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Scooterboy · Oct 22, 2003, 06:26 PM

G4, possibility of over 1 GB DDR-RAM, and the Ati Radeon 9200 makes this a great buy for the portable Mac gamer.

I am very pleased that Apple included this video GPU. The Radeon 9200 is, if I'm not mistaken, better than the nVidia in the 12" PowerBook, and close enough to state of the art for an iBook.

I'd like to see the Quake 3 and UT numbers!

Wireless AE lan parties?

jamesa · Oct 23, 2003, 12:36 AM

ditto the request.

-- james

Kibon · Oct 23, 2003, 03:00 AM

Originally posted by Scooterboy:
G4, possibility of over 1 GB DDR-RAM, and the Ati Radeon 9200 makes this a great buy for the portable Mac gamer.

I am very pleased that Apple included this video GPU. The Radeon 9200 is, if I'm not mistaken, better than the nVidia in the 12" PowerBook, and close enough to state of the art for an iBook.

I'd like to see the Quake 3 and UT numbers!

Wireless AE lan parties?

The 9200 is competitive with the Nvidia 5200 model, and either one is obviously faster than the 7500. Not a bad choice at all on Apple's part.

sniffer · Oct 23, 2003, 03:04 AM

Originally posted by Scooterboy:

I'd like to see the Quake 3 and UT numbers!

Yeah, the FPS numbers will be interesting.

nagromme · Oct 23, 2003, 03:10 AM

Macosrumors.com claims that the new iBook GPU and the 12" PB GPU are a wash--closely matched for performance.

If I can play UT2k3 on a 12" iBook and get decent framerates with, say, 4 bots (enough for 3-on-3 with a second Mac), then I think I'll be buying!

Any and all 3D game tests are welcome! Preferably with comparison to other Macs. Is the new iBook faster for games than my GeForce 2 MX eMac?

Link · Oct 23, 2003, 03:45 AM

I can hardly wait to see myself, it sounds like it'll be overall faster then my bro's imac.. if it can play wolfenstein as smoothly as my dual 800 g4 (doubtful) then I'll buy one without a second thought.

Eug · Oct 23, 2003, 11:08 AM

Originally posted by nagromme:
If I can play UT2k3 on a 12" iBook and get decent framerates with, say, 4 bots (enough for 3-on-3 with a second Mac), then I think I'll be buying!

Bots eat CPU power. Don't expect good gaming on an 800 MHz machine, even if it's a G4, if you've got lots of bots.

Is the new iBook faster for games than my GeForce 2 MX eMac?

Yes. Even the slowest current iBook will destroy the GeForce2 MX G3 700 MHz eMac in gaming. However, the iBook will still be a relatively slow gamer for current games.

nagromme · Oct 23, 2003, 12:30 PM

I know bots eat CPU power--I've seen the 16-bot benchmarks! Is just four bots asking for trouble?

(Is it bad programming? My slower Macs can handle lots of bots reasonably well in UT, and they seem nearly as smart as UT2k3 bots!)

To get the MOST from new games--play the larger levels with more bots and detail--I'll have to rely on the money I saved with my iBook becoming a PBG5 next year!

Thanks for the report relative to eMac. At least an iBook won't feel like a downgrade! I'll probably play original UT (Classic or UTX) more than UT2k3. (Actually, if 2k3 demo runs OK, I'll just wait and buy UT2k4 anyway.)

jamesa · Oct 25, 2003, 05:31 AM

anyone get a chance to test one of these new little fellas out with some games?

-- james

Peter · Oct 25, 2003, 06:27 AM

I think the 12" PowerBook is the gaming mac, I think the extra ram and more Mhz will overtake the better graphics card on the iBook.

Scooterboy · Oct 25, 2003, 12:59 PM

There again the 14" iBook at 1GHz should be a good match for the 12" PowerBook. And I'm not so sure that 640 MB is going to be the max amount of RAM you can cram into the new G4 iBook. Will the 1 GB chips fit?

jamesa · Nov 2, 2003, 12:59 AM

*bump*

Peter · Nov 2, 2003, 05:09 AM

Originally posted by Scooterboy:
G4, possibility of over 1 GB DDR-RAM, and the Ati Radeon 9200 makes this a great buy for the portable Mac gamer.

