MBA 11" vs. Diablo III

[Pengapine]

Thanks for all the feedback! This is definitely helpful in my purchase decisions

From what it sounds like, it might be worthwhile to look into other options for a 2nd computer (mini anyone?) for Diablo III. Guess we'll have to find out what the benchmarks will look like for the MBAs when they get refreshed.

It sounds like in the current models, the 11" and 13" cpu/ gpu are pretty comparable? I wonder what the chances are for 13" to go back to having descrete gpu rather than integrated.

 

[bogatyr]

The mini isn't really much of a gaming machine. For the $800 it costs, you can get something much better - laptop or desktop.

While it performs better than an Intel iGPU, it isn't exactly great:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphic-Cards.13849.0.html

Look up the 6630M on that site.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Hmmm interesting idea. Could any tech guru here shred some light on whether this approach would be feasible at all?

It could be done. If the same Gamer-Laptop-PC GPU boards are used, then aside from the required cooling and maybe a slightly larger Thunderbolt Display logic board (to accommodate the physical connection), it's entirely possible. Again, it'd give something like a low-end Mac mini, a MacBook Air, or a 13" MacBook Pro a discrete GPU to actually be useful in gaming/rendering/video-production situations.

Thanks for all the feedback! This is definitely helpful in my purchase decisions

From what it sounds like, it might be worthwhile to look into other options for a 2nd computer (mini anyone?) for Diablo III. Guess we'll have to find out what the benchmarks will look like for the MBAs when they get refreshed.

It sounds like in the current models, the 11" and 13" cpu/ gpu are pretty comparable? I wonder what the chances are for 13" to go back to having descrete gpu rather than integrated.

I'd do a 15" MacBook Pro, Macs (and PCs for that matter) with the Intel HD 3000 aren't worth it if one of this machine's primary purposes is to play Diablo III. They're just not. Sorry to those that have -1ed my comments for saying stuff like that; I'm sure your computers are wonderful, but they're not OPTIMAL for Diablo III by any stetch of the imagination.

The mini isn't really much of a gaming machine. For the $800 it costs, you can get something much better - laptop or desktop.

While it performs better than an Intel iGPU, it isn't exactly great:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphic-Cards.13849.0.html

Look up the 6630M on that site.

Yeah, unless OS X is a priority, avoid the Mac mini, even the higher-end one. Really, if you want a Mac for this purpose, saving that money toward a 15" MacBook Pro is your best option.

 

[iRCL]

Diablo 3 is very very playable

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

 

[Old Smuggler]

I say go for the MBA 11 you'll get the best of both worlds since the specs are similar

 

[Bosmonster]

Diablo 3 is very very playable

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

Instead of some YouTube video, some actual experience would be nice.

Diablo 3 is reasonably playable in single player. In multiplayer, especially outside, it is mostly UNplayable.

And guess what? Diablo 3 is mostly a multiplayer game.

Also, playing it on an external monitor is a no-go. It barely plays the 11" resolution. I've had the beta for quite a while now and got pretty fed up with playing on the 11" screen with choppy performance.

 

[iRCL]

Instead of some YouTube video, some actual experience would be nice.

Diablo 3 is reasonably playable in single player. In multiplayer, especially outside, it is mostly UNplayable.

And guess what? Diablo 3 is mostly a multiplayer game.

Also, playing it on an external monitor is a no-go. It barely plays the 11" resolution. I've had the beta for quite a while now and got pretty fed up with playing on the 11" screen with choppy performance.

Next time I will invent a teleportation device to bring people to my living room so they can experience it

 

[bogatyr]

Diablo 3 is very very playable

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

Thanks for the video. Looks pretty good to me.

 

[marcovortex]

Thanks for the video. Looks pretty good to me.

That's single player and light action. Even so I can see some 'choppiness' and lag. Multiplayer and parts with a lot of action/boss fights would grind to a halt.

I'd love my current Air to run Diablo 3 but if we are honest here, it's just not going to be able to pull it off.. and yes I have tried the beta on it.

I'm not even sure an Ivy Bridge Air will be able to pull it off but I sure hope it can!

 

[KohPhiPhi]

That's single player and light action. Even so I can see some 'choppiness' and lag. Multiplayer and parts with a lot of action/boss fights would grind to a halt.

Absolutely. That video only showed the mildest of on-screen actions you can get in Diablo III. As soon as you get some real gaming action, that thing will lag badly.

