I'm preparing to attend college this Winter (January. Yeah, kinda late, I know) so I decided to pony up the cash for a 15.3" MacBook Pro and 24" LED Apple Cinema Display. I'm fully aware that Mac isn't at all an optimal as far as gaming goes. Luckily, the game I play most of the time on my current desktop machine is World of Warcraft. I do, however, want to know what I should expect from Boot Camp. Will I be able to run Steam and (at least some of) its games? How reliable is the Windows emulation?
I really can't wait for this thing to get here. I love what Apple does with their software. It's always so sleek and streamlined in both its appearance and use. Obviously I've mainly made this purchase for college and for the fact that I'm a total media whore.
There is no Windows "emulation". With Boot Camp, Windows will run natively on the hardware, so the performance will be exactly the same as it would be on any other laptop with those specs.
Yes - you should have no trouble with Steam and many games, especially source engine based games should run very well. Remember that there is a Mac version of World of Warcraft, though when I last tried it (about 2 years ago) performance was a lot worse than its Windows version and so I ended up running it through Boot Camp.
Yeah I just got mine last wee (13 inch)k, it's great, but I'm not using the bootcamp thing, I haven't really bought this laptop for gaming but for my studies. But yeah it's great works great once you get used to the differences between this and windows. :D
Windows runs solid on the Intel Macs, you should be quite happy with your purchase. Like mentioned above, Bootcamp runs Windows natively outside of OSX, but if you want to run Windows and non-gaming Windows applications from within OSX, virtual machine software such as Parallels or VMWare Fusion (my preference) will let you do so easily.
@Kombat: I got me a Mac Book Pro that I got from Full Sail last year and it's pretty beast at running games I must say. I do use Boot Camp and run Windows XP and uhh yeah I run Steam and the following games I got and have ran on it perfectly were:
- Prototype - Mass Effect - Counter Strike Source - Champions Online - City of Heroes - WoW (of course) - Street Fighter 4 - Half Life 2
And so on...figured that list will give you a bit of an idea.
Windows will run both desktops and laptops hot with Bootcamp. Just keep an eye on that. Performance-wise (based on the pre-unibody Mac Book Pro 17" 2.6ghz with 4gb ram and also a Mac Pro dual quad-core with 16gb ram and an 8800), I'm able to run EVE-Online with the current premium graphics at full resolution (including at 2560x1600 on the cinema display). It can get a bit chopping in some situations, but it's possible. Crank down the settings appropriately for your device and you should be just fine for most games. You can also play a lot of games (up to DirectX 9.0 and possibly even 9.0c support) on a guest OS via VMWare Fusion or Parallels 4 fairly successfully (download and test the trials on any specific games you're curious about).
If you're going into any sort of CS field, you will adore your Mac. The uninitiated and ignorant will chastise you for owning a "fisher price toy" but those morons don't know a monolithic kernel from a kernel of corn, a bash shell from a turtle shell, or a core dump from a garbage dump. I work at a major Unix company and I know more of my fellow developers and engineers who own Macs than anything else. Having a limited game experience is a small price to pay for everything you gain (and your gaming experience is limited on linux as well, which for many of us is the only real alternative OS we'd consider long-term).
By the way, if you'll be doing bootcamp on a mac book pro very often, I would definitely advise investing in a decent laptop riser with a couple of fans to help keep things cool. A Mac laptop can get damned hot just running its own OS...
@ Alex_Murphy Why would you have a one-button mouse?! Hell, mine has 7 and two scroll wheels.
@Branthog: Like I said, I also picked up a 24" Apple Cinema Display for the MacBook Pro. I doubt I'll do a whole lot of gaming on the fly. I also grabbed one of these, which will make pretending that my MacBook is a desktop a lot easier when I'm not out and moving around.
I'm glad to hear that gaming in general works fine with Boot Camp. I was fully expecting there to be loads of problems, and I would have been okay with that, but hearing that it's a petty smooth process makes me even more satisfied.
" Why would you have a one-button mouse?! Hell, mine has 7 and two scroll wheels."
Well it's going to come with one button so he'll probably have to go out and buy another one. I never had a mac, but I had to use one for a class I had and that one button just bugged the hell out of me. But I guess it's all about what you're used to.
" Why would you have a one-button mouse?! Hell, mine has 7 and two scroll wheels."
