Unofficial Macbook Gaming Thread (Late 2008 Models)

erickrm · Feb 2, 2009

alright guys so i ran my benchmark today and someone let me know if its right... bc i dont feel like it is..

I got a 3846 on 3dmark05 for my GPU it says that i have a Standard VGA even though my drivers are installed correctly, i even went back to my old drivers from the OSX dvd.... let me know what you guys got, i saw that the entry unibody with 2.4ghz cpu got like 5k!!! thats insane. I appreciate any info.

I have entry Unibody 2.0

Edit: Found a 3dmark05 video on youtube.... user got a 3937 or so.... i guess i am right around the corner seeing as he had a 2.4ghz cpu vs my 2.0..... im satisfied with all the gaming i have done thus far. My only thing right now is that the 3dmark output file displays that i have a Stadard VGA instead of saying I have an Nvidia 9400m..... maybe its just my computer though.

Patriks7 · Feb 4, 2009

erickrm said:
alright guys so i ran my benchmark today and someone let me know if its right... bc i dont feel like it is..

I got a 3846 on 3dmark05 for my GPU it says that i have a Standard VGA even though my drivers are installed correctly, i even went back to my old drivers from the OSX dvd.... let me know what you guys got, i saw that the entry unibody with 2.4ghz cpu got like 5k!!! thats insane. I appreciate any info.

I have entry Unibody 2.0

Edit: Found a 3dmark05 video on youtube.... user got a 3937 or so.... i guess i am right around the corner seeing as he had a 2.4ghz cpu vs my 2.0..... im satisfied with all the gaming i have done thus far. My only thing right now is that the 3dmark output file displays that i have a Stadard VGA instead of saying I have an Nvidia 9400m..... maybe its just my computer though.

Great to here that the two MacBooks are so close in the benchmark. I'm still trying to decide between 2.0 and 2.4. I never had a backlit keyboard, but sometimes I wish I had one. On the other hand, 300$ can buy me a lot of other stuff.

oo3rex · Feb 10, 2009

Awesome thread

Does anyone know if the new white macbooks are comparable in performance to the 2.0ghz unibody? I'm buying my first Mac and would like to be able to play Oblivion on it. Considering they are so similar in specs I would assume they perform similarly but I thought I would ask here first.

Aptmunich · Feb 11, 2009

oo3rex said:
Awesome thread

Does anyone know if the new white macbooks are comparable in performance to the 2.0ghz unibody? I'm buying my first Mac and would like to be able to play Oblivion on it. Considering they are so similar in specs I would assume they perform similarly but I thought I would ask here first.

The very new "silent revision" with the same graphics chipset should perform similarly. The only difference is the slightly slower bus speed and memory - so you might possibly see a negligible 1-2 fps drop.

So as long as you make sure it's a model with the Nvidia 9400 chipset, you should be able to play it just fine.

pickster · Feb 13, 2009

This is hands down THE best thread on Macbook Gaming.

geniux said:
I will be trying some more new games the coming weeks (i'm really curious how GTA4 will work with the tweaked nvidia drivers), i'll keep u guys posted!

Any update man? I would really like to know how GTA IV runs on it.
I'm really close to buying myself a MB 2.4 GHz. And i'm also interested in gaming.
But the problem is that I can't splurge and get a MBP.

SincerelySaint · Feb 15, 2009

Hey guys, I'm new to Mac-forums to sorry if I'm posting in the wrong thread or something!! I play Warcraft 3: the frozen throne, and I just recently bought a new macbook pro running osx 10.5.6 and Wc3 comes with a map editor that's unsupported by Blizzard and whenever I try to start it up it partially loads then freezes and I just have to force quit it. Anyone who has any little bit of info or help please let me know!! thanks!!

erickrm · Feb 19, 2009

Warhammer 40k DoW II !!!

Whats up guys and gals just wanted to update everyone with a game i just downloaded last night

i dont know how many of you like RTS but Dawn of War II works decent.... def not as smooth as the youtube videos but at medium settings i find it playable. I will download Fraps and get an FPS reading at med. settings. Game play is great! and def looks like a fun multiplayer.

Macbook unibody 2.0ghz with 2GIGs of RAM, Nvidia 179.80 laptop drivers directly from their websites.

I will have to look into another driver

to test.

Edit: ok well i ran fraps and it runs between like 15 - 25 depending on area.... I will try to get a video with a digital cam....

erickrm · Feb 19, 2009

Warhammer 40k DoW II

Update: ok so i am now using Dox Driver 185.20 and fps just jumped about 10fps so now the game is running at a constant 30-45fps in low-med.... game still looks great and if you are on the go who cares what the game looks like so long as its playable

well least thats how i feel.

will update with a link to a youtube vid.

jiiikoo · Feb 20, 2009

erickrm said:
Update: ok so i am now using Dox Driver 185.20 and fps just jumped about 10fps so now the game is running at a constant 30-45fps in low-med.... game still looks great and if you are on the go who cares what the game looks like so long as its playable well least thats how i feel.

will update with a link to a youtube vid.

