Macworld Forums: Game Room Weblog: MacBook gaming: A graphics concern? - Macworld Forums

Because the MacBook features an integrated graphics chip that shares memory with the system RAM, there ahve been questions about how well -- or not well -- this new laptop will play games. Rob Griffiths puts his MacBook to the test with everything from the latest-and-greatest 3-D games to the casual games of yesteryear to try and pin down the laptop's performance. [more]

I appreciate this info..
Would it be possible to check out the performance of World of Warcraft on the MacBook or Mac Mini versus the iMac and/or MacBook Pro?
Given that WoW is one of the most popular computer games out there right now AND is available natively on the Mac, with a universal binary to boot, I'm surprised it doesn't get coverage from you guys. Since the game ships on a hybrid disk, it's also likely to be one of the only Mac-compatible games that current PC owners would have, were they to suddenly buy a Mac.

I tested stuff out of my own personal collection. And since I'm not a WoW player, it didn't get tested, because I don't own it /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif.
Peter has written about WoW before in the forums relative to the mini (and maybe the MacBook); a search in the fourms should find it. To test it, you really need to play it, as I understand it, as the frame rate can vary greatly from one area to the next, and there's no way to benchmark the results.
-rob.

In short, we don't benchmark WoW because there's no way to benchmark WoW consistently and reliably -- I've checked with Blizzard engineers on this, they agree with me.
Because WoW is a massively multiplayer online game, with an emphasis on online (there is no local mode to run), WoW's relative performance is affected by network latency, what location you're in, what server you're playing on, how complex the graphics in that area are, how many players are on your server and other factors that are not consistent or repeatable. WoW can display frame rates, but it doesn't have a way of providing cumulative scores or averages over a given period or repeating the same tasks, unlike other games that we do benchmark.
As a result, any benchmark numbers that we could come up with for WoW wouldn't really mean a lot. So it's not part of benchmarking standard, as much as we'd like it to be.

I would just like to add that I purchased a Macbook 2.0GHz this weekend, dropped 2GB of g.skill PC5300 memory in it, installed BootCamp and XP on a 5GB partition, and am happily playing Civ4. It doesn't run "like a dream", but I'm running with full graphics settings and it's far better than "playable", i.e. 90% of the time it's very smooth. It's ALWAYS responsive, but sometimes there are framerate drops when moving across heavily populated maps at certain zoom levels.
I'd turn some of the settings down, but it doesn't bother me, so I prefer the "pretty".

In regards to WoW, I've been playing it on my Intel Core Duo Mac Mini for the past 2-3 weeks. It's not the best in the world, but it's playable. I have all the graphic settings set up to max and then the viewing distance kinda low. The viewing distance is what can really slow it down. From my testing, lowering the other settings didn't really help performance all that much, so I just left them all at max. I get around 15-20fps in typical areas where you'll be out killing random enemies and anywhere from 5-15fps in highly populated areas like Ironforge.
The Macbook will probably perform marginally better b/c of the faster cpu, but I don't think it'd be by much. Also, I'm doing this with 2 gigs of ram. I wouldn't dream of running WoW on my mini or a Macbook with anything less.
Hope that helps ^^

I understand that WoW cannot be benchmarked, but what about an admittedly subjective 'playability' rating? Something along the lines of:
"First I ran through Ironforge/Molten Core/unpopulated corner of Azshara on my boffo PowerMac G5 with GeForce 7800GT and experienced gameplay that was smooth as my fiery-enchanted Ancient Qiraji Ripper through Alterac butter. I then immediately ran through the same on my MacBook with 2GB RAM and experienced gameplay that stuttered in Ironforge and Molten Core like a silenced mage but was of at least the quality of a main-instance-tanking druid in the unpopulated corner of Azshara."
For those of us who look at benchmarks comparatively as opposed to statements of absolute truth in performance, I think this would be helpful...

"Decided RAM" seems like a good idea. Undecided RAM would sooner or later cause errors. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Fingers outpaced my brain again. Fixed.
-rob.

I have to admit I am stunned by the comment that a mac user wanting to play games should buy a console.
Gaming has always been a missed opportunity by Apple. I think it is worrying that Apple release a new laptop that is incapable of playing new games such as Civ 4. We're talking Civilization for goodness sake. I can understand not getting good frame rates on new FPS games with a standard Macbook. But I think it is foolish that Apple did not have a dedicated video card with this machine. Then they could have offered a state of the art graphics card as a build to order option for serious gamers.
If Apple is serious about wanting switchers they need to offer machines that aren't hampered for gaming straight out of the box.
Let's hope the rumors of a Macbook gaming are true.

If you want to play games, a lot of games, and high quality games, then a Mac (regardless of speed) is not the best choice.
Football? We don't have it. Racing games? We have a couple minor ones, but nothing major. Soccer? One top-down arcade-like game. Half Life? Nope. Halo 2? Nope. Gran Turismo? Nope. Flight sims? We have X-Plane, which is very good, but that's it. The latest FPS? We usually seem them 12 to 15 months after the fact, and even then, they run slower with fewer features enabled than they do on the PC.
Like it or not, the Mac is not a gaming machine. Buying one to play games doesn't make any form of sense. If you own one, though, there are games that they can play.
Had they put a better video card in it, they would have had to charge more for the machine -- a simple upgrade to the bottom-of-the-ladder card wouldn't make for a much better gaming experience. Then people would have complained about pricing.
Hence, I stand by my recommendation -- if you are serious about games, don't buy a MacBook for playing them. If you're serious about gaming on the Mac in general, buy the fastest machine you can afford. But for a whole lot less money, a console will provide more games, and different games, than we have on the Mac.
-rob.

If you want to play games, a lot of games, and high quality games, then a Mac (regardless of speed) is not the best choice.
Football? We don't have it. Racing games? We have a couple minor ones, but nothing major. Soccer? One top-down arcade-like game. Half Life? Nope. Halo 2? Nope. Gran Turismo? Nope. Flight sims? We have X-Plane, which is very good, but that's it. The latest FPS? We usually seem them 12 to 15 months after the fact, and even then, they run slower with fewer features enabled than they do on the PC.

except that now we can use bootcamp-->windows. ALL games are available. There is no reason apple cant be a good gaming choice anymore.
Gaming on a LAPTOP will always be limited because they are non upgradeable - but come on, it should still be able to play civ4! Given the macbooks target audience i think integrated graphics is fine, what is inexcusable IMHO is that inorder to get more performance you need to go to a 15" screen !

Thanks for the info /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Could someone test Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory? It's one of the few games I still play along with Battlefield 1942. I now run them on an OLD dell with all the setting turned down. The Quake 3 numbers look good.
Thanks.