Well it's going to come with one button so he'll probably have to go out and buy another one. I never had a mac, but I had to use one for a class I had and that one button just bugged the hell out of me. But I guess it's all about what you're used to. "
if it's a macbook you are talking about, he won't get a mouse, but the mighty mouse has something like 5 buttons....
anyhoo, OP, you'll love it - I've had mine for about 4 months now and it's great, I also got an obscene discount on it too.....
@hunkaburningluv: About all I got was the $200 student discount. I can't wait for it to get here. I probably won't sleep tonight. I get like that when it comes to receiving new tech gizmos to play with. Hell, I stayed up all night for m iPhone 3GS and all it really did was add a video camera.
@Kombat: Congrats on your new mac. I don't really have anything else to add except that if you are looking for good apps to run then PM me. Right off the I can say that you want a program called Adium and Perian.
Adium is an IM client for osx that supports many other IM networks including, MSN, AIM, Jabber, ISQ, Yahoo! Messenger, and many many more. IRC and Twitter are in beta form now but expect an official release soon.
Perian is basically a free, open source component that expands and adds additional supports for multiple video and audio formats for QuickTime.
Let me know if you are interested in anything else or are looking for other programs.
Get the Mac, but do NOT get the cinema display. The cinema displays look nice, but they are, without a doubt, the MOST overpriced hardware Apple sells. For comparison, the 24" cinema display costs 900 FUCKING DOLLARS. That is ABSURD. My 24" Acer monitor with almost IDENTICAL specs, cost 220 dollars.
If you buy an Apple Cinema display, you are Apple's bitch. If you already bought it, return it. You can get 3 Acer H243Hs, in a triple-monitor config, for that price.
@Kombat: I run bootcamp on my 13 inch macbook pro and it runs windows great. I am currently still running the Windows 7 release candidate and it works perfect. I would not have gotten that cinema display, costs way too much. But as for games, it runs steam well also and it just depends on what you will play. I mostly stick to the half-life games and those all run well at max settings so you should be fine if you dont plan heavy gaming with the newest games.
My only problem with my limited time (literally about 5 minutes) using Boot Camp was with the touchpad not behaving like it does in OS X (lacking scrolling and right-click capabilities). This could have just been me neglecting to realize there were options for them, but it was annoying and made the thing unusable without pluging in an external mouse, since Windows relies so heavily on the right click.
The best thing to do is run games that work natively in OS X, but if you absolutely have to, running Windows in boot camp is just fine.
" @hunkaburningluv: About all I got was the $200 student discount. I can't wait for it to get here. I probably won't sleep tonight. I get like that when it comes to receiving new tech gizmos to play with. Hell, I stayed up all night for m iPhone 3GS and all it really did was add a video camera. "
I got a ridiculous amount of with my educational discount, I got around £600 off my total bill.
" @Kombat: I got me a Mac Book Pro that I got from Full Sail last year and it's pretty beast at running games I must say. I do use Boot Camp and run Windows XP and uhh yeah I run Steam and the following games I got and have ran on it perfectly were: - Prototype - Mass Effect - Counter Strike Source - Champions Online - City of Heroes - WoW (of course) - Street Fighter 4 - Half Life 2 And so on...figured that list will give you a bit of an idea. "
Full Sail is giving laptops to all students now, it used to just be animation dudes or something? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK that. I graduated from Digital Media (Now Digital Art & Design) 2 years ago.
Anyone try to use 3ds Max on it??? I have been looking at getting a new mac and tossing my Dell P4 (which is taking up needed space) when I get a Mac with Bootcamp but need to be able to run 3ds Max. I'm guessing it should run really good but I have never seen it in action on Bootcamp.
" Anyone try to use 3ds Max on it??? I have been looking at getting a new mac and tossing my Dell P4 (which is taking up needed space) when I get a Mac with Bootcamp but need to be able to run 3ds Max. I'm guessing it should run really good but I have never seen it in action on Bootcamp. "
" @Kombat: I got me a Mac Book Pro that I got from Full Sail last year and it's pretty beast at running games I must say. I do use Boot Camp and run Windows XP and uhh yeah I run Steam and the following games I got and have ran on it perfectly were: - Prototype - Mass Effect - Counter Strike Source - Champions Online - City of Heroes - WoW (of course) - Street Fighter 4 - Half Life 2 And so on...figured that list will give you a bit of an idea. "
Shit, why the hell did I just spend 900 euro on a desktop while this laptop could run everything perfectly... Oh wait, I'm guessing you meant to say that they run on it. Perfectly would be on ultra-high settings and all, this laptop has a 9600M GT, I'm guessing anything above low settings is too much for it. Which is fine really, unless you get a gamerlaptop then you really can't expect much of it. Games such as CS:S, HL2, TF2 etc should work nearly perfectly though.
