I installed Vista with Bootcamp and so far have tried TF2 and Knights of the Old Republic 2. Both run well but cannot quite be maxed. And by maxed, I mean max AA, AF, etc. When I do max them, I get significant lag, but it is definitely still playable.
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What games have you played and how well do they run
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I play TF2 with everything maxed except the AA i have that at 8X, and its 100% playable and frames never go below 60 that is in a full server too.
Unreal 3 everything maxed out works perfect for me as does battlefield heroes, css, bioshock etc
Crysis works great on medium settings (direct x 9 I can get away with some things set to high)
Only issue with gaming is... in windows the macbook pro gets to like 80C... which is very very hot so hot its near impossible to keep a finger on the top left of the case. However I have come to the mindset that... thats darn hot.. but everyone else gets this also... i have apple care so if anything went wrong with my macbook pro its covered... so if i had somehow got a fault from heating issue then it will be resolved by apple.
Unreal 3 everything maxed out works perfect for me as does battlefield heroes, css, bioshock etc
Crysis works great on medium settings (direct x 9 I can get away with some things set to high)
Only issue with gaming is... in windows the macbook pro gets to like 80C... which is very very hot so hot its near impossible to keep a finger on the top left of the case. However I have come to the mindset that... thats darn hot.. but everyone else gets this also... i have apple care so if anything went wrong with my macbook pro its covered... so if i had somehow got a fault from heating issue then it will be resolved by apple.
Is it safe to run at 80C often? I just got mine and have not bought apple care but i'm on the fence on whether its worth the money.
I use Win7 RC and I downloaded the FSX demo and I have the Nvidia 86000GT and I use everything on high and I get wonderful performance, all I do is set the card to high performance in control panel
Windows doesn't seem to manage the fans at all, so just set SMC Fan Control to 5500 on both fans then restart the computer. The fans will be left at that speed.
Run the game.
After a reboot back to OS X, just reset the fans to normal.
The game that really makes my MBP (8500GT/512MB) choke in Windows is Dawn of War II.
I'm not having the same fan issues as some of the others. My fans spin up and it sounds like a aircraft taking off. Still hot enough that I could justify one of these to myself:
Unfortunately, it needs another row of keys. In retrospect I should have gone with the Logitech G13.
I'm not having the same fan issues as some of the others. My fans spin up and it sounds like a aircraft taking off. Still hot enough that I could justify one of these to myself:
Unfortunately, it needs another row of keys.
In retrospect I should have gone with the Logitech G13.
I have the one from Early 2008 (so it's pretty old), but it's still a pretty capable machine for running games. It's pretty much my only computer that I do everything on . I basically gave my Bootcamp partition half of my 250GB total space because I have so many games
Unreal Tournament 3: runs very smooth with everything at max on 1680x1050
Bioshock: beautiful at 1680x1050 with all settings on max.
Red Alert 3: 1680x1050, keep water detail on medium, textures on high.
Can also go 1920x1200 with everything on medium
Oblivion: 1920x1200 with pretty much everything on max. Only lags up when out in the wilderness near grassy areas. I only run this vanilla though, probably can't handle any of those intense mods you see on Youtube.
Half Life 2 & Ep 1 & Ep 2 & Team Fortress 2: Everything completed maxed out at 1920x1200. (HDR!) The game is beautiful; it's amazing how efficient the Source engine is, especially since it's pretty old.
Neverwinter Nights 2: Everything essentially maxed. The game is pretty inefficient when it comes to graphics though.
Hope this helps.
. I basically gave my Bootcamp partition half of my 250GB total space because I have so many games Unreal Tournament 3: runs very smooth with everything at max on 1680x1050
Bioshock: beautiful at 1680x1050 with all settings on max.
Red Alert 3: 1680x1050, keep water detail on medium, textures on high.
Can also go 1920x1200 with everything on medium
Oblivion: 1920x1200 with pretty much everything on max. Only lags up when out in the wilderness near grassy areas. I only run this vanilla though, probably can't handle any of those intense mods you see on Youtube.
Half Life 2 & Ep 1 & Ep 2 & Team Fortress 2: Everything completed maxed out at 1920x1200. (HDR!
) The game is beautiful; it's amazing how efficient the Source engine is, especially since it's pretty old.Neverwinter Nights 2: Everything essentially maxed. The game is pretty inefficient when it comes to graphics though.
Hope this helps.
I have the one from Early 2008 (so it's pretty old), but it's still a pretty capable machine for running games. It's pretty much my only computer that I do everything on
Unreal Tournament 3: runs very smooth with everything at max on 1680x1050
Bioshock: beautiful at 1680x1050 with all settings on max.
Red Alert 3: 1680x1050, keep water detail on medium, textures on high.
Can also go 1920x1200 with everything on medium
Oblivion: 1920x1200 with pretty much everything on max. Only lags up when out in the wilderness near grassy areas. I only run this vanilla though, probably can't handle any of those intense mods you see on Youtube.
