Gaming on a new MacBook Pro

F

Flyman

n00b
Joined
Feb 24, 2008
Messages
15
Hi Everyone,

I need to replace my PM G4 and I thought I'd replace it with new 15" MBP.
The reason for this decision is that it will allow me to game, surf the web, edit photos etc and also allow me to get a dedicated gaming PC in about 12 months time!

This leads me to ask just how exactly I should configure the MBP?

  1. Is it worth increasing the RAM to 4GB?
  2. Should I change the HD to a 7200rpm 200GB drive?
  3. Would it be worth upping the processor from a stock 2.5GHz to a 2.6GHz?
  4. At what resolution would I be able to play COD4 & BF2 on a 24" monitor?

It's a lot of questions here I know but if you could offer any advice it would really be appreciated.

Thanks
Flyman
 
its not worth upgrading the ram from apple, do it yourself and save 300 dollars. same goes for the processor, or the SMALL increase in speed, its not worth the cash. as far as the HD and resolution, i don't know because i am in the market myself for a new MBP. :)

I just think that the amount of money you pay for the "extras" you can almost buy yourself a nice monitor to play your games on, and since the MBPs seem to drop in price so fast, I just dont see the point.
 
Flyman said:
Hi Everyone,

I need to replace my PM G4 and I thought I'd replace it with new 15" MBP.
The reason for this decision is that it will allow me to game, surf the web, edit photos etc and also allow me to get a dedicated gaming PC in about 12 months time!

This leads me to ask just how exactly I should configure the MBP?

  1. Is it worth increasing the RAM to 4GB?
  2. Should I change the HD to a 7200rpm 200GB drive?
  3. Would it be worth upping the processor from a stock 2.5GHz to a 2.6GHz?
  4. At what resolution would I be able to play COD4 & BF2 on a 24" monitor?

It's a lot of questions here I know but if you could offer any advice it would really be appreciated.

Thanks
Flyman
Click to expand...

It might be worth increasing the RAM to 4GB if you are going to be running OS X and Windows virtualized under VMWare at the same time. This way you can allocate 2GB of RAM to each OS. That said, 1GB dedicated to each should be fine if you just want to pop into Windows in VMWare to use a smaller application or a Popcap type game. I didn't upgrade to 4GB since with any memory intensive applications like 3D games I am going to reboot directly into Windows, and for everything else I'm going to use OS X which does fine with 2GB of RAM anyway. The most intense application I use is Final Cut Studio, which runs great with 2GB.

I went with the larger 5400rpm 250GB drive. Yes the 200GB is faster but I needed the space (170GB for OS X, 80GB for WIndows). I'm not feeling hurt by the performance.

The extra $$$ for another 100mhz in performance is not worth it.

You should easily be able to run games at 1400x900 and 1920x1200, depending on settings. I run TF2 and COD4 great on the MBP monitor native res of 1440. It'll obviously run not quite as well at 1920 but dialing down settlings like anti-aliasing should help. I haven't played BF2 in ages but I know that it will run even better than those two other games, so you will probably have a better shot at higher framerates.
 
Serpico said:
It might be worth increasing the RAM to 4GB if you are going to be running OS X and Windows virtualized under VMWare at the same time. This way you can allocate 2GB of RAM to each OS. That said, 1GB dedicated to each should be fine if you just want to pop into Windows in VMWare to use a smaller application or a Popcap type game. I didn't upgrade to 4GB since with any memory intensive applications like 3D games I am going to reboot directly into Windows, and for everything else I'm going to use OS X which does fine with 2GB of RAM anyway. The most intense application I use is Final Cut Studio, which runs great with 2GB.

I went with the larger 5400rpm 250GB drive. Yes the 200GB is faster but I needed the space (170GB for OS X, 80GB for WIndows). I'm not feeling hurt by the performance.

The extra $$$ for another 100mhz in performance is not worth it.

You should easily be able to run games at 1400x900 and 1920x1200, depending on settings. I run TF2 and COD4 great on the MBP monitor native res of 1440. It'll obviously run not quite as well at 1920 but dialing down settlings like anti-aliasing should help. I haven't played BF2 in ages but I know that it will run even better than those two other games, so you will probably have a better shot at higher framerates.
Click to expand...

Hi Serpico,

For the time being I doubt I'll want to use VMWare or any other type of program of that kind. The only time I intend to go into Windows will be to game under Boot Camp.

I'm looking at getting a BenQ FP241W and on that monitor is where I intend to do 99.9% of my web browsing, photo editing and gaming. I do not intend to game using the MBP screen!

