1st day with 1st mac (The Unibody One)

Well i have to say that macs rocks!!!! yesterday i got my new unibody mac and which is by co incidence my 1st mac in my life... The unboxing experience was simply awesome...os x is very snappy as compared to my old dell vostro 1700 which ran crappy windows vista... i got the chi mei screen and its better than my dell's display which is the LG Phillips...sound is almost the same as the dell (These are laptops after all..)..

As Sam said, Os X is intuitive and having been a windows user since 1999, i must say that things are simpler...its so simple to install and uninstall programs...i installed a program and didn't know how to uninstall it...after several minutes of surfing the internet, i found out that i simply need to drag and drop the icon in the trash folder.lol!! Today i installed windows xp on 32gb (fat file format).i need crappy windows for programming purposes as i'm a a computer science student. my cpu temp was 60-65 degrees celcius and my gpu was 60-63 degrees celcius... i installed call if duty 4 and gave it a try....during those 20minutes of eye candy with reosution 1024x768, all settings to high and 4x AA, the cpu temp rose to 70 degrees celcius and my gpu temp rose up to 79 degrees celcius...i never experience this before on my dell vostro as my maximum temperature was like 70 degrees max with its 8600m GT...i was shocked when i checked my temps on riva tuner...i immediately closed the call of duty 4 and my temps immediately falled back to the original ones...So my question is: Is the new macbook pro suitable for the casual gamer...i play for 3hrs on weekends and i rarely play during weekdays..and if i continued to play for greater than 20mins, would the temps have risen higher??
However i have had a good experience with my unibody macbook pro....i just hope that the gpu temp does not increase further than the mid 80's during gaming...that would be a deal breaker if it did.


To all those considering getting the higher end unibodies, just think of it: I have a low end unibody and the temp is getting high like that...What would have happened if i had got a maxxed out macbook pro?
it would have melted!!!!! LOL

 

Not true on the specced out MBP, and once 256 SSDs come out it will be even cooler =) ...

I game on my (like you, a few hours on weekends, rarely during the week). I mess around with Vanguard and Fallout3. I have had no issues with the lappy after a month of that (in fact, I think the first time I fired up FO3, I played about 4-5 hours). I did have it sitting on a laptop cooler though, not my lap =). I didn't monitor temperatures, other than feel, and about the only thing I really noticed was the heat on the left side of the keyboard (w,a,s,d movement). But really, didn't seem to get any hotter than my XPS m1710 did under gaming load.

 

yeah, get smcfancontrol and set the rpm to 6200rpm...
i played TF2 for 5 hours on my MBP and i had no problems

 

I'm sure you could live with a Mac for casual gaming. Temps are just fine but maybe you should still get a cooler.

 

wow congrats on ur new mac.. i myself am an avid windows user and recently made the decision to switch to a mac .. just want to try it cause ive been hearing soo much about it plus i can always have vista via bootcamp.. still reading on forums about it trying to familiarize myself with it just to make sure im making the right decision.. i'm thinking of the New macbook 2.4ghz model. so far im really impress with it and i hope when / if i get it i will be more impress.

 

I just traded in my Black MacBook (2.4ghz/4gb/250gb) for the new Unibody MacBook (2.4ghz/4gb/320gb) and absolutely love it!

Until I got my MacBook Air, I never realized how nice a backlit keyboard is and when I used my Black MacBook, I was always annoyed at the keyboard. Now I don't have to worry about it!

I haven't even touched my Air the last couple days and I've even considered selling it now that I got a Unibody Mac......it's that amazing!

 

how much would u sell it for?

 

Congrats on the new Mac!

I played Mass Effect last night for about 6-7 hours. No problems what-so-ever

 

the temp rose up to 79degrees and i don't know of thats normal...may be your definition of hot is not the same as mine...for me, anything higher than 70 degrees is hot...but as i said, i can live with that

 

BTW can you post your temps while gaming?that would be useful

 

My temps never go above 80.

The 8600m GT video card was rated at 120C. So I'm sure that the 9600m GT, which has a smaller footprint will be fine at 100..

Just don't turn into a numbers freak

 

I wouldn't be too concerned. The machines are designed to shut down automatically to protect themselves if they get too hot. So you won't 'melt' anything.

 

thanks! mine is also like yours...so i think i will be ok..what windows are you using?vista or xp? im using xp

 

Try SMC FanControl, it may help you

This may not help you to much, but I play the sims 2 on my mac, and it hovers around 65 degrees. I know you play more advanced games, just trying to help

 

if you're gaming with the mbp on a desk, why not get a cooling pad to help you out if you're worried about high temps?

