New MacBook Pro owner!

Hi everyone,

I'm pleased to announce that two weeks ago, I took possession of a brand new 15" MacBook Pro

So far, it's absolutely awesome... It does everything I need it to quickly and effortlessly. It has the power I need for gaming under Boot Camp, the portability I need for work, and the general gloriousness of Mac OS X, which I've fallen in love with over the past year or two. Not only is it my first ever Mac, but it's also my first notebook system - my previous computers have all been desktop Windows machines, so making the switch was doubly jarring for me. I haven't regretted my purchase one bit, though... This thing is so awesome, it blows every other notebook I've seen out of the water

My specs, for those who are interested:

Macbook Pro 15"
Glossy screen
2.5GHz Core 2 Duo (Penryn)
512MB GeForce 8600M GT
200GB 7,200RPM HDD (50GB of which is set aside for Windows XP under Boot Camp)
Mac OS X Leopard
Multi-touch trackpad

Mmm, just looking at the specs of it makes me all contented

Anyway, I just have a few quick questions for you fine people:

1) Is it okay to update the graphics drivers on the Windows XP side to newer versions? Which version would you recommend for my system, and how much of a performance gain can I expect?

2) Is it safe to defrag my Windows volume, or will this mess up my OS X partition? I want to get the full benefit of my 7,200RPM drive upgrade, after all...

3) My notebook often gets extremely hot after extended periods of gaming, which is obviously not unexpected. At what sort of temperature should I start getting worried?

4) So far, the only game I've thrown at it which it's struggled with is Crysis (or, to be more precise, the demo version of Crysis). Even this is playable (though by no means butter-smooth) at medium-high settngs, which is mighty impressive for a notebook, especially one as slim as the MBP. How well do you guys think it will cope with games being released over the next few years? I'm not a super-hardcore gamer, but I game often enough to make performance count. So far I've been absolutely blown away by the MBP's Orange Box performance -- my old machine would chug horribly while playing TF2 even on low detail, but this thing can run it in full glory at native resolution without breaking a sweat.

Uh, yeah, that's about all I can think of for now. I'm sure I'll remember a bunch more questions later. Maybe I'll stick around

In any case, I'm absolutely delighted with my new Mac, and although it certainly wasn't cheap, I'd recommend the MBP to anyone in a heartbeat

 

congrats bullshot!!!
Enjoy
Lynn

 

Congrats on the MBP!

1: You could get updated drivers if you'd like from NVidia's website. I'd assume it should work without much fuss at all.
2. Defragging doesn't (or at least shouldn't) screw up the partitions on your machine. So go for it every once in a while.
3. You should only worry when it gets somewhere around 85 degrees celsius, which is near Super-Nova temperatures. It is rated to withstand up to 100 degrees celsius though.
4. Crysis is a very demanding game, even on the MBP. The 8600 GT can't keep up with it. Maybe if you add memory to the MBP, up to 4GB it would help a bit.

 

Hi Bullshot,

I got my MBP at about the same time (but only got to try it for the first time this week.) My spec. is almost the same as yours, but I went for the 250Gb drive.

I agree its an excellent computer and operating system. Time machine seems superb.

I upped the memory to 4Gb today. Can't believe how small (and tight) the screws were. Reminds me I need to get my eyes tested

My next task is to install Boot Camp. I don't do much gaming, but I need to use MS OneNote and Access.

Doc_Croc

 

Congratulations!!! Very, very nice system you have. To answer your questions:

1) Yes, PLEASE update your graphics drivers, the ones included in Boot Camp are pretty poor. Go to laptopvideo2go.com and get drivers there - I think a good one for 32-bit XP is 169.09 (though you can check forums there for suggestions).

2) I've defragged my Windows partition many times, no ill effects. I'd recommend doing it.

3) dbam's advice is good here - I think around 85 C is where you should start getting a bit cautious. I'm assuming this is happening in your Windows partition, but when you're on Mac OS, I recommend getting smcFanControl to both monitor your temps and control your fans.

4) Crysis is very intensive, medium-high is a very respectable output for the 8600M GT. As more and more intensive games come out, the card will show it's age more and more - but you should still get a few years of being able to play most top-end games out of the card (though at lower and lower settings, of course).

 

It won't run crysis silk smooth. But there are a lot of other fun games out there that run great on a 8600 such as enemy territory quake wars, call of duty 4, and more. If you really really want crysis to run on your mbp then just turn down the settings a little bit if you want better frames.

 

Thanks, guys

Yeah, I'm hoping to upgrade my memory to 4GB eventually... Once my wallet has recovered

Odd - I've just downloaded the latest driver for my hardware from NVIDIA's site, and whenever I try to install it (under XP, obviously) I get the message "The NVIDIA Setup Program could not locate any drivers that are compatible with your current hardware. Setup will now exit."

I'll see if I can get any of the drivers from the site you linked to to work...

Another odd thing - I downloaded smcFanConrol, and whenever I try to run it it says "You are running FanControl on an unsupported machine!"

Any ideas?

 

You can try changing your GPU clock speeds as Apple downclocked it to 375/502 to make it run cooler (although from personal experience, there have been times where it runs cooler when overclocked). The stock speeds for the 8600M GT GDDR3 is 475/700, and I've overclocked it up to 600/900, which is close to double the default clock speeds on the MBP. You'd definitely notice a difference just jumping from 375/502 up to 475/700.

Also, download the drivers from laptopvideo2go.com. Nvidia doesn't make any official drivers for notebooks.

 

I'm not sure about nVidia's official drivers, but I haven't had any issues with those from laptopvideo2go. Make sure that, if the 8600M GT isn't listed as officially supported, you download the modified INF file and replace the INF in the zip file with the new one (to let it work with your card). Then just uninstall your current driver and then install the new one with the hardware wizard (point it to the file you unzipped).

I had this problem too actually. What you need to do is get the newest edition of smc - go here. That should work. Also, when I first ran it, I couldn't get the fans to adjust on the fly, I had to set it and restart the computer - after a bit, though, it magically started working correctly. So if, at first, the fans aren't adjusting right away, just give it a few days, I suppose (boy that sure sounds like amateur advice, when I write it out).