Skyrim on my Mac?

[adamvk]

Now that Skyrim is officially out and people are playing it on Mac via bootcamp, do you think my Macbook Pro would be able to play Skyrim?

Specs are:

15" @ 1440x900
Core i5 2.53GHZ
8GB DDR3
330GT 256MB

Do you think I'd be able to play at native res, possibly even with AA on?

Thanks

 

[Freyqq]

on low, probably. Unfortunately, the min specs require at least 512 of vram, but on all low you might be ok. The speed of the video card should be enough, though, to run it. So, you're going to want all the textures to be on the lowest possible setting.

 

[adamvk]

on low, probably. Unfortunately, the min specs require at least 512 of vram, but on all low you might be ok. The speed of the video card should be enough, though, to run it. So, you're going to want all the textures to be on the lowest possible setting.

Hmm. Ok. I might try it. Supposedly the new Macbook Airs run it fine so I should be Ok.

 

[sixteen12]

Should be fine. The Skyrim engine scales really well.

Plays on my sisters HP with a AMD x2 1.5GHZ and 256 dedicated card...mind you the laptop lights your leg on fire during.

 

[ortegacarlton]

Is that a 2010 MBP? Pre-Sandybridge i5s?

If not, your sandybridge should come pre-set with the HD 3000, but the HD 3000 isn't the greatest: might be on par with your 330gt.

 

[adamvk]

Is that a 2010 MBP? Pre-Sandybridge i5s?

If not, your sandybridge should come pre-set with the HD 3000, but the HD 3000 isn't the greatest: might be on par with your 330gt.

It's pre-sandybridge but it's a 15", so it has a HD 3000 AND a GT 330M GT w/ 256MB of ram.

 

[PaulyD]

My 13" 2010 MBP runs it fine, got the 320m overclocked to 585/1235 (max in afterburner)

I run it on low and get a playable framerate so should be fine on your 330m on the same or slightly higher settings

 

[JazzyFizzle]

You'll be fine if you run it in bootcamp. Update your graphics drivers and you'll run it on low/medium.

 

[Gurutech]

My Windows laptop with i5-430, nVidia 310m runs Skyrim in medium.
Of course, the game runs with AA off. And the native resolution of my windows laptop is 1366*768 or something like that, so it has slightly lower resolution than yours.
But the difference in graphic should be more than enough to run Skyrim at high setting I think.

Skyrim is not that graphic intensive unless you start to custom tweak the setting.

 

[frozencarbonite]

This issue is why I stopped gaming on PCs and Macs. Too much worrying whether the latest game out will run on my machine and too expensive to keep up with the latest hardware. It's nice to just put a game in a console and play. The only computer gaming I do now is older games that have been out for years.

 

[yusukeaoki]

I wouldnt say its impossible to play.
But probably not on high settings.

 

[JazzyFizzle]

This issue is why I stopped gaming on PCs and Macs. Too much worrying whether the latest game out will run on my machine and too expensive to keep up with the latest hardware. It's nice to just put a game in a console and play. The only computer gaming I do now is older games that have been out for years.

I couldn't disagree more. All you have to do is make sure your pc /mac is as powerful if not more than the current gen console. I got my pc 3 years ago and can still play all modern games full, including bf3. That cost me around £500 at the time.

 

[adamvk]

I couldn't disagree more. All you have to do is make sure your pc /mac is as powerful if not more than the current gen console. I got my pc 3 years ago and can still play all modern games full, including bf3. That cost me around £500 at the time.

Yea, I'm just not much of a fan of console gaming. I'd much rather prefer a mouse and keyboard. I feel more involved with a mouse/keyboard. Plus computer graphics look better in most cases.

 

[mark28]

on low, probably. Unfortunately, the min specs require at least 512 of vram, but on all low you might be ok. The speed of the video card should be enough, though, to run it. So, you're going to want all the textures to be on the lowest possible setting.

VRAM doesn't equal GPU power. I'm running Skyrim on high with the 330m.

I'm not a hardcore gamer, i'm now only when you're out of the first dungeon when you're going to village. It runs with no problem at all.

 

[SpazzyMac]

Skyrim Awesomeness!

The game is great! and it runs very well on my MBP
GPU OC'ed to: 800/900 @ 0.960v
CPU Throttled @ 2.2Ghz
11.11 Drivers

Game Settings:
Native Resolution: 1440x900
AA: off
AF: 16x
FXAA: on
Texture quality: High
Radial: Medium
Shadows: Low
water reflections: off
View Distance: all set to max except Distant objects: High

the framerates are totally acceptable at 40-60fps, but howers around 60 most of the time so there really are no excuses not to play this awesome game with the current MBP's Radeon's with 1GB vram