MacBook Gaming... it's possible!

Well, this is directed to people who wish to purchase a MacBook but also wish to do some moderate/heavy gaming on the system.

Note: This is all from my personal experience on my own MacBook (specs below)

Apple MacBook (Black, 2,1 Model)
2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 w/ 4MB L2 Cache
2048 MB (2 GB) DDRII PC5300 (667MHz) Ram
120 GB Hard Disk Drive, SATA 1.5gb/s @ 5400 RPM
Intel GMA950 Graphics Card, 64 MB in OSX, 224 MB in XP/Vista
13.3" WXGA Screen, Glossy, 1280x800

Now, for most people, its true that the Intel GMA950 card isn't designed for gaming. However, it doesn't mean it's not possible for gaming.

Here's a list of the few games I've ran on my MacBook:

> Counter Strike
> Day Of Defeat
> World In Conflict BETA
> Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
> Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force
> X2: The Threat
> Starcraft Brood Wars
> Civilization 4 (ALL expansion packs)
> ToCA Race Driver 3
> Warcraft III
> Guild Wars

Note: All these games are played on Windows XP and/or Vista

Obviously, that's not all the games I have, just the ones I've played and tested on the MacBook.

In short of World In Conflict BETA, X2: The Threat, ToCA Race Driver 3, Civilization 4 and Guild Wars, I've been able to run every other game at MAX settings along with 1280x800 resolution with little to none slowdowns or lags. FPS were all at least 30 making it completely playable.

For World In Conflict BETA, don't let the screenshots fool you. I ran this game at 1280x800 with VERY LOW settings and still be able to achieve ~20+ fps in most areas. Granted, it does get a little choppy but the game runs, plays well, doesn't freeze for 1 second or such other. (This could be due to my 2 GB of RAM)

X2: The Threat, for those who've played this game, it's pretty addicting. I've ran several benchmarks and having 1280x800 @ Auto Quality seems to be the best. I get average 49.3 FPS. Of a period of 3 benchmarks at random times, the lowest FPS average rating I received is 45.9 FPS. This is pretty good especially since my Dell Inspiron 8600 with its ATi Mobility 9600 Pro Turbo only receives 54.2 FPS average with the same settings.

ToCA Race Driver 3, Pretty fun racing game if you haven't tried it. Not an insanely high end requirement game but does tax a lot on the Ram. I've tried Medium settings at 1280x800 and it ran with 25-35 FPS.

Guild Wars, I personally don't play this game much anymore so I've only installed it to see its performance. I kept it on low @ 1280x800 and was able to achieve 40 FPS +/- 5 FPS during most of the area. In crowded areas, I saw a slight drop, nothing below 30 FPS though.

Civilization 4, I have all the expansion packs, both warlords and the new one.. can't remember the name off the top of my head.. Beyond the Sword maybe? not sure... anyways, I run this game at 1280x800 with everything turned down to low but still keep animations on. Without an FPS meter, I'd think the game runs pretty smooth. Turns goes by fast, etc. However, with a FPS meter, it'll show I'm holding only at 20 FPS (sometimes a little less depending on map). But this part is where it depends on the user... some gamers believe that 20 FPS is too choppy but others can play it fine. Since its a turn based game, insanely high FPS doesn't do much good except make the pieces move smoother.

Remember, these games are played with Boot Camp in Windows XP and/or Vista

If you're not a completely graphic oriented person and can play these games on LOW settings, the MacBook has just enough power to play some of the games currently on the market.

On a side note, for the game, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, I've tried playing both the OSX Universal and the Windows counterpart. In OSX, I can barely maintain a 15-20 FPS range with no action, much less go out into the battle zone with people shooting their guns everywhere. It was completely unplayable, mostly due to the lack of Video Ram being shared by OSX. However, with its Windows counterpart, I was able to hold 60 FPS stable when I'm not doing anything, and 40+ fps during battles. So granted some games are Mac compatible, but performance does suffer depending on the game.

mmm... I should be getting to bed now, I haven't been sleep much lately... I think I'm developing Insomnia

Oh, I should add, and some of the replies have mentioned, if you were to run some of the modern games out right now on the MacBook, expect the performance to be mediocre. The system wasn't originally designed for gaming in mind. As long as you don't expect to run the game at ALL HIGH with something like 6x AA and 16x AF, then you should be fine.

But for someone like me, I needed a fast/light/small machine for college and away from the random crashes I always get from Windows so I got the MacBook (I actually looked into several different models before choosing the MacBook). Of course I could goto something like Ubuntu but each is to their own.

I'm gonna try and keep this post updated as much as I can...

Swat 4 (Expansion), If anyone played it, I love this game. I personally think the game style is very realistic. I used to play it very frequently on my Dell laptops (Both 6000 and 8600) and always found it struggling in most areas unless I start running at "Low" quality settings. I never figured out why. Anyways, I recently installed it on my MacBook after I removed "World In Conflict" because I didn't like the gameplay. At first, I kept getting errors saying my graphics card isn't supporting some of the shaders and stuff. I clicked OK, which allowed the game to continue, just giving you warnings. To my amazment, I am getting 35-60 FPS stable on "HIGH" settings at 1024x768. I haven't tried any higher settings, but I have noticed that lowering my settings doesn't improve my FPS too much, just keeping it more stable.