" Anyone try to use 3ds Max on it??? I have been looking at getting a new mac and tossing my Dell P4 (which is taking up needed space) when I get a Mac with Bootcamp but need to be able to run 3ds Max. I'm guessing it should run really good but I have never seen it in action on Bootcamp. "
It runs fine. "
Cool thanks, now I just have to cough up the money and buy one.
" @Kombat: I got me a Mac Book Pro that I got from Full Sail last year and it's pretty beast at running games I must say. I do use Boot Camp and run Windows XP and uhh yeah I run Steam and the following games I got and have ran on it perfectly were: - Prototype - Mass Effect - Counter Strike Source - Champions Online - City of Heroes - WoW (of course) - Street Fighter 4 - Half Life 2 And so on...figured that list will give you a bit of an idea. "
Full Sail is giving laptops to all students now, it used to just be animation dudes or something? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK that. I graduated from Digital Media (Now Digital Art & Design) 2 years ago. "
Hahahah didn't know everyone was getn one now....might as well for those tuition prices heh. I did Game Art.
I just recently actually tried using a Mac. It's a little confusing, but Macs tend to work better than PCs. And the one button mouse didn't really get in my way, but my friends agree it is kind of dumb.
And why would Macs work better then PC's? Unless Macs do your dishes or polishes your shoes then I really don't see how it can work better, especially with Windows 7.
Welcome to the Mac Club, Kombat. We are a friendly lot, and nothing like PC users say we are. I joined the Mac Club 8 years ago and never looked back. I also use Bootcamp with Windows on my iMac and Macbook and the games I enjoy run fine on both - I am an RTS man, not a FPS one. I spent good deal on Windows, and I have been surprised at how little I use it outside of the RTS games.
I use a wireless Microsoft mouse with my Macbook for games and other things and it works fine. I also love connecting the Macbook to my plasma television for big screen RTS.
Both my MacBook Pro and 24" Apple Cinema Display arrived today, and though I really haven't done much up to this point outside of installing updates and various games and such (still doing that as I type this actually), i absolutely love it. It was an expensive purchase, and i definitely started feeling a significant amount of buyer's remorse after logging into my bank account yesterday afternoon and seeing the balance, but all of that's mostly gone at this point. Couldn't be happier. Well, maybe if I could figure out how to make double-clicking my Mighty Mouse highlight the entire address bar in Safari I might be.
I'll post some pictures in a little bit, once I get things a little more set up and organized.
" Why would you have a one-button mouse?! Hell, mine has 7 and two scroll wheels."
Well it's going to come with one button so he'll probably have to go out and buy another one. I never had a mac, but I had to use one for a class I had and that one button just bugged the hell out of me. But I guess it's all about what you're used to. "
if it's a macbook you are talking about, he won't get a mouse, but the mighty mouse has something like 5 buttons.... anyhoo, OP, you'll love it - I've had mine for about 4 months now and it's great, I also got an obscene discount on it too..... "
The mightly mouse is awful. You would think for a company so rooted in design, they would put some emphasis on ergonomics, too.
Go out and get a decent Logitech, Microsoft, or (if you buy into this sort of thing) Razer mouse and enjoy.
" Yes it is dumb and my MX Revolution agrees. And why would Macs work better then PC's? Unless Macs do your dishes or polishes your shoes then I really don't see how it can work better, especially with Windows 7. "
I wish you would elaborate on your rather astonishing comment, because I'm not sure I read it the same way you meant it.
Why wouldn't you expect one OS to work better? Or at the very least, differently? They are entirely different operating systems. They aren't even remotely similar (OSX is essentially a *nix variant with its ancestry to the Mach kernel and BSD). One might as well ask "how can a scalpal possibly be better than a butter knife?". Well, if you're Suzy Homemaker and you just need to butter bread, then a knife is probably sufficient. If you're a brain surgeon, you probably demand a scalpal. They may both perform the same underlying function (cutting/computing) but in very different ways with -- aside from some basic common overlapping -- very different needs and goals.
For example, as a gamer, I find OSX mostly useless.
