MacBook Pro 13" i5 2011 Gaming Performance Questions

[SathingtonWaltz]

I am going to purchase a 13" Core i5 MacBook Pro in the next few weeks, and was just wondering if anybody out there has run any games on it. The specific games I am most interested in are Team Fortress 2 and Starcraft 2. How does the Intel HD 3000 perform? I get somewhat conflicting reports:

[LIST][*]Performance is near equal to 320m [*]Perfomance has increased slightly from 320m
[LIST]

Anyway, I just want to know how well these games will run.

[temka-0622]

Hi! Intel claims that their HD 3000 is equal to AMD Radeon 5450. But in my opinion, lack of dedicated memory will SURELY make it weaker, because it uses system memory bandwidth.
let's compare systems to make you understand.
for example system w/core i5 and Radeon HD 5450 will have 1066MHz system memory banwidth AND 800Mhz dedicated video memory, making it decent machine. More importantly, it doesn't share your processor's cache.

But a system with core i5 and Intel HD3000 will have total of 1300MHz system and video memory bandwidth, while system above will have 1866MHz total system and video memory bandwidth. Plus video performance will be dependent on your processor's cache.

So buy a laptop with dedicated memory(gddr5 is the best)..
Surely integrated cards are weaker.
And more importantly, if you are a gamer, buy a Windows system, Many games are made FOR WINDOWS, and usually Mac games are released AFTER, windows ones.
So If you want GAMING-ON-THE-GO, I will ALWAYS RECOMMEND a Windows laptop.

[kornchild2002]

The Intel HD 3000 isn't as bad as many people are making it out to be and, under Mac OS X, it performs quite well. I can get Call of Duty 4 to run at the native resolution of my 13" MacBook Pro (1280X800) with details set to low-medium. It will run at about 35 fps which is more than fine for playing that game.

Portal runs a little slow at the native resolution but that could all be fixed with game/driver updates as Portal runs a game engine that is not as complex as Call of Duty 4. Sorry but I don't have experience with the two titles you listed.

Overall, the HD 3000 seems to be pulling slightly ahead of the GT320M. There are some tasks/games that the HD 3000 is better at while there are others that the GT320M is better with (much like the differences between AMD and Nvidia graphics).

I think I remember reading somewhere that Starcraft 2 performs decent but I can't find a link for that.

[Lieto]

it will run everything on low and some on medium (specifically older games like Left 4 dead etc)

[Mr.Mischief]

it will run everything on low and some on medium (specifically older games like Left 4 dead etc)

It can't run everything on low. Check out this review: Intel HD Graphics 3000 - Notebookcheck.net Tech

Its weaker than the 320m in terms of gaming. I could run CoD BO on medium, and get 30+ FPS. The HD 3000 can probably get 25FPS on low.

[doh123]

The problem is that "HD 3000" isn't a good ting to go by... its in several different processors at different speeds.

I think the confusion comes down to... the i7s HD3000 is faster than the i5s HD 3000

[Lieto]

Its weaker than the 320m in terms of gaming. I could run CoD BO on medium, and get 30+ FPS. The HD 3000 can probably get 25FPS on low.

Its gets around 26-33 in CoD BO on low — isnt it kinda what i was saying?
"it will run pretty much anything on low".

[Mr.Mischief]

Its gets around 26-33 in CoD BO on low — isnt it kinda what i was saying?
"it will run pretty much anything on low".

Thats barely playable, most of the other games weren't playable at all.

[Lieto]

As "doh" pointed out 22-26 fps is on i5 model, i7 gives steady 29-33 fps which is perfectly playable.

As for the "most other games" — i opened the link you posted. Out of 15 or so modern games it cant run 3 — GTA, Metro and something else. But i doubt that people who go with 3000 HD plan to play Metro. And hey — its not even a mac games.

Another thing worth mentioning that so far there MIGHT not be perfect drivers for 3000 HD now, so situation may improve slightly over time to at least catch up with 320m.

[masterchef341]

the driver outlook in windows is better than on the mac.

also, sc2 performance in windows is significantly better than on the mac. I wouldn't be surprised if the hd 3000 couldn't really handle starcraft on low settings in os x.

To get acceptable performance by my standards, I have to play on almost all low settings on an nvidia 330m, at 1440x900 (in os x). I have my doubts that the hd 3000 will be able to keep up. In windows, I can bump up the settings to med-high, so you may also have better luck there.

My standards are that I need basically all my frames delivered at a rate no less than 30 / sec, and that performance depends hugely on the map, but you cant pick the map in advance when playing ranked games, so you have to be prepared for the worst case.

Anyway, the HD 3000 is not a great choice if you are interested in games such as SC2 and TF2. Source game performance in OS X is already really low compared to windows, which is fine, it's still getting improved upon, but choosing pretty much a bottom end graphics card + OS X performance growing pains with video games is going to pretty rough.