Window's Games on MBP

Several questions on MBP who Games a sufficient amount(slight more then a Casual game, way less then a hard core gamer).

How do you run or games? Seperat Windows Partition(boot Camp)? Parralles? VMware Fusion? Mixture? Others? I know there is a Open source(free) one, can't remeber the name.

Your personal results(smothness? Frames per second, Gaphic settings), and please just don't point me to Running Windows on a Mac: Boot Camp, Parallels & VMware Fusion , yes benchmarks are nice but i want someone who has actually played.

What games have you played? Any games that haven't worked?

I myself am more of a casual gamer, mostly I play RTS. Not a real bit on FPS unless they are geared toward online play and are free i.e. Battlefield 2142, Steam related games(CS, CSS, DOD).

Right now I am leaning toward a Clevo/Sager notebook, I know a few people with a MBP, and I've installed Windows on their machines using Boot Camp, but none of them really care about gameing, unless you consider Yahoo Games, or Solitare people to be hard core gamers.

I am also aware that MBP use Quadro cards which have counter part in the geforce series, but from my understanding these cards a more for designers(CAD).

 

many say windows runs better in bootcamp than on any other computer, u will be fine just play games in bootcamp

 

As far as I know, the MacBook Pro comes equipped with the NVidia 8600M GT video cards. The lower end model carries 128 Mb and the upper ones, 256 Mb (both GDDR3, if I'm not mistaken).
I've read "Windows gaming" on this notebook with Boot Camp is just like it would be on a PC. The 256 Mb is better for high textured games and the 1400 x 900 resolution taxes the GPU a lot less than higher ones (as you can see, I'd go with the upper 15.4" laptop).
Hope it helps!

 

They all utilize GDDR3.

And, they do not use quadro cards.

If you're probably thinking of the T61P's Quadro FX570.(It's equivalent to the 8600m GT)

 

Yea I game often on my MBP.

I have a seperate XP partition, and I've updated my drivers from bootcamp ones. Gaming is perfectly fine, and I'm happy with it.

As for games ive played, TF2,HL2,Jericho,UT3 beta, crysis sp demo, MOD4 demo, World in conflict, and probably a couple others.

Gaming is fine, although it may require some tweaking to get it to run smoothly on some games, others like crysis runs fine with default settings.

My setup though is gaming off an external 7200rpm drive, with eSata. It's as fast as internal drive, and its also faster then the 5400 that came with my MBP. Although the only problem is that you have to either not play some games when you dont have the external, or carry it around with you.

I only have my windows partition at 20gb, just so I have more space in OSX but ofcourse you could make it bigger if you want, I just have it so I can carry around TF2 with me, and play other games off the external.

Hope that helps.

 

I've played Portal, HL2 (Original, EP1, EP2), C&C3, Bioshock, FEAR, GTA San Andreas, Call of Duty 2, Pro Evolution Soccer 2008, NFS Carbon, Flatout 2, Company of Heroes, Lost Planet: Extreme Conditions, and some I can't remember right now.

They all work fine if not great. The HL2 games work awesome at 1440x900 (native res) with all settings maxed out + AA at ~40 to ~50 FPS.

C&C3 was working awesome at 1280x800 all maxed out. 1440x900 was getting a bit choppy when there's lots of things going down on the screen. But I really couldn't see the difference between the 2 resolutions.

So yeah, the MBP is a pretty good gaming machine despite what everybody's saying "Don't get a Mac if you wanna game". It's rock solid, I haven't had a crash in Windows since... I'm quite amazed. And of course it's sexy as hell, and it has OS X which is virus free and awesome!

Hope this helps too, cheers!

 

Im currently playing Oblivion on mine, works great!

 

I've played supreme commander, HL2, Counter-Strike Source, Warcraft III, Lineage 2, Rappelz, Oblivion and many other games on my MBP. It works fine.
If you want to play games. Buy yourself a Macbook and buy a PC for gaming.
Macbook 1700$, PC 1500$--- My Macbook Pro with 4gb and 200gb 7200rpm HDD
....3200$.

And the 128mg or 256 doesnt change much in performance, since if you had more RAM it will take some from your internal.

Benchmarking on both system showed the difference was caused by the different processor.

 

I might as well use this thread to address this question. I've already read the driver threads, been to the driver website, but I am still confused as to what nvidia driver I should have installed...?
I have the latest 8600M GT... is there an updated driver I should have for gaming in bootcamp? If so, can someone please just link me to that driver? Thanks.

 

I just copy/pasted this from one of my previous posts in another thread. See if you can find it.

You can get updated Graphics Drivers from LaptopVideo2Go.

Read the QuickStart Guide and follow the instructions for XP or Vista. Make sure you download and replace the Modded INF.

There is also a wealth of knowledge in The Mobile Graphics Card Info Page created by Chaz.

For reference, I'm using Windows XP Pro with ForceWare v169.01.

 

Window games run great on a MBP.

i've had no problems with it.

 

This is the exact post I've been looking for! I too am looking at a Sager/clevo variant vs. the MBP (15" maxed out everthing else) The question I have probably can't be answered, but at what point do you current MBP users think you will be unable to play the newest games? I dont have to have max settings always on, I just want to be able to play the games. Since the MBP does everything else I want, the only thing holding me back is the video card. Will I really regret the purchase in 2 to 3 years?

thanks!

 

I've talked about it before, but my pc rig had a 6600(agp), and 2.5amd, and 3 gigs of ram.

It could still play all games that were released today, and I was playing bioshock on it with decent settings when it came out.

Since I got my MBP though, I havn't touched it though ;p

So yea that card is like 3-4 years old and it could still play games.