Macbook Pro Graphics Cards + Computer Games [closed]

Question

I'm buying a new Macbook pro, and I've run across another hardware question - I play a lot of computer games (Guild Wars, eventually Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, etc...) and I'm wondering how well Mac/Windows can play these games using the Macbook Pro graphics cards. What would be the difference between "NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 256MB" and "NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 512MB" in terms of gameplay?

Edit: i guess it might be important to say that I would be running this on a 1920x1200 1080p 24" external monitor. that might be important information to the answer to this question :)

so, where i'm i most likely to see the effect of the 512 as compared to the 256 with computer games and my hd external monitor at that resolution?

Answer 1

In terms of game play it means nothing at all. They're the same card with different amounts of memory. Granted there's a couple of games that state minimum requirements higher than 256mb of graphics memory, but these games wouldn't play well on this gpu anyway. With more memory you will be able to turn on higher resolution textures if given the option, and you might find the game stuttering less between scene changes that force it to swap out a lot of textures, but honestly, most good games have worked out what to do about these cases a long time ago and generally handle themselves just fine. Personally though, I'd choose the extra ram, because 4 years from now, when I'm still likely to have the same machine, some of the latest wiz-bang OS X 10.5+4y features might list 512mb as minimum requirements. This is kind of like how I couldn't use Exposé on an old iBook with only 8mb of VRAM as we called it back then.

Answer 2

If you're running Boot Camp you are in fact running Windows natively. This means that your MacBook Pro is running Windows just as if it was a "normal PC", and you can use the same graphics drivers etc. as you would with a PC. So no performance loss there just because you're running Mac.

With regards to the 256 MB vs. 512 MB question, I have read that graphics memory matters the most when you are playing demanding games at high resolutions (Full HD for example). So if you are going to play on the laptop screen I don't think you will see much performance gain with the 512 MB card.

Answer 3

I thought I had answered a similar question before, but I could not find it anywhere...

Anyway, I have a 13inch Unibody Macbook and I am always playing The Orange Box games on it. Having the extra graphics horsepower of the Macbook Pro would give you even better framerates.

Answer 4

Basically the 9600 is faster because it is a dedicated card which has its own memory.

You can see a basic review here.

Pretty gigantic gap in Crysis performance here. It's a bit more than the 50ish% difference tossed around a few weeks ago when describing the 9600 vs. the 9400, but that's also due to the faster CPU, more RAM and increased L2 cache found in the MacBook Pro. Still, though, you can gauge from the two charts that Crysis is kinda playable on the MacBook on low, and playable on the MacBook Pro on medium. Both are chunktastic on high, and both get slower when you start shooting people in the forest.

Answer 5

I own a two year old Mac Book Pro ( Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT, 256MB ) and use it to play World of Warcraft. I have no problems/complaints about the graphics speed. The current MBP should work just as well!

I played LotR using bootcamp, when that came out, worked fine too!

Answer 6

I have a PC with a 9600M GT 512mb and i have to say it handles most games pretty well.

Most notable games it can play smooth if you keep the settings slightly above medium on 1280x1024: Gears of War, CoD4.

Only game i've tried that isn't playable is Crysis that has horrible framerate even at lowest settings. Demigod also requires pretty low graphicssettings to play smooth even though it works good when you turn everything down. (Disclaimer: I havn't really tried that many new games on it)

I can't say how the 256mb version works though but the worst thing with this(and all mobile) card is that the fillrate isn't the best. Only 32 streamprocessors doesn't make it easy to run complex pixelshaders in high resolution. Does the 256mb version have as many pipes and does it run at the same frequency? Correct me if im wrong but i think this is more important than the ammount of memory.