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playing games on MacBook

N

notwist

macrumors regular
Original poster
I have a C2D MacBook that I like to play games on via Boot Camp. I was wondering: If I add some memory (I have a 1GB currently), will I see any performance increase in playing games?

Thanks!
 
notwist said:
I have a C2D MacBook that I like to play games on via Boot Camp. I was wondering: If I add some memory (I have a 1GB currently), will I see any performance increase in playing games?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
1.5 GB will not make much of a difference, 2 GB should be fairly noticeable.
 
Your limited by the Integrated Graphics, it's not designed to display games unfortunately.

However 2GB of RAM should speed things up a little bit.
 
Hmmm, right now I kinda wish I dropped the extra cash for the MBP. I was thinking of selling my MacBook and just getting one, but I'd probably just wait until Leopard is released.
 
Sell your macbook to get the MBP just to play games? I really don't think the ability to play games on the MBP warrants the extra $600. Ofcourse, its an entirely different case if you plan on doing video editing and using FCP or the likes, but just for gaming, i don't think the trade off for size and portability is worth it.
 
Here anyone knows that the macbook is not gaming machine, may be in the lowest settings and depending on the game
 
notwist said:
I have a C2D MacBook that I like to play games on via Boot Camp. I was wondering: If I add some memory (I have a 1GB currently), will I see any performance increase in playing games?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Have you tried to play World of Warcraft under XP by chance? I'm somewhat curious as to how well it would play. A friend of mine tried it on OS X and only got ~20fps with all settings on low. I was hoping it'd be better on XP.
 
notwist said:
I have a C2D MacBook that I like to play games on via Boot Camp. I was wondering: If I add some memory (I have a 1GB currently), will I see any performance increase in playing games?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

You actually have to be a bit careful when adding memory to the MacBook line..

see, by default they come with ram in pairs (in your case, 2x512mb). This is done so that the chipset can take advantage of dual channel memory.

(please correct me if i'm wrong with the next part)

Dual channel memory works by doubling the bandwidth or, amount of data to travel between the ram and chipset by doubling the data bus.

Each stick of ram has 32bits of data bandwith, dual channel memory makes both sticks of ram work as one, and as such makes the data bandwith 64 bits, theoretically doubling the speed of which data can travel.

Because your video card is intergrated with the northbridge chipset of your macbook and utilises the onbaord ram, if you were to put say, 1x 1gb and 1x512mb sticks of ram in your computer, the data bandwith would be reduced to 32 bits and you would actually notice a significant speed loss. Not only with games but with overall performance.

If you are looking to upgrade your ram, you would be better off getting 2x matched sticks of ddr2 sodimm ram. This way you can still take full advantage of the dual channel memory.
 
kusanagi said:
You actually have to be a bit careful when adding memory to the MacBook line..
Because your video card is intergrated with the northbridge chipset of your macbook and utilises the onbaord ram, if you were to put say, 1x 1gb and 1x512mb sticks of ram in your computer, the data bandwith would be reduced to 32 bits and you would actually notice a significant speed loss. Not only with games but with overall performance.

If you are looking to upgrade your ram, you would be better off getting 2x matched sticks of ddr2 sodimm ram. This way you can still take full advantage of the dual channel memory.
Click to expand...
Yes and no - I think it's fair to say that was the accepted wisdom, but from people experimenting (e.g. as in the excellent Ars Technica) website, it's not as cut and dry as that.

OWC posted various benchmarks of various RAM configurations:
http://eshop.macsales.com/Reviews/MacBook/Testing/Memory_Benchmarks

When testing Halo, it found that a 2.16GHz MB with 2x1GB RAM had the best performance (as you might rightly expect!) with 14.92 FPS – but a MB with 2GB+512MB had the next best with 14.72 FPS…moving on a MB with 1GB+512MB had better performance that one with 2x512MB. However, with the 1.83Ghz MB, it found matched sticks was better in Halo period. Gets a bit confusing!

From various benchmarking and user feedback, if you’re running CPU/RAM hungry tasks (e.g. video editing, Photoshop), the more RAM you’ve got (matched or not), the better the performance.
 
I recently had a Toshiba C2D with a GMA950, it was capable of playing some games just fine, but would not run some FPS games well enough to be playable (normal behaviour). Unfortunately the MB is not really designed to be a 'gaming rig' so it won't do so well with games that put a high demand on graphic drivers but it will do just fine with many other types of casual games.

Sopranino
 
It's worth pointing out that there are some games people are playing that others are amazed that are actually running rather well - e.g. HL2.
 
docc said:
Sell your macbook to get the MBP just to play games? I really don't think the ability to play games on the MBP warrants the extra $600. Ofcourse, its an entirely different case if you plan on doing video editing and using FCP or the likes, but just for gaming, i don't think the trade off for size and portability is worth it.
Click to expand...

Yea that's what I was thinking.. I wasn't sure if the extra money is worth it when I just want to a play a game or two. I guess I'll just throw in some more RAM and see how that does. If all else fails, I can just pick up my old PC desktop from my parents' I guess 😱
 
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