As a software developer, I find OSX necessary. Though it isn't Linux or Solaris, it maintains most of the same underlying nature which means I can live in a bash shell, use my shell scripts (as well as perl, python, etc). I can easily compile and test and debug things with gcc and various debuggers. I can run various test mail/web/ftp/whatever servers. The fact that there's a pretty shiny streamlined GUI is just a bonus on top of the powerful engine underneath that lets me do all the work I really need to do. (After all, just because I *CAN* spend two weeks cofiguring modelines in my xfree86 configuration on linux to get my monitor to display right on the desktop doesn't mean I *WANT* to). On top of that, since my OSX system has 16gb of ram and and dual quad cores, I can very comfortably run many guest operating systems (currently debian, slackware, windows xp sp3, a guest OSX, Solaris 9, and Solaris 10) inside of my currently running OSX host. On the other hand, if my girlfriend just wanst to hop on and check her mail, she can easily do that. Because it doesn't force her to be under the hood if she doesn't want to.
Of course, all of this versatility is meaningless if your primary intent is playing games. So in that regard -- yep, Macs aren't better than PCs. Maybe some day something other than DirectX will come along and games can easily be made for both platforms. And that sort of sucks that you have to run Bootcamp just to play games (or have an additional system).
But to suggest that one doesn't work better than the other simply because "both are coming out with new versions" or whatever other logic was implied.. is just meaningless.
" @Kombat: I got me a Mac Book Pro that I got from Full Sail last year and it's pretty beast at running games I must say. I do use Boot Camp and run Windows XP and uhh yeah I run Steam and the following games I got and have ran on it perfectly were: - Prototype - Mass Effect - Counter Strike Source - Champions Online - City of Heroes - WoW (of course) - Street Fighter 4 - Half Life 2 And so on...figured that list will give you a bit of an idea. "
Shit, why the hell did I just spend 900 euro on a desktop while this laptop could run everything perfectly... Oh wait, I'm guessing you meant to say that they run on it. Perfectly would be on ultra-high settings and all, this laptop has a 9600M GT, I'm guessing anything above low settings is too much for it. Which is fine really, unless you get a gamerlaptop then you really can't expect much of it. Games such as CS:S, HL2, TF2 etc should work nearly perfectly though. "
Gaming on a laptop is a convenient luxury. You should not be buying a laptop with the intention of gaming on it. That's still not the primary function of any laptop nor where they excel and spending $5k for a true "gamer laptop" (that weighs a hell of a lot, usually) is kind of silly.
Also, you might be surprised how well the MBPs run. Though it's not exactly the same comparison, my Mac Pro (desktop) runs things at pretty playable rates with most of the eye candy cranked up and at a resolution of 1920x1200 and 2560x1600. Of course, you don't buy a Mac to play games anymore than you have a linux or unix machine for playing games. That you CAN is convenient and nothing more. That you can at pretty decent rates and quality is very nice... but still not the primary point.
But hey, everyone has to get a stiffy feeling superior over something or other and if being assured that your OS (be it linux, solaris, windows, osx, etc) is better than all the rest and everyone else is a fucking too, then... well, chub away everyone!
"or (if you buy into this sort of thing) Razer mouse"
*owns the 30" cinema display*
Oh, the irony. "
What irony is there in having a large screen versus havng "trendy gamer mouse"? The Razer mouse is all about marketing. A 30" screen is a 30" screen. And for that matter, I actually have three of them as the screen real-estate has become more and more necessary (well, at the very least, more convenient) for productivity in my field. I simply couldn't cope with a smaller monitor (though I'm sure most other people with different demand can and that's fine).
You could perhaps argue that "you could buy a cheaper 30-inch screen", but the price on the ACDs are not actually all that bad for the specs. Especially with the changes to the last run of the current model (though when they sold for almost double the price at $3,000 you could definitely argue anything cheaper is better!).
Coke versus Pepsi is okay, too. But "Game Fuel" flavored Mountain Dew is still silly gimmick the same way the Razer mouse (mostly) is.
PS: If Razer still sells the original Boomslang mouse, then I might eat my words because that was an exceptional gaming mouse back in the day. :)
"or (if you buy into this sort of thing) Razer mouse"
*owns the 30" cinema display*
Oh, the irony. "
What irony is there in having a large screen versus havng "trendy gamer mouse"? The Razer mouse is all about marketing. A 30" screen is a 30" screen. And for that matter, I actually have three of them as the screen real-estate has become more and more necessary (well, at the very least, more convenient) for productivity in my field. I simply couldn't cope with a smaller monitor (though I'm sure most other people with different demand can and that's fine). You could perhaps argue that "you could buy a cheaper 30-inch screen", but the price on the ACDs are not actually all that bad for the specs. Especially with the changes to the last run of the current model (though when they sold for almost double the price at $3,000 you could definitely argue anything cheaper is better!). Coke versus Pepsi is okay, too. But "Game Fuel" flavored Mountain Dew is still silly gimmick the same way the Razer mouse (mostly) is. PS: If Razer still sells the original Boomslang mouse, then I might eat my words because that was an exceptional gaming mouse back in the day. :) "
How's the drug dealing game working out for you? seeing as you seem to have at least 20k worth of mac there.
