[SpencerLavery]

Bonjourno,

I'm trying to decide whether to build a basic PC for gaming or to sell my MB and get the new MBP, but I wanted to ask you guys about your experiences with gaming (mostly in BootCamp) on the MBP.

The sort of games I'll be looking to play are Battlefield 2, Counter-strike: Source, DoD: Source, etc. Nothing particularly groundbreaking.

But yeah I haven't been able to find hardly any reviews or benchmarks for the MBP since its been upgraded to the NVIDIA gfx card, except the one on PC Mag which is pretty surface scratching.

I love my Mac and would absolutely loathe having to buy a PC, but I've been gaming on PCs for years and got used to the sort of performance they can give. I've tried gaming on my MacBook but the integrated graphics are, as you would expect, pretty slow.

Estimated cost for both options would be (already have display, keyboard and mouse):

Gaming PC box: $900
Upgrading MB to MBP: $2000

Bonus of a MBP would be one machine, and no ugly as tower under my desk. Plus obviously it's a far superior machine to my current MB so the benefits are twofold.

I definitely need some good gaming performance though, what are your experiences?

[Jo.Li.]

I have a new MB Pro with the new nVidia 8600 but with 128MB of Video Memory, my experience It's only with BioShock on BootCamp and It's very good because It's goes at max settings at 1024*768.

[mduell]

The 8600M GT is pretty capable, especially for the older games you mentioned.

Some benchmarks:
MacBook Pro "Santa Rosa" - 3D Gaming
MacBook Pro "Santa Rosa" - 128M vs 256M VRAM

And video of Half-life 2 (same engine as the Source games you mentioned) and Half-life 2: Lost Coast on MBP:
YouTube - Half Life 2 Episode 1 on Macbook Pro 15"
YouTube - Half-Life 2: Lost Coast

[Rumor]

I've been playing NWN2 via Bootcamp on my 15" 2.4ghz w/ 256mb vid and it runs fine at max everything. I also get around 70 FPS playing Warcraft 3 in OSX, should be around the same for XP.

[Super Mario]

Enjoy

MacBook Pro gaming videos 

YouTube - BioShock on Macbook Pro 15"

[SpencerLavery]

Thanks for the awesome replies fellas, think my mind's made up, MBP it is

Another thing that worried me was connecting to an external monitor in BootCamp via DVI but that seems to be fixed now.

YouTube - BF2 on MacBook Pro - Sweet Performance!

YouTube - Battlefield 2 in Hi-Def from a MacBook Pro

[bballe336]

With crossover and my gen 1 MBP with 256mb x1600 I get 40FPS consistently in CS:S with maxed settings. The new machines should be way better.