Good to know that those drivers are working so well. I haven't had the guts to test them 'cause I think they were unstable at sime point. Just installed them and I hope they boost FallOut 3 fps atleast some. Not that there's any problem, but still, in indoor places it seems to lag a bit.

CodeSamurai · Feb 20, 2009

erickrm said:
Whats up guys and gals just wanted to update everyone with a game i just downloaded last night i dont know how many of you like RTS but Dawn of War II works decent.... def not as smooth as the youtube videos but at medium settings i find it playable. I will download Fraps and get an FPS reading at med. settings. Game play is great! and def looks like a fun multiplayer.

Macbook unibody 2.0ghz with 2GIGs of RAM, Nvidia 179.80 laptop drivers directly from their websites.

I will have to look into another driver to test.

Edit: ok well i ran fraps and it runs between like 15 - 25 depending on area.... I will try to get a video with a digital cam....

Where did you find those drivers? I'm having a heck of a time getting drivers to work! I'm on XP though...are you using Vista or XP? Let me know! I'd love to get some new driver action going. Take care.

Trent out

jiiikoo · Feb 20, 2009

CodeSamurai, if you're having problems with Dox, just uninstall the drivers u had before, and then install the new drivers in Safe Mode, that helped with my problems.

erickrm · Feb 20, 2009

trent.... i actually got the drivers from Laptovideo2go if you google dox nvidia drivers im sure it will come up. Only problem i have with these drivers is i cant adjust the brightness

otherwise they work great.

erickrm · Feb 24, 2009

i just installed Nvidias official 179.48 notebook driver and it works out of the box no problems.... (using windows 7).... good luck

CodeSamurai · Feb 24, 2009

In installed the Nvidia drivers and now I am getting significantly higher framerates on my games. Namely Mirror's Edge. I was pulling anywhere from 20-35, but it's now about 30-50. Left4dead runs smoother now too. I was actually able to bump up the settings a bit (very high shaders and high game effects). Good job Nvidia!

Trent out

erickrm · Feb 25, 2009

Just picked up COD WW but it does not run very well....

if i go online i can use the config files up the framerate but for the most part still not so great.... i guess the jump from COD 4 to WW was big as far as graphics are concerned....

ryggbiff · Feb 26, 2009

trent,

did you install the nvidia driver 179.48_notebook_winxp_32bit_beta.exe? i tried to install it but after restarting the computer it ended up in blue screen so i had to restore the old one using safe mode.

any advice to make it work? do i have to remove the existing driver before installing 179.48?

CodeSamurai · Feb 27, 2009

ryggbiff said:
trent,

did you install the nvidia driver 179.48_notebook_winxp_32bit_beta.exe? i tried to install it but after restarting the computer it ended up in blue screen so i had to restore the old one using safe mode.

any advice to make it work? do i have to remove the existing driver before installing 179.48?

Yep! I did install that one...it's strange that you're having issues. Do you have all of your windows updates (up to SP3?) You don't have to remove the old driver...it just writes over it. I'm sorry you're having such difficulty. Make sure you have your updates and try again. Here is the exact link that I used just in case:
GeForce Release 179

Let us know what happens. Good luck!
Trent out

ryggbiff · Mar 1, 2009

I have removed the old windows partition to install a new SP 3 copy (the old one was SP 2 and windows update crashed when updating), downloaded from my MSDN AA account.

This will probably solve the issue but I will give you an update as soon as I've tried it!

Thanks for a great thread by the way!
Ordered my MacBook 2.4 unibody, my first mac, after reading about it's gaming performance here

//Gustav

erickrm · Mar 3, 2009

Overclocked my Macbook

Whats up guys yes some of you are like thats dumb but i have been testing out the macbook did benchmarks and gaming one right after the other and no crashes so far.... im currently at:

2.3ghz... and my gpu is at 525mhz for the core....

3dmark06 Native res 1280X800 2GB of ram, and Seagate momentus 320 7200rpm.
original 3dmark06: 2113 or so
Oced 3dmark06: 2337

COD WaW is now very playable settings ive tried are normal so far... will try for high next....

TF2 everything on very high and turned on gets me about 80fps....

I am going to run a burnin program to see if the computer crashes..... and get back to everyone with results.

If you decide to do this, do it at your own risk i have oced many comps and have a good idea of what i am doing.

erickrm · Mar 4, 2009

trent been meaning to ask how the heck did you score a 5.something for your gaming performance on your windows index?? thats amazing! the most i got was a 4.4

booo and its the one that is keeping me down. I have tried diff dox drivers, and now the 1.79 that works really well.... but im still at 4.4 lol.

Tomorrow morning i will have 4GB of ram vs the 2gb and i doubt it will make a diff but should be great for CAD....

I wish there was a way to up the RAM for the GPU from 256 to 512 lol.... and if there is a way hopefully someone mentions how... bc i think i read somewhere that someones computer was using up 512 for the gpu vs the 256 i think most of us are using.