Macbook and games
Hey
I'd like to know about anyone's real-world experiences with the GMA950 and games. I know that in every possible review, first-look etc. people have said that if you want a real game machine, get the MBP, but for me the extra size just kills the portability so there's no chance I'm going for one of those.
Now back to the Macbook vanilla. Could owners who've tried playing games on them please post their experiences? Please no one simply say things like: "the graphics suck" etc, I know that already. But just how bad/good is it? The Macworld review notes UT2004 running at 18fps, but people... do note that this is at 1024x768 at Max settings! I'm sure that at medium settings, UT would be pretty playable.
The Ars review notes that the MB runs EVE online quite well, and all things look quite good. But I don't think this guy is much of a gamer, so can any users out there who've played games, or run benchmarks on the MB please share their experiences? I'm thinking most games should be ok, except the really high-end ones or if you choose to max settings for each game.
If the MB is capable of running Oblivion with the OLDblivion patch (for slower, older machines) at low-medium settings, then I'd be more than happy, even if it doesn't run over 20fps
(if anyone has tested this, PLEASE PLEASE say!)
Or anyone tried Doom3/Quake4 at medium-low settings?
Most people will laugh and just say things like Oblivion will be a slide-show, but even for higher end games, if you run at low-med settings instead of MAX, I'm pretty sure you'll have something playable even if the performance isn't stellar. Theoretically, the GMA950 is dx9 capable so should technically run everything including the likes of Oblivion, even if it's just at a crawl.
Apple should seriously reconsider their "Pro == big screen" idea. Most people I know want something portable. In fact, about 98% of people I've seen with a powerbook has the 12inch variant (though, arguably, you see the larger screened versions less in public since they're less portable, but that's exactly my point). That number should speak for something in itself. Small screen doesn't necessarily == sucky graphics. I'd personally just plug mine into a large widescreen display when I get home, but I don't need to lug such a huge thing around with me all day.
Thanks
I'd like to know about anyone's real-world experiences with the GMA950 and games. I know that in every possible review, first-look etc. people have said that if you want a real game machine, get the MBP, but for me the extra size just kills the portability so there's no chance I'm going for one of those.
Now back to the Macbook vanilla. Could owners who've tried playing games on them please post their experiences? Please no one simply say things like: "the graphics suck" etc, I know that already. But just how bad/good is it? The Macworld review notes UT2004 running at 18fps, but people... do note that this is at 1024x768 at Max settings! I'm sure that at medium settings, UT would be pretty playable.
The Ars review notes that the MB runs EVE online quite well, and all things look quite good. But I don't think this guy is much of a gamer, so can any users out there who've played games, or run benchmarks on the MB please share their experiences? I'm thinking most games should be ok, except the really high-end ones or if you choose to max settings for each game.
If the MB is capable of running Oblivion with the OLDblivion patch (for slower, older machines) at low-medium settings, then I'd be more than happy, even if it doesn't run over 20fps
(if anyone has tested this, PLEASE PLEASE say!)Or anyone tried Doom3/Quake4 at medium-low settings?
Most people will laugh and just say things like Oblivion will be a slide-show, but even for higher end games, if you run at low-med settings instead of MAX, I'm pretty sure you'll have something playable even if the performance isn't stellar. Theoretically, the GMA950 is dx9 capable so should technically run everything including the likes of Oblivion, even if it's just at a crawl.
Apple should seriously reconsider their "Pro == big screen" idea. Most people I know want something portable. In fact, about 98% of people I've seen with a powerbook has the 12inch variant (though, arguably, you see the larger screened versions less in public since they're less portable, but that's exactly my point). That number should speak for something in itself. Small screen doesn't necessarily == sucky graphics. I'd personally just plug mine into a large widescreen display when I get home, but I don't need to lug such a huge thing around with me all day.
Thanks
Comments
Also wondering... people note that the IGP uses 64MB minimum, but uses more for textures etc. dynamically as the system sees fit. Is this right? Up to how much does this go? I'm thinking of getting 1GB RAM and I'd like to have about 128MB dedicated to video. Is there some tweak in the firmware or whatever that lets you change how much RAM is used for VRAM? I think it's quite a kewl idea letting this be dynamic so that it frees up more system RAM for other tasks when not running 3D. As far as I remember, nobody has really done this for an IGP, right?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303718
Originally posted by kLy
Also wondering... people note that the IGP uses 64MB minimum, but uses more for textures etc. dynamically as the system sees fit. Is this right? Up to how much does this go? I'm thinking of getting 1GB RAM and I'd like to have about 128MB dedicated to video. Is there some tweak in the firmware or whatever that lets you change how much RAM is used for VRAM? I think it's quite a kewl idea letting this be dynamic so that it frees up more system RAM for other tasks when not running 3D. As far as I remember, nobody has really done this for an IGP, right?
No idea - however, it's interesting that Dell Laptops with CoreDuo and GMA 950 are advertised as using 128MB graphics memory.
I would think that you could expect (at some point) an un official hack (system pref pane) for the types of things you require - along with one for the CPU over clockers. It just goes with the Intel territory........
With the MacBook there's a bit more detail on the characters; I can see a bit further in the world without losing fps, and Ironforge doesn't run like a slideshow anymore. In 40-man raids, the action is much smoother, as well. Overall, I'd say the MacBook is about a 25% improvement over what I had. Not anything to write home about, unfortunately.
My friend has the 2.16 MHz 15" MacBook pro with 2 GB of RAM. WoW on his machine runs like butter, and that's with almost all of the setting on max. Maxed out, WoW runs a bit slower, but no worse than mine.
Of course, the cost difference between his machine and mine was about $900. That's not worth it for me; it was for him.
Edit: I forgot to mention that the MacBook's graphics can't do dynamic shading, or whatever it's called. All of the shading options in WoW are grayed out on my MacBook. All of them are available on my Powerbook, but I didn't have the power to run them without a serious drop in fps. Six of one...