Have you actually played online at 1920 x 1200 and how far did you have to turn down the settings to comfortably play and have you managed to see your fps rate while doing this?

Also do you use XP or Vista?

Thanks again
Flyman
 
moku said:
its not worth upgrading the ram from apple, do it yourself and save 300 dollars. same goes for the processor, or the SMALL increase in speed, its not worth the cash. as far as the HD and resolution, i don't know because i am in the market myself for a new MBP. :)

I just think that the amount of money you pay for the "extras" you can almost buy yourself a nice monitor to play your games on, and since the MBPs seem to drop in price so fast, I just dont see the point.
Click to expand...

Hi Moku,

You're right about the RAM. I'll get mine from Crucial its so much cheaper!
Might just stick with the standard 2.5 MBP and 250GB HD.
I had no idea that they dropped in price quickly, I thought all Apple products held their price quite well - Perhaps I should get a MacPro instead! :rolleyes:
 
I suggest buying your RAM from NewEgg. I picked up a Kingston 4GB kit for $85 shipped back in January. BTW, keep your original RAM (and HD if you upgrade) in case you ever need to have your MBP serviced.

Welcome to the family of happy MBP owners!
 
Most games will struggle to run at 1920 x 1200 with the 8600M GT GPU.

If you use the the built-in screen resolution (1440 x 900) you shouldn't have problems with any newer games, COD4, Bioshock, etc.

Tracer
 
Flyman said:
Hi Serpico,

For the time being I doubt I'll want to use VMWare or any other type of program of that kind. The only time I intend to go into Windows will be to game under Boot Camp.

I'm looking at getting a BenQ FP241W and on that monitor is where I intend to do 99.9% of my web browsing, photo editing and gaming. I do not intend to game using the MBP screen!

Have you actually played online at 1920 x 1200 and how far did you have to turn down the settings to comfortably play and have you managed to see your fps rate while doing this?

Also do you use XP or Vista?

Thanks again
Flyman
Click to expand...

I haven't plugged my MBP into my 24" NEC so I couldn't tell you. I will say that games looks excellent on the MBP (nice looking S-IPS panel with a tiny tiny bit of input lag, nothing major), so if you're in a pinch, like you don't feel like lugging your monitor to a LAN party, it'll do great.

But yeah, I have not played at all at 1920x1200 so I couldn't tell you 100%. Based on the 1440 performance I'm assuming that you would have to turn things down quite a ways if you go there. I ran TF2 with everything on high, Trilinear filtering, and 4x AA, and it plays just well enough for me. A much higher resolution and I would seriously have to start trimming back.

I am currently using Vista Ultimate. You should be fine with 2GB there.
 
And if you are running two partitions, I highly highly suggest the larger hard drive, even if it is slower. That extra 50GB to split between OS X and Windows will help a lot. I've got 80GB in Windows, 170GB in OS X, and I'm pretty comfortable. I could have done with a bit less for Windows, actually. I've got TF2, Portal, HL2: Ep2, COD4, Company Of Heroes, a couple PopCap games, and I'm at about 40GB. Very comfortable for adding some other stuff and giving the partition room to breathe, although the only other game I'll probably get is Starcraft 2 whenever that comes out, and that I'll probably install on my OS X partition anyway. 60GB or 70GB for Windows would have been fine too.
 
Flyman - Ok, I take back what I said about the input lag on the MBP for gaming. I just played some more TF2 on it and I don't feel any at all. I can hit and run with the scout just as well as I do on my desktop! The display is actually a really good gaming monitor, big plus! :)

The only tweak I've made is to boost the digital vibrance setting in the nVidia color control panel a bit as the default color setting under Vista with this display is pretty color desaturated.
 
The video card in a macbook pro is alittle weak to drive the 1920x1200 resolution of a 24" monitor.
 
santaliqueur said:
So wrong. My Mac mini did it with integrated video.
Click to expand...

Sure, it can drive it. But a mini certainly can't do it for gaming. Which is what we are talking about here. Gaming.

The 8600m in a macbook pro is alittle weak to drive 1920x1200 for gaming. Works ok for WoW. For BF2 and CoD4 it may be acceptable. Depending on how you define acceptable.
 
Archer75 said:
Sure, it can drive it. But a mini certainly can't do it for gaming. Which is what we are talking about here. Gaming.
Click to expand...
Yes, me too. Gaming.

The mini drove my Dell 2405fpw playing Half-Life 2 @1920x1200. Not very well, but great for integrated video. The MBP will do fine.
 
santaliqueur said:
Yes, me too. Gaming.

