Confusedabout graphics power of MBA

So I have been using the 11.6" MBA for a couple months now and have been pretty much blown away by how well this tiny laptop plays games compared to my Alienware M11x. I am now playing Mass Effect 2 and COD MW2 on my MBA and I cannot discern the difference in graphics and playability between my Air and the M11x. I guess my question is what kind of benefit am I getting from a 1 GB discrete video card versus an integrated 256 mb video graphics card if I can't really tell the performance difference that much? (I know that the Alienware blows away the MBA in terms of FPS, etc... but the MBA seems to be very capable in comparison).

 

Set the graphics settings and resolution to max, then see which delivers a playable frame rate. I think at max settings, MW2 won't be playable on the Macbook.

 

bragging rights?... they like throwing tons of cheap ram on graphics cards to make them look better, even if the GPU/system are so slow that they cannot effectively use that much ram.

 

I'm sure the extra ram helps. Mass Effect 2 plays very smoothly on the M11x hooked up to a 1080p monitor with all the settings maxed out. You can't do that with a Macbook air.

 

Pictures and video or it didn't happen.

I can't believe this unless you are playing these games on low details for MBA.

If this is true this is definitely a thumbs up for Apple and this machine.

 

sadly... if you had one with 512mb of ram and tested them, they'd probably be within about 1 or 2% of each-other in performance. Its cheap to add ram... even if it barely helps. I remember doing some benchmarks back when the first 1gb cards came out, and there were some 256 and 512mb cards of with the same GPU and clock speeds that actually out performed the higher ram cards... throwing tons of ram doesn't always make it better.... if it did, and as cheap as ram is, they'd just throw 4 or 8gb on there.

 

Can you enlighten us on what type of GPU RAM is used on the 320m? I can't seem to find that information.

 

its integrated therefore uses system RAM. It does not have its own dedicated VRAM. the 330 in my MBP15" is GDDR3

 

I wouldn't call it capable. The GT 320m is like 1/2 as fast as the M11x, and it would return roughly half the FPS or much lower settings in most games. Newer games may not even run at 30FPS in any settings at all (basically, unplayable).

 

The MacBook Air has nothing on the M11x in terms of graphical computing power. The 335m's 1GB Ram means little to performance. What really matters is the 72 Cores vs. 24 Cores on the 320M. The 335M and 320M cores are clocked similiarly, so you can see that the 335M is around 3-4x with everything faster with everything factored in. You're probably just running it at lower settings on the MBA.

 

Not as bad actually. Less known fact but the 320M version in the Macbook Air and Pros are custom made for Apple sporting 48 "cores", though it doesn't make that much difference with the 24 core dedicated 320m.

NVIDIA GeForce 320M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

another big factor is memory bandwidth. how fast can the graphics card pass around information. on the macbook air, you expect it to be a lot worse off than the m11x because

a) it is sharing memory with main memory, which is already slower than gddr3 memory

b) they share the same bandwidth with the system

 

Extra ram can help, depending on the game.

Let me guide you: How much VRAM do you need for today's games? - Overclock.net - Overclocking.net

 

extra memory won't change the memory bandwidth, and actually won't really help the mba graphics performance, either. that article was referring to a very high powered high bandwidth card...

 

MW2 plays on my lenovo,so its not a stretch to see that its playable on the MBA

Hey,can you test Black Ops for me?

 

I did, here's the thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/apple-mac-os-x/527864-2010-macbook-pro-13-graphics.html