[phillryu]

I know there are a couple threads about this, but none of them really went into specifics. I'm wondering about performance for these games, if you have them. (FPS not required)

Warcraft 3
World of Warcraft
UT2K4

And also, if any of you are PC owners and have KotoR, could you anticipate if the 12" could handle it?

[Lancer409]

warcraft 3 runs fine on the powerbook revc as long as it's plugged in. i have it set so when it's on ac, the processor is at full blast. i set my powerbook performance to half, when it isnt plugged in. i now have 1.25gb ram so i should test it agian .. wonder if it's any better.

games tend to suck on macs .. a dual g5 powermac cant reach the levels of performance my gaming pc has. and that thing is getting out dated. it's a problem with porting i guess.

[sniffer]

Yeah them mac games sucks.

Seriously, as long as you are around the recommended hardware requirement, you should be fine.
(Perhaps not the answer you where looking for thought, sorry.)

[phillryu]

What if I have 512MB RAM? I was under the assumption that DDR RAM is like roughly equivilant to 2x SDRAM. Is this assumption totally wrong?

[sniffer]

Originally posted by phillryu:
What if I have 512MB RAM? I was under the assumption that DDR RAM is like roughly equivilant to 2x SDRAM. Is this assumption totally wrong?

It's not like faster ram (if that what you are implying to) can replace amount of ram in practice. So in other words, your assumption is wrong. Your only concern is to get enough ram. From an economical and performance perspective 768 MB is a good amount (built in 256 plus 512 extra). 1 Gig sticks is a little expensive, but can be useful if you want to do some heavy lifting with the PB 12". 512 MB might be less than what I would've gone for (256+256MB), but it should be sufficient for some gaming I'll guess.

[macaddict0001]

Well unreal will get around 10-20 frame's per second, with a hitch or two. If you are lucky then you may even get 25 for short burst's. The important thing to remember is to get lot's of ram, 512 should be good enough. Try the demo to see if you can get respectable frame's. Haven't tried the other game's. For comparison a theatre projector at the movie's get's about 24fps.

[DeathToWindows]

I find UT2k4 to be wholly playable on my 12" RevC powerbook... max payne, kabuto are good too

[phillryu]

What settings do you have UT2k4 on DeathToWindows? What FPS do you get roughly? Do you play with bots, or online?

[CadetStimpy]

I'm able to run UT2K4 on my 12" G4 iBook and seeing frame rates of 30-40fps. No tweaking - just running the game at the default of 800x600/32bit color. If I can run it that well on my iBook, your Powerbook should have no issues at all - as long as you've got enough RAM installed. Gamers should have no less than 512mb - 1gb would be best.

That said - you should be just fine.

[Simon]

In general, what are good prefs for better gaming performance on the 12" PowerBook?

I suppose the smaller the resolution, the less to render, the better the result. Is that correct?

Is lowering the bit depth another way to lower the demand? Or do games have optimum "native" resolutions?

The reason I'm asking is because using default settings for MOH or COD doesn't give decent multiplayer performance at all on my 12". I have to lower a lot, but I'm wondering if just reducing everything is the best way to go...

[macaddict0001]

lowering resolution doesn't meke less to render because their are still just as many polygons. Things that will help include detail level textures and the like.

[phillryu]

Do any of these games run well on 1024 resolution and decent levels of graphical details?

Giants: Citizen Kabuto
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
Max Payne
Jedi Knight II
Sim City (the newest one)
Call of Duty