The mini drove my Dell 2405fpw playing Half-Life 2 @1920x1200. Not very well, but great for integrated video. The MBP will do fine.
Click to expand...

It all depends on how you define "fine". I had a mini. It wouldn't even play WoW at what i'd call acceptable. Even with all settings turned down to low and looking horrible it was still choppy. And that was at 800x600.

I have also played Half Life 2 on my desktop which uses a Radeon x1900xtx and it played fine, but anything less would not be acceptable to me.

From http://www.tech.co.uk/computing/upg...a/graphics-cards/other/review/intel-gma-x3100
In real-world performance terms, the low throughput of this engine shows when trying to play Doom 3 back at the high-quality setting at 800 x 600 - less than 10fps isn't playable. Half-Life 2 fared a little better at 18fps, but surprisingly this score is bettered by its last-generation graphics, which were 5fps smoother. Despite the presence of hardware T&L, the lack of fill rate is clearly a limiting factor.

So they are saying that Half Life 2 runs at 18fps at 800x600. Whatever framerates you are getting at 1920x1200 cannot be acceptable to anyone. And that's with the Intel 3100. The mini is still using the Intel 950 which is even worse.

The 8600m would be great at 1600x1200. Especially for an online shooter where frame rates are the difference between life and death. You can't lag, network or video, or you die. And I want all video settings set to max.

It all comes down to your definition of "fine".
 
Archer75 said:
The video card in a macbook pro is alittle weak to drive the 1920x1200 resolution of a 24" monitor.
Click to expand...

For what I like to see in framerates I tend to agree. That said, at the native res of 1440x900 it runs TF2 at a solid 40-100fps, sometimes dipping to 30 on wide vistas with a lot of action, with an average framerate of 60, which is absolutely playable. I can hit and run with the scout with no compromises. All my graphics settings are on high with trilinear filtering and 4X AA, so I could probably raise those framerate valleys a bit more if I scaled back, but right now it is a really solid balance.

1920 is probably too much for a big multiplayer game but dropping the res down to 1440 lets you play with all the bells and whistles. Maybe dropping settings down would help but I like eye candy also and am willing to run at a non-native resolution to crank the settings. Then again, my NEC 2490WUXi scales resolutions really well.

Now that I think about it, considering that WoW is less graphically intensive than TF2, I actually think it should run great at 1920 with the settings high.

Also, the mini is a BAD basis for comparison. Video is just crippled and it is IMO a poor value all the way around. It is the one piece of hardware in Apple's lineup I really don't like. All you are paying for is the small size (they need a headless Mac that doesn't sacrifice performance for a small footprint).
 
Hi Everyone,

Thank you for all the input here.
Sorry but I'm a bit confused with all the screen resolution stuff. :confused:

Is there anyone with a MBP who could take a screen shot of a game at varying resolutions ie: 1920x1200, 1600x1200 and 1440x900 on a 24" monitor so I can get an idea of what to expect?

I thought I'd better mention that here in the UK the price difference between a new 2008 MBP 15" and a MacPro 2.8 ghZ Quad-Core with the 8800GT card is only £196.00. This is making me start to rethink...on no!:rolleyes:
 
when gaming on an LCD you don't want to use anything other than the native resolution. For a 24" LCD or a 17" Macbook Pro it's 1920x1200. Anything less will look like crap.

The higher the resolution the better the game looks, but it also takes more power to run.
 
Archer75 said:
when gaming on an LCD you don't want to use anything other than the native resolution. For a 24" LCD or a 17" Macbook Pro it's 1920x1200. Anything less will look like crap.

The higher the resolution the better the game looks, but it also takes more power to run.
Click to expand...

So if the max res on a 15"MBP is 1440 x 900 can that not be displayed on a 24" LCD at native size rather than scaled up to 1920 x 1200?
 
Flyman said:
So if the max res on a 15"MBP is 1440 x 900 can that not be displayed on a 24" LCD at native size rather than scaled up to 1920 x 1200?
Click to expand...

You would want to display it as 1920x1200 on a 24" LCD, which is it's native size.

You can display it at resolutions below that but it looks like crap. It's the native resolution of the LCD you wish to display it on that the resolution should be set to, not necessarily the native resolution of the LCD on the macbook pro.

I didn't realize the resolution of the 15" model was so low. Most 15" notebooks these days have 1650x1080. So gaming with a 8600m at 1440x900 will be great.
 
Archer75 said:
when gaming on an LCD you don't want to use anything other than the native resolution. For a 24" LCD or a 17" Macbook Pro it's 1920x1200. Anything less will look like crap.

