I'm thinking of getting a new MBP, but want to be able to play MMORPGs like Warhammer Online or similar games coming out. Can anyone speak to first hand experience with the various 15" MBPs with i5 or i7? With 256MB GT 330M vs 512 MB? I would love to be able to get the 13", but I'm sure that video card won't make it happen.
View 24 Replieswhen I get my new MBP (when they release them *sigh*), I intend on doing some moderate gaming on it. Things like MW2, Starcraft, Sims 3, Battlefield BC2, and some others I can't think of right now.
My question is, if a game is available for both OSX and Windows, would it be better to get it for OSX, or Windows? I was wondering if I should have like all my games in the windows partition, or have ones that I can get for OSX separate.
Can it be done? Haven't seen anything leading me to believe so but I thought I might try.
View 6 Replies View RelatedMy 2.4ghz i5 MBP runs a lot better when using discrete graphics. Minimizing and maximizing windows, scrolling, opening folders etc... all run smoother with the 330M. Is there a way to always run the 330M when plugged in, and switch to automatic graphics switching when unplugged? This would be the perfect solution for me.
View 9 Replies View RelatedRight now, I have a 2009 MBP with 2.66 core 2 duo and the 256MB 9600gt. I am looking to buy a 17 inch i5 with the 512MB 330m. With regards to gaming under bootcamp, how much better is the 330m to the 9600gt? Will I notice a big difference in my games or will it be barely noticeable? I tried to play black ops under bootcamp and it was barely playable.
View 6 Replies View RelatedSo I just sold my MB and am going to be upgrading to a MBP. I have been reading up on the current ones and have seen that almost everyone reccomends going with the 15" 2.44ghz vs the 2.66, as the ~$400 difference is not justified. What still sways me towards the higher end 15" is that the 330m has 512mb vs the 256mb in the base model. I will be using it for games such as The Sims 3, Civilizations, and SC II. I will also be using PS as well. Will I notice a huge performance difference between the 512 and the 256?
View 5 Replies View RelatedStandard bootcamp drivers are quite old so I went to upgrade the drivers from nVidia.com; I noticed that nVidia doesn't support the 330M under its driver page, am I to assume the 330M is an Apple specific part? Will nVidia support the 330M in an upcoming release?
View 1 Replies View RelatedI currently got a late 2008 MBP with the 9600M with 512 Mo VRAM.
I got sick of that glossy screen and that's why I've stepped towards the i5 Anti glare.
Anyway I'd simply like to know if I'm about to loose some perf with the new GPU having only 256 Mo VRAM compared to my old 9600 with 512.
Concretely, I'll be playing Starcraft 2 on my MBP's screen, so no external screen and huge resolution.
Do you think it'll be better with the i5 spec ? Same ? Worse ?
Before there was a discussion on a couple of apps people had written that show in the status bar whether you're using the Intel HD or Nvidia 330M on an i5/i7 macbook. I now have an i7 MBP but can't find the thread anywhere (tried MRoogle too!).
View 7 Replies View RelatedI am not really a gamer on my laptops, is there any other reason I would want 512 vs. 256? Can OS X tap that memory for other functions? I just do programming, web dev, virtual machines, email, office, etc.
View 8 Replies View RelatedI know a couple guys in the MBP refresh gaming thread were able to overclock using Nvidia Tools. I'm not having any luck; the sliders are grayed out and I can't make any changes with system tools 6.06. I've also got errors when trying to install Nvidia drivers other than the ones included with Bootcamp. What driver/system tools version are you using to OC? And what settings have you tried? (I'm on Windows 7 64bit).
View 24 Replies View RelatedI would first like to start off with the disclaimer that I am not good at writing guides and I am also not a pro with overclocking but here is my attempt at both. Also I am not liable for damages to your computer and ask fobis has mentioned each gpu even if they are the same may overclock better or worse then the next. So take my overclocking numbers for what they are worth. Experiment and try it out on your own.
