StarCraft 2 on 2010 13" MBP?

[EricP42]

I am in the market for a 13-14" laptop (windows or mac) that can run starcraft 2 online without any problems, but still has great battery life. Right now the 13" mbp might be what i need. I know there have been a lot of threads on sc2 and the mbp but it all basically says "it runs fine". I dont completely trust that answer, because the same was said about the ASUS UL30VT, which is basically false.

I was very interested in the UL30VT until I heard that during larger battles on starcraft 2 it suffered severe frame rate drops due to the processor bottlenecking performance (intel SU7300). Whoever said that computer could run sc2 "just fine" was probably playing only 1v1 because it couldnt handle much past that according to what i've read.

i am aware that the current mbp has a intel p8600 2.4ghz processor which is, according to cpubenchmark.net, considerably better than the SU7300. Since starcraft 2 is more of a CPU-intensive game than GPU (im not worried about running the game on more than medium graphics settings anyways, which the 320m can definitely handle), I am hoping that it can run an online match with 4-8 players with ease.

Can anyone with a 2010 13" mbp chime in on the in-game performance of a 2v2 match in the beta? How are the framerates late in the game? during large battles?

I've been researching this for the last couple of days and cannot find any conclusive facts on the new mbp running sc2 so any comments from users with first hand experience would be greatly appreciated. It is basically the only computer game I currently care about playing.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Hackint0sh]

Can't tell you about SC2, but it runs Wow just fine. I have the settings pretty much at mid, and I get 40+ frames per second pretty much everywhere.

 

[sukanas]

my friend runs sc2 fine on his first gen of plastic unibody macbook.

 

[hypermog]

here's something to chew on for a while

 

[NadaMucho]

I was just looking for the same computer; something small and portable that could also handle SC2. After weeks of research, considering the UL30VT, the unreleased UL30JT, the unreleased Acer 3820GT and the new MBP 13 , I decided with the base spec MBP. I can say I am very happy with my decision. As soon as I came home with the comp on Sunday I started downloading the beta. I have now played a variety of 1v1, 2v2 and FFA and have determined that my MBP 13 provides a good gaming experience. I play on medium settings. The one problem I have had is sometimes there is a short lag in the game (about 2-3 seconds). The game quickly catches up, and while I find it somewhat annoying, I don’t see it as a major hindrance. This is happening to a lot of* people, and I think that it is a bug that will get fixed during the beta. I have heard the windows client runs much smoother and faster, but I have decided against running the game in boot camp. I heard that the system runs kind of hot, and It runs good enough in os x.
In the end, I would recommend the MBP over the asus and the acer, purely on the point of build quality. The unreleased models may provide a speed bump, but you would be stuck with a computer that is not nearly as nice. Go with the MBP and if you want a little better performance, get the upgrade to the CPU.

 

[MBHockey]

I was just looking for the same computer; something small and portable that could also handle SC2. After weeks of research, considering the UL30VT, the unreleased UL30JT, the unreleased Acer 3820GT and the new MBP 13 , I decided with the base spec MBP. I can say I am very happy with my decision. As soon as I came home with the comp on Sunday I started downloading the beta. I have now played a variety of 1v1, 2v2 and FFA and have determined that my MBP 13 provides a good gaming experience. I play on medium settings. The one problem I have had is sometimes there is a short lag in the game (about 2-3 seconds). The game quickly catches up, and while I find it somewhat annoying, I don’t see it as a major hindrance. This is happening to a lot of* people, and I think that it is a bug that will get fixed during the beta. I have heard the windows client runs much smoother and faster, but I have decided against running the game in boot camp. I heard that the system runs kind of hot, and It runs good enough in os x.
In the end, I would recommend the MBP over the asus and the acer, purely on the point of build quality. The unreleased models may provide a speed bump, but you would be stuck with a computer that is not nearly as nice. Go with the MBP and if you want a little better performance, get the upgrade to the CPU.

Just a note, I'm pretty sure that is lag related to someone's bandwidth in the game. I get those hiccups every now and then on my i7 MBP when I'm playing. But not during replays, which is just me.

 

[vong]

i play SC2 on the regular settings (all MED since when i booted up SC2, it was set like that), i have no lag whatsoever. the only lag i've noticed was like a HUGE battle.

 

[EricP42]

sorry for kind of abandoning this thread for a minute...life has been busy. And yeah...I've been googling just about every combination of "mbp 13 2010 sc2 performance" etc. and havent found what im looking for...until now.

I was just looking for the same computer; something small and portable that could also handle SC2. After weeks of research, considering the UL30VT, the unreleased UL30JT, the unreleased Acer 3820GT and the new MBP 13 , I decided with the base spec MBP. I can say I am very happy with my decision. As soon as I came home with the comp on Sunday I started downloading the beta. I have now played a variety of 1v1, 2v2 and FFA and have determined that my MBP 13 provides a good gaming experience. I play on medium settings. The one problem I have had is sometimes there is a short lag in the game (about 2-3 seconds). The game quickly catches up, and while I find it somewhat annoying, I don’t see it as a major hindrance. This is happening to a lot of* people, and I think that it is a bug that will get fixed during the beta. I have heard the windows client runs much smoother and faster, but I have decided against running the game in boot camp. I heard that the system runs kind of hot, and It runs good enough in os x.
In the end, I would recommend the MBP over the asus and the acer, purely on the point of build quality. The unreleased models may provide a speed bump, but you would be stuck with a computer that is not nearly as nice. Go with the MBP and if you want a little better performance, get the upgrade to the CPU.

This is exactly what I wanted to hear. Thank you very much. I think I also have gotten the 2-3 second pause on my desktop with a processor more-than-capable of running SC2 so your right on people experiencing that, even on the windows side (which is where im playing it currently).

I was really hoping the UL30VT/JT was gonna work out. I would have saved $400. Even the HP envy 14 caught my attention for a brief moment. Oh well...though I dont care for OSX at all, it sounds like there is a MBP in my future. Now to find a windows sticker to cover up the apple logo...haha.