Gaming on a Macbook

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Pooky

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Who plays games on a Macbook? What Macbook and game are you using and what is the performance like?
 
I bought a macbook pro earlier this year for web development and music production but since I love gaming as well I dual booted it with Win 7 and installed my favourite games on there. Currently I'm playing a lot of Starcraft 2. It tends to slow down a bit when playing biggish games like 4v4 or custom games with like a million units attacking each other but not enough to bother me. I think another 4gb of mem might do the trick.

I use snow leopard when I'm at work and then switch to windows in the evening and hook it up to my 24" and external keyboard and go zerg hunting :D
 
The new 320M is quite powerful. Almost as good as a 330M. Even the Macbook Air which has it now is decent for games.
 
i have the C2D 2.8GHz MBP. I run FM2010 with all of the bells and whistles and it runs smoothly.

tbf i don't see why it would run any less than an equivalent desktop setup. games obviously an issue. steam has some games which are traditional PC titles. not sure if they are available outside steam for the mac.
 
I have the C2D 2.8GHz MBP, got it mid last year. It has the 9600M GT with 512MB

I play COD MW2 on it (installed under win7 32bit), and it performs well on full graphics (full res, 4x aa, everything else enabled).

Only problem is the left side gets scorching hot, so it's unpleasant to play on it's keyboard.
I sometimes use an external keyboard if there's one available, as well as an external mouse, of course.

Due to the fact that it gets so hot, I also don't feel comfortable playing the game for extended periods of time.

Maybe I should get some cooler pad thing to put underneath it?
 
xera said:
Due to the fact that it gets so hot, I also don't feel comfortable playing the game for extended periods of time.

Maybe I should get some cooler pad thing to put underneath it?
Click to expand...

I believe it's designed to run this hot. Just have a well ventilated room and if you really wanted to you could elevate it but I don't even think this is necessary. Do a search on this issue..
 
Last edited:
xera said:
I have the C2D 2.8GHz MBP, got it mid last year. It has the 9600M GT with 512MB

I play COD MW2 on it (installed under win7 32bit), and it performs well on full graphics (full res, 4x aa, everything else enabled).

Only problem is the left side gets scorching hot, so it's unpleasant to play on it's keyboard.
I sometimes use an external keyboard if there's one available, as well as an external mouse, of course.

Due to the fact that it gets so hot, I also don't feel comfortable playing the game for extended periods of time.

Maybe I should get some cooler pad thing to put underneath it?
Click to expand...

That seems like pretty good performance!

Can you run Windows games under some sort of virtual environment in OSX or is it better to dualboot Windows?
 
It's much better to dualboot Windows, except for undemanding games.
 
trendzsa said:
I believed it's designed to run this hot. Just have a well ventilated room and if you really wanted to you could elevate it but I don't even think this is necessary. Do a search on this issue..
Click to expand...

I also heard that... however I am skeptical, no pc parts really like running that hot.

Pooky said:
That seems like pretty good performance!

Can you run Windows games under some sort of virtual environment in OSX or is it better to dualboot Windows?
Click to expand...
Yes it does seem decent :)
Forgot to mention, screen resolution is 1440x900, (15") , run it at that res in game.
I can even hook up my 22" monitor and game on that... it's quite cool.

Also, when using parallels, if I run mw2 in win7, then it's hectically slow (like only a few fps). Maybe it would be better in a xp vm, but not sure.

However the win7 vm can play CSS 1.6 smoothly, but lol most things can play that..
 
xera said:
I can even hook up my 22" monitor and game on that... it's quite cool.
Click to expand...

Yeah I hook up my Samsung 24" and it's sweeeet :D. Question tho, it's connected via mini DisplayPort to VGA. The monitor came with HDMI cables but doesn't seem to be any mini DisplayPort to HDMI cables locally. I wonder if it's worth it since supposedly HDMI is better quality?
 
Cheers for that, any comment on whether the difference is notable.. heck for that price I might as well check for myself.
 
macnoob

hi
my MBP i7 7200RPM 15" HR AG (!) is arriving later this month.

first time mac user,
question:

can macs get onto the normal south african game servers? DoTa, COD, CS?

Also, after purchasing left4dead (or any game for that matter) on steam, could one just play on their international server?

thanks in advance
 
lol, i really don't want to dual boot

which fps has the biggest SA community? CSS?
 
Instead of creating a new thread I will just continue with this one. Been wondering how the performance is because I am in the market for a new PC/Laptop and I see all the games I own has a Mac sign.

Anyone that plays steam games on here?

How is steam gaming on your mac and how will the Macbook Pro Retina feature?
 
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