Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

New MBP for gaming

^squirrel^

^squirrel^

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 4, 2006
651
1
England
Hi,

What will the new MBP be like for gaming. The model i have in mind is the 2.5 with 512mb VRAM. Games i like to play are Battlefield 2142 and Call of Duty 4.

How future proof is the GPU, will it cope ok with games out in 2009?
Thanks all
 
The video card in the MBP is dated. I wouldn't expect too much out of it for highly visual games in 2009.
 
I literally signed up to this website two minutes ago (after lurking daily for around a month and a half-ish) and this is my first post here. I'm also interested in knowing the answer to this question.
 
It is ample for the current games. I wonder if apple has still kept its GPU underclocked like they always have, even with the cooler penryn processors.

as for future proof, GPU's are a tricky business. I would personally wait. I know theres a mobile 9600 gt around the corner.
 
look on youtube...there are guys using the Merom MBP with the 256 Meg GPU and it run decently enought.
 
The only thing is it's unlikely that we'll see an update for at least 6 months to the MBP. So might be a while until we see the 9 series Nvidia card in the MBP.
 
^squirrel^ said:
The only thing is it's unlikely that we'll see an update for at least 6 months to the MBP. So might be a while until we see the 9 series Nvidia card in the MBP.
Click to expand...

I am fairly certain that there will be an update sooner than 6 months. i'd say around 4-5 months, when montevina is released. 9600m gt will definitely be out by then.
 
Depends on what you want to run.

If you rock up to a games store and get some of the Top 10 games like Crysis, call of duty 4, I think you will be disapointed.

If you want to run older games, that are more memory intenstive such as wow etc, it will be fine.

I'm getting one, but will only play wow on it.
 
Hell I ran Call of Duty 4 on my MBP 2.16ghz C2D with 128mb x1600 radeon card quite nicely at medium/high settings ... I think you'll do fine.. :rolleyes:

I even managed to run Crysis on medium 1024x768.
 
MH01 said:
Depends on what you want to run.

If you rock up to a games store and get some of the Top 10 games like Crysis, call of duty 4, I think you will be disapointed.

If you want to run older games, that are more memory intenstive such as wow etc, it will be fine.

I'm getting one, but will only play wow on it.
Click to expand...

You people without MBP should read the gaming thread instead of posting wrong information.

Of course a laptop is not expected to play games such as Crysis or COD4 at high resolution 2560 x 1600 with everything turned up. However, for most people, Crysis or COD4 are playable on the previous generation MBP at a lower resolution. Heck, I beat the sniper level while waiting for a plane in the airport.

Playing Team Fortress 2 on Santa Rosa 2.4ghz 17" MBP, I get the top score maybe 20% of the time, and in the top 3 about half the time.

The newer generation MBP will certain have better performance than the previous generation, so it'll be fine for games as long as you are not expecting to play at souped up desktop only resolutions.

I would suggest getting the 7200rpm drive.
 
huh? for current games, you're on man, you can play Assasin's creed with full high settings

but if you're talking about 2009

im not sure, i might be thinking of 8800 to rock MBP on 2009 :D
 
Well since I play COD4 extensively on my 2.33 MBP I would say you should have no problems with the new MBP. (And I do mean extensively).
 
The new MBPs will play most current games fine on medium high settings.
I also noticed that the SR 2.4 17" high res MBP ran Guild Wars a bit choppy on high settings, due to the 8600GT choking on the high resolution. The new Penryn 17" may improve things marginally.
 
Consultant said:
You people without MBP should read the gaming thread instead of posting wrong information.

Of course a laptop is not expected to play games such as Crysis or COD4 at high resolution 2560 x 1600 with everything turned up. However, for most people, Crysis or COD4 are playable on the previous generation MBP at a lower resolution. Heck, I beat the sniper level while waiting for a plane in the airport.

Playing Team Fortress 2 on Santa Rosa 2.4ghz 17" MBP, I get the top score maybe 20% of the time, and in the top 3 about half the time.

The newer generation MBP will certain have better performance than the previous generation, so it'll be fine for games as long as you are not expecting to play at souped up desktop only resolutions.

I would suggest getting the 7200rpm drive.
Click to expand...

Wrong information??? Mate how about u post in which resolutions you can run Crysis or Call of duty 4 with max settings. Not max rez, max settings.

Running games at medium setting or low setting, you may call playing, I call it jsutifying. I remember running wow on my Powerbook 1.5, yeah it ran on medium settings and was nice and fast, but compared to my PC desktop it looked like *****.

Its a great laptop, a gaming machine it is not.
 
Viper2005 said:
I also noticed that the SR 2.4 17" high res MBP ran Guild Wars a bit choppy on high settings, due to the 8600GT choking on the high resolution. The new Penryn 17" may improve things marginally.
Click to expand...

I doubt it'd make any difference.

The current processor is plenty powerful; it's the graphics card that's providing the bottleneck and until we see new cards I doubt you'd see any gains and even future newer cards may not impress that much thanks to Apple no doubt underclocking it. Even with the new larger 512MB graphics memory option you'd only notice if your game was using large textures.

