MMORPGs on MBPs -> A question of VRAM?

[escalane]

What do you think:

would a 'better' MBP 2,4GHz/256VRAM have major advantages regarding performance in MMORPGs or MMOs compared to the 2,2GHz/128VRAM version?

I was wondering because for games in general the tiny differences between FPS rates won't convince me to pick the more expensive 15,4'' MBP but on the other hand aren't MMOs actually using the VRAM for streaming textures and that kind of stuff? To be honest I would really be disappointed if I wasn't able to play titles like 'Tabula Rasa' or 'Age of Conan' on my MBP in the end. If I can be sure to be able to play my random MMORPG on a 'better' 15,4'' I would gladly invest the €386,40 more but if this is totally unnecessary I would pick a sexier bag, one of these tiny Iomega external HDDs and a Razer|Pro1.6 mouse any time over 0,2GHz and 128MB more VRAM.

 

[Erasmus]

Remember that both 128 and 256 MB cards use turbocache, and so can address up to a gigabyte (I think) of VRAM + System RAM. Therefore, unless they are textures that need to be loaded in a fraction of a millisecond, I doubt whether you will notice the difference between 128 and 256 MB VRAM. Turbocache helps keep a fast card with little VRAM, which is therefore cheap, from bottlenecking too much, and keeps it running almost as well as an otherwise identical card with more VRAM. True, the transfer speed through system RAM is going to be slow compared to dedicated VRAM, but compared to pulling stuff off the Hard Disk, it's lightning. Memory clocks for VRAM are like 700 MHz, and System RAM is 667 MHz? Probably some latency issues, but the difference should not be that huge. Especially as both MBPs come with 2GB of system RAM. Probably way oversimplifying, and probably some things I've missed, but you get the idea.

Go the 2.2.

 

[escalane]

Memory clocks for VRAM are like 700 MHz, and System RAM is 667 MHz? Probably some latency issues, but the difference should not be that huge.

Ah, got it. I was checking out that barefeats comparison between the 2,2GHz and the 2,4GHz thingie once more and about clock speeds it says:

Core Clock IDLE: 169MHz
Core Clock NORMAL: 375MHz
Core Clock MAX: 470MHz

Memory Clock IDLE: 100MHz
Memory Clock NORMAL: 502MHz
Memory Clock MAX: 635MHz​

That does mean that there won't be almost any difference if it was the 635MHz of the Memory Clock or the 667MHz of the system RAM what's being used? Whoa... putting that last sentence together was tough, I'm no english native speaker, sorry if I just wrote something that doesn't make any sense.

 

[Erasmus]

I don't really know, it's just something I thought of when I started writing the post.

 

[CrAzYoNe]

Age of Conan is quite hard on a laptop.

Recommended: 512 MB DirectX 9.0c Graphics Card with Shader 3.0 support (NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX or equivalent)

3D Mark 06

Apple MacBook Pro (2.40GHz Core 2 Duo Intel T7700, NVidia 8600M 256MB) 4,674 3D Marks

Dell XPS M1710 (2.16 GHz Core Duo, nVidia 7900 GTX 512MB) 4,744 3D Marks

Id say you could run Age of Conan safely. I don't know what settings though...

 

[escalane]

Mh, I seriously wasn't clever enough to look up the system requirements for the games myself yet. Thanks!

Tabula Rasa:

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

* Windows® 2000/XP/Vista
* 512 MB System RAM
* 2.5 GHz Intel® Pentium® 4 or equivalent AMD™ processor
* 128 MB Direct3D and Shader 2.0 compatible video card and DirectX 9.0 compatible driver
* 8x DVD-ROM drive
* 4.6 GB free hard disk space
* DirectX 9.0c
* DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
* Keyboard, Mouse
* Broadband Internet connection

So this one should work fine too, I guess. Pitty that there ain't more MMORPGs running natively on Mac OS X. There would be World of Warcraft but that's just not my cup of tea. EVE Online will soon be available for Mac OS X, the problem is just that I already played this one on my PC for quite some time like 1 1/2 years or so.

Whatever, I'm going to get the 2.4GHz MBP, I will still 'save' some cash anyways because I already ordered a 17'' MBP but returned it because I couldn't read anything with the insane resolution and for turning the res down and never really using it a 17'' would be crazy. Like driving a truck but never using the room in the trailer but infact never getting a parkinglot either... (what a stupid comparison. =)