The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    mac gaming

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by yessir, Jun 12, 2007.

  1. yessir

    yessir Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    76
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    how will games (either mac or pc via bootcamp) run on the cheapest mbp?

    i am thinking of trying to play oblivion or morrowind through bootcamp, but am thinking that it will not work too well, what about civilization IV for mac?

    what can i do to upgrade my mbp to improve gaming quality and how much will it cost?

    thanks
     
  2. Santrago

    Santrago Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    9
    Messages:
    107
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    mac + gaming = can't compute ; kthxbye.
     
  3. yessir

    yessir Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    76
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    ...or you could take my question seriously....kthxbye
     
  4. vindex

    vindex Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    7
    Messages:
    55
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    all my games on boot-camp run fine, if not faster then on my windows machine, this is coming from the "old" MBP. you'l have no touble running games, might want to add a nice little 2 gb of ram though, all depends on your needs.
     
  5. yessir

    yessir Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    76
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    the new mbp has 2gb of ram i think

    just out of curiosity, what types games are you playing?
     
  6. easyeye

    easyeye Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    4
    Messages:
    111
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    i have the oldest mbp, plays title like medieval II total war, stalker, red orchestra and flight simulator fine. Although in some games like flightsim and stalker you can only go for med settings. But hey, that's the original crippled x1600, you can probably run them on high.
     
  7. yessir

    yessir Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    76
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    what do you think about morrowind/oblivion and civilization IV? i have never really been into computer gaming and these are a few games i would like to try. i have heard they are "resource hogs" and need really advanced systems to run well
     
  8. system_159

    system_159 Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    363
    Messages:
    794
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    You should be able to run those pretty well. I can run some not too old FPS's on good settings on my MBP. The 8600GT is leaps and bounds ahead of the x1600. The base system should let you enjoy some good graphics at a decent clip. You won't get 60fps with Oblivion at max settings(or anything close to that) without a dedicated desktop PC.
     
  9. cotolay

    cotolay Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    19
    Messages:
    594
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    they should run good with the 256 nVidia, and on the 128 version you will probably have to play on mid settings.
     
  10. cashmonee

    cashmonee Notebook Virtuoso NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    787
    Messages:
    2,859
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    It should play as well as any similarly equipped PC. Games in OS X do run slower than their PC counterpart, but in Boot Camp the performance will be equal.
     
  11. yessir

    yessir Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    76
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    just out of curiosity, how would i go about improving my graphics card? is it something I can do myself (i'm not very technical) or should i have someone else do it?
     
  12. Prism

    Prism Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    18
    Messages:
    46
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    As a general rule, it is not possible to upgrade the graphics card and VRAM of notebooks. Some very specific notebooks have this feature, but they're extremely uncommon, and the MBP is definitely not one of these.
     
  13. buddy1065

    buddy1065 Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    33
    Messages:
    684
    Likes Received:
    22
    Trophy Points:
    31
    I am running Oblivion on my 2.33 Ghz MBP with 256 VRAM. The game defaults at 1024x768 at high settings. There is slowdown at higher settngs, but I usually play at 1280x768 full screen. FPS can slow to 14 FPS at times while doing things like running or riding a horse.

    I am guessing the 2.4 Ghz MBP will do much better, but how much? I may be getting one this weekend if this guy buys my Sony T250 like he says on Saturday. So we'll see. Then I can give a more definite answer, as I will have both laptops; the 2.33 and the 2.4 Ghz side by side.


    My Oblivion characters using 2.33 Ghz Macbook Pro
    http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o41/AshleyT99/Collage3.jpg
    Unretouched screenshots of Lil' Lara and her dragon.
    http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o41/AshleyT99/Flight1.jpg
    http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o41/AshleyT99/Flight2.jpg
    http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o41/AshleyT99/Flight4.jpg

    Performance is adequate but the GPU definitely needs a boost at resolutions higher than 1024x768.