Note: This guide assumes your running Windows 7 64bit, and also it assumes that you are new to overclocking.
-------------------------------GUIDE------------------------------
1.First make sure you have a copy of windows installed through bootcamp.
2.Then go ahead and install the drivers that came with bootcamp ( we won't be using the gpu drivers but the rest are going to be useful anyway so might as well go ahead and install them )
3.After you have all that you will want to go here to get a modified driver. This will give you better performance then the bad drivers that apple supplies it will also let you overclock the gpu
4.After you have downloaded both the driver and the INF file open up the driver and it will extract the files to the directory that you choose. It will also try to launch the install but it will fail saying something like " no compatible hardware found " ignore this for now.
5.Now take the INF file and copy it to the folder that the driver was extracted too. It will ask you if you want to overwrite the file just say yes.
6.Now open up the device manager by right clicking on my computer, selecting properties, this should open a new window and on the left there should be something that says device manager.
7.Under the tab that says "display adapters" select the only device that shows up on that tab. Right click it and choose uninstall.
8.After you have done that it will likely mess up your resolution and set it too 800x600 don't worry this is normal. Now just restart your computer.
9.Once you have restarted when it starts back up it will say new hardware found. Now you have to choose to install it manually choose the option that says something along the lines of " search for drivers in specified area "
10.Now it will take you to a new page and on that page there should be an option that says "have disk" choose this and select the directory that you extracted the driver too earlier in this guide. It should find one of the files that it can use and install it just fine.
11.You will need to restart again once this is done but when you start back up your resolution should be fixed if not just right click and hit screen resolution and just change it back to the native resolution.
12. Download Nvidia system tools found here
13. Go ahead and install this it should be self explanatory.
14. Once it is installed open the program and go to the performance tab on the left. ( It might ask you to agree to some terms of use )
15. Just put in these numbers and hit apply
646 for the first one
864 for the second one
and 1314 for the third one
Now your done if your paranoid like me of overheating your computer you can also optionally download and install LubbosFanControl to max out your fans to keep it as cool as possible.
Enjoy your faster GPU!.
----------------------BENCHMARKS-----------------------------
Before OC:
Furmark
Points:912
FPS: min=13 max=22 avg=15
Crysis: 24.89
Unigine Sanctuary Demo (run with everything on defuilt excapt resolution turned down to 1280x800 )
DX10:24.9fps (score:1057)
OpenGL: 23.2 (score:982)
Unigine Tropics Demo: (run with everything on defuilt excapt resolution turned down to 1280x800 )
DX10:18fps (scores 452)
OpenGL:16.3 (scores 410)
Unigine Heaven Demo:
DX10:14.8fps (scores 372)
OpenGL:12.6fps (scores 317)
3DMark06:5975
3DMark Vantage: P2294
After OC:
Furmark
Points: 1081
FPS: min=16 max=26 avg=18
Crysis: 33fps
Unigine Sanctuary Demo (run with everything on defuilt excapt resolution turned down to 1280x800 )
DX10: 31.2fps (scores: 1322)
OpenGL: 28fps (scores: 1211)
Unigine Tropics Demo: (run with everything on defuilt excapt resolution turned down to 1280x800 )
DX10: 21.7fps (scores: 546)
OpenGL:19.8 (scores:498)
Unigine Heaven Demo:
DX10:15.7(scores:395)
OpenGL: 16.2(scores:408) WTF? OpenGL wins? lol
3DMark06:6994
3DMark Vantage: 2922
Notes: Crysis was run at 1280x800 everything on medium excapt physics on very high
Another note: The highest GPU temp underload from Crysis got up to about 78C after about 15mins of running the game. Furmark got the temp up to 80C though after about 15mins also.
I have also played TF2 at max settings @ 1920x1200 for over 2 hours to test stability and it ran fine without any hiccups
Also I feel that this card can be pushed further then this ( I have not tried ) but from what I see it cools a lot better then I expected from a laptop I come from a world of desktop overclocking.
