Planning on buying a MBP for gaming, some questions.

Well, first of all, I already own a Macbook, a black one, with about 2 years of use it is still pretty fine, with no issues at all, so I save some money for buying a really powerfull laptop now, the problems come here.
I decided to buy a MBP of 15.4 inches for many reasons, some of them were the design ,the brand that Apple is, and of course de durability of the machine, seeing it as an investment.
My principal concerning is about gaming, I ultimately have been into games. I really don't need everything maxed out, but it will be nice if I can't get a decent frame rate with a nice image quality, I'm talking about 25fps with max and some med settings.
The hardware I'll like to buy is:
CPU= 3.06 Ghz C2D
GPU= 9400 + 9600M GT with 512 of mem.
MEM= 4 Gigs
HD= 500 Gigs at 7200

My principal concerning with this machine is how hot it will get when using it for gaming, and of course, how well can it really perform?
and...of course, what games will I like to play?...
- Gears of War
- Crysis
- COD 4
- Need for Speed PS, etc...
all of them in Windows.

Thanks for your time, I will really appreciate your help.

 

Gears of War: good (~30fps) on medium at 1280x800 resolution
Crysis: good (~30fps) on normal settings at 1280x800 resolution
COD4: very good (40+ fps) maxed out
RE5: good (~30fps) on all high at 1280x800 resolution

Note that AA is disabled for all the games above.

 

Really fast answering! thanks, does AA really make a big difference on the gaming experience? and what about the temperatures?

 

The opinion on AA is highly mixed. I personally don't find it very significant, especially when gaming at native resolution. The effects of AA are more noticable at lower resoltions.
nVidia cards do fall short in terms of AA performance in most games compared to ATI cards, so I would usually rather dedicate more resources to texture quality and resolution instead of AA.

The Macbook Pro will get quiet hot when gaming under Windows (especially Vista). But it's nothing to be alarmed about.

 

low to mid 80's while gaming. upper 60's to lower 70's while browsing the net, downloading files and listening to music. upper 50's to low 60's while idling.(Note all temps are in degrees Celcius). i bought the macbook pro for the same reasons as you and i'm doing a bachelor in Computer Science and Engineering and most programs we use are on linux or windows. I bootcamp wuite a lot and i also use vm's. I suggest you wait for windows 7 before you make the decision of buying windows. i suggest you install w7 rc in the meantime. Good luck fir the purchase and i hope your really like your decision just like i like mine. I'm an active member on the Apple and Mac Os X forum. if your are unsure about anything, your are free to ask any question. we'll all be glad to answer.

 

Do you think I should consider this other one ? the price is really good, and the graphics card is way better than the MBP, but I really don't know this brand or have heard about it..

http://www.sagernotebook.com/product_customed.php?pid=160092

By the way, thanks you for the fast answering and the kindness, this forum rocks!

 

for gaming the Sager is a very good unit, it is better known under other names such as Falcon etc, as it gets rebranded by many of the " gaming laptop" comapnies I believe that unit uses the MXM 3 video boards so it is GPU is upgradable in the future as well.

Please visit their section in the NBR forums here and im sure one of the regular users can help you much more than myself

 

Sager dont get rebranded. The use the same chasis as the other rebranders. Anyway for gaming Sager will definitely be better bang for the buck than Apple.

 

Yep, that's what I thought. The problem is that if a dialy use of a laptop for gaming, like, about 2 hours a day +/- will affect the life time of the unit. The MBP really is not made for gaming, opposite to the Sager one... I'm wrong about it? The MBP can't stand the "abuse" of daily gaming? ...I understand that 3D gaming is not the same as normal usage (hehe kinda obviuos)

 

Don't get a Mac if all your games are for Windows. The reason why MBP isn't really a gaming notebook is because it only has a mediocre/mainstream GPU (9600M GT is 128-bit), it gets really hot due to its design, and well, as you said, the games you play are for the PC.

 

Mmm, well thanks for your help, really make me think, but in the end, MAC IT IS! I guess once you go mac, you never go back, maybe I wont have de best gaming rack, but I will sure have a machine that will last at least 4 years that is truly portable, and alsoo can do decent gaming hehehe not extreme, but decent, right? hehe I've just place my order at apple online, Thanks!
PD: ohh and about the heating issues, I looked at some pics in ifixit.com, and with 2 fans in a 15.4" laptop, I think it will be fine, even the Sager has only one fan, if 2 fans can't do the job, anything will.

