Pointing out the obvious regarding the MacBook and gaming

The funny thing is I actually looked into this yesterday.. with college starting soon, and knowing the MacBook Pro runs games in Windows pretty well, I looked into the MacBook, since it's cheaper. Yeah, no such luck.

Reminds me of that "Switch" parody.

"There are lots of great games on the Mac. Like Warcraft 3.............um.....that puzzle game with the Apple logo! I beat it, but...it's still fun."

"On the Mac I can play plenty of great games that you just can't find on the PC anymore, like Zork...Breakout...Super Breakout..."

I don't know why, having almost no experience with Macs, but the thought seems to be that games run poorer under OS X, even now that Apple is on Intel hardware. I assumed this would be fixed by the hardware move, but a few weeks ago I saw one of the Penny Arcade guys complain on their news page about their Macbook Pro running WoW faster on XP than OS X.

Perhaps this is why Macs aren't taken even remotely seriously by gaming companies? Maybe OS X needs a tune-up. If this is the case, Apple needs to get in there and fix things if they want the gaming programmers to build the gaming library.

(Lack of gaming support is the chief reason why I don't generally consider Macs, that and not being able to custom-build one myself from parts. It's unfortunate, but them's the breaks.)

Also, to tell you the truth, it seems every year I wonder if it's worth keeping up with PC technology to be able to game on one. It's an expensive hobby, no doubt, and there's something to be said about consoles like the xboxes, they still have the insert disc and play, it-just-works simplicity but now you can get patches too, and download demos. It's a pity we'll never see a big legal mod community on a console, because that is one of the few trump cards PC gaming has left. (One of the other reasons I still game on PC is because of FPS's. I love console FPS's, but I will take a mouse and keyboard over analog sticks any day of the week.)

If you like FPS's on the PC, you should check out the new PhysX PCI expansion. Hopefully, all upcoming FPS's will take advantage of this technology.

Christ, people. And PC's that have integrated graphics are any different? Let's run articles on them as well! Pointing out the obvious indeed - running low on your advertising impressions?

Not everyone wets their pants at the thought of playing the "new special super-deluxe 2006!" version of the SAME game that was released every year for the last five years. Wowee, a new gun! And some mildly better texture mapping! Whoopee!

Or was this just an excuse to get in another knock on the price of the black model?

Regarding game performance between XP and OS X, there is one big reason - Direct3D. Almost all companies optimize heavily for it, but not so much for OpenGL. Thus, the Mac suffers. However, if it's suffering in a direct OpenGL vs OpenGL game, then Apple deserves whatever flak it gets.

Since when did anybody say that the MacBook was designed to be a gaming laptop? As far as I remember, every single blog entry about it constantly states that it's a laptop designed for portability, battery life, productivity and multi-media entertainment. If everybody knows that integrated graphics means doom for the latest hardware intensive games on your PC, then why is there another blog entry on this topic?

Of course Mac owners are going to want to know about the gaming performance on the MacBook. Nobody is going to think about serious gaming on the device, but what can it make out of the performance it has? There are stories of people running World of Warcraft on their Minis, so why not on the MacBook? I expect owners will be interested in finding out how well it will play their existing games, and the newly ported universal version of Quake 3 seems like a very good example of the kind of games owners will be looking to play on a MacBook.

Mac owners who are seriously into gaming will probably have an iMac, Powermac or a MacBook Pro. More to the point, any Mac owner who is seriously into gaming will probably have either a kitted-out PC or a console anyway, so it seems to me that MacWorld have hit the nail square on.

I'm still hoping for a future revision to have a dedicated graphics card. Apple seems to like to put a feature in high end computers and trickle them slowly into lower end models as a way to "bump" them.

From only high end Powermacs having dual processors to every Powermac having dual processors.

Powerbooks only having monitor spanning and DVI to all mac portables having spanning and DVI.

In the next mini revision I'm sure they will all have dual cores.

The lack of a dedicated graphics card really sucks if you want to dual boot with Windows Vista.

Generally, Apple does a lousy job when it comes to appealing to gamers...and I'm typing this on my PowerBook. You don't even want to know what a decent GPU costs in a Power Mac.

That said, this article (and the complaint) is unnecessary. So the MacBook has intergrated graphics...and? So do many other Windows-based laptops and desktops (as somebody else already mentioned). Big deal. It's not like they claimed it was the uber-gaming device of the century.

"Christ, people. And PC's that have integrated graphics are any different? Let's run articles on them as well! Pointing out the obvious indeed - running low on your advertising impressions?"

SHHHH!!!

There aren't any PC's with integrated graphics cards, haven't you heard? every PC is a super PC with a super chip to do super things. It's blatantly super. And fantastic. PC's are magical. They are so different. Pixies and magic make them run Doom 3 on 386's. Oh you have to see that. 1600*1200. just flies through it.