The 9400M was in older Macbook Pros and I've seen many videos where people run crysis on high/very high and have pretty good FPS. The laptops arent as fast as the newer ones, but yet my MBP (specs down below) which is faster, can only run crysis on medium at around 30 FPS, unless i wanted 5 FPS with high. The only reasoning for this, to me at least, is that the 330M chip is not as good. Is this the case? If so, why the hell did the graphics chip get downgraded? Here is a link to one of the vids I was talking about: [URL:....] This guy is using the demo for his vid. when i use the demo, it doesnt even give me the option of using very high settings, and when i'm on high, my screen flashes in and out, i get random lines across the screen, and then my computer freezes.
View 5 Replies View RelatedIs there a significant difference between the new nVidia 330m Graphics against the older 9600 cards found in the slightly older MacBook Pros (i am talking about both having 512RAM) not really bothered about the auto-switching deal as i will be Windows frequently for Gaming and using Snow Leopard for University work, oh and as a side note, will the i5/i7 make much difference when gaming (more specifically Modern Warfare 2 and Gears of War),
View 5 Replies View RelatedI'd like to know how many over clock their 330M and how much. Somebody without Windows, who hardly ever plays any kind of game probably doesn't over clock but there are probably many that do play but still don't over clock. The only game I am playing now is Modern Warfare 2 and over clocked the 256mb 330M offers about 25% more performance. That is the difference between 25 and 30 fps. I found that temps don't really rise. At default the GPU reaches about 70C and the CPU around 50 (idle is 32-40). Over clocked 645/808/1451 it avg 73C and CPU is a little lower on 48-49C because the fans work a little harder while the CPU has the same amount of work. That sounds pretty cool to me and I didn't even test any higher, because usually a notebook GPU is a cool chip that over clocks well as long as it is cool enough, and desktop GPUs on the same silicon sometimes run standard on almost 90C. The max temps are higher with 82C which it reaches after game start for a short period until the cooling really kicks in. There is no fan control prog running. That is a 30% increase in clock speed with almost no increase in temps.
I don't know how to read out fan speeds in windows but I don't notice the fans from in the loud gameplay anyway. What are your clocks?? I don't like benchmark tools as they don't determine what matter really to me. I know with furmark I get higher temps but I am not running furmark for fun ever. I play CoD. I used in the game (Call of Duty MW2) in Act 2 of the campaign the misson "of there own accord" because it is probably one of the hardest with the lowest min framerates. I get stock 24-25 fps running outside and min 22. Inside it is 33-60fps. Over clocked it is 28 min 30-31 outside and 38-120 indoors. I use native res (high res) but no AA and no soften smoke edges because it kills performance in some scenes and I don't see the difference. Everything else is on the maximum I can switch it to and the textures are high. AA is only missing in some levels with high contrast where edges start flickering a lot but in general I prefer the higher res over AA. It is just more detail and easier to see the enemy.
Just got the new office 2011 which I use every day for university, primarily the powerpoint program for presentations and note-taking. Today I noticed that my battery drained more quickly than usually and found out that I use the nvidia 330M when powerpoint is open. Just did some research and neither word or excel makes the MBP use the 330M. Only powerpoint. Is there any way to force the intel gfx on all the time? Or at least when running on battery?
View 4 Replies View RelatedI googled and couldn't find the Tjunction for the GPU.
Mine went as high as 90c / 194f. When I play games it usually stays around 86c / 186.8f with the fans in overdrive.
My new MBP 2010 won't use Intel HD graphics, it seems stuck on the 330M graphics card with no programs running at all. I also checked the power saver option for auto-switching graphics.. What to do?
It worked before I calibrated the battery, but today when using the MBP for the first time since calibrating it won't switch.