 

I'm afraid once you try to game on the mac you will want to send it back.. Macs serve their purpose. Gaming is not one of them. I'm not here to bash Macs, but even Mac users will admit to that much. You're prob going to need to go out and buy a copy of Windows now just so you can run all your Windows games in bootcamp. What's the point of paying that much when what you need is Windows?

 

Aye I agree. Although I love Apple if all your going to do is play games it's not the best bang for your buck. I only play WoW (on full settings, minus player shadowing) and get about ~60-110 FPS depending on where I am. I chose the MBP because I needed something professional for medical school and needed something a bit more reliable than Windows. I love my investment!

 

I don't recommend gaming on your lap. Sometimes I run WoW in bed and had to invest in a laptop cooler because the bottom of the chassis was burning my legs! I assume you'll be at a desk right? Usually when I'm in class or at work or anywhere away from my desktop I have some table to sit at so this isn't always a problem. I really hope you enjoy your investment, I purchased the same model as you and LOVE IT. I think for the design, I'd sacrifice a bit of performance when compared to others. My favorite thing is the charger with the mag safe attachment, and the 5-6 hour battery life when browsing and taking notes in class.

 

totally depends on the game you want to play.

the truth is the macbook pro handles pretty much any modern game very competently, but many not at the highest settings.

if maxing out settings is important to you, the macbook pro is not your laptop. but the mbp has a variety of other traits that may be advantageous to you. if those are the most important thing, and gaming is just a bonus on top, the mbp may serve you well. my two cents.

 

I would strongly suggest if your a gamer, then go with the Sager NP8662. Much better bang for the buck. You get way higher end components at a cheaper price. I enjoy my UMBP but I will not be buying another Mac for my future purchases. Many reasons and gaming is one of them. I would suggest you read the Sager forums here and see how well people are doing with thier NP8662's and 8660's. I have spent some time on the Sager and it is bigger then the UBMP but the build quiality is still quite well. I would have ot say pretty much close to the apple. And you can completely max out a Sager and still have money left over compared to the Apple.

 

If you are going to use the MBP for gaming, you should concern about the temp. I know that temp reach pretty high in Windows, not mention that you are playing games.
Having your laptop running hot for a long time many reduce your laptop's lifetime.

 

Well, I see some concerning about the temps, but anyway, I hate to play on bed or in any environment that doesn't help the MBP to ventilate well, I even got a cooler base, but I really don't think it will help a lot, what I currently do with my macbook is use smcFanControl, and always keep the fan around 3200 and the macbook stays comfortably cool, I guess I will take the same workaround for the MBP. And yep, pretty much masterchef341 got the idea of what I thought about the MBP, it's powerfull for daily use, for DVD or movie editing, stuff like that, and gaming is an extra, that's why I'm not concern on getting high fps, I said it on the start, just 25fps will be fine with medium to high settings, so I'm really glad with my choice I think.

 

do you have a link to proof that?

 

A Macbook does not get much warmer than other computers while under stress. Of course, using a laptop will reduce its lifespan just like everything else in this world. Most laptops will become uncomfortably warm, especially at the bottom, when under extreme stress, and the Mac is no different. The only fact is that Macbooks tend to run warmer in Windows than they do in OS X, but it is nothing to be alarmed about and will not cause your Macbook to explode or melt or whatever.

 

Why would you buy a mac solely for the purpose of gaming?
Macs have their purposes but gaming isn't one of them.
You can buy a much cheaper laptop with a better videocard. An asus g50 will beat the crap out of a mac in gaming while costing half as much. Same with the np8662, g51 etc.

 

Like I said, is not only because of gaming I choose the macbook, and again, I want to play games as an extra, I WILL play games, like my thread title says, but I will be glad with 25 fps or up, not super duper settings with 100 fps or something like that.

 

castillo,

I recently treated myself to a 2.8GHz 15" MBP (mid-2009). I needed a portable, slimline laptop as I do a fair bit of traveling, but I still wanted to have some gaming performance. I looked at various PC options, but I found that it was almost impossible to find a laptop that was as slim and light as the MBP with similar performance. Most 9600M GT laptops were at least 3-400g heavier and a good deal thicker.

