Is Mac anygood?

[Gigan13]

Hey guys I was hoping to buy a mac notebook and its currently has 512 ram and stuff, well anyway is a mac notebook good for gaming?? and are they fast?

 

[drag]

Linux is better for gaming then Macs if that gives you any clue about what you'd want.

As far as speed goes they are pretty decent. Similar performance on similar hardware for the desktop as any other operating system. People buy them for the UI and for the hardware integration.

 

[Ecgtheow]

Originally posted by: Gigan13
Is a mac notebook good for gaming??

Not really. It depends on what games you play and how often you do it.

Originally posted by: Gigan13
Are they fast?

As fast any PC notebook with similar specs.

 

[Gigan13]

SO can I at least run guildwars?

also, can anyone help me run a seacr. Because if you check out this webpage http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/W...a/wo/0.RSLID?mco=A4791B5D&nclm=MacBook
you see that not any of these have a video card.

 

[Ecgtheow]

Originally posted by: Gigan13
SO can I at least run guildwars?

Let's see:

What are the system requirements for Guild Wars?

Minimum System Specs:
Windows XP/2000/ME/98
Intel Pentium III 800 Mhz or equivalent
256 MB RAM
CD-ROM Drive
2 GB Available HDD Space
ATI Radeon 8500 or GeForce 3 or 4 MX Series Video Card with 32MB of VRAM
16-bit Sound Card
Internet connection
Keyboard and mouse
Recommended System Specs:
Windows XP/2000/ME/98
Intel Pentium III 1GHz or equivalent
512 MB RAM
CD-ROM Drive
2 GB Available HDD Space
ATI Radeon 9000 or GeForce 4 Ti Series Video Card with 64MB of VRAM
16-bit Sound Card
Internet connection
Keyboard and mouse

You can't run it natively, but if you really want to you can install Boot Camp and dual boot between OS X and Windows XP.

The MacBooks (non pro) use an Intel GMA 950, so it won't be a gaming powerhouse, even running Windows. Other stuff should be just fine.

 

[drag]

Yep. Can't run it in OS X. You can run it in dual boot with Linux/cedega or Windows (windows prefered for just gaming generally).

 

[Gigan13]

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/W...a/wo/0.RSLID?mco=A4791B5D&nclm=MacBook check out the macs on the homepage. Can all of these boot in windows. ANd also does macs have video card?

 

[drag]

Oh they have video cards. But it's the onboard GMA 950 with shared memory. Plenty fast enough to play games up to the level of Wolfenstein and a little bit above that with good framerates. About in between a 9200 and 9600 ATI video card depending on usage.

If you want fast video cards you have to go:
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/W...a/wo/StoreReentry.wo?family=MacBookPro

 

[Gigan13]

Oh how bout the ram??? is 512 ram good?(sorry a newbie at computers) and can that 1,099 notebook I am planning to buy, be booted to windows and play guildwars at a normal experience?

 

[Bowsky]

Any of the new Intel Macs can use boot camp and boot into Mac OSX or Windows natively.

As for the debate between Linux and OSX for gaming I would pick OSX. It is much easier to install and play a game on OSX than it is on any Linux distro. Also, many more games run on OSX natively as compared Linux. With gaming the fact of the matter is that it's easiest and fastest under Windows.

There is a lack of a discrete graphics solution in the MacBook. The Intel solution can power the computer fine in day-to-day use and even entry level multimedia task (which is more than Vista can say). However, try using the MacBook with a large amount of HD video or gaming (whether in OSX or Windows) and you are going to suffer from the consequences of its abysmal performance. Unfortunately the only option is to move the MacBook Pro which will give you a larger laptop (15" vs 13.3") and a much higher price (~$2000 vs ~$1100).

I hope this information helps you out.

Finally if you don't mind me asking, I'm interested in why are you making the switch. As a soon to be MacBook Pro owner I'm interested to see why others are making the jump over to Apple.

 

[Gigan13]

Bowsky is 512 ram any good???? and your question I don't seem to understand.

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: Gigan13
Bowsky is 512 ram any good????

512MB should be enough if you are running the games natively on XP, though most people would agree that 1GB is the standard for gaming nowadays if you want a smooth experience.

 

[Gigan13]

whats natively mean?

 

[Ecgtheow]

Originally posted by: Noema

Originally posted by: Gigan13
Bowsky is 512 ram any good????

512MB should be enough if you are running the games natively on XP, though most people would agree that 1GB is the standard for gaming nowadays if you want a smooth experience.

Under OS X more ram makes a big difference, especially with an Intel machine. You'll want to bump the ram up to 1 or 2 GB.

 

[Gigan13]

Originally posted by: Ecgtheow

Originally posted by: Noema

Originally posted by: Gigan13
Bowsky is 512 ram any good????

512MB should be enough if you are running the games natively on XP, though most people would agree that 1GB is the standard for gaming nowadays if you want a smooth experience.

Under OS X more ram makes a big difference, especially with an Intel machine. You'll want to bump the ram up to 1 or 2 GB.

How bout, if you boot it in windows?

 

[Ecgtheow]

Originally posted by: Gigan13

Originally posted by: Ecgtheow

Originally posted by: Noema

Originally posted by: Gigan13
Bowsky is 512 ram any good????

