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Some questions about Half-Life 2 on a Mac..

M

mode

macrumors member
Original poster
Hey everyone,
First off, I just want to say that I'm excited about Boot Camp. Being able to run Windows XP and Mac OSX simultaneously on my machine is a dream, for all of the graphics and media editing options that the Mac OS presents and for the vast Windows games support.

Reading up exactly on how powerful these new Intel Mac machines have actually been running under Windows, I'm also excited that I'll be able to ditch my mid-range PC to play my Steam games on a new Mac.

If it were my first choice, I would definately save up to go for the MacBook Pro. A gig of RAM or so, the 256MB X1800 GPU and a dual-core 2.0GHz processor should definately do it. However, I've heard from some people that Half-Life 2 and other Source titles don't perform quite up to the standards of the desktop models (Why not..?). I hear though that people have been getting some amazing framerates on their iMacs.

-------

So, here's my request before deciding on my purchase between a MacBook Pro (portability ftw) and an iMac. I kindly ask that anybody here in this forum -- and I'm positive there are more than a few -- who owns a copy of Half-Life 2 on either their MacBook Pro or iMac, to please do this for me.

1) Turn up your resolution and all of your video settings in Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source to the max, except leave antialiasing and anisotropic filtering on 2x each. **

2) Run the Counter-Strike: Source video benchmark test under these mac settings and report in this thread the average frames per second that you recieved.

3) Load up Half-Life 2, open the console and type in cl_showfps 1 to turn on the FPS readout, and report in this thread also the rough average of frames per second you get there. Please be honest!

I'm looking for owners of both desktop iMacs and MacBook Pro's to report their results here, please! If you have either, please do this for me, and also include in your post the system specs of your machine.

Thanks alot, guys!



** If you want to, crank AA and AF all the way up, too. Those are just the settings I generally am used to playing with on my less-than-average PC.
 
I'm doing this in the hopes that if I get enough positive responses about the performance of Half-Life 2 on the MacBook Pro, I'll just get that for the portability factor, as well as the comfort of knowing that my games will run just as well as on the iMacs.
 
You are aware that the MacBook Pros have an X1600 GPU, correct?

Also, the GPU is greatly underclocked, at least in the Intel iMacs. The clock speeds according to ATI are 470/470. My iMac as reported by ATItool in Windows was clocked at 300/300. I bumped it to 470/470 and my Half-Life 2 scores doubled. I am now running it at 470/500.
 
topgunn said:
You are aware that the MacBook Pros have an X1600 GPU, correct?

Also, the GPU is greatly underclocked, at least in the Intel iMacs. The clock speeds according to ATI are 470/470. My iMac as reported by ATItool in Windows was clocked at 300/300. I bumped it to 470/470 and my Half-Life 2 scores doubled. I am now running it at 470/500.
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Shoot, that was a typo. I meant X1600, you're right.

Because of the drain on the battery and the extra heat exherted from the machine, I'd be very weary of attempting to overclock the GPU on a MacBook if I bought one, but I feel a bit better doing it with an iMac.

What were your performance results in Half-Life 2 before, and what are they at now? Also, have you experienced any ill effects at all yet as a result of overclocking the card?
 
mode said:
Because of the drain on the battery and the extra heat exherted from the machine, I'd be very weary of attempting to overclock the GPU on a MacBook if I bought one, but I feel a bit better doing it with an iMac.
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Besides, it voids your warranty.
 
Kingsly said:
Besides, it voids your warranty.
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Overclocking your video card via software DOES NOT void your Apple warranty. If you flashed the hardware then that procedure WILL void the warranty.

Just for the record. Your not actually overclocking the card, your just returning it to the original values recommended by ATI. Remember the cards are UNDERclocked by Apple.
 
Thanks, thats good to know.

But I still haven't gotten any results of what I'm looking for. Will anyone help me out here?
 
mode said:
Thanks, thats good to know.

But I still haven't gotten any results of what I'm looking for. Will anyone help me out here?
Click to expand...

I have the EXACT same query. Common guys 🙂
 
Fine, don't even bother altering the AA and AF. Crank them up all the way if you want to or use them as you do, but I just wanna see some performance results before I make a decision.
 
a fps above 60 will give you safer insurance that when something very intensive happens, it's still fun and playable. example, this guy starts playing doom 3, the intro before the action, and it's around 60 fps. then the monsters came, and it's down to 40 fps.

also, it means that you can do other stuff while gaming like encoding mp3, and a faster fps gives you the feeling that you can still buy and play newer games without any problems yet.
 
steelfist said:
a fps above 60 will give you safer insurance that when something very intensive happens, it's still fun and playable. example, this guy starts playing doom 3, the intro before the action, and it's around 60 fps. then the monsters came, and it's down to 40 fps.

also, it means that you can do other stuff while gaming like encoding mp3, and a faster fps gives you the feeling that you can still buy and play newer games without any problems yet.
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True dat son.
 
maverick808 said:
If the LCD is only capable of 60Hz what's the point of FPS above 60?
Click to expand...

None.

That just the figure it runs out with the settings I was using, its nicely above the 60fps threshold 🙂
 
Gordy said:
http://www.gordyhand.co.uk/winxponmac.htm

Whoever was saying that there was problems running hl2 based games is talking out of their ass, it runs fine.

83fps at native res with settings all up apart from AA and AF on from memory in the stress test.
Click to expand...
Wow, and you got those results on the 1.5Ghz model? That's amazing, I wonder what 2Ghz would bring!

I was honestly expecting Source games to run around 40fps with all maxed-out settings on the MacBook Pro, but I feel alot better about purchasing one now. 83fps average is MORE than more than playable.

Which settings were you running BF2 on? I know that game can be a pretty big resource hog with its visuals.

Edit: Probably a stupid question, but is there a way to shut off the tracking pad on the MBP so I don't have to worry about running my hand across it while using a mouse?

Edit 2: Is your card a 128MB or a 256MB, and have you altered the clock settings at all?
 
Oh, also Gordy, do you think it would it be too much trouble if you could record a short video from Half-Life 2 walking around the outdoors city square area in the beginning of the game (right after you open those train station doors)? That scene is known to be a framerate killer, and I'm curious to see how it stands up under those same settings on the machine. If it can take that, it can surely tackle anything else. That is, I'm only asking under the assumption that you got CS:S for free with Half-Life 2, unless you purchased it seperately.

Your site was a big help, as well. Thank you very much for linking me to it, and I apologize for bombarding you with questions. I don't have any more, I promise!
 
Hi

As it says on the page I've the 2gb version with 2gb of ram and the 256mb vram

I ran bf2 on medium settings and it was fine, I could have run it on high as its not much different to medium.

I've uninstall hl2 now as I had to make room for some other stuff.

Dont know about the trackpad can't say it was an issue tho.
 
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