Get a life man. Realise that PC's are magical and that Apple only ever use integrated graphics. even in their high end Quad G5, it's running an integrated chip that pumps out a max of 640*480 every second.

gawd!

I'm a compassionate Mac user and although the MacBook address more ordinary laptop users or newbies than actually gamers it would have been wise to equip the MacBook with an own graphic card for the sake of WOW which everybody seems to play nowadays.

Additionally, it is true that gaming performance on OS X does suffer due to lack of Direct X. Direct X is the most supported API in the industry and offers an instant advantage to games wherever the technology is present.

I'd imagine that Apple are indeed looking into the probablem, and hoping to improve performance for games using OpenGL. If you've got an Intel iMac like me, you'll run the graphically intensive (and usually Windows only) games in Windows, and run everything else in OS X. I'm not bothered about World of Warcraft, it does run exceptionally well in OS X, and the loading times are excelent. The time it takes to switch applications and open and close WoW seem much shorter, and there is much less maintenance required in OS X than Windows.

I call bullshit.

You seem to be angry that they made their point, or that they were dismissive in making their point, or that they even tried at all? You seem to want to make the point that the Macbook is not a gaming machine, even though the article you are so angry at ALREADY made this point? Are you trying to argue that this article is disingenious or what?

What it really comes down to is this: who spends just over a grand on a laptop expecting to play the most recent games on it? Every other fact mentioned is venting irrelevant frustrations.

The above entry is based on a flawed supposition: that someone spending 1100$ on a laptop SHOULD be able to play top of the line games. Alienware's Gaming Laptops start at 2 grand, the same price as the untested, uncompared, and undiscussed Macbook Pro.

Couple this with the fact that currently most games on mac ARE older games. When you consider that most companies that convert the software to work on macs (Aspyr, Feral) don't get started until long after the game is released for PC, in addition to the fact that they are having to translate code into non-native form (which is sure to give a performance hit), you realize that most top of the line games aren't going to work on anything but top of the line Apple machines. This usually means that middle-to-low speed modern generation macs don't run modern games smoothly. This has happened to me personally many times (I had a lime green imac that hardly ran Unreal Tournament), and the answer has generally been "if you want to play games, SPEND MORE $" (in the case of the lime green imac with the poor onboard video, a better bet would have been a g3 desktop which could have been upgraded any number of ways)

Point is spending a grand on a "gaming" laptop gets you nowhere in either the PC or the mac world. Wooptie-freaking-doo.

I purchased an serious gaming PC about a year ago. Then I bought my XBOX 360 this winter and I haven't touched the PC for gaming since. Which prompted me 3 weeks ago when the Macbook hit the market to buy one and sell my overpowered PC. I love my PC, but after realizing that I'm not going to game on my PC anymore... and I can run XP on the Macbook to deal with all the PC related things I would need it for it was a no brainer. I have a superfast Mac laptop running OS X for all my usual things I like to do online (browse, blog, read news, etc.), that runs XP for some work related apps that i need, and the best of online gaming on the 360. Enough said.

The MacBook is not, nor would it ever, be a great gaming machine. After all, how many people play high end games on their *consumer* laptops? Not many. Apple made the right decision. How many people wanted to, or really could, run Quake 4 on an iBook or comparably spec'd PC laptop? ZERO. Yes, it shares many of the same basic features of the MacBook Pro, but as every computer company, Apple has product strata.

People who are used to buying PC's encounter this strata, too. You can't put the highest end components in the lowest end configurations. Same for the mid range. It seems (is?) arbitrary at first. I have a top of the line MacBook Pro. It's a pretty good gaming machine, considering I can actually make money doing WORK on it. :-) So why doesn't Apple allow their consumer model to get an upgraded card? Well, that's easy. The economics of scale.

Apple makes the MacBook for schools and low end consumers looking for a note book, a web browser, a media jukebox, and a good general purpose computer. Never mind that it's actually very capable of doing more. Their bread and butter is the consumer space and they make money by selling lots of them. What is MORE interesting to me, as a MacBook Pro owner, is how cheaply they can make the MacBook.

If they can make a MacBook for $1100 and the MacBook Pro is $2,000, where does that extra $900 go? It begs an interesting question. If the MacBook Pro was the line of portable Macs that had customizable graphics cards, and it started $500 less than it did now, you might have people settling for a MacBook springing for the pro version. A $1,499 entry point that they could eek out an extra, say, $200 for the high end gfx card options. Pro users and pro-sumers / gamers want flexibility and this would have been nice. Keep the strata.

At the end of the day I have an excellent computer for the dollar, but with the shockingly similar feature sets at very disparate pricing strata, I have to ask if Apple could have done more to let these be more configurable on the high end. I think the answer is Merom. I think Apple will update the MacBook pro with Merom processors at existing price points, keeping their MacBooks with Core Duo's. It all makes sense now ... get out the product early. Get early adopters using it, then go for the jugular.

