Please help MBP upgrade concerns

[cfII]

im a commercial pilot, last year I bought a early 2011 15" 2.3 antiglare, 8gb ram, 750gb and still under apple care

pretty much the main reason is to run xplane which it does fairly well
my questions are as follows

1. im looking at the top of the line NON rmbp because of the intense resolution im thinking it will slow the simulation down too much is this correct?is the non retina better for my application?
2. is the 2.7 non rmbp going to be a noticeable upgrade w the faster graphics?
3. could some quantify the increase?
4. what do you guys think my computer is worth?
5. IM hoping i will only have to spend~$500 to upgrade after selling my current machine, realistic?

Thanks in advance

PS I dont think people who dont play xplane realize how demading this game is, this is not starcraft, I dont think most new desktops could run xplane maxed out

 

[CASLondon]

im a commercial pilot, last year I bought a early 2011 15" 2.3 antiglare, 8gb ram, 750gb and still under apple care

pretty much the main reason is to run xplane which it does fairly well
my questions are as follows

1. im looking at the top of the line NON rmbp because of the intense resolution im thinking it will slow the simulation down too much is this correct?is the non retina better for my application?
2. is the 2.7 non rmbp going to be a noticeable upgrade w the faster graphics?
3. could some quantify the increase?
4. what do you guys think my computer is worth?
5. IM hoping i will only have to spend~$500 to upgrade after selling my current machine, realistic?

Thanks in advance

PS I dont think people who dont play xplane realize how demading this game is, this is not starcraft, I dont think most new desktops could run xplane maxed out

You might want to dig into the plane forums for advice, as I think there will be more specific technical expertise there. Are you determined to upgrade? That's not that old a machine.

There is no doubt that you can and should dump 16G ram in that existing macbook pro, or whatever new one you get. Xplane will eat what you through at it.

You will see some improvement with the cpu, but who knows how much. If you boot off a SSD and have 16g ram you might see as much improvement, to be honest. Some references.

http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

http://barefeats.com

As for the value of your MBP, look at ebay completed auctions for similar machine, and see

http://www.mac2sell.net
http://www.gazelle.com

 

[cfII]

You might want to dig into the plane forums for advice, as I think there will be more specific technical expertise there. Are you determined to upgrade? That's not that old a machine.

There is no doubt that you can and should dump 16G ram in that existing macbook pro, or whatever new one you get. Xplane will eat what you through at it.

You will see some improvement with the cpu, but who knows how much. If you boot off a SSD and have 16g ram you might see as much improvement, to be honest. Some references.

http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

http://barefeats.com

As for the value of your MBP, look at ebay completed auctions for similar machine, and see

http://www.mac2sell.net
http://www.gazelle.com

Thanks for your reply
the plane forums are all running desktops:-(
my machine is mostly limited GPU wise; I see the new machines have the same 1gb vram hoping someone can say how much better that card is

 

[CASLondon]

Thanks for your reply
the plane forums are all running desktops:-(
my machine is mostly limited GPU wise; I see the new machines have the same 1gb vram hoping someone can say how much better that card is

If you look at the bottom of this page, I think you can see a benchmark for xplane 10 mid 2011 MBP vs rMBP

http://www.barefeats.com/gam12.html

 

[Macman45]

Thanks for your reply
the plane forums are all running desktops:-(
my machine is mostly limited GPU wise; I see the new machines have the same 1gb vram hoping someone can say how much better that card is

I run X-plane on a maxed out iMac, something it does very well indeed. As far as running it on my 17" cMBP 16GB Ram 1GB VRAM goes, it wasn't great when I just gave it a try.

The issue here is that X-Plane unlike FSX requires plenty of VRAm to run at decent settings. Th MBP easily meets the CPU requirements and should in theory be fine with a 1 GB Video card, but the real world truth is that it just it just doesn't.

People who have Boot camped say that performance is far better under Windows, but I can't vouch for that, as I do not have Windows on any of my Macs. High end Windows gaming laptops like Alienware etc. will run it really well, but from an OSX perspective I think you need the desktop "Grunt" Bottom line is that if you want decent performance from X-Plane then a high end Windows laptop, or an imac are probably going to get you the best experience...I run in high detail on my 27" but it has 2GB of VRAM and an I7 3.4GHZ GPU. Hope this helps.

 

[cfII]

so you guys dont think it will be much faster on the new MBPs