" Both my MacBook Pro and 24" Apple Cinema Display arrived today, and though I really haven't done much up to this point outside of installing updates and various games and such (still doing that as I type this actually), i absolutely love it. It was an expensive purchase, and i definitely started feeling a significant amount of buyer's remorse after logging into my bank account yesterday afternoon and seeing the balance, but all of that's mostly gone at this point. Couldn't be happier. Well, maybe if I could figure out how to make double-clicking my Mighty Mouse highlight the entire address bar in Safari I might be. I'll post some pictures in a little bit, once I get things a little more set up and organized. "
Are you sure it's a Mighty Mouse? If it came with the machine, then it probably isn't and is just the cheap regular wired mouse. Save yourself the trouble and go out and get a nice Logitech MX1000 Laser mouse or something else that you feel comfortable with and ditch the Apple mice. Apple makes a sweet OS and some pretty damned nice hardware, but no need buying into the style right down to the point of suffering with a crappy mouse. Or for that matter, the crappy keyboards they sell.
As long as whatever your keyboard and mouse is connects via USB (or wireless to a USB receiver), you'll be fine.
Also, you may already know this, but I'd advise putting off the 10.6 Snow Leopard update. There remain some incompatibilities that just aren't worth the trouble. Give it away. At least until you're familiar with the system if nothing else. :)
" @Branthog: OK, just ignore the > $1500 price point. Also, you really need 30" of real estate on one monitor? Do you really? "
@DarkFlow83 said:
" @Branthog said:
" @PowerSerj said:
" @Branthog said:
"or (if you buy into this sort of thing) Razer mouse"
*owns the 30" cinema display*
Oh, the irony. "
What irony is there in having a large screen versus havng "trendy gamer mouse"? The Razer mouse is all about marketing. A 30" screen is a 30" screen. And for that matter, I actually have three of them as the screen real-estate has become more and more necessary (well, at the very least, more convenient) for productivity in my field. I simply couldn't cope with a smaller monitor (though I'm sure most other people with different demand can and that's fine). You could perhaps argue that "you could buy a cheaper 30-inch screen", but the price on the ACDs are not actually all that bad for the specs. Especially with the changes to the last run of the current model (though when they sold for almost double the price at $3,000 you could definitely argue anything cheaper is better!). Coke versus Pepsi is okay, too. But "Game Fuel" flavored Mountain Dew is still silly gimmick the same way the Razer mouse (mostly) is. PS: If Razer still sells the original Boomslang mouse, then I might eat my words because that was an exceptional gaming mouse back in the day. :) "
How's the drug dealing game working out for you? seeing as you seem to have at least 20k worth of mac there. "
Your math is slightly off. ACDs are under $1,800 and both my Mac Book Pro and Mac Pro were $6,000 combined after my (not an Apple) employee discount. That comes in at under $12,000. The key to Apple hardware is not buy their in-house components since you can get the same thing elsewhere for far less. As an example, 32gb of RAM (the most a Mac Pro will hold) is something like $10,000+ at Apple. The exact same stuff from the exact same manufacturer can be acquired for under $2,000. Same with the hard drives. Also, since these are business expenses, they're deducted as such when tax time rolls around. Doesn't make them free by any means, but it does help alleviate some of the otherwise considerable investment.
Anyway, the real money-hardware has nothing to do with Apple. Since a lot of my work involves enterprise level applications on big iron, my primary testing unit is an equipped SPARC T5140 that sits in a rack in my home office and runs something like $30,000. Fortunately, I didn't pay for it, but I'm constantly living in fear that I'll come home some day to find I've been robbed by someone who knew what it was and managed to haul off with it. That might be difficult to explain to my employer...