So the good and the bad:

Good:
OSX is brilliant and the performance of the MBP within OSX is fantastic. I can walk into my hotel room, flip open the laptop and 30 seconds later I can be checking my EMails.
The gaming performance is fine. Not spectacular, but fine. I get about 23fps running Crysis Warhead on native resolution (no AA, settings at "Gamer"). Empire Total War is playable (about 22fps at native res). And my older gamers HL2, Company of Heroes, Sins of a Solar Empire just fly along

Bad:
The new MBPs have a new sound chipset by Cirrus and the Boot Camp drivers are awful. Sound is far too quiet even at max volume, the mic doesn't work and several other issues. Head to the Apple Support Forums for more info. I invested in a pair of travel speakers or I have to play with headphones. There is a fix for the sound levels, but it only works in Vista/W7 and I run XP.
The machine gets pretty hot. I usually start off in OSX, runs smc:fancontrol and get the fans spun up to 4000rpm before restarting in XP. That seems to keep the laptop cooler for longer.

Overall I have no regrets. Gaming is a small pastime of mine, my real priority is to have a lightweight and useable laptop for my travels. The MBP fits the bill perfectly.

HTH

 

i got a unibody 15inch base model mbp .. Which windows version is best for gaming?

i heard vista 64 bit is best .. but is it well supported with driver by bootcamp or should i just go with xp ?

oh and ill just be playing cs on network ( hamachi ) ..

Thanks..

 

All versions of Windows currently suffer from pretty awful Boot Camp drivers resulting in the audio problems I listed in my previous post. A work around has been found for Vista and Windows 7 so these may be your best options. Having said that I still think XP is a solid choice and games often perform better under XP than Vista, although the difference is likely to be tiny.

Personally, if I was going to perform a clean installation right now and I didn't have some old XP disks lying around then I would be taking advantage of the option to pre-order Windows 7 and install that.

 

I will use Windows 7, there is really no comparison between W7 and Vista, and about the drivers and bootcamp, I like to play it rough, I will only make my partitions with bootcamp, but all the booting process will be handle by rEfit, you should take a look, I prefer this metod since I'm making some use of Linux apps, not much really but I will, maybe in the future when the drivers are ready I will complete switch to Linux, but not now. By the way thanks eeperman I guess smcFanControl will handle the heat issue pretty well, I will try a similar option in W7.

 

I have the late 2008 base UMBP and have been very pleased at how it has handled gaming. This is my first Mac and as a convert from Windows, I was very surprised to have less issues gaming in bootcamp using Vista than most of my gaming buddies who are supposed to be running "far superior laptops" on windows. It does get warm, but bumping up the fan speed in smcfancontrol does the trick. IMHO, I don't think Mac's get the credit they deserve as far as gaming goes. Sure they aren't going to stack up against machines specifically built for gaming so all the settings can be set to high, but they can certainly push frame rates high enough to provide a very good gaming experience.

HM

Hostile surroundings!

 

gaming.... the MBPs work fine. Everyone goes on about price, like thats all that matters on a computer....

I only game on my Mac and very rarely in Windows. If you want to play the latest game quickly and easily, yes installing Windows is the easiest way to go. If you want to game on OSX, you have to either settle for only Mac games, or use Crossover Games, or use unofficial ports/wrappers. If you want to find links to tons of wrappers people make and make available so you can port your Windows game to OSX, check out http://forum.ibrain.com.ua/
its a Mac gamer community that makes unofficial mac ports of games so you can run things without Windows. Its almost as much fun making a wrapper for people to use for their game as it is to play the game

 

Build or buy a PC.

 

Save the whales!

 

Whale tastes good.

 

While the MacBook Pro may not be designed specifically for gaming, or be the best bang for the buck, it's by no means a poor contender- I'm not really sure where some of the benches from this thread were coming from, as I personally run COD4, COD5, Left 4 Dead, and a few others at all max settings (no AA), at the native 1440 x 900 res, and get a minimum of 25fps or so.

So if you're wanting to get a Mac because it's a Mac, don't discount it's gaming ability- it may not be the absolute best, but it's far from the worst.

Oh and also, the temperature issues while gaming are really a moot point now- this will solve any high temp issues you'd have while gaming:

http://www.eidac.de/?p=134

 

Hey.

MacBook | 13.3" LED 1280 x 800 | 2.0ghz Intel Core 2 Duo | NVIDIA 9400M 256MB | 4GB PC3-8500 RAM | 160GB 5400RPM SATA | Mac OS X 10.5

Would this be good playing WoW and raiding 25 mans and stuff? Smooth FPS with high settings?

 

Should be. WoW runs fine (albeit not on maxed out settings) on the Intel GMA X3100, and the nVidia 9400M is miles better than that.

 

hahaha c'mon dude, I've already bought the UMBP, and I'm really happy I did, and also very thankfull to you guys, really help me with the decision and also to solve the issues that may present.