Early 2008 MacBook Win7 poor game performance.

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Hi again guys, I've done a bunch of Googling in an attempt to find a solution but came up short. I'll try to make this quick.

Last night I upgraded to OS X Lion and also used Boot Camp to dual boot Win7 64-bit. I want to play Warcraft III through Windows but it runs very poorly. It is playable but I am very surprised at the performance hit. I am using an early 2008 MacBook that has an Intel C2D T8100 2.1Ghz CPU, 4GB of RAM and an Intel Express 965 embeded GPU.

I am aware that this isn't exactly a gaming notebook but Warcraft III's requirements are modest. The game recommends a 600mhz CPU, 256 MB of RAM and a 32MB GPU. This MacBook should be able to run it easily.

Any idea why this is happening? I have the latest graphics drivers and BootCamp version 4.0. Windows 7 also runs very well otherwise. Thanks for any help!
 

dtravis7


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I would say probably the Integrated GPU, but if those are the requirements I am shocked it's that bad.
 
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I would say probably the Integrated GPU, but if those are the requirements I am shocked it's that bad.

Thanks for the quick response. Yeah those are the requirements, I looked them up quick before I posted. Not sure what to do. :Confused:
 

dtravis7


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3 or so is typical with Windows Vista and 7 with an older Intel Integrated graphics controller. I still think that game should not be that bad. I run Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City and San Andreas even on my 2007 Macbook and iMac and all are very smooth.

I just ran the the windows experience test on my late 2007 Macbook with 4GB RAM and x3100 Intel Graphics. 3.1 was the score for gaming. Other scores were 5 except for Desktop graphics at 3.5.

If I can find that game I will run it and see what happens. I might have it somewhere. been ages!! :D
 
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3 or so is typical with Windows Vista and 7 with an older Intel Integrated graphics controller. I still think that game should not be that bad. I run Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City and San Andreas even on my 2007 Macbook and iMac and all are very smooth.

I just ran the the windows experience test on my late 2007 Macbook with 4GB RAM and x3100 Intel Graphics. 3.1 was the score for gaming. Other scores were 5 except for Desktop graphics at 3.5.

If I can find that game I will run it and see what happens. I might have it somewhere. been ages!! :D

That would be nice, any bit of help would be great.

I was about to try Warcraft III on Lion but I get an error message along the lines of "powerpc applications are no longer supported." In other words I need an older version of OS X to play it such as Snow Leopard. That isn't even an option for me because I don't have another version of OS X, just Lion which I upgraded to the other night. Sigh..This is depressing.

Would really love it if someone could help me out here. Anyone have any clue why it runs so bad on Windows 7?
 

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You said the magic word that got my brain to shift gears. :D

Power PC Games on an Intel Mac are running under Rosetta which is an Power PC Emulator. It's a rather good one but still an emulator and will, especially with any games, slow things way down. That is probably a lot of what you are seeing as that game was made to run on a Power PC Mac.
 
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You said the magic word that got my brain to shift gears. :D

Power PC Games on an Intel Mac are running under Rosetta which is an Power PC Emulator. It's a rather good one but still an emulator and will, especially with any games, slow things way down. That is probably a lot of what you are seeing as that game was made to run on a Power PC Mac.

I'm not sure I follow that haha. It makes sense that it wouldn't run on Lion but it doesn't explain why it runs so poorly in Windows 7. Also Warcraft III can be run on both Mac and Windows machines, not sure if you were implying it was made only for Macs or not. :Confused:
 

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I'm not sure I follow that haha. It makes sense that it wouldn't run on Lion but it doesn't explain why it runs so poorly in Windows 7. Also Warcraft III can be run on both Mac and Windows machines, not sure if you were implying it was made only for Macs or not. :Confused:

Oops. was reading another post and got it mixed up! It's because you said you tried a Power PC version of the game and it would not play in Lion due to no Power PC support. There what I said would be totally correct! Sorry about that. If Lion would have ran that game it would have been very slow do to the emulation used for Power PC.

It should run fine in Windows 7 unless there is something about Windows 7 and that older game that is not getting along.
 
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It should run fine in Windows 7 unless there is something about Windows 7 and that older game that is not getting along.

I have another PC with Windows 7 on it and it runs Warcraft III totally fine, no issues at all; Max settings, constant 60 fps etc.

Dunno what to do. I feel like something got goofed up at some point during my upgrade to Lion and/or during creating a new partition and installing Windows 7 via Boot Camp.
 

dtravis7


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Lion has nothing at all to do with how Windows 7 runs unless you are using Windows 7 in a VM inside of OSX. Only thing I can think of is drivers. I know that GPU is not the best but it should play that game. Check on the driver in Windows 7 for the GPU.
 
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Lion has nothing at all to do with how Windows 7 runs unless you are using Windows 7 in a VM inside of OSX. Only thing I can think of is drivers. I know that GPU is not the best but it should play that game. Check on the driver in Windows 7 for the GPU.

Hm I see. I used Boot Camp Assistant to install Windows 7 and I don't have any VM software installed. I also already checked on the drivers. Windows installed them automatically but afterward I downloaded them separately and installed them.

I guess I might be out of luck on this one. Thanks for helping me though.
 

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