Question for new iBook owners...

wolfeye155 · June 29, 2002 10:53PM

I just wanted to ask anyone who owns the new 700Mhz iBook (w/ 16 MB of VRAM) how well it handles games. I want a labtop and the iBook is very appealing with it's low price but how well can it handle games like Alice, Black and White, Return to Castle Wolfenstien, Medal of Honor, etc. Also, do you have to set the detail way down to run the smoothly? Thanks in advance.

brianmacos · June 29, 2002 11:39PM

I have played Quake 3 on my iBook 700, with 384 megs ram with no problem. I am not sure how it would run those specific games but Q3 works good.

Brian

brianmacos · June 30, 2002 12:43AM

I only have 384 megs in my iBook and I don't notice anything like you do Fellowship! I run itunes and iphoto plus I have many other programs like mail, msn, aim, yahoo im, plus IE running full time in background with no problem. My old XP laptop which was 1ghz p3 with 512 pc133 ram in it I don't notice much if any difference.

ricain · June 30, 2002 3:12AM

[quote]Originally posted by FellowshipChurch iBook:

As a matter of fact... everything is slower on my iBook.<hr></blockquote>

I'm afraid that's the sad truth. I would like to add an iBook to my existing Mac setup, but the speed issue under OS X is making me wonder if I shouldn't go PC for the laptop. If the PC switchers here had it to do over again, are the small size and extra battery life worth it?

macasaurus · June 30, 2002 3:52AM

Well, maybe you need to get Mox optomize for your iBook. It's a shareware program that optomizes your computer for OS X. Also make sure you have the latest software updates for your iBook. For some reason, I find almost everything on the iBook is pretty fast except when it comes to things that use java. Like Netscape. I have a 500Mhz iBook that performs extremely well and I have used PCs. The iBook I have is defintely not for games, but in my opinion neither is the mac platform in general. People don't make games for the mac because of it's small percentage of the market. When people do make games, they don't make them run as well as it does on the PC because it costs more for them to figure out why things don't run as fast for such a small percentage. Anyway, in my opinion, it's all about software programming these days. The hardware, if you think about it, is way more than you will probably EVER need. If the software is programmed correctly and efficiently (which Microsoft can't seem to get right) everything should run fine without having to buy the fastest hardware on the block. For instance the first OS X ran SUPER slow on the iBooks, not until a bunch of software upgrades did it runs acceptably. Anyway, I expect to see HUGE improvements in performance on all macs once Jaguar comes out. That's my one cent for the day. Hope it helps.

cyko95 · June 30, 2002 8:58AM

I'm not sure why everyone is doggin the iBook 700. I can play Quake 3 at 1024x768 and still get 50+FPS. Return to Castle Wolfenstien looks just as good, as well as Unreal Tournament. As far as running apps, I don't why you all are having speed issues. I'm a graphic artist and I have IE, Mail, iTunes, Photoshop 7, & Dreamweaver MX (at a minimum, some days more) open all day long simultaneously, and don't have a problem at all with speed or lag when it comes to anything, especially web browsing. I even run Maya on mine, and the specs for the program state that it won't run on this system. Yet it's quite snappy even in that. In fact this is the first post that i've read where the general consenceous <sp?> was negative out of the 3 or 4 forums that I go to on the iBook 700.

iBook 700/384RAM/30GB HD/Combo/12.1"

[ 06-30-2002: Message edited by: cyko95 ]

dreadpirate · June 30, 2002 9:18AM

Yeah - I concur with cyko... the only speed hitches I noticed with my 700 12" ibook were minor, and they went away for good when I slapped 512 megs of RAM in there.

I haven't yet played any graphically intensive games yet - saving my money for Warcraft III (just three days!) - but Otto Matic runs like a charm, and is actually pretty fun.

By the way - since the new ATI driver update, I am able to pick resolutions and color bit depths for Otto, as well as enable TruForm and full-screen anti-aliasing. I haven't noticed TruForm doing much, but FSAA certainly works - though it hiccups a bit at high resolutions. However, the games I've played look great, especially when kept at the native 1024x768 resolution.

I'm curious, though - what is this Mox you speak of? An optimizer for OS X? Does it screw with your system? How much of a benefit might one see?

As for the topic of the thread... I think that iBook has finally started to come into its own - not as a gaming superpower, of course - but a plenty feisty Radeon fiefdom, isolated off in the far Sahara... ok, I'm rambling.

chucker · June 30, 2002 11:00AM

It's strange to see so extremely conflicting reports in this thread. I'm planning on "going back to the Mac" by buying an iBook 700 shortly after MacWorld, so I'm of course quite curious what performance is like. I'll hardly play games on it, but I hope they'll be faster than on my old Athlon/500 with an ATi Rage 128. After all, I don't want to buy a computer three years later that's two and a half times as expensive and yet slower. I could use some benchmarks or so...

brianmacos · June 30, 2002 11:14AM

I am with you cyko95 no speed issues here. I can run VPC 5 with Windows 2000 Pro no problem. I also run Macromedia Dreamweaver MX on my OSX system alonge with office X. No problems. I don't know what to say with the people that are having problems with speed may be it is you and not your iBook!

:eek:

brianmacos · June 30, 2002 12:30PM

When I am comparing my new iBook I am comparing to any PC I have ever owned which is about umm 10+ Machines in the past 10 years. I have only owned my iBook for about 2 weeks now and no problem. I am more or less comparing my iBook to my old P3 1ghz Laptop that had 512 megs ram and was very nice but I find the iBook better. Many people have posted to your problems stating they don't have problems with their iBooks why is that so hard to except. Browsers on the other hand are OK they could be better I admit but I don't have a problem with it. They will get better, they have to that's all their is to it. IE 5.2 runs fine on my iBook, I have noticed a few things here and there but nothing worth complaining about.