The Macbook is not, nor has it ever been, touted as a gaming machine. Buy a PC if you want to play PC games. Jeez, I don't understand why people love to point out the weak game support Macs offer. Who cares? If you already own a PC, go get your game on. If you own a Macbook, you obviously didn't buy one because it rips through HL2 at the speed of light ('cos it don't).

And BTW, that's not a black paint job. The plastic's actually a different material than that of the white Macbooks. Not that it really matters. I'd rather save the $150, but whatever.

I have a G5 and it powers through work faster than it's PC counterpart, and with a more intuitive OS at that. That's all I care about. If you want games, get a PC and stop complaining that Macs don't do something they weren't designed to do.

"Christ, people. And PC's that have integrated graphics are any different? Let's run articles on them as well! Pointing out the obvious indeed - running low on your advertising impressions?"

i can get $1000 laptop with a dedicated 256mb graphics card...........[extra dots]

macbooks are still sexy though

I've got a MacBook have have no interest in playing games on it. I have a XP desktop and Xbox 360 for that. If you want to play videogames on a computer, don't buy a MacBook or Mac mini.

I'm a very recent new MacBook owner and I knew exactly what I was getting into. Like you say, its obvious that a MacBook isn't going to run games. My old laptop could run the latest games when I bought and do you know how many times I played a game on it? Like twice and it was a pain. Laptops aren't made for gaming, none of them. I have a desktop for gaming as wel as consoles. The MacBook is for mobile computing and does exactly what it says on the tin.

Priorities people. If you want the MacBook to have dedicated graphics at the same price, something else is going to have to go. Damn few laptops in that price range ship with a Core Duo at 1.8Ghz (you have to go to a Dell XPS for $1300 minimum before you get that - cheaper models have Pentium M's and Core Solo's). And gigabit ethernet, 802.11a/b/g, etc. Sure, Apple sould have scrimped on these and put in a dedicated graphics card, but... why would they? I's already amazing how close the MacBook comes to the MacBook Pro's raw power for much less money (*).

(*) Of course, if you upgrade all the components to match the MacBook Pro (single stick of RAM, SuperDrive, 2.0Ghz CPU, NO black case, etc, then the price gets very similar. And of course, the MacBook Pro gives features you can't get on the MacBook, like the GPU, larger screen, backlit keyboard, ExpressCard slot, etc.

Well, DUH.

1) It's a laptop. Laptops in general are weak for gaming compared to comparably priced desktops.

2) It's a low end laptop.

3) It's got integrated graphics.

Anyone that would think the Macbook, a lowend laptop with integrated graphics would be good at gaming is a freaking moron.

@TxdoHawk and Kasumi-Astra:

Directx vs opengl is a big part of the performance difference. But it's also due to the OS. I remember reading about Doom 3 when it was released for OSX. Apple dedicated a team to work with Id to optimize it for Mac. Even so, it still performed slower than the Win version. Apparently, the inherent multithreaded design of OSX was the major problem. Basically, if I remember right, other processes steal cpu cycles and there really isn't a way to stop it. In xp, you can basically turn off everything else and dedicate everything to the game.

Ultimately, the design of OSX is considered better for most computing, especially in terms of stability. But for gaming, it isn't.

I'm getting my MacBook Pro next week. I picked pro versus not for two reasons: the graphics card and the keyboard. The integrated graphics is a no-no for obvious reasons, and the keyboard on the not-Pro just SUCKED ... in my humble opinion, of course. The Pro's keyboard was very soft, very nice to type on.

I hope Apple manages to wrest more than 5% marketshare from Microsoft. The biggest reason games run better on XP is because programmers are forced to work with it so often. Windows commands over 90% marketshare, so DirectX has become a second mother language for game programmers. This is a HUGE advantage for Windows. No doubt OS X would prove a better competitor if programmers were as familiar with OpenGL as they were with DirectX.

So for now, we gamers are stuck with tolerating Windows. I really hope that changes.

Just bought a 2.0ghz MacBook (not pro) and put 2GB of RAM in it. After installing Win XP Pro I installed GTA: San Andreas and downloaded the SA-MP for it and it works great. It looks great too.

I have seen people playing WOW on iBooks so I'm sure if GTA does good on a MacBook so would WOW. Integrated graphics are not as bad as you think. Still, you won't be able to run the newest & nicest but you're not screwed either.

For the love of god, somebody please give jps some freaking stars.

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=d820sapp&s=bsd

Actually, I thought that MacWorld's suggestion that people buy a MacBook and a game console was great advice. I never understood people who spend almost $2000 on a super-powerful PC just to play games, when a dedicated game console is so much cheaper. I'm a Mac + PS2 guy myself.