 

I didn't know that you can use SMC in Windows

 

the problem is that i've spent all the money i kept aside for a new macbook pro...i'll need to save up a bit in order to buy a stand

 

no....smc is only for mac os x...i remember that while in windows xp, my fans would make a rather audible noise...so this means that their speeds are adjusted while im playing...i just wanted to compare my temps with other unibody macbook pros...

 

you can set smc in osx, boot into windows without shutting off the machine totally (just click on restart into windows in the startup pref pane), and then whatever settings you had set will remain active.

 

i dont use the 9600gt often, but when i do my temps idle around 60. i think your temps are fine, nothing to get too worried about.

 

SMC is kinda pointless today. Especially if you use it ONLY for Windows.

The fans will kick in when they need to cool down the computer anyways.
I just started Mass Effect right now, and in half a minute, the fans were blasting away. Quit Mass Effect, the fans started rolling down nice and easy.

No need for SMC.

 

nice, i have had my mbp(early 2008) for few days and i am impress with the os as well, but there are things i found about osx itself...

somehow i found mbp is just a repackaged linux/unix with much better intergration with the softwares, feel and control, i have found so many similarities between ubuntu and osx it confuses me sometimes

i have not install windows yet on my mbp and i am thinking of having a 2/3mac, 1/3 pc setup since windows for me nowadays will be mainly for games where as mac can stay with office2008, LR2 and potentially photoshop if it is a necessity....

heating issue:
i just stick a notebook cooling pad below and it is cooled down to 30/40s(50 on gpu but the heat can't get out of anywhere)

in terms of OSs i personally prefer windows for its flexibility to manually adjust almost anything, where as for mac the control panel can only do so much

in the end for me, mac osx gave me a warm tick in my heart, but quickly turns to a new question: "then what?"

i still dislike apple's tyrannic approach in softwares where there isn't much room for control, where for windows... there are always things that i wish they can copy mac's...

btw, i prefers the design on early 2008 mbp than the new one, never liked glossy screen no matter how nice it is, matte is the way

the only advantage i see using unibody is that they closes better than mine..

major disappointment though... the screen on mbp is really bad, there are some screen savers that shows patches of color, let alone the viewing angle, i have even came up with a conspiracy that apple intended to limit the degree the screen hinge can be opened just to avoid people disgrace about the lack of quality from display... my friend's dell 1520 fares better on both vertical and horizontal viewing angle better than mbp!
though the way apple calibrate their screen color nicely(the tone is pleasing)

but paying 1600cad on a refurb, 2.5ghz, 4gb ram, 8600m gt 512mb, 250gb 5400rpm mbp is worthwhile since the design is way and above most other brands (i would say besides panasonic toughbook, toshiba R, lenovo T/X are equal)

 

so basically, yesterday, i played call of duty4 for about an hour...my temps ranged from 77-79 degrees celcius...it never went above 80 degrees...but i still getting used to the aluminium enclosure...it gets hot while playing...my hands got pretty hot yesterday...one thing 1 noticed is that once you shut down the laptop, i cools down rapidly....and when i quit my games, the temp returns to the mid 60's....i just hope that it lasts me throught my 3 years of bachlors in computer science...i also noticed that its more solid(tight?) than my dell vostro which would keep squeaking when carrying it under my arms... By the way, i have vmware fusion and it lags when using it under os x...i have the 1.2.2 version

 

only 3 years for bachelor? nice!

the horrid stories about heating on apple got me into putting a cooling pad with it at all time at home (or whenever available)


i have also bought a wireless mighty mouse yesterday, but it is due return next time i shop because i have found that with apple, mouse is not a necessity but by-condition(game, some programs) where other mouse would do the job the same(if not better)
with a trackpad there are 4 corners, 1, 2, 3 fingers on controls there are actually more buttons to click on than even my logitech nano...

and unlike windows, OSx seems to cripple on mouse's performance, making it less likable overall

 

You need to upgrade to the latest version. Not only is it more stable and faster it also includes some bug fixes for the latest MBPs.

 

yes, im doing a bsc computer science and engineering degree...yea, it tends to get slightly hot...my cpu tends to go to the 50's and 60's during internet browsing...so, i uninstalled the vmware fusion and put the new parallels 4.0..but when i launch my virtual machine, only a black screen appears...it does not load...i selected "My Bootcamp" during the mvirtual machine selection though the name i assigned for the drive was windows...weird..anybody knows the problem?

 

I own licenses to both Parallels and Fusion. Fusion is better by far... a lot of little issues here and there with Parallels. If you have a license for 1.2.2 you can upgrade to the newest release for free.

 

Just got my new MBP yesterday(9600gt512 4gigs ram 320hd) and the first time for a mac in my life . Installed vista 64 on it and Hwmonitor and then tossed a few games on it and saw the GPU hit the 80s and the CPU as well and freaked out abit .

I did abit of research and found the fans dont really go into full blast mode till it hits the high 80s for many people and even the 90s in windows, by default the fans spin at 1krpm which is to slow, so i did the SMC thing in OSX and rebooted into windows and it helped abit, but then i decided i wanted some cooler temps especially on the CPU so i used RM clock to undervolt it and ran orthos for about 35 minutes and the temps never went above 72 at that point.

So in all i brought the temps down about 12ish degrees at full load on the CPU . Even propping up the machine on the tail end will help dramatically with temps so if you dont want to invest into a cooler right now just prop it for the time being . im still doing lots more testing for stability etc .

Update: i ran mine against my friends new MBP same model 512 9600gt 2.53 etc and his hit 87c (Cpu) before the fans went full blast under windows with orthos which will peg both cores at 100% , we both booted into OSX prior and set fans to 4k before booting back to windows . Mine never went past 72 so it was about 12 degree difference from undervolting . This will help people wanting to game on there MBP as orthos is only hitting the CPU and when the GPU kicks in the temps are going to rise even more on both ends . Im undervolting mine to 1.0 vs the 1.15 stock and i may try and see if i can get it lower .

If anyone has the same machine and has windows installed and feels like trying orthos on a flat surface mind you, not on a cooling pad or propped up, please feel free as im trying my best to make sure everything is solid on my end . im feeling abit more confident about my machine now that i got the chance to comepare Apples to Apples(no pun) . My Biggest concern was maybe a poor Thermal past job but the fact that his machine had the same numbers mine did prior to undervolting is telling me its normal.

 

Thanks but my cpu and gpu temps never went above 80's during gaming...keep us updated about your findings...

Btw, i installed parallels and it was wonderful...one thing i wanted to do was to display windows in full screen and be able to go to os x without clicking on view -> window mode....i saw in a computer show that a mac was running windows xp and with just a single keyboard type, the salesman could revert back to the mac os x

 

Yeah, it seems the general feeling is a slight lean towards VMware Fusion. I think VMware's long experience definitely helps its product.

 

I'm not sure about Parallels 3 but in Parallels 4 you can do it. Alt + Command + Return switches between full screen and window, Control + Command + Return switches between coherence and window. The keyboard shortcuts are in preferences menu. Also fn+F8 and changing spaces work.

 

Hey thanks!! i searched a bit on the net and found out i could do this through expose...BTW i found out that there was lots of trailers in my front row....All those whi have unibodies just navigate to theatrical trailers in front row and u'll see lots of trailers for movies due in 2008, 2009

 

Yay!
(10 chars)

 

@Quadzilla

You mentioned about undervolting. Is this in Windows or OSX? If it's OSX, I read on another thread that the undervolting program is out of date and doesn't work correctly with the NVIDIA chip, so fill me in on the details!

 

its for windows using a program called RM clock and only for the CPU not the GPU .

 

Ah thanks, that's what I was thinking.

 

thanks bro

 

i just noticed a slight backlight leakage on the lcd but its not a deal breaker..

c

 

Hm, does it show up exactly as we see in this photo? Because that's pretty bad, I would complain!

 

Oh wow, that's pretty nasty.

Maybe you can take it back?

 

in fact my sister bought it for me from the uk and i live in mauritius..that's like 9500km separating us..i wondered if apple retailers would accept to do the swap....because we have apple retailers here in mauritius but no apple shop

 

also when you maximise the pictue, the backlight leakage seems very little...it appears evident when you see it in the thumbnails

 

For monitors with backlight bleeding, it's pretty easy to fix by just using the computer. My previous DELL and my new gateway both had pretty obvious bleed. But if you just keep using it, the bleeding goes away. However if you demand that there be no bleed at all from the start, you can try and get it replaced.

 

ok im not picky as i come from a dell vostro 1700 and my standards are not as high as a mac user would be...i'll just continue using it and see if i see a decrease in the amount of backlight bleeding. thanks