Starcraft 2 on a Macbook Pro 15"

[Killery96]

I am looking to buy a 15" MBP this summer, with the 2.3Ghz Sandy Bridge, 8gb RAM, ATI 6750 with 1gb, and 750gb, probably the best portable apple gaming rig out there today. I will be making (I hope) a serious upgrade from my 13" 2009 MBP, with it's dual core 2.26, 4gb RAM, 9400M 256mb, and blah blah blah.

I plan to play a variety of games, ranging from: SC2, Diablo 3 (upon release), Dragon Age Origins & DA:2, CoD4, CoD MW2 (bootcamp), maybe Black Ops, and some other titles.

I'm sure several of you out there have the experience:
Running SC2 natively on the 15" 2011 MBP High end, what settings and FPS performances do you get on Starcraft 2? I'd really love to get some feedback, cause $2,500.00+ is a lot to spend on a computer.

E.

 

[patorioto]

try searching here or even on youtube. people seem to run sc 2 on ultra in osx without too many hiccups.

 

[xdbuix]

I am looking to buy a 15" MBP this summer, with the 2.3Ghz Sandy Bridge, 8gb RAM, ATI 6750 with 1gb, and 750gb, probably the best portable apple gaming rig out there today. I will be making (I hope) a serious upgrade from my 13" 2009 MBP, with it's dual core 2.26, 4gb RAM, 9400M 256mb, and blah blah blah.

I plan to play a variety of games, ranging from: SC2, Diablo 3 (upon release), Dragon Age Origins & DA:2, CoD4, CoD MW2 (bootcamp), maybe Black Ops, and some other titles.

I'm sure several of you out there have the experience:
Running SC2 natively on the 15" 2011 MBP High end, what settings and FPS performances do you get on Starcraft 2? I'd really love to get some feedback, cause $2,500.00+ is a lot to spend on a computer.

E.

i have the low end 15" 2011 and its great so far. I was going to go for the high end but decided to buy applecare instead. SC2 runs on high for me with no problems. COD 4 almost maxed out. HON is at max. Borderlands maxed.

The high end 15" is nice, but from my experience with the low end its pretty awesome and I have zero problems with it.

 

[Killery96]

i have the low end 15" 2011 and its great so far. I was going to go for the high end but decided to buy applecare instead. SC2 runs on high for me with no problems. COD 4 almost maxed out. HON is at max. Borderlands maxed.

The high end 15" is nice, but from my experience with the low end its pretty awesome and I have zero problems with it.

Whoa that's great! I run Ultra on my MBP 13" minus the shaders (which are on low), so to hear that the big jump in graphics is so dramatic is great. To hear that even on the 'low' end Macbook Pro 15" you can get high settings with good FPS gives me lots of hope. Are you running in Bootcamp or on OSX 10.6+?

BTW: Thanks for your replies, both have boosted my confidence in the capabilities!

E.

 

[RainCityMacFan]

Whoa that's great! I run Ultra on my MBP 13" minus the shaders (which are on low), so to hear that the big jump in graphics is so dramatic is great. To hear that even on the 'low' end Macbook Pro 15" you can get high settings with good FPS gives me lots of hope. Are you running in Bootcamp or on OSX 10.6+?

BTW: Thanks for your replies, both have boosted my confidence in the capabilities!

E.

Latest update both SC2 and OS X.

High End MBP 15" 2.2ghz 500gb 7200rpm but only 4GB (hopefully soon to be SSD + 8GB )

Starcraft 2 is on Ultra settings for everything and it runs at 7-15 FPS during campaign moments, like when you're on the ship and you go around talking to peeps. During while playing the campaign, during games, it's around 17-30 FPS. During battles, it gets on the low side, so around 17 or lower.

I think for multiplayer, I'll have to crank it down to High or Medium but I'm going to miss the look of Ultra I wonder if the 8GB will help or not. I'm always hoping that the Gfx card would borrow some RAM and improve performance.

