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zander106 · May 24, 2006, 08:53 AM

I was wondering if anyone has played any previous-generation or slightly-current-generation 3D games on the Macbook. Specifically, I'd be interested in how any of the following perform:

The Sims 2 (plus any expansion packs)
Knights of the Old Republic
Star Wars: Battlefront
Ghost Master
Command and Conquer:Generals

I realize that none of these have Universal Binaries and performance under Rosetta will not really be optimal, but I would still be curious as to how these would play under the Macbook's GMA950.

I currently own an iBook G4/800 and will be upgrading at the end of the summer. While the Macbook will blow away my current computer in *all* other respects (transcoding video will now be tolerable, yes!), it's unclear to me whether it will play current games I have any better than the iBook G4. I don't really care about playing Doom 3, Halo, Quake 4 or any kind of super-intensive FPS. I'm a casual gamer who is just interested in catching up on a couple games that came out in the past couple of years (like Knights of the Old Republic) that my current iBook can't handle.

Thanks!

harrisjamieh · May 24, 2006, 09:05 AM

Originally Posted by zander106

I realize that none of these have Universal Binaries and performance under Rosetta will not really be optimal

Thats an understatement! Game performance under rosetta will be horrid with those sorts of games. I am getting my MacBook tonight, and I will be installing Boot Camp, and probs the Sims 2 (windows version) so I can tell you about that soon... (dont have the mac version)

zander106 · May 24, 2006, 09:48 AM

Thanks harrisjamieh. I will definitely be installing XP on any Macbook I get, so if the performance for a game like Sims 2 under XP is decent then I will be psyched. Heck, I'll be psyched to play the *original* Half-Life under Windows, which I never played. Keep me posted if you can...

galarneau · May 24, 2006, 01:11 PM

Yeah, I played the original half-life a couple years ago, and it was a ton of fun.

There are a few expansion packs for it as well:
Blue-Shift and ... I forget the other one.

Another game we never got was the original Unreal expansion pack: Return to Napali

TheoCryst · May 24, 2006, 01:13 PM

Oh, btw: Sims2 DOES have a universal patch.

Gee4orce · May 25, 2006, 03:24 AM

...another option is to install Windows (via bootcamp or parallels) and then play last-generation Windows games. These are available in the bargain bin in game stores - I picked up Shogun Total War for a few quid - don't ask how it plays yet because I haven't got that far yet !

zander106 · May 25, 2006, 07:49 AM

Originally Posted by Gee4orce

...another option is to install Windows (via bootcamp or parallels) and then play last-generation Windows games. These are available in the bargain bin in game stores - I picked up Shogun Total War for a few quid - don't ask how it plays yet because I haven't got that far yet !

Yeah, I'm looking forward to playing some older school games like Blade Runner that I never got around to because they were never ported. I figure a game that's around 5+ years old should run fine on the Macbook's integrated graphics card, assuming such a game will still run on XP. Let me know if Total War runs OK -- that's not a super old game, but it has a lot of 3d graphics and I'd really like to see if it's playable on Macbook....

harrisjamieh · May 25, 2006, 09:32 AM

Well I just loaded the Sims 2 onto my windows partition, and it runs better than I expcected it to. It has a very very slight jerkiness to it, but very acceptable indeed. not as good as on my iMac (obviously), but still better than I expected, and I only have 512 RAM atm. This was with all the settings at low, with the res set at the native size, 1280 x 800

G0Ducks · May 25, 2006, 11:54 AM

Can anyone say Tribes??? My god! I so can't wait!

R

Gee4orce · May 26, 2006, 03:00 AM

Finally got around to installing XP in Parallels, so I'll give Total War a spin tonight. If Shogun works, I'm gonna try and see if Rome works too

...but I"m 100% confident that Close Combat will work - oh how I love that game, and it was such a pity that the later ones never came out for Mac. Well, I tried playing them under Virtual PC, and it was hopeless. I can see a wasted weekend ahead of me

zander106 · May 26, 2006, 08:25 AM

I've heard that 3D games won't do so well under Parallels but probably a bit better under Boot Camp. Keep us posted on the Total War test.

I did run a test of my own at the new glass cube Apple Store on 5th Ave. I put the Battlefield 1942 (Single-Player) Demo on my key drive, brought it over there and played it on the Macbook. It was surprisingly playable. It wasn't running quite at 30 fps, probably something closer to 20 fps, but not awful (didn't know how to turn on a frame counter, so sorry about imprecise estimates). By default the graphics were set to 800x600 high quality, and dropping them to medium quality helped a bit. I didn't do too much in the demo besides running around, but there were 3 or 4 tanks in the area as well as a jeep and a plane flying overhead, and they seemed to look OK without any stuttering. I also tried it out on a Macbook Pro at the store too. It played better and smoother on that machine, of course.

Main point: the game definitely seemed playable on the Macbook. Still better than my iBook G4/800, in any case. And in Rosetta nonetheless. I may put other demos on my key drive and run them over to the Apple Store to test again sometime soon.

zander106 · May 26, 2006, 08:34 AM

Originally Posted by harrisjamieh

Well I just loaded the Sims 2 onto my windows partition, and it runs better than I expcected it to. It has a very very slight jerkiness to it, but very acceptable indeed. not as good as on my iMac (obviously), but still better than I expected, and I only have 512 RAM atm. This was with all the settings at low, with the res set at the native size, 1280 x 800

Cool! That's good news. I definitely want to play Sims 2 on my Macbook. I wonder how Windows performance would compare to the UB Mac version. Sounds playable at the very least, and I probably wouldn't even play it at native rez (probably drop it down to 800x600). Extra RAM will probably help too.

I am leaning more now towards saving the extra $500 for a Macbook Pro and just investing that money in a new console next year. Only thing I need to get over now is Spore. Will I be OK with not being able to play what people are predicting will be the best...game...ever? Since I've still never played Half-Life, X-Com or Starcraft, I'll probably live...right?

tillin · May 26, 2006, 02:49 PM

oh my god... i just thought of that.. i used to play half-life years ago right when it came out... i still have the discs somewhere... that alone would make me happy, that i could play half life again.

i still want a macbook. but im going to wait until the CS3 universal binary comes out. ( maybe by then there will be an update to the macbook )