Half Life 2 & Ep 1 & Ep 2 & Team Fortress 2: Everything completed maxed out at 1920x1200. (HDR!
Neverwinter Nights 2: Everything essentially maxed. The game is pretty inefficient when it comes to graphics though.
Hope this helps.
I assume you mean all of this in BC?
B/C several of those games stutter badly ciderized on OSX.
Meh. I'm not going to reboot just to play games. Every one of those games save the first two will run ciderized and I'll deal with crummy graphics for instant on/off.
This is the kind of stuff that worries me, im thinking about buying the ne uMBP 15" 2.8ghz, i will game on it but not too harcore and not 24/7, just a little. Stuff like sims 3, warcraft and maybe some other RTS games.
Do all the new uMBP get hot when going into bootcamp or is it just a minority of the systems?
Do all the new uMBP get hot when going into bootcamp or is it just a minority of the systems?
Well you don't need to go into bootcamp for Sims 3 and Warcraft. I'm assuming you mean World of Warcraft (though all Blizzard's games are also made for Mac I believe). The box you buy in a store for WoW or Sims 3 serves both PC and Mac, just install them into OSX and away you go.
I've got a base model 13" MBP and I have played both WoW and Sims 3 on it. WoW does make it get hot, yes, high 70s or so (Celsius). This is not exclusive to Mac laptops however, and they have got a lot better at running cooler whilst gaming (comparing to a late '07 MBP). However the fans keep things happy.
If you want to game in bootcamp all you need to do is manage the fans using some software - again not really much different to what a lot of Windows gamers do anyway for their laptops. I got a cooling pad for my beast of a Toshiba laptop too - and that was huge with plenty of airflow. If anyone could find a laptop that would game without a cooling pad and stay no higher than 50 degrees I'd be very impressed.
As for The Sims 3, it doesn't seem to make my laptop get nearly as warm as WoW - I don't think my CPU temp went over 60.
Oh I forgot - so far as performance goes I'm very impressed. I only have 2GB on my laptop and I'm considering changing it, but my desktop has 4GB so I'll feel differently when I'm back on that. Even so I'm very happy with gaming on here, though admittedly I do turn the settings down to get max FPS, even so it looks nice and runs nice
Yeah i guess Sims 3 and WoW are bad examples but i mean games that are excluse to Windows, now that i think of it my old HP also get hot, maybe crazy hot when i use some programs or leave it overnight to download something, but i just dont give a crap about that cheap lapotp so i dont care about the heat issues on it.
As for the uMBP that im considering on buing i feel like everytime the temp rises by 1 degree im gonna freak out cause its an expensive machine and i dont want it to die on me withing 2 days of use or somehting..
I dont know maybe im just paranoid and shouldnt worry about it?
As for the uMBP that im considering on buing i feel like everytime the temp rises by 1 degree im gonna freak out cause its an expensive machine and i dont want it to die on me withing 2 days of use or somehting..
I dont know maybe im just paranoid and shouldnt worry about it?
You're paranoid.
You need to drop the obsession with it or you'll never get enjoyment from an MBP if you do get one. Get a cooling pad to ease your worries a bit more maybe but honestly, people play games on these things, they don't just freak out if it goes above 70 degrees and turn off and do something else! They are built to play games, too. Apple themselves sell games from the store and it's not as though they say "warning: playing a game on anything other than a Mac Pro will invalidate your warranty"
Computers are meant to be used; you shouldn't worry about temperature, especially if you haven't done anything to violate your Applecare warranty. Besides, if your system ever experiences adverse effects (which I doubt will happen for most people), Apple will take care of you.
I'm not sure what you guys mean by Windows not managing fans - I actually notice that Vista seems to spin the fans up a lot earlier than OSX.
About heat related to discomfort issues: Playing UT3 using your notebook keyboard will probably give your wrists a certain degree of discomfort since the game is graphically intense and will make your system hot. My recommendation is to do your gaming at home and use an external keyboard, since you'll probably already be using an external mouse to play a shooter.
I'm not sure what you guys mean by Windows not managing fans - I actually notice that Vista seems to spin the fans up a lot earlier than OSX.
About heat related to discomfort issues: Playing UT3 using your notebook keyboard will probably give your wrists a certain degree of discomfort since the game is graphically intense and will make your system hot. My recommendation is to do your gaming at home and use an external keyboard, since you'll probably already be using an external mouse to play a shooter.
I'm guessing the last three can all be maxed but L4D lags a bit when you max it... correct?
In all honesty i never have maxed either of them out, i have a high end windows rig for gaming that i max out. I will be playing games tomorrow with some guys from work so i can post the results then.
Yes, all will get hot. GPU's in general will run really hot, even in a desktop. In a MacBook Pro, it becomes really noticeable though because it disperses the heat throughout the body. And I haven't noticed any issues with bootcamp. It's just that I play games in Windows, and this is when the GPU is used.