@PowerSerj said:
" @Branthog: OK, just ignore the > $1500 price point. Also, you really need 30" of real estate on one monitor? Do you really? "
Yes. I really do. I've spent an average of 12-16 hours every day for more than a decade plugging away at a computer in my home office for a living and while I could get by with a cheap $50 chair and a 14" CRT monitor, I long ago realized the importance of investing in things that will improve your efficiency, productivity, and comfort. I just regret that i didn't learn that lesson earlier in my career
" @Kombat: I got me a Mac Book Pro that I got from Full Sail last year and it's pretty beast at running games I must say. I do use Boot Camp and run Windows XP and uhh yeah I run Steam and the following games I got and have ran on it perfectly were: - Prototype - Mass Effect - Counter Strike Source - Champions Online - City of Heroes - WoW (of course) - Street Fighter 4 - Half Life 2 And so on...figured that list will give you a bit of an idea. "
Shit, why the hell did I just spend 900 euro on a desktop while this laptop could run everything perfectly... Oh wait, I'm guessing you meant to say that they run on it. Perfectly would be on ultra-high settings and all, this laptop has a 9600M GT, I'm guessing anything above low settings is too much for it. Which is fine really, unless you get a gamerlaptop then you really can't expect much of it. Games such as CS:S, HL2, TF2 etc should work nearly perfectly though. "
Gaming on a laptop is a convenient luxury. You should not be buying a laptop with the intention of gaming on it. That's still not the primary function of any laptop nor where they excel and spending $5k for a true "gamer laptop" (that weighs a hell of a lot, usually) is kind of silly. Also, you might be surprised how well the MBPs run. Though it's not exactly the same comparison, my Mac Pro (desktop) runs things at pretty playable rates with most of the eye candy cranked up and at a resolution of 1920x1200 and 2560x1600. Of course, you don't buy a Mac to play games anymore than you have a linux or unix machine for playing games. That you CAN is convenient and nothing more. That you can at pretty decent rates and quality is very nice... but still not the primary point. But hey, everyone has to get a stiffy feeling superior over something or other and if being assured that your OS (be it linux, solaris, windows, osx, etc) is better than all the rest and everyone else is a fucking too, then... well, chub away everyone! "
Actually didn't buy my laptop...got it for free (well my tuition paid for it) when I went to Full Sail but yeah I mean of course I would rather have a badass rig which I do, but like you said, it's a convenient luxury pretty much.
" @Kombat: I got me a Mac Book Pro that I got from Full Sail last year and it's pretty beast at running games I must say. I do use Boot Camp and run Windows XP and uhh yeah I run Steam and the following games I got and have ran on it perfectly were: - Prototype - Mass Effect - Counter Strike Source - Champions Online - City of Heroes - WoW (of course) - Street Fighter 4 - Half Life 2 And so on...figured that list will give you a bit of an idea. "
Shit, why the hell did I just spend 900 euro on a desktop while this laptop could run everything perfectly... Oh wait, I'm guessing you meant to say that they run on it. Perfectly would be on ultra-high settings and all, this laptop has a 9600M GT, I'm guessing anything above low settings is too much for it. Which is fine really, unless you get a gamerlaptop then you really can't expect much of it. Games such as CS:S, HL2, TF2 etc should work nearly perfectly though. "
Gaming on a laptop is a convenient luxury. You should not be buying a laptop with the intention of gaming on it. That's still not the primary function of any laptop nor where they excel and spending $5k for a true "gamer laptop" (that weighs a hell of a lot, usually) is kind of silly. Also, you might be surprised how well the MBPs run. Though it's not exactly the same comparison, my Mac Pro (desktop) runs things at pretty playable rates with most of the eye candy cranked up and at a resolution of 1920x1200 and 2560x1600. Of course, you don't buy a Mac to play games anymore than you have a linux or unix machine for playing games. That you CAN is convenient and nothing more. That you can at pretty decent rates and quality is very nice... but still not the primary point. But hey, everyone has to get a stiffy feeling superior over something or other and if being assured that your OS (be it linux, solaris, windows, osx, etc) is better than all the rest and everyone else is a fucking too, then... well, chub away everyone! "
Actually didn't buy my laptop...got it for free (well my tuition paid for it) when I went to Full Sail but yeah I mean of course I would rather have a badass rig which I do, but like you said, it's a convenient luxury pretty much. "
That was a point that was difficult to get across to a lot of EVE-Online players a few months ago. They were all irate because some minor changes to the EVE engine (involving shader model versions) meant that their six year old cheap lapops would no longer run the game. They absolutely could not believe that a laptop -- a six year old one at that -- wasn't enough to run top of the line current generation videogames.
I'm not sure if laptops will ever be truly capable in that regard (because while technology improves, so do the demands of games -- usually aiming right at the desktop market, which means the laptop market will always lag).
When you find a couple games you really love that will work (even if not beyond optimally) on your laptop... it makes you pretty happy, though. Something you can waste alway some hours on when you have down time. :)
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