*APPLE IS THE FUTURE OF COMPUTING* -well in my eyes it is <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />

[ 06-30-2002: Message edited by: BrianMacOS ]

[ 06-30-2002: Message edited by: BrianMacOS ]

squash · June 30, 2002 12:40PM

Don't blame the machine blame the browser. Appleworks seems fast huh...hmmm an apple app, thats more than likely meant to run on a mac.

There is absolutely no reason IE should run faster on a pc than a mac...only Microsuck can answer that question for you. Things left off ...hmmmm...for speed sake or just plain Microsoft laziness sake?

Fellowship...every mac users knows OS X isn't at the same speed as OS 9 is or was. The next update is supposed to improve on it though. Apps launched faster in 9, but apple has been doing a good job optimizing it with each update.

If you love your Sony so much, then use it!!! Bottom line is....there is no PC that is as easy to use as a Mac. I loaded no drivers for my printer, none for my camera, and my buddies digital camcorder was automatic when plugged in using OS X.

I'm not saying it's perfect or the machines are lightning, but optimized apps help. In many cases it's not the hardware it's the badly written software thats slow.

cyko95 · June 30, 2002 1:00PM

[quote]Originally posted by FellowshipChurch iBook:

As far as those who say their iBook is FAST what I must ask are they comparing it too? Their 5 year old antique mac?<hr></blockquote>

I'll list the systems that i've ran recently and let you see for yourself what systems i'm comparing them to.

Self Built PC Tower with a AMD Athlon 900Mhz/384RAM/ATI Radeon 32MB/Pioneer Slot loading DVD/12x Plextor CDRW/Asus A7Ve

Self Built PC Tower with an AMD XP 2000/1GB RAM/CD ROM/ Asus MB

2 Self Built PC Towers with AMD Duron 800Mhz/256RAM/SoYo MB

Self Built PC Tower with 1.2Ghz/256RAM/Abit MB

Self Built PC Tower with 500Mhz PIII/256RAM/Abit MB

Dell Inspiron 2500 Laptop with an 800Mhz Intel Celeron/256RAM/DVD

Dell Inspiron 3800 Laptop with a 600Mhz Intel Celeron/128RAM/CD ROM

PowerBook 1400cs with a PowerPC 166Mhz CPU/64MB RAM/1.2GB Hard Drive

Now thats a few of the systems that I use, and that is what i'm basing my comparison on. I am giving an unbiased opinion because I have been using PC's for years. I've owned my iBook for a month today. The only other Mac i've used since the G3 arrived was an iMac CRT near the beginning of last year. THAT, my friend, was SLOW! I'm not saying that this iBook can out perform my other systems all over, but there are certain aspects that the PC just doesn't cut it. The iBook 700 IS FASTER at certain things, and in my experience does surpurbly on the net. I have sat behind a T1 or T3 for the past 4 years for my net use, and i'm now using cable access. I spend 50 - 70% of my time at work online, and choose to use my iBook over the 1.2Ghz PC to my left. (Which I listed above) If your system is really running that poorly, then maybe you need to have someone take a look at it. But when so many others are report such good results on theirs, I find it hard to believe that I REALLY the only one out there that is having good luck with the new iBook.

ghost_user_name · June 30, 2002 1:05PM

Netscape 6 SUCKS.

If you must have Netscape, use version 7.

If you want the software that Netscape is based upon, use Mozilla 1.1.

If you want the best OS X browsing experience, IE 5.2 or OmniWeb are your best bets.

kidred · June 30, 2002 1:18PM

Seems like those who say the iBook is dog slow are window users currently or just switched from windows. Going from ANY tower will make the iBook look slow. Moving FROM any OS will make the other look slow. The mac does things differently, it's that simple. Windows don't scroll the same for both platforms, some games don't play the same. It's a preference.

If you are thinking about buying, got to CompUSA or an AppleStore/retailer and try it out in person.

brianmacos · June 30, 2002 1:21PM

I am not being hush hush about any problems with Mac I choose not to complain about certain things that will get better. The thing you obvisouly have to do is use the machine that works best in your eyes. My site stats all the good things that have happen with my Mac but it is the truth and only the truth, if I had some thing bad to say about my Mac I would believe me.

squash · June 30, 2002 1:24PM

Did i insult you fellowship? if so ...sorry. i re-read my post and still can't find it, maybe you meant my reference to microsoft. LOL

I use both OfficeX and IE, so it was meant as a joke. I don't mind Microsoft at all, and have no problem using their apps that i feel are better than the alternatives.

I use mozilla, IE, chimera, and OmniWeb. I just find IE loads pages the best over-all at this point and time. I've tried Icab, and Opera too. I'm not here to insult you...so if i said something as you said 3rd grade like. Sorry

macasaurus · June 30, 2002 4:21PM

About browsing with the Mac. Here's an OS X trick for you to make browsing seem a bit faster and one that i REALLY like. Try typing the name of the link you want to click. For instance, click on a IE or OW screen and just type the first few letters of a certain link. That link should be higlighted and all you have to do is press return. The other way is using your right hand and clicking on that link. I find this option extremely useful with my laptop. It's something PC browsers don't have, but i assume will eventually copy. Also works in Finder windows. Btw, MOX is an optimizer you can probably find on versiontracker. I don't know what it does, but it makes overall performance on my iBook faster... well for me at least

Question for new iBook owners...

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