The reason Apple pisses people off is that they don't give you the option of adding a real graphics card. Everything comes nicely prepackaged for the technologically illiterate. I know my brother's dell with a kick-ass videocard comes damn close to $1000. Why can't apple at least have the option?

Jesse:

Apple isn't 'pissing people off' as much as you think. Hardcore gamers are actually a pretty small minority and to be honest, the general reaction to the new MacBook is EXTREMELY positive.

Macs kick ass in many many ways, and while gaming isn't one of them, the benefits are recognized by enough people to keep the OSX platform healthy and profitable. Don't be confused by people when they yell/type things like "5% marketshare? LOLZERS" - 5% is still MILLIONS and MILLIONS of computers and Apple is one of the top 6 computer manufacturers:

http://news.com.com/PC+market+surged+in+2005,+will+settle+in+2006/2100-1003_3-6028454.html

Pretty good for a company that makes the hardware AND the operating system for a non-Windows computing experience.

The people looking into and buying MacBooks don't care about a cheap gaming laptop - they want a computer running OSX for other things like iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, Final Cut Pro, GarageBand, etc.

But rarely for games. We mac guys usually have a gaming PC set up for that.

Also... emehrkay:

I clicked your link. I'm guessing you were trying to suggest that you've found a better way for gamers to spend $?

Looks like an OK laptop... But once you spec it out to the MacBook (Add a DVD burner, same size hard drive, same speed processor) well, you're pretty close to $1350. Same price. I will say, you canspend a little more and update the integrated graphics to a dedicated card, so that's good, and not something Apple offers. But you're not steering anyone to a better _value_ with that link.

And like any Apple fan will tell you - That Dell won't run OSX.

If its so obvious, why post it? im pretty sure most people know that only high and macs play games deccently, and XP PC with intergrated chips are no better.

Mac people are very strange. They'll pay top dollar for mediocre PC hardware.

OSX is a real pig. It uses a LOT more memory than XP. I could do nothing with it with 256MB -- boosting it to a Gig did wonders. Also, according to my mini, the OS consumes about 20+ GB of hard drive space after all the latest downloadable updates. That's insane. Did Apple have to compress it to get it to fit on a single DVD or what?

The kernel architecture of OSX is also not suited for games. Period.

Perceptive Mac users are equally salty at the lack of dedicated graphics in an otherwise great update of the venerable iBook. And while I personally would love the option to upgrade to dedicated graphics on the MacBook, I think it's not going to happen for quite some time. A bit of a shame; though gamers are not buying MacBooks, just as they were not buying iBooks before.

@Waccoon: You really made me smile with your complains about OSX. First: OSX doesn't need gigs of RAM to run and I haven't seen Windows XP run on 256MB either. Second: OSX doesn't take up 20+ gigs of harddisk space, guess you just made that one up, hm? People...

I suppose that a gaming blog, made up of people who are very serious gamers (somewhat of an oxymoron), will take the news of Apple's disinterest in turning their laptops into dedicated game machines much harder than the rest of consumers. There's nothing wrong with that; one doesn't expect those who look for features friendly to video games to take kindly to computers that do not provide them.

I wonder, however, at the frame of mind that drives one to complain that a new computer is somehow handicapped because it does not cater to the interests of a relatively small group of people (that is, people who see computers not as business or educational tools, but as "other consoles" of sorts). I enjoy playing acoustic guitar, for example, and when I come across an electric guitar, I do not throw a fit at the fact that it doesn't have warm, resonant tones. Both were built to play music, but in different ways. There's nothing inherently wrong with either kind of guitar: some simply do not cater to my tastes, thus I don't spend much money on them. It shows, I think, a considerable lack of perspective to bitch and moan about how a new computer, which was never touted as a gaming machine, has an integrated graphics card and as such is largely useless to people who are interested in playing games on it. If a person is crestfallen because they want OS-X, but cannot afford both a PC and a Mac, then the time has come to prioritize, not imply that Apple is arrogant or inferior.

I looked at the Macbook because I would like to try a new OS ... I'm tired of all the Xp bugs and crashes. The only thing that held me back was OSX not being able to play games but with Boot Camp, if I wanted to play Rise of Legends I could boot to Xp. Long story short, the Macbook Pro was out of my price range, the Macbook didnt have the graphics power, so I bought an Acer 5672 with the ATI X1400 for $999 and now Acer has the X1600 in their notebooks (it is basicly a Macbook pro and 1/2 the cost). What I dont understand is how Mac has the nerve to charge so much for average parts? Even if it is the norm $1100-1400 computers to have 512mb ram and intagrated graphics, its a total ripoff. If the Macbook had the X1400 I would have got that in a heartbeat, but I guess Mac doesnt care about the casual windows gamer. It is sad because I think Mac could win over alot of windows users if they had. I'm going to cross my fingers and hope Mac changes their minds in the next revision.