512MB should be enough if you are running the games natively on XP, though most people would agree that 1GB is the standard for gaming nowadays if you want a smooth experience.

Under OS X more ram makes a big difference, especially with an Intel machine. You'll want to bump the ram up to 1 or 2 GB.

How bout, if you boot it in windows?

It certainly wouldn't hurt, but I don't know enough about how Windows XP manages memory to tell you if the difference is as big as it is under OS X.

 

[Gigan13]

SO how bout, like I have a mac book and boot it to windows??? is that good enough for at least guildwars?

 

[Ecgtheow]

Originally posted by: Gigan13
SO how bout, like I have a mac book and boot it to windows??? is that good enough for at least guildwars?

No, since the GMA 950 doesn't meet the minimum spec for the graphics hardware.

 

[Gigan13]

I see ECG do you have nay instant messaging place I could contact you with? if you do please Pm me. ANyway this game I love its wall warcraft 3 the frozen throne? any idea do you think I can run that?

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Ecgtheow

Originally posted by: Gigan13
SO how bout, like I have a mac book and boot it to windows??? is that good enough for at least guildwars?

No, since the GMA 950 doesn't meet the minimum spec for the graphics hardware.

It should. It's considurably faster then the ATI 9000 and it can map up to 224 megs of RAM.

 

[Ecgtheow]

Originally posted by: Gigan13
I see ECG do you have nay instant messaging place I could contact you with? if you do please Pm me. ANyway this game I love its wall warcraft 3 the frozen throne? any idea do you think I can run that?

It should be fine from a speed perspective, but some people have had problems running it in Rosetta. There doesn't seem to be a consistent pattern behind it though.

Originally posted by: drag
It should. It's considurably faster then the ATI 9000 and it can map up to 224 megs of RAM.

Is it? It supports a DX9 level feature set, but it does do some big stuff in software (T&L) so it's slower than it would indicate on paper. If I'm wrong correct me, and if you have any really good links on it, I'd love to see them.

 

[mb]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: Ecgtheow

Originally posted by: Gigan13
SO how bout, like I have a mac book and boot it to windows??? is that good enough for at least guildwars?

No, since the GMA 950 doesn't meet the minimum spec for the graphics hardware.

It should. It's considurably faster then the ATI 9000 and it can map up to 224 megs of RAM.

It will run like crap on a GMA 950.

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: Gigan13
whats natively mean?

Natively, as in not emulated.

In other words, using Bootcamp to boot right up into Windows XP, instead of running XP in some sort of virtual machine inside OSX.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Ecgtheow

Originally posted by: Gigan13
I see ECG do you have nay instant messaging place I could contact you with? if you do please Pm me. ANyway this game I love its wall warcraft 3 the frozen throne? any idea do you think I can run that?

It should be fine from a speed perspective, but some people have had problems running it in Rosetta. There doesn't seem to be a consistent pattern behind it though.

Originally posted by: drag
It should. It's considurably faster then the ATI 9000 and it can map up to 224 megs of RAM.

Is it? It supports a DX9 level feature set, but it does do some big stuff in software (T&L) so it's slower than it would indicate on paper. If I'm wrong correct me, and if you have any really good links on it, I'd love to see them.

What, benchmarks of GMA 950 on that game?

I doubt if any exist.

I play games on one, nothing realy modern. A few racing games, a few FPS. Enhanced Quake2 engines. Quake3, Wolfenstien. That sort of things. I wouldn't play anything very modern on it. 100fps isn't to difficult to get on these older games.

According to Anandtech stuff it'll run Doom3 at about 15 fps with 800x600 at high quality or HL2 it'll get 20fps on benchmarks with 800x600 at highest quality. If that's any indication of it's speed.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2427&p=1

That's slightly better then what you got with Doom3 on a ATI 9200..
http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2146

(that's a 3.6ghz p4 + GMA 950 vs a oc'd 2.6ghz AMD FX53)

Guildwars is a role playing game, right? Graphical performance isn't a big deal compared to something like a first person shooter. Also the Macbook has nice fast dual core cpus and that's going help a lot. I expect that the game would be very playable. It's not going to be something wonderfull, but it's a laptop after all. I wouldn't want to play games on it simply from the blur on the LCD display, personally.

And I wouldn't be suprised if dual channel RAM over a PCI Express x16 bus is as fast or faster then the onboard ram on something as old as what is indicated in the minimal requirements.

 

[Ecgtheow]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: Ecgtheow

Originally posted by: Gigan13
I see ECG do you have nay instant messaging place I could contact you with? if you do please Pm me. ANyway this game I love its wall warcraft 3 the frozen throne? any idea do you think I can run that?

It should be fine from a speed perspective, but some people have had problems running it in Rosetta. There doesn't seem to be a consistent pattern behind it though.

Originally posted by: drag
It should. It's considurably faster then the ATI 9000 and it can map up to 224 megs of RAM.

Is it? It supports a DX9 level feature set, but it does do some big stuff in software (T&L) so it's slower than it would indicate on paper. If I'm wrong correct me, and if you have any really good links on it, I'd love to see them.

What, benchmarks of GMA 950 on that game?

No, just some detailed info on the chip itself. All I could find on Intel's site was a bunch of bullet points.