02-03-2007, 07:30 PM

So the specs on the 13" MacBook 2.0 Ghz all sound fine... but the video card seems anemic! Even for basic computing... 64meg of shared memory, meaning the video card has to compete with the system for resouces.

Now, it doesn't look good on paper, but what's real life experience? Does it handle video, large images, flash animations and all that OK?

I am trying to decide if I need to step up to the 15" MacBook Pro to get the Radeon X1600. My current laptop is short on vid performance and it's running a RADEON XPRESS 200M with 128 megs of dedicated memory.

But... I like the smaller form factor of the 13" MacBook. I wish they'd bring back the 12" MacBook Pro I'd like a mini powerhouse. :tusks:

I don't do a lot of gaming, so I am not worried about it from that perspective, but may run XP/Vista and who knows what 10.5 will offer for eye candy.

Thanks -

Jason

02-03-2007, 07:47 PM

The Macbooks graphics are fine for normal use. I even play World of Warcraft on mine.

02-03-2007, 08:38 PM

mine has never had a problem other than once you get into gaming. but most non-3d intensive games should be able to run with most of the eye-candy turned down or off. where you will see more of a problem is with games designed for ppc running under rosetta. that really causes issues. even sim city 4 barely runs at all. and tropico 2 which is much less intense runs at low visual settings, but the fan cranks the whole time and it always crashes after about an hour or two.

02-03-2007, 09:33 PM

I found an interesting link on this very topic...

http://www.macintouch.com/readerrepo...topic4266.html

I'm still on the fence if its going to be enough vid power... but a good thread none the less.

02-03-2007, 11:12 PM

And found more info around the MB's performance. These tests were run on the Dual Core (not D 2 C) and it still performed rather well

http://creativemac.digitalmedianet.c...e.jsp?id=43717

The more I read, the less I can justify the $$ for a MBP...