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    macbook with 2GB of RAM

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by kingcrowing, Jun 19, 2006.

  1. kingcrowing

    kingcrowing Notebook Evangelist

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    does anyone have a macbook (2GHz, black or white) with 2GB of RAM? If so how does it do with gaming, espically UT 2004? Since it has shared graphics I was wondering how gaming performance would improve with 4x the RAM...
     
    kingcrowing, Jun 19, 2006
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  2. Tokuman

    Tokuman Notebook Evangelist

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    I am not a mac expert, but I am 99.9 percent that ram has little to do with a video game. What you should be concerned about is the video card.

    Anything 1 gig or higher will play all games made in 2004. However, 100,000 gigs of ram won't help you if you don't have a good enough graphics card.
     
    Tokuman, Jun 19, 2006
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  3. kingcrowing

    kingcrowing Notebook Evangelist

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    um, this has nothing to do with macs specifically, it has to do with intel integrated graphics, it taks system RAM and uses it for graphics RAM, and the more RAM you have the better it will perform, and yeah if you had 100TB of RAM, any game would run at max settings even with integrated graphics
     
    kingcrowing, Jun 19, 2006
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  4. RadcomTxx

    RadcomTxx Notebook Deity

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    having more ram will help. OS X knows how to take advantage of the extra ram, and especially with an integrated card, any extra ram you can afford will help tremondously.
     
    RadcomTxx, Jun 19, 2006
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  5. dirtybryan

    dirtybryan Notebook Geek

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    I know Doom 3 was playable on the MacBook, but I don't believed it really excelled. RAM certainly helps, but to think that gaming performance and video ram have a direct correlation would be a mistake. The graphics card/module performs calculations, the memory it has access to certainly helps.
     
    dirtybryan, Jun 19, 2006
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  6. kingcrowing

    kingcrowing Notebook Evangelist

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    I know that, I'm not expecting it to be amazing I just wanted to know if you could do any gaming at all on the macbook or if its really just not a good idea...
     
    kingcrowing, Jun 19, 2006
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  7. LostCause

    LostCause Notebook Guru

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    You can, but it's not the best idea.

    Macbooks (all apple's, really) don't have the graphical number-crunching capacity similar PC's do...intentionally. RAM only allows processors to access files faster, it doesn't increase the actual processing speed...the gpu's the bottle neck; having the whole program in RAM isn't going to help.

    The macbook can handle just about anything 2d or intense in generic code...
     
    LostCause, Jun 20, 2006
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  8. cashmonee

    cashmonee Notebook Virtuoso NBR Reviewer

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    No amount of RAM in the world will help the MacBook's or any integrated gpu perform better. First, they are limited in the amount they can steal (64MB in the MacBook I believe). Second the Achilles heal of integrated graphics is really speed. It cannot access the system RAM fast enough. A graphics card has it's RAM onboard, making it much faster. Finally there is the chip itself. The highest end integrated gpu(which is not Intel's GMA 950) will not outperform the lowest end dedicated solution.

    The point? Don't expect anything to be more than playable as long as the game is at least 1 1/2 to 2 years old. Anything newer will probably not be very playable unless the game scales well, i.e. Half-Life series.

    **EDIT** Also realize when some people say playable, they mean if you can put up with alot of hiccups. Playable to some is deffinitely not playable to others.
     
    cashmonee, Jun 20, 2006
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  9. catherine

    catherine Notebook Consultant

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    when you ask if it can do any gaming, then sure it can, if you don't mind all the glitches. is it a good idea? nope. if you are into gaming, a dedicated graphics card is a must.
     
    catherine, Jun 20, 2006
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  10. sibelius

    sibelius Notebook Enthusiast

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    My friend has just bought a macbook 2GHz with 2 GB of ram. He likes to play UT2004. On his 1GHz G4 tower with 2 GB of ram he gets about 16 FPS. The game is quite playable. On the macbook he gets about 24 FPS. It seems faster and plays without too many hiccups. He also plays Warcraft 3 and it runs just fine. He is very happy with the results of his macbook.

    HOWEVER,

    The only thing that seriously improves 3D graphics performance is a dedicated video card. You will not get good results with the newer games on your macbook. If you are looking for a notebook for gaming the macbook pro is a better choice (in the apple family).

    sibelius

    P.S. The speakers on the macbook are one of its weakest features - specifically the volume. my friend is hoping for a firmware update on this issue, but he's not optimistic.
     
    sibelius, Jun 20, 2006
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