MBP and Half Life 2

I'm looking to buy MBP and play some HL2.

I've heard that
(1) The fan control is a problem when using Windows XP and HL2. Apparently they don't operate sufficiently to cool the GPU and CPU?

(2) Its just a bad idea.

Can anyone give me sound advice on this? I only plan on using XP to play HL2: Team Fortress. That's about it.

 

Its perfectly fine, its just that the mbp gets hot when you go into xp, but when you play games the fans go to the max setting anyways.
But yea it plays really good in xp.

 

While it is true that the fans spin at a lower idle speed in XP (1000 rpm vs 2000 rpm in OS X), they will still ramp up to provide sufficient cooling when temperatures demand it. If you really want to play it safe, install SMCFanControl for OS X, set the speed you want, then reboot into Windows. SMCFanControl will maintain the settings you applied in OS X. Just remember, though, if you cold boot your machine straight into Windows without going into OS X first, the fans will revert to the default of 1000 rpm.

Absolutely false. I'm in the exact same boat as you are. The only reason I have XP on my MBP is to play Half-Life and all its derivatives, and it works great. Make sure, though, after you've installed the Windows XP drivers that Apple provides that you upgrade your video drivers. The ones on the Leopard install disc or the disc that's created when using BootCamp 1.4 are outdated. I realized a nice boost in HL2 performance by using the 169.01 or 169.04 drivers available at http://www.laptopvideo2go.com. With a 2.4 GHz MBP, I can run HL2 at 1440x900 with 4xAA and 8xAF with solid frame rates across the board.

 

Agreed. I run HL2 on my MBP at 1920x1200 with no issues connected to my external display. Fans ramp up to full - quite noisy! I use 163.71 drivers because the 169.01 drivers have issues with external displays at 1920x1200. Doesn't aspect correctly for whatever reason. 163.71 are also official nVidia release, too.

 

1) Yeah, the fans do blast when in action

2) Again, false. Totally false. I played HL2, Ep1, Ep2, Portal on max resolution (1440x900) - everything on, including AA and all that, and my fps is never lower than 30.

It's an amazing little machine

 

Has anyone tried Ep2 and Portal in a Macbook (non-pro)? I've managed to run EP1 fine lowering some settings, but I guess EP2 might bring the GMA950 to its knees.

 

Huh? I'm using either 150.x or 163.71, and I didn't see much of a change from the BC 1.4 drivers. I play TF2 quite a bit (it runs great, looks great), at 1440x900, but I can't use high AA or AF. In fact I tend to leave both off or else the fps just dies in big 32-player maps, where you can get several people in the same firefight.

I am highly skeptical that 169.0x actually makes it so high AA/AF is practical with good fps in TF2. If anyone can post a fraps demo and screenshot of their settings, please do so. I find that no AA or 2xAA, and no AF and no motion blur, is required for good TF2 performance.

Vanilla HL2 (not HL2: ep2) may be playable with high AA/AF. It's less intensive. But really, people are playing EP2 and TF2 now with that engine

 

Well I don't know about HL2 (haven't tried it on my MBP yet) but Crysis certainly was much smoother and better performing when I installed the latest drivers from laptopvideo2go.

 

I was strictly speaking of HL2, not TF2 as I don't play it.

 

How loud do the fans get?
Off topic: can a MBP run 24/7?

 

If you play with headphones on, then you dont really hear them.

yea a mbp can run 24/7, but its theres a problem with that. If you have to it plugged 24/7 then the batteries life will go down. So technically you should take out the battery if youre gonna leave it plugged in all the time. Although i hear in osx it underclocks the cpu cause the power brick isnt powerful enough.

mines plugged in a lot, and i dont know about what normal wear is. but if anything ill just get a new battery eventually.