Question About Gaming and Resolutions

So I've decided I'm going to go with the new unibody MacBook Pro as my next computer, which has a 512MB 9600M GT (GDDR3) GPU.

My question is more of a request for opinions- I think I'd like to buy a 24" monitor (1920 x 1080) to game on, but I'm not sure how well the 9600 would do at such a high resolution.

So, I was just curious if most people in my situation play with lower settings at a higher resolution, or higher settings at a lower resolution- which one do you think looks better?

Thanks for any help!

 

higher settings at a lower rez. gl with gaming on that mac

 

16:9 ratio, just play it at 1280x720. Very little quality loss. Better to play with higher settings at lower res than higher res with lower settings IMHO. Most laptop GPU's fare best at lower resolutions.

 

It depends on the game. The 9600m GT definitely has the memory and bus width for 1080p, but it comes down to what games you want to run. If we're talking Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, stuff like that, then it should be just fine at 1080p. If it's newer stuff like Crysis, Call of Duty 4 or World at War, or GTA IV, you'll need to lower the resolution to another 16:9 resolution, like 1600x900, 1366x768, or 1280x720.

 

I love how I can't make a single post regarding Macs and gaming without one of these comments inevitably turning up.

But anyway, that's interesting- so games like Left 4 Dead and whatnot could be run natively at 1080p? That's not bad.

Thanks for the help guys!

 

That card wont push that resolution for any modern game at a decent setting, you may get away with some old games though.

 

Source games are more CPU than GPU bound but i wouldn't expect to play L4D in 1080p .

My friend have a HDX16 and it isn't even close to run L4D @ 1080p at a decent frame rate, MBP's 9600m gt is faster than the 9600m gt in HDX16 but i don't think that it's enough

 

Depends on the situation. If its a online shooter, I would take native-res/ low-eyecandy over low-res/high-eyecandy. I can see clearer and further into the distance etc with a high-native res. There's some snipe shots I just wouldn't even be able to see at something low like 1024x768, when you're talking about the top of a guys head barely peeking over a wall on the other side of the level.

 

No, still not. Games like CS:S, DOD:S, the origional HL2, and EP1 will run smoothly maxed out in 1080P sans AA, but L4D, HL2 ep2, TF2 etc. if you want to run those smoothly in 1920x1080, your going to have to drop settings, likely HDR to get a smooth framerate at that resolution. L4D you'd have to drop the settings to lows to get over 60fps in that res.

You should expect it, macs aren't gaming pc's, they aren't even worth their price, you shouldn't buy one expecting to game well on it, and the fact that you're going to be running windows to play completely kills the point. $900 could buy a high end gaming notebook, but I'm sure you knew that going into your purchase.

 

@blabus: Don't feel offended by the comment, but he's not technically wrong. Macs aren't gaming rigs. Apple has made that pretty clear in their statement and choice of hardware. Only recently(since the MacPD hybrids) has Apple made the choice to include higher end parts in their machines.

They can make decent gaming machines, but in the end they're not designed for gaming due to OS limitations(games on OSX) and the lesser performance of bootcamp compared to regular Windows(this depends on the tasks performed however, in general it's pretty kiff-kiff).

Anyhow, back to subject, the 9600M GT isn't a bad GPu. For older games you should be able to max out with 1080p no problem. Newer games you'll have to tone down settings or resolution. This realy depends on the game as some games resolution amkes up for settings and in others it doesn't as well.

 

I think the confusion probably came from me posting this in the Gaming Forum, and how I posted it.

I'm not buying a MacBook Pro solely to game on- I'm buying it because I'm a Mac guy (graphic/web designer), I love OS X, and I want a powerful but (relatively) light and thin laptop.

I'm primarily going to be doing heavy work on it- gaming is just for when I have some free time.

 

Actually, I have another question now, related to resolutions.

I'm not sure about anybody else, but to me, a 1280x720 24" TV looks no different than a 1920x1200 24" monitor when I'm gaming. It seems like it gets to a point where the pixels are so small, that my eye can't tell the difference between the two.

So, is there a way to scale the resolution down exactly one quarter of the native res of the monitor, and then set it so that it's an exact 4:1 mapping of the pixels? In other words, each game pixel would be exactly 4 pixels on the monitor (2x2). It seems like whenever I scale down the resolution like that, it does some sort of interpolation, and as a result everything just looks fuzzy. Instead, I'd like every 4 pixels of the monitor (2x2) to act as a single game pixel, with no type of interpolation/anti-aliasing, etc.

Anybody understand what I'm talking about?

 

I played HL2 fine at 1080p on an overclocked DDR2 9600 GT. L4D was limited to 1366 x 768, but with 4x MSAA. Crysis is the same res but medium shaders, HDR in that game will not fly.

Overall it's an ok card for gaming, nothing like a GTX 280M, but you can infact enjoy games.

 

I dunno. Usually there's a distance setting in game so you can see just as much at lower res as you can at higher res. I use 1280x800 on my laptop for Battlefield 2 all the time. I can snipe just as well at that res as any other higher one. That being said, if I have the option I will choose the higher resolution, it just looks more crisp, but hasn't affected my gameplay so far.

 

Gaming? Mac? What?

bag moment over.

Lower resolution + high settings usually gets the best preformance but if you want LOOKS higher res always looks better.

Sorry, but I am a gamer and I tried a mac, it was returned after 4 days. Warning with the new macbook pros. There is an issue with the drivers for bootcamp windows that causes the sound to be insanely quiet and no mic works, plugged in, or part of the mic. It saddened me greately.

I hope you have better luck gaming on a mac than I did.