The higher the resolution the better the game looks, but it also takes more power to run.
Click to expand...

Actually, it depends on the monitor. 99 times out of 100, yes, running out of native res on an LCD will look like garbage. Running out of native res on the Macbook Pro LCDs will look absolutely terrible (you don't want to do 1440 on the 17" MBP). That said, running 1440x900 on the NEC 2490WUXi 24" still looks fantastic due to the awesome internal scaler it has. I play Source games on both resolutions, single player games like HL2 or Portal at 1900, multiplayer games like TF2 at 1440, and I don't get that awful non-native res bluriness that you get with most LCDs when running 1440. I have compared 1920 and 1440 on TF2 and there is no real compromise in image quality by dropping down, so I play it at 1440 to get a couple extra FPS out of it. This is huge. If you've read my comments on the display forums you know what a snob I can be (I crap on TN and MVA panels every chance I can get). :)

Now, that particular monitor costs $1200 and blows away pretty much all other 24" on the market, but that's a different thing. :) For the most part, yes, you want to keep it in native LCD res to avoid awful blurring.
 
Archer75 said:
I didn't realize the resolution of the 15" model was so low. Most 15" notebooks these days have 1650x1080. So gaming with a 8600m at 1440x900 will be great.
Click to expand...

Ironically, that's a big plus. The desktop in OS X still looks great since the MPB uses a pretty decent S-IPS panel and you get to run games native in 1440. Again, TF2 plays flawless there, love it.

That said, I wonder if and when they are going to up the res on it. I know they kept 1440 forever because they wanted to keep pixel size consistent with the 72DPI used by the print world, but now that they've added resolution independence for that kind of work you figure they'd have to up the specs on the monitor at some point. At least you can upgrade the screen on the 17" to 1920 (gorgeous).
 
Archer75 said:
You would want to display it as 1920x1200 on a 24" LCD, which is it's native size.

You can display it at resolutions below that but it looks like crap. It's the native resolution of the LCD you wish to display it on that the resolution should be set to, not necessarily the native resolution of the LCD on the macbook pro.

I didn't realize the resolution of the 15" model was so low. Most 15" notebooks these days have 1650x1080. So gaming with a 8600m at 1440x900 will be great.
Click to expand...

Now I'm really confused :confused:

Seroico posted this:
For what I like to see in framerates I tend to agree. That said, at the native res of 1440x900 it runs TF2 at a solid 40-100fps, sometimes dipping to 30 on wide vistas with a lot of action, with an average framerate of 60, which is absolutely playable. I can hit and run with the scout with no compromises. All my graphics settings are on high with trilinear filtering and 4X AA, so I could probably raise those framerate valleys a bit more if I scaled back, but right now it is a really solid balance.

1920 is probably too much for a big multiplayer game but dropping the res down to 1440 lets you play with all the bells and whistles. Maybe dropping settings down would help but I like eye candy also and am willing to run at a non-native resolution to crank the settings. Then again, my NEC 2490WUXi scales resolutions really well.

Now that I think about it, considering that WoW is less graphically intensive than TF2, I actually think it should run great at 1920 with the settings high.

Also, the mini is a BAD basis for comparison. Video is just crippled and it is IMO a poor value all the way around. It is the one piece of hardware in Apple's lineup I really don't like. All you are paying for is the small size (they need a headless Mac that doesn't sacrifice performance for a small footprint).
Click to expand...


Quote:
Originally Posted by Archer75
The video card in a macbook pro is alittle weak to drive the 1920x1200 resolution of a 24" monitor.
Click to expand...

So are you saying that I should leave the monitor at a resolution of 1920x1200 and change the game settings to 1440x900? :confused:

Apologies for my stupidity here.:eek:
 
Serpico said:
Actually, it depends on the monitor. 99 times out of 100, yes, running out of native res on an LCD will look like garbage. Running out of native res on the Macbook Pro LCDs will look absolutely terrible (you don't want to do 1440 on the 17" MBP). That said, running 1440x900 on the NEC 2490WUXi 24" still looks fantastic due to the awesome internal scaler it has. I play Source games on both resolutions, single player games like HL2 or Portal at 1900, multiplayer games like TF2 at 1440, and I don't get that awful non-native res bluriness that you get with most LCDs when running 1440. I have compared 1920 and 1440 on TF2 and there is no real compromise in image quality by dropping down, so I play it at 1440 to get a couple extra FPS out of it. This is huge. If you've read my comments on the display forums you know what a snob I can be (I crap on TN and MVA panels every chance I can get). :)

Now, that particular monitor costs $1200 and blows away pretty much all other 24" on the market, but that's a different thing. :) For the most part, yes, you want to keep it in native LCD res to avoid awful blurring.
Click to expand...

