Video of FEAR running on a Macbook Pro

I've been around doing some research on MBP's and gaming performance, (yeah I know all about the UC issues) but I found this footage of someone playing FEAR on their MBP and it looks pretty damn good....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM1M_k9xPG0

what do you guys think? hows it compare to your experiences with FEAR?

 

It looks like my x700 plays it a little better.

 

I'd say that it means nothing, and that PCs are better for gaming by far.
I'd highly highly recommend a PC for that purpose.

My 9800XT plays it like that. Hard to judge from the video.

 

I think it looks very good, but I've never played the game. lol

 

Unfortunately my confines are tight for what I need Chaz...

Parents refuse to shell out for an unknown to them in Asus despite the best info I can throw at em, but are more than willing to shell the extra for an Apple...

Doesn't make sense to me either but this looks to be a bette ralternative than an e1505 with X1400 or Sony with a 7400 Go.

 

If you're willing to go 17", HP has the dv8000t with the 256MB Go7600. Very good card, although the size of the notebook might hold you back.

 

The 15" is my choice... I'll be taking it everywhere on campus with me to class and stuff, otherwise I'd certainly be getting an e1705 with the 7900.

 

Asus used to make apples notebooks back in the day...

 

Still do if I read correctly last night.

 

Yes, they still do.

 

lol, tell your parents that and maybe they'll let you get an Asus.

Fear played pretty well on that bugger though.

 

But it certainly means something if someone wants or needs a MBP but also has some interest in doing some gaming with it as well (especially if they're willing to bring the X1600 in the MBP back up to stock speeds).

Really, honestly, at this point with the change in hardware for the MBP, I don't really see how one can say that "PCs are better for gaming by far", especially when once you slap Windows on this thing, it is indistinguishable from a PC laptop, for the most part.

Again, certainly, if your primary use of the machine is going to be gaming, obviously a dedicated PC gaming notebook makes more sense. But this is true of a lot of other "PC laptops" as well. I mean, if all you're going to do is game on it, why buy a Sony SZ with a GeForce Go 7400 when you could just as easily buy a 17" laptop with a 7900GS in it?

There's all sorts of notebooks here that are PC notebooks which would be "worse" for gaming than a MBP with Windows XP on it, but that doesn't mean they are inherently bad. Again going back to the SZ series, it would have a lot of appeal because of its form factor and the ability to switch between Intel dedicated graphics and a Go 7400.

I think all this says is that if you want or need a MBP and like or need to use OS X, but also are interested in a laptop to do some gaming on, it just shows that you can actually do some "real" gaming on a MBP (especially if you overclock the dramatically underclocked X1600 so it is closer to the same speeds of the X1600 in other laptops).

I just don't understand why it seems like your stock response to these topics is always to say that MBP's apparently aren't suitable at all for gaming, when pretty clearly some people out there are using it for gaming, and getting decent performance out of it (again, certainly not bad for a laptop that isn't designed specifically as a gaming laptop).

Is a MBP the best choice for someone with PC gaming as a primary focus? Of course not, but then again, the same could be said for a ton of other PC-only laptops. I think the people who care about a MBP for gaming are those that generally do want to be able to use OS X, but would also like some gaming possibilities from their laptop as well. And I think there's a lot of evidence that a MBP can fit that bill quite well (all you have to do is look in the Apple forums here and elsewhere to see that).

So again, I just don't understand why there seems to be this need to tear down anyone even discussing gaming on a MBP and basically saying that it just isn't any good for that, when evidence seems to point to the contrary.

-Zadillo

 

macs were never and won't be regarded as gaming machines; the X1600 is underclocked to lower speeds in the MBP, most people don't know how to overclock. I don't see where your arguement is going. Given the poor cooling of mac notebooks, that's another reason I'd hesitate to recommend them for that purpose.

 

Zadillo points out there will always be people out there that will just game on a MBP because it has an X1600, heck if i had a MBP, all i would do is game on it. BUT i know it is not the most ideal thing to do on it because i don't 100% like the MBP.