Of course I'd love to be proved wrong and can't wait to see benchmarks from sites such as www.barefeats.com for example. :)

By the way, to the OP: I used to play Unreal Tournament 2004 (Mac edition) at 1920x1200 with all the settings set to max and it ran sweet and smooth. :cool:
 
MH01 said:
Wrong information??? Mate how about u post in which resolutions you can run Crysis or Call of duty 4 with max settings. Not max rez, max settings.

Running games at medium setting or low setting, you may call playing, I call it jsutifying. I remember running wow on my Powerbook 1.5, yeah it ran on medium settings and was nice and fast, but compared to my PC desktop it looked like *****.

Its a great laptop, a gaming machine it is not.
Click to expand...


If you actually read my post I said it won't run on max settings / resolution that it can output (2560x1600), but I can bet that your desktop doesn't run Crysis on max resolution on max settings either.

Can you play games on your desktop while you are in the airport? For most of those who travel, it's worth it.
 
MH01 said:
Depends on what you want to run.

If you rock up to a games store and get some of the Top 10 games like Crysis, call of duty 4, I think you will be disapointed.

If you want to run older games, that are more memory intenstive such as wow etc, it will be fine.

I'm getting one, but will only play wow on it.
Click to expand...

Actually COD 4 works great with the 07' SR.
 
Neutral Gamer said:
By the way, to the OP: I used to play Unreal Tournament 2004 (Mac edition) at 1920x1200 with all the settings set to max and it ran sweet and smooth. :cool:
Click to expand...

Why do MBP gamers always like to talk about UT04? So what if your machine ran it at max settings at a high resolution. It damn well better, it's 2008.
 
hey there. I can tell you first hand that my 17" 2.4 Santa Rosa MBP plays COD 4 without a hitch. I am a hardcore gamer so I would tell you if I felt that performace was an issue. I have played many a FPS online back when i could afford to build my own PC. Since I have not had the funds recently to own a PC I installed XP on my MBP using BootCamp and it works a charm. I use an external monitor, and external keyboard and mouse. Most of my graphics settings are on high, some on medium. I don't seem to notice the the diffrence in textures when i set the detail lower cos I am more concerned with shooting doods in the head. ;) My frames when not in action are around 90, and with lots of action on the screen I drop to around 25 or 30.

If you are asking about the new 2.6 machines, then I would assume they would be even better as they have a quicker CPU, and GPU.

PS... I play COD4 under the name yAnkee. You can find me on NANO's elite server most often. :)

b
 
Since Crysis is ahead of its time engine wise, that's the game you want to benchmark to have an idea if your new MBP can handle the games coming later this year and next year. I've finished that game twice on my 17" MBP (Nvidia 8600 GT card, the same that's in the new MBP's) so let me tell you: the videocard your MacBook ships with will have a hard time with upcoming games like Far Cry 2, because it struggles when you use features like shadows, HDR and better shading settings (struggling as in less than 20 fps on avarage at a resulotion of 1280x800, no AA of course). And it should, because it's a midrange card, meaning it is meant to be able to handle games on medium settings, when the card came out (a year ago?). It's dated and will not 'last' until 2009.
 
It's dated, but the problem is that there's nothing to replace it with right now. We have to hope Nvidia is generous and delivers a 9600m before the montevina refresh.
 
There are plenty of videos on Youtube of people playing various games on the MBP with great results.

Unreal Tournament 3, Call of Duty 4, BioShock, Oblivion, Battlefield, etc..

They all ran very well on the MBP.
 
^squirrel^ said:
Hi,

What will the new MBP be like for gaming. The model i have in mind is the 2.5 with 512mb VRAM. Games i like to play are Battlefield 2142 and Call of Duty 4.

How future proof is the GPU, will it cope ok with games out in 2009?
Thanks all
Click to expand...

with PC gaming and laptops..futureproofing is basically impossible.

It will run 2009 games at at least min settings in 2009 i can be quite confident of.
 
kashik said:
Why do MBP gamers always like to talk about UT04? So what if your machine ran it at max settings at a high resolution. It damn well better, it's 2008.
Click to expand...

Cos it's a great game mate. Yeah it's old now but considering you can run it at max it gives you an idea of the base and then you can predict from there how well newer games are likely to run.

The MBP was the first time I'd used such a powerful laptop with a dedicated graphics card and so I was amazed that it was able to play the game so smoothly. It may not be impressive to you but it definitely had at least a novelty factor to me every time I played it. Playing any game at 1920x1200 on a laptop just seems unreal with everything looking so sharp on the 17" glossy screen. :)
 
TraustiB said:
Hell I ran Call of Duty 4 on my MBP 2.16ghz C2D with 128mb x1600 radeon card quite nicely at medium/high settings ... I think you'll do fine.. :rolleyes:

I even managed to run Crysis on medium 1024x768.
Click to expand...
Really? So you have the ones that are 1449 at the refurb? I'm just wondering cause thats the one I want.

ChrisN
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back