So I'm looking at getting a BenQ241W - Do you know if the internal scaler of that monitor is good enough to display COD4 at 1440x900?
 
Flyman said:
So are you saying that I should leave the monitor at a resolution of 1920x1200 and change the game settings to 1440x900? :confused:

Apologies for my stupidity here.:eek:
Click to expand...

Not necessarily.

Set the display resolution to the native resolution of the LCD you are displaying on. You set the game resolution to the same thing. This will yield the best visual quality.

You can set it lower but it looks like crap. Unless in the rare case you have a killer LCD as pointed out above. Even so, set your display in the OS settings always to the LCD's native resolution. If you wan to experiment with lower resolutions I recommend doing it in the games settings.

Flyman said:
So I'm looking at getting a BenQ241W - Do you know if the internal scaler of that monitor is good enough to display COD4 at 1440x900?
Click to expand...

I doubt it. I mean you can display at any resolution below native rez that you want. It will most likely look like crap.

Just plan on playing at the native resolution of whatever monitor you wish to connect your macbook pro to. If you are really set on gaming there are better notebooks out there for less money. They just won't be apple's.
 
Flyman said:
So if the max res on a 15"MBP is 1440 x 900 can that not be displayed on a 24" LCD at native size rather than scaled up to 1920 x 1200?
Click to expand...

the max resolution on the MBP's screen is 1440 x 900, but the DVI port on the MPB can output higher resolutions than that if it is required (e.g. if you plug it on a 24", 1920 x 1200 monitor). However, a higher resolution image will required a beefier card to run the same settings, hence why everyone here says it might not run very well on the monitor's native resolution.

However, you can always output a lower resolution to the monitor (1440 x 900, for example), although that might not look good on the external monitor since it's not its native resolution.
 
Little late to this thread, but my 17" 2.4ghz MBP with 4gig ram plays WoW at 1920x1200 very smooth with all settings maxxed.
 
I've been playing Team Fortress 2, Portal, AudioSurf, and GTA: San Andreas, on Windows XP boot camped. Everything is at max settings. Runs great and looks great.

This is on a MacBook Pro 15.4", the newest model. Still at 2gb RAM, but I ordered 2x2GB sticks from NewEgg so they should be here soon. Was trying to get Starcraft installed on my OSX but can't seem to get it.
 
my MBP (see sig below) runs games like HL2 just fine.
 
CKMorpheus said:
This is on a MacBook Pro 15.4", the newest model. Still at 2gb RAM, but I ordered 2x2GB sticks from NewEgg so they should be here soon. Was trying to get Starcraft installed on my OSX but can't seem to get it.
Click to expand...

how much was the RAM that you ordered? link?
 
Well I've now changed my mind and not decided to take the risk with the MBP.
Given that I can buy a 2.8 ghZ MacPro Quad Core with an 8800GT for just short of £200 more than an MBP thats now the route I'm going to take.
Thanks to everyone that posted here its been a big help.:)

Cheers
Flyman
 
Flyman said:
Well I've now changed my mind and not decided to take the risk with the MBP.
Given that I can buy a 2.8 ghZ MacPro Quad Core with an 8800GT for just short of £200 more than an MBP thats now the route I'm going to take.
Thanks to everyone that posted here its been a big help.:)

Cheers
Flyman
Click to expand...

Congrats! You should only buy a notebook if you need a computer on the go. While the MBP truly is an excellent desktop replacement, if you are never ever going to take it out then there is no point.

Enjoy your new machine!
 
Serpico said:
Congrats! You should only buy a notebook if you need a computer on the go. While the MBP truly is an excellent desktop replacement, if you are never ever going to take it out then there is no point.

Enjoy your new machine!
Click to expand...

Thanks Serpico I most certainly will.
Oh and I forgot to mention that I also bought a BenQ FP241W to to go with it!
All should be up and running in about a week all being well.:D
 
is the 2.5ghz cpu / 512mb vid card ram upgrade worth it? can the 256mb video card handle games with lowered special effects at 1920x1200?
 
kvcrawford said:
is the 2.5ghz cpu / 512mb vid card ram upgrade worth it? can the 256mb video card handle games with lowered special effects at 1920x1200?
Click to expand...

No idea, but you can check out Barefeats and see if there are any benchmarks that can help you out: http://www.barefeats.com/

I expect that the 512MB video RAM is a big help, but that said since it is the same GPU you should be able to run the same games well at slightly lowered settings.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top