I had the the 27" iMac with the ATI and I just recently ordered the 15" i7 MBP with the 330M (512MB). Knowing mostly nothing about graphics cards or computer gaming, but wanting to get a few games for my MBP, I'd like to know how the 330M compares to the Radeon HD 4670. I intend to get Orange Box for Mac when Steam's out and the Mac version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. My only experience gaming on the iMac was a Bioshock demo that ran modestly on mostly medium settings. So in comparing the two graphics cards, I'd like to get a sense of what to expect.
View 13 Replies View RelatedI just got my first MacBook and just draining the battery for the first time (seems to be something like 5-6 hours while surfing and playing music via the speakers, so far I'm quite happy). But I've noticed that the 330m is running all the time due to Skype. I checked with gfxCardStatus and when I close Skype the battery time increases nearly an hour.
View 7 Replies View RelatedIve recon that when having your MBP's GT330M turned on, you can't play YouTube-videos in full-screen, my screen just turns white, and nothing happens.. Then you have to ESC yourself outta there..
The funny thing is that if you use the Intel HD Graphics processor, it works fine, but it gets very laggy if you have 720p res..
Is there anyone else having this problem?
I'm sorry if this is in the wrong section, but I would like to know what software is better for gaming on a Mac. I have Parallel Desktop 5 but I noticed while playing the Orangebox I was getting some framerate issues.I heard a lot of good things about Crossover games and I was wondering if that would be better? or would bootcamp be just fine? Also my Macbook pro is the 2010 15'' 2.4ghz.
View 5 Replies View Related I use it for my university study and I play games occasionally (usually World of Warcraft). I'am wondering the difference of WoW performance between 15" i5 2.4GHz and i7.
I play WoW via Parallel Desktop on Windows 7. I know there's Mac version WoW, but I just want to know the performance of running WoW via parallels desktop. A big drop of FPS? or 4GB RAM insufficient?
After reading through the entire gaming benchmark thread I still have yet to conclude whether the new i7 in hi res is better, worse, or equal to the 2.8 for gaming?
View 12 Replies View RelatedHas anybody compared gaming under Win7 32 vs 64. Im not that thrilled with the performance on Battlefield 2, but am currently running win 32. I wonder if 64 and its ability to use more RAM will help with gaming experience. Also, I've seen many threads on trying to update the Nvidia drivers, but not many responses on whether it helped much, considering what had to be done just to get the drivers updated....is it worth it.
I wish Apple would address the outdated drivers.
i just recently purchased a pair of dr dre beats, the studio version, and as some of you may know, they include a black cable with a mic attached to it. i was wondering if there was any way to use this mic on the macbook pro 15" (2010 model) and use it for gaming. i cant seem to find a way to make the mic work.
View 11 Replies View RelatedWhen I play games (war thunder), my macbook pro heats up to 80*C-90*C and stays like this for as long as I keep playing.Is it safe? Or am I risking to burn something up, like processor or graphic card?
-2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
-4Gb 1067 Mhz DDR3
-Nvidia GeForece 9400M 256 MB
-OS X Maveriks 10.9.4
Hopefully getting my new MBP in a few days now and cant wait.
Just wondering what sort of accessories you guys would recommend, been looking at wireless mouses for gaming etc and choice between an Razor or the Apple Magic Mouse, what mouse are you guys using?
Also any other accessories you would recommend?
I'm looking to improve my gaming performance. I run The Sims 3, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life 2 and a few other games natively on my MacBook Pro 13". By no I means do I care for getting unrealistically high performance, but I would like to know how an SSD would effect gaming performance. Would it give a notable increase in terms of FPS? or responsive?
View 6 Replies View RelatedMy wife has a MBP 2.4ghz core i5. She has Sims 3 and all the expansion packs. She uses the architectural features to build towns and houses,etc. Well it makes a steady fan noise after a while(she plays for a few hours straight). I checked the istat widget and its at 5998 rpm and 164 F with a noticeable fan noise. Not as loud as windows laptops that I can remember but loud enough to notice. Is this normal? The machine is only 2 months old. It works great and only does this when she plays Sims3(the only gaming we do on it).
View 3 Replies View Related