Gaming

I really like the 17" MBP but am having 2nd thoughts on it . . . I am working overseas and would like to use it for watching movies, photo editing and gaming. I am going to want to play Fallout 3 and when I return home WoW. So my question is: Using BootCamp with the 2.66Ghz proc and 4BG Ram, how will it perform on those 2 games? Will I be able to play Fallout 3 at full res on max settings? What about WoW? Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

Fallout 3 should run pretty good (I doubt max res and settings, but will be able to get a good looking and good frame rate picture)... not my type of game so I haven't ever tried it, but I have Vista on my 15" MBP and it runs games just fine... as for WoW, no need to run that in Windows... can run it fine in OSX, and it runs extremely well too.

 

You will be able to max out WoW but i doubt you will be able to play fall out maxed out.

 

I currently only do WoW on my 17" unibody. This game is quite strange. When I run at 1920x1200 vs 1280x800 with same texture settings, the framerates are the same. You only get better performance by messing around with the sliders. I play with every slider on max except view distance at half, and the foliage density at half. Runs just fine.

For anything else, you can get by in windows, just use a nice res like 1280x800.

 

There are not many notebooks that will run a new FPS maxed out at 1920x1200. Not to say it won't run Fallout 3 fine, but maybe not maxed. WoW will be no problem at all, it's not very demanding.

 

Actually I have run through FO3 on my late 2008 MBP (when I had bootcamp running to try it out), and now I play WOW probably 10-20 hours a week, sometimes for hours at a time.

It did get pretty warm with FO3, but that was under windows. WOW also gets warm, however I use a cooler between the MBP and my lap (Zalman 2000), so it isn't an issue. It has NEVER shut down in either case, unlike the XPS 1710 I replaced with the MBP.

As far a "maxed out", I don't know, I always let the system pick the best resolution for itself. In the case of the MBP with these two games I have not been disappointed at all...and you can tell I have discerning taste or I wouldn't have a MBP! =) ...

 

I really don't get it why there's so little said about the fan noise when gaming on the MBP. It's a pretty fast gaming machine but the loudness (high pitched) of the fans is really annoying to me (and yes I'm picky about this)

 

Well I always turn up fans to 4500 rpm before going into WoW so temps never get bad at all. And I'm coming from a gateway fx which has a much higher pitch fan noise so this macbook's high fan speed is more than acceptable for me.

 

Thank you all for the input and just FYI I have narrowed my buying plans to the MBP, Alienware M17 or Asus W90. I like the battery life, size and styling of the MBP more than anything. I like the power of the W90 and screen size (18") since this will be my entertainment system while overseas. The M17 would be better than the W90 if/when it gets the ATI 4870 upgrades. So . . . now I guess I will keep an eye on these forums for the next couple weeks and decide. Thanks again.

 

almost all laptops will do that under stress. and the macbook pro is among them.

 

If you are going to be overseas and on planes and such running the laptop on battery life, then I'd highly recommend the macbook pro. If you are going to be plugged into a wall most of the time, then I'd go with the alienware or whatnots.

Have you considered the Gateway FX? I owned two of them before switching over and they're mighty fine laptops. Pretty "thin" for a gaming pc laptop. Doesn't run very hot, and has roughly 3 hours battery life NOT while gaming of course. Not sure if you can still find 1920x1200 native res versions but if you can, they're a kick computer. Plus they're very very affordable and everything is easily self upgradable minus the gpu which is soldered onto the motherboard.