A question for you: Does SC2 run noticeably faster on Boot Camp? If so, I might have to install a partition when I get my SSD.

 

[xdbuix]

Whoa that's great! I run Ultra on my MBP 13" minus the shaders (which are on low), so to hear that the big jump in graphics is so dramatic is great. To hear that even on the 'low' end Macbook Pro 15" you can get high settings with good FPS gives me lots of hope. Are you running in Bootcamp or on OSX 10.6+?

BTW: Thanks for your replies, both have boosted my confidence in the capabilities!

E.

im running it on osx. OSX runs fine too but there's little hiccups, but not really a big problem. Before the recent update on the osx, sc2 was pretty bad on osx. I had trouble with it even on medium, but the update really helped out. However, I do want to say bootcamp in general gives a smoother gameplay. Windows is probably better for sc2, but if you're too lazy to boot up bootcamp, the osx version of sc2 is perfectly fine.

 

[ViviUO]

I am looking to buy a 15" MBP this summer, with the 2.3Ghz Sandy Bridge, 8gb RAM, ATI 6750 with 1gb, and 750gb, probably the best portable apple gaming rig out there today. I will be making (I hope) a serious upgrade from my 13" 2009 MBP, with it's dual core 2.26, 4gb RAM, 9400M 256mb, and blah blah blah.

I plan to play a variety of games, ranging from: SC2, Diablo 3 (upon release), Dragon Age Origins & DA:2, CoD4, CoD MW2 (bootcamp), maybe Black Ops, and some other titles.

I'm sure several of you out there have the experience:
Running SC2 natively on the 15" 2011 MBP High end, what settings and FPS performances do you get on Starcraft 2? I'd really love to get some feedback, cause $2,500.00+ is a lot to spend on a computer.

E.

And if you're buying it for gaming, it's also a waste. Period.

You can get a PC lappy for $1000 less with better gaming specs. And more games.

 

[Killery96]

And if you're buying it for gaming, it's also a waste. Period.

You can get a PC lappy for $1000 less with better gaming specs. And more games.

Well, I might agree, however I grew up with Apple products, so besides a costly sentimental attachment to Macs, I also use them for a lot more things than gaming. Late high school has me using my computer a lot, esp. for digital photography. I also know Macs better and all my academic and entertainment data is on a mac, and I'd rather transfer it TOO a Mac. That said, I do admire the gaming powerhouses and glowy equipment that Asus and Alienware pump out.

So my conclusion thus far is that SC2 will run natively on OSX with relatively few issues, on high/ultra settings with a relatively smooth FPS. On bootcamp I could OC and probably imagine for a better performance. What sort of differences do you people notice between high and ultra settings? I could figure it out myself, but a link to pictures or a brief review might be helpful.

Thanks Chaps.

 

[chaoticprout]

I have basically the computer you want

2.3, 8GB Ram, 500GB 7200 rpm

SC2 on ultra at 1680x1050 runs at ~30+fps

 

[Killery96]

I have basically the computer you want

2.3, 8GB Ram, 500GB 7200 rpm

SC2 on ultra at 1680x1050 runs at ~30+fps

Heartening news, thanks for the report.

E.

 

[ezekielrage_99]

And if you're buying it for gaming, it's also a waste. Period.

You can get a PC lappy for $1000 less with better gaming specs. And more games.

Build a PC, you can put together a very decent PC rig for under $700... Personally, I played games on PC and Mac, laptop and desktop but desktop with Windows wins hands down. For game you need GPU which the MBPs though are good aren't meant as gaming systems.

I would suggest putting a cheap games rig together while going ultra portable like a MBA or 13" MBP.


I believe nvidia put together a very workable rig via their site.

http://www.geforce.com/#/News/articles/gaming-pc-for-599
http://www.geforce.com/#/Optimize/Guides/how-to-build-a-kick-ass-crysis-2-pc-for-under-600

 

[Killery96]

Da2

Any of you have experience with Dragon Age 2 on the same MBP? What sort of settings and FPS rates do you get on Bootcamp/OSX?

E