I am very pleased that Apple included this video GPU. The Radeon 9200 is, if I'm not mistaken, better than the nVidia in the 12" PowerBook, and close enough to state of the art for an iBook.

I'd like to see the Quake 3 and UT numbers!

Wireless AE lan parties?

I think the PowerBook 12" is the gaming laptop, more ram faster processor etc, etc. the iBook is designed for cost. I doubt gaming performance was a big factor for Apple when designing it.

Scooterboy · Nov 2, 2003, 07:00 PM

I think gaming is indeed a major factor in the design of the iBook. If not, why would they post this?

Even though it's a budget computer, I'm very happy Apple is paying attention gaming and video performance. Not every iBook owner only does word processing, web, and email.

StuartB · Nov 2, 2003, 07:37 PM

I'm thinkin about buyin a 12" iBook, and I'm not too farmiliar with Macs. I always play my games on my PC at pretty low res (800x600 normally) since my video card isn't the best. As long as I could play maybe Quake 3/other oldish FPS's I'd be happy.

Kibon · Nov 2, 2003, 08:17 PM

Originally posted by StuartB:
I'm thinkin about buyin a 12" iBook, and I'm not too farmiliar with Macs. I always play my games on my PC at pretty low res (800x600 normally) since my video card isn't the best. As long as I could play maybe Quake 3/other oldish FPS's I'd be happy.

Judging by the specs, it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

I could be more specific if you tell me your PC's specs and video card.

StuartB · Nov 2, 2003, 09:23 PM

AMD 1.4GHz, 786MB ram, and a 8500DV (slower than regular 8500). Nothing that impressive, but it works on most games with stuff turned down! I'm not expecting wonders out of an iBook, just to be able to run some games when I'm not at home near my PC.

jamesa · Nov 2, 2003, 10:40 PM

has anyone had a chance to do some benches on this thing?

-- james

Kibon · Nov 3, 2003, 02:43 AM

Originally posted by StuartB:
AMD 1.4GHz, 786MB ram, and a 8500DV (slower than regular 8500). Nothing that impressive, but it works on most games with stuff turned down! I'm not expecting wonders out of an iBook, just to be able to run some games when I'm not at home near my PC.

About the only thing that concerns me with gaming in mind for the iBook is clock speed of the CPU, as 800MHz is a bit on the low side (compared to what we are used to with our desktops).

My desktop PC is about 1/2 generation faster than yours, and yeah, it still runs pretty much every current game well. I can see running things in 800x600 to maximize performance though.

The iBook has a nice little GPU in it, but I'll have to defer my final opinion until I see some benchmarks (a pity there isn't something like 3DMark on Mac OS X). As well, when I (hopefully) buy an iBook, it will be for University, not specifically for gaming. Any of my gaming needs would most likely be run on my PC desktop regardless.

Scooterboy · Nov 3, 2003, 03:54 PM

I play Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, which is a Quake 3 Arena game, on my iBook 600 G3.

It is very playable, except for a few outdoor maps or when there are many, many bots. And this is only a 600 MHz 750 Cxe G3 and an ATi Rage Mobility 128 w. 8 MB VRAM.

I'd expect the new iBook G4 800 to play this game really well at 800x600, and maybe decently at 1024 x 768.

Any of you new iBook G4 owners playing this or any other Q3A game? FPS please....

mikeini · Nov 3, 2003, 04:58 PM

whats the max amount of ram you can put on the new ibook? apple sells them with no more than 638mb ram.

Scooterboy · Nov 3, 2003, 10:08 PM

It uses the same DDR RAM as the 12" PowerBook, so a 1 GB stick might fit. Not a worry now, as they are rare and very expensive. 640MB today, 1280 MB next year.