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+--- Thread: Is my mac powerful enough to run some demanding games ? (/Thread-is-my-mac-powerful-enough-to-run-some-demanding-games)
RE: Is my mac powerful enough to run some demanding games ? - Uly_ - 12-14-2013
Hello, I'm terribly sorry to double-post but I would really like my question to be answered.
Could someone send me a report of how Mario Galaxy runs on a Macbook Pro 13" ?
Thanks !
RE: Is my mac powerful enough to run some demanding games ? - pauldacheez - 12-14-2013
It's more than likely that nobody here even has one, y'know. This forum is kinda lacking in terms of OS X users.
RE: Is my mac powerful enough to run some demanding games ? - NaturalViolence - 12-14-2013
Despite that being true I believe it's safe to say the answer is "ok". Even gaming laptops cannot run SMG at fullspeed and those are much faster than a MBP.
The GPU is good enough but the CPU is not. A high end laptop haswell i7 should be on par with a desktop ivy bridge at stock. Which I can tell you from experience runs the game around 60-80% speed in slower places and 80-100% in faster places. I would say 80% is around the average speed. And that's assuming TB reaches fullspeed which it almost never does on a mbp because they have notoriously poor cooling. So I expect performance on a current mbp to be lower than that. How much lower will depend on the cooling efficiency.
RE: Is my mac powerful enough to run some demanding games ? - pauldacheez - 12-15-2013
Turbo Boost goes all the way up to the i5-2557M's max of 2.6 GHz (or at least powertop claims so) on my shitty MacBook Air with its single fan, though it does hit 200ºF that way. I haven't modified the cooling in any way. (Well, not yet, at least. I have a tube of Arctic Silver 5 (and included cleaning materials) burning a hole in my desk.)
RE: Is my mac powerful enough to run some demanding games ? - NaturalViolence - 12-15-2013
1. That's not a MBP
2. For every 1 report of this we have 5 reports of them overheating. We will have to wait and see in OPs case but my point is don't get your hopes up.
RE: Is my mac powerful enough to run some demanding games ? - Uly_ - 12-19-2013
I just read some benchmarks of the Intel Iris Graphics card (which is in my Mac) and it looks like it supports OpenCL very well ! Even more than an Nvidia card ! Is there an option or something to activate OpenCL in dolphin, maybe it could speed up games a little bit. See by yourself : http://www.mac4ever.com/images-articles/6176_macbook-pro-retina-13-le-test-complet-de-mac4ever.png
RE: Is my mac powerful enough to run some demanding games ? - NaturalViolence - 12-19-2013
Luxmark really isn't the best way to asses openCL performance. And do keep in mind that supporting something well implies up to date support of current versions and features with few bugs. It does not mean that it performs well. Sorry I'm just picky about terminology.
Dolphin has an openCL texture decoder that you can turn on in the graphics options. It was recently removed from the development builds though as it is slower than the CPU based texture decoder and therefore does not improve performance. OpenCL is not a magic bullet that can speed up any application. It has specific uses for specific workloads.
RE: Is my mac powerful enough to run some demanding games ? - Uly_ - 12-29-2013
Hello, everybody. I had to bump this thread, as I finally got my Macbook Pro 13" Retina ^^.
I've played some games like Super Smash Bros Brawl, Mario Kart Wii, New Super Mario Bros Wii, and Mario Sunshine; and I must say, I'm really, really impressed. This computer rocks. It runs all these games perfectly, with resolution up to 2x at 60fps.
After playing these games, I decided to play Super Mario Galaxy 2. I was not excepting good results at all, as you guys said that it should run at 50-60% with native resolution.
And... it runs. Almost perfectly. All the time, from 90% to 100%. This is just awesome. Even while surfing on the web or downloading a file, the game was still running at 55-60fps. So, yeah, I'm very impressed, and so happy to be able to play my favorite games thanks to Dolphin
Again, thanks you for your answers !
RE: Is my mac powerful enough to run some demanding games ? - Shonumi - 12-29-2013
I think those speed estimates for Super Mario Galaxy were based on the assumption that you'd be using LLE audio rather than HLE :p The SMG games have issues with HLE audio (see the Dolphin wiki) but some people can deal with them. As long as you can enjoy a game, isn't that what counts?
RE: Is my mac powerful enough to run some demanding games ? - Uly_ - 12-29-2013
Yup ! Actually, the music stops playing at a few minutes of gameplay. But, as I listen to music while playing this is not a problem. I think I may even turn game sound off to make it run even faster. But, yeah, as long as you enjoy a game that's all that matters. But honestly, I wasn't expecting such a good framerate.