And Chaz i will hafta agree with your comment totally.

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

What makes people think they can game on macbook?
Macbook can't even keep itself cool on normal tasks, and gaming is something that heats up even the coolest laptop....

 

^ lol!

Are you saying you can't game? LOL

The technology today in laptops is not good enough to keep the internals cool, so either way your laptop will get hot/warm when gaming, and become warm when doing normal stuff over a long period of time.

you can game on a MBP because it has a dedicated GPU, a very strong one, the X1600.

Despite that, it is heavily underclocked because of the heat that eminates from such a small chasis.

No matter what, if i where to play Fear for 5 hours straight on a MBP or any other laptop, it would get HOT period! Of course i will change the clock speeds on the MBP X1600 to give me more performance.

Besides, you can run windows on a MBP, we all know Windows is great for gaming, and MAC OS X is not.

Dude, if you had a MBP would u game on it? Dual Boot Mac os X and Windows? Heck i know i would.

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

Certainly, and I agree. They are probably not the first laptops that would come to mind for gaming (especially not the regular MacBook).

I'm just not sure what it means to say they "won't be regarded as gaming machines", when it is just reality that some people at least are regarding the iMac and MBP as gaming machines (especially the iMac, which I don't think has an underclocked X1600), or at least machines that can play recent games well under Windows.

I fully understand the points you make, and definitely the heat issues and necessity for "overclocking" the X1600 in the MBP would not make it an ideal platform (especially not for something that was going to be used primarily as a gaming laptop).

But I think that most people are not asking whether the MBP can replace a dedicated gaming laptop like a Sager or the big laptops with a dedicated 7900GS ot 7900GTX in them.

But I think the motivation of a lot of these people is that they want the MBP for other reasons, such as being able to run OS X, but also want to know what kind of gaming they can get out of it. I think what we've seen with a lot of first-hand reports from people is that even without overclocking, they can get decent gaming performance, which hasn't been true of previous Mac laptops.

I can use myself as an example. My current notebook is a Sony Vaio s360, with an ATI Mobility Radeon 9700. Is this a top-of-the-line gaming notebook? No, of course not. But it is capable of some gaming, and can even handle stuff like BF2 with the details lowered. I actually bought the s360 precisely because I wanted to play WoW and other PC games, and this just wasn't an option with the PowerBook G4 at the time. As much as I did want an OS X laptop, I decided that gaming was important enough to me that I would just get a Windows laptop instead.

Now, in looking at the market for a new laptop, there are plenty of interesting options. Certainly the high-end Acer and Asus laptops look pretty nice. And I'm also intrigued by the Sony SZ, with its Go 7400.

Now, my question would be, why would the Sony SZ be any more a "gaming" laptop than the MBP if you installed Windows on it? Even without any overclocking I'm going to get similar performance.

Now, if I wanted to go all out and consider one of those 17" laptops with 7900GS's in them, that would be a whole other ballpark.

I think the only point I'm trying to make is that it doesn't make much sense to just say that the MBP isn't a gaming laptop just because it's video card is underclocked and it isn't specifically designed to be a gaming laptop.

So yes, I absolutely agree that it would be nuts to recommend a MBP to someone who planned on just installing Windows on it and gaming with it all the time. It wouldn't be good for that at all, and you could spend the same amount of money on a much higher end gaming-focused laptop.

But for people who do want an OS X laptop and want to do some occasional gaming with it, it seems reasonable to tell them at least what it can and cannot do, not just to say "Macs aren't and won't be gaming computers".

I think the only other thing I'd say is that both the MBP and MB are still pretty early in their lifecycles, as the first Intel-based Mac laptops. I think it is probably worth keeping an eye on what subsequent laptops from Apple do as well.

-Zadillo

 

Just get the Dell Inspiron e1705 with the GeForce Go 7900GS.