1080Ti at $700. These a professional grade systems using video cards primarily for professional work and not video games.

And again, optimization comes into play. There is no code in the macOS software that says if(playinggames) OnlyMaxAt5FPS();

iD Software and Bethesda were able to get the 2016 Doom release to be able to run on a Nintendo Switch in handheld mode very well. Optimization is a key here. There are games on Steam that even my GTX 1080 has trouble playing with a constant 60fps at even 1920x1080 resolution.

Oh and I guess I am imagining things running 2016 Doom on my 2016 MacBook Pro. Look you won't get max settings or 4K 60FPS performance, but these systems can certainly play games.

I have to see it to believe it, all my research concludes that DirectX is way above whatever MacOS has technology wise and the hardware is lacking in that area too. From personal experience, the Macs always had a hard time with games.

Doom might run on your 2016 machine, but maybe in SNES resolution. I played Civ V on 2015 macbook pro and I had to put down all the settings to medium or low, still the MacBook started to feel like its cooking on the inside.