Hi,

I recently purchased the brand new MacBook Pro w/Retina display that was unveiled at the October press event. I love the computer. It runs great, is super fast and sleek, and the games look great....all except 1, Battlefield 4. I have windows 7 64bit bootcamped on my macbook pro and I downloaded Battlefield 4 from Origin thinking that I would be able to run the game no problem. The specs on this laptop are far above the recommended settings for the game. However, when I try to run the game, I get around 5 frames per second no matter what. I put the resolution to the smallest it would go and put all of the graphical settings on low or off and still, I get around 5-10 FPS. It is unplayable.

I looked online to see if others were experiencing the same issues as me and low and behold they are. I have come to the conclusion that it is the graphics drivers that are the problem, not the hardware itself. I looked and I am currently running on driver 321.17 or something like that. I know that they just released 340 or whatever specifically for BF4. I tried to download the latest driver from nvidia's website but when it was running the installer, it says that my current hardware could not be found or something to that effect. I was wondering if anyone knew of a way to download the latest nvidia drivers on a bootcamped macbook pro or if I have to wait for apple to release them. Does anyone know how often apple releases driver updates for their video cards? Or am I just shit out of luck on running this game and I wasted $60?

Thanks

This might sound stupid but you got the Macbook pro with the NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M right? Because the others are Intel Iris Pro Graphics. Cant see any reason why it would say hardware cant be found if you have the 750 version.

You were trying to run that game with integrated graphics?

I'm guessing NVIDIA.

@ikilledthedj: Yes its the 15' with the GT 750M. