Gaming on MacBook Pro !

I read a lot of people asking what it's like to game on a MacBook Pro, and a lot of people generally think its...IMPOSSIBLE...lol.
I just wanted to point out that I got Unreal Tournament 3, Call Of Duty 4 maxed out (just no AA) running at about 45-60 FPS. You just have to make sure you have the right drivers ^^.
I am running the 169.04 Forceware (which was specifically made to enhance Crysis and COD 4, but has also done wonders for UT3).
Here are some screenshots of UT.

Unreal Tournament 3







Here are some YouTube vids of me testing it out, the first one was online in a 32 player server, second was offline the first day I got it. All settings maxed.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HP-iaDnml-g
http://youtube.com/watch?v=k9yiUC7xKZ4
Sorry for the VERY poor Youtube quality...it does that =/


Team Fortress 2 (maxed settings - Average FPS of 50





Call Of Duty 4






Call of Duty 4 on MacBook Pro

P.S. I posted here because I kind of wanted it to appeal more to Mac users, but feel free to move it to the Gaming forums if it is better.

 

Looks great! I haven't been doing much gaming but now that I know that my MBP can comfortably run these games I might just have to pick UT3 up.

 

Haha, funny how you commented on your own video. Thanks for the post!

 

What resolution are you playing at?

 

am using 164 update and was running old driver on crysis of high all only shaders mid, but with 164 it run fine even shaders high, i will try 169 and see what will happen ...good screen shot BTW.

 

That's on a 30(if I remember right) person server, on a level with tons of rain, grass, and trees. Indoors I average about 50-60 FPS, while outdoors is 30-40. Occasional drop into the 20s when walking through smoke, but honestly, I think even if it were always in the 20s you wouldn't notice.

If I were to lower the res a bit the frame rates would shoot up into the 40s in those screen shots.

 

^ yea but most people uses the 15inch base model ._.
thats like... less power

 

1024x640. I haven't ever tried any other resolution, that is the default that the game gives when it sees your rig. I should try something higher maybe later

 

Less power? Last I checked they both had the same card... unless you got the 2.2 -128 ...mine runs games great in XP Pro after I did the multi processor fix

 

yea i meant the lessened VRAM .. it DOES affect gaming to a certain extent when you play these kind of games..

 

What game is that from Arquis?

 

Call of Duty 4

 

Ahh, thought so, nice!

 

Anyone thoughts on whether if Apple will refresh the GPU along with the CPU?

 

by next year. trust me. im 100% sure on this <-

 

Updated with screenshots of TF2 and COD4

 

wow...thats nice...it tempts me even more to get the MBP.

 

Yeah, the Macbook Pro runs games fine, as well as anything else with that hardware.

My only caveat is it's cooling seems much worse than some other notebooks. On the other hand the LED (instead of florescent) backlit, matte screen is GORGEOUS when you see in in person.

 

How about run it on previous version of MBP 2.2G, with 128m? how's performance.

 

^
This is the previous version of the MBP.

 

Try to find some reviews for that (or similar) GPUs under Windows. The CPU isn't an issue, but I think in modern games the 128MB video RAM really will limit it to a noticeable degree (probably low double digit performance decrease).

Random stuff:
-We're at the point now (to my surprise actually) that the mid-range and higher-end cards like the 8800 series actually perform better with 512MB than 256 (I'm not sure that that's the case with the 8600GT though).

-So if possible, I'd go for one with 256MB. All the 8600GTs used in the Macbook Pro use fast RAM though, while many notebooks use older, slower RAM.

All that said, if you want the Macbook Pro and can get a good price on the 128MB model, it's not a bad buy. It'll still run today's games, and you can always put that extra money towards a new system down the line.

 

If you're running those games in Windows on a MBP, I don't see how it's any different from using any other PC laptop for playing modern games. It's just a perception that Apple's computers can't be used for gaming because OS X isn't gamer friendly.

Though there's also the factor that a similarly specced PC laptop can be had for a much lower price...but that's another debate altogether.