 

[fruitycups]

Fine, let me restate my point; gaming is not optimal on a MacBook Air. Yes, I can run older games like WarCraft III (assuming one can find a means of installing it in Lion) and Counter-Strike: Source on it just fine, but the experience sucks. Plain and simple. It is not recommended. It is not optimal. As a gamer, who has the GeForce 320M on his Mac (which is a hair better than the HD 3000 on the current Airs), I can't play anything more intensive than StarCraft II and have the experience be stellar. Diablo III is passable on my system, but I wouldn't recommend it if you're someone who has been waiting since Lord of Destruction came out to be playing Diablo III and really values the experience of playing it. The MacBook Air is not meant for heavy gaming. Legacy gaming it can do with no problem. Older games like WoW and CS: Source will be fine (albeit not as good as they can be on something like a 15" MacBook Pro). But the argument isn't about whether it can be done, it's about whether it SHOULD be done, and I still maintain that it shouldn't, if the experience is at all valued.

you may think the Nvida is better than the HD3000 but you are wrong.

on windows nvidia runs better but 3000 runs better on a mac.

I had the 2010 air before updating to the 2011.

I played starcraft II on both. and hd 3000 had a better graphic in my opinion.

 

[Yebubbleman]

you may think the Nvida is better than the HD3000 but you are wrong.

on windows nvidia runs better but 3000 runs better on a mac.

I had the 2010 air before updating to the 2011.

I played starcraft II on both. and hd 3000 had a better graphic in my opinion.

First off, I own a Mac with the NVIDIA GeForce 320M. Second off, I've tested this mini against Macs with the Intel HD 3000, and you are incorrect, the 320M scores higher on tests that have games at higher settings. On lowest settings the HD 3000 will win, because at that point, the tests are more CPU intensive anyway and given that the HD 3000 is tied to Sandy Bridge the way that the 320M is tied to Penryn, that should be surprising. Also Macworld magazine as well as many others have results similar to mine and attest that the HD 3000 is only slightly inferior in graphics performance than the 320M. Not to mention the HD 3000 doesn't have OpenCL support where the 320M does.

 

[richpjr]

I guess we'll see when the real world benchmarks come out. Of course the bad gaming on MBA does stop me from wasting a lot of time!

 

[LordVic]

again, can we get some comparison between performance in OSx and Windows on the MBA?

 

[iRCL]

That's single player and light action. Even so I can see some 'choppiness' and lag. Multiplayer and parts with a lot of action/boss fights would grind to a halt.

I'd love my current Air to run Diablo 3 but if we are honest here, it's just not going to be able to pull it off.. and yes I have tried the beta on it.

I'm not even sure an Ivy Bridge Air will be able to pull it off but I sure hope it can!

You do realize that's a boss encounter, right?

 

[fruitycups]

First off, I own a Mac with the NVIDIA GeForce 320M. Second off, I've tested this mini against Macs with the Intel HD 3000, and you are incorrect, the 320M scores higher on tests that have games at higher settings. On lowest settings the HD 3000 will win, because at that point, the tests are more CPU intensive anyway and given that the HD 3000 is tied to Sandy Bridge the way that the 320M is tied to Penryn, that should be surprising. Also Macworld magazine as well as many others have results similar to mine and attest that the HD 3000 is only slightly inferior in graphics performance than the 320M. Not to mention the HD 3000 doesn't have OpenCL support where the 320M does.

Doesnt matter.

try playing starcraft II on the 2010 with regular graphics meaning the graphic setting starcraft II comes with originally without changing the setting.

And then try playing starcraft II with the same normal settings without messing with the settings.

I had both the 2010 and the 2011 macbook airs. the mini dont even have an ssd. so no need to compare it with the airs..

run your own test for the starcraft II and tell me that the 2010 nvidia is better than the 2011.

on Mac OS the hd is better. not so on the Windows from what i heard.

----------

First off, I own a Mac with the NVIDIA GeForce 320M. Second off, I've tested this mini against Macs with the Intel HD 3000, and you are incorrect, the 320M scores higher on tests that have games at higher settings. On lowest settings the HD 3000 will win, because at that point, the tests are more CPU intensive anyway and given that the HD 3000 is tied to Sandy Bridge the way that the 320M is tied to Penryn, that should be surprising. Also Macworld magazine as well as many others have results similar to mine and attest that the HD 3000 is only slightly inferior in graphics performance than the 320M. Not to mention the HD 3000 doesn't have OpenCL support where the 320M does.

LOL but if anything we can duke it out on battle net.

HAHAHAHa

 

[Yebubbleman]

Doesnt matter.

try playing starcraft II on the 2010 with regular graphics meaning the graphic setting starcraft II comes with originally without changing the setting.

And then try playing starcraft II with the same normal settings without messing with the settings.

I had both the 2010 and the 2011 macbook airs. the mini dont even have an ssd. so no need to compare it with the airs..

run your own test for the starcraft II and tell me that the 2010 nvidia is better than the 2011.

on Mac OS the hd is better. not so on the Windows from what i heard.

I have done these tests, I run StarCraft II smoothly on medium on the 320M, I don't on the HD 3000. I run StarCraft II on low settings on the otherhand and the HD 3000 scores with a higher framerate. Go read reviews, I'm not the only person experiencing this phenomenon.

LOL but if anything we can duke it out on battle net.

HAHAHAHa

I appreciate the offer, but I don't need to lose to you at StarCraft II in order to see evidence of both my own tests as well as everything that Ars Technica, Engadget, and Macworld have already proven in published articles.

 

[denaliOnDubs]

Diablo 3 is very very playable

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

I've seen a few videos showcasing Diablo 3 on the MacBook Air and it looks like it runs fine... I know that I'm going to try it on my i7 13" MacBook Air, but most gameplay will be on my desktop. When I was younger I had to play games on lower level hardware simply because I could not afford to purchase high end computers... The games were still fun and performed acceptably in most cases.

 

[stark4]

yeah i want to get Diablo III also but i'm worry that it might not run on my 2011 13" MacBook Air. But that youtube video above gave me some hope.

 

[denaliOnDubs]

I already purchased that pre download deal. I'll post how it seems to run after it launches. Hopefully others will too. I was playing Starcraft 2 a few days ago... I had everything on low and the resolution down a bit but the game performed totally fine. Don't purchase a mac mini for gaming... if your going to get a computer for gaming... no matter how much it pains me to say this... take a look at building a windows desktop... My friend has a $500ish build desktop and it plays games very well. It's kind of fun putting one together too.

 

[PaulWog]

Not a fan of gaming on the 11-inch Air.

Starcraft 2 was not fun to play on. Even single player matches weren't that great. The fan was like a jet most of the time. Temperatures were real high with the computer.

Diablo 3 is similar in terms of graphics with Starcraft 2.

I could see an Ivy Bridge version of the Air handling Diablo 3 alright, but I still think it'll be running like a jet with the fans, it'll run hot very likely, and you may get some lag (who knows).

If you can bare playing on an 11-inch screen, don't mind a hot laptop, and don't mind fans blazing in the background, then have at it.

 

[kooskoos1814]

Well, I play SC II online with my Air and it works not so bad considering the size of the machine. I hadly go under 15 fps even with lots of units.

But I can definitely confirm that the fan is real loud with gaming. Worth a try.

 

[Danno21]

Well, I have an early 2011 15-inc Macbook Pro with a 6750m 1GB VRAM and i7 2.3Ghz processor with the high res screen and I have to reduce Diablo 3's beta to a lower resolution, put everything on low and click the "Low FX" button to make the game run really smooth...and that's on discrete graphics and in Lion.

If I join a multiplayer game, it starts to lag a bit because of all the spells going on. With the fans maxed out, the CPU gets to around 87c when playing on the charger. I wish I would've just bought an Air and left the gaming to my PC desktop personally.

I tried it when I had bootcamp as well and it was laggy with updated video drivers with low settings. I didn't lower the resolution or click the "Low FX" button back then.

 

[Xgm541]

Thanks for all the feedback! This is definitely helpful in my purchase decisions

From what it sounds like, it might be worthwhile to look into other options for a 2nd computer (mini anyone?) for Diablo III. Guess we'll have to find out what the benchmarks will look like for the MBAs when they get refreshed.

It sounds like in the current models, the 11" and 13" cpu/ gpu are pretty comparable? I wonder what the chances are for 13" to go back to having descrete gpu rather than integrated.

If you need a Mac and you want to game, why not get a desktop with windows on it? For $800 you can be a much better machine (without the OS of course)

 

[denaliOnDubs]

Blizzard did another round of beta invites a few days ago I received an invite. Though I liked playing the beta on my HP better... my MacBook Air played it just fine. I had everything turned on low with the resolution set on whatever the lowest that was still 16x10. I also set the effects off. My fans were going full blast during the game but I normally use my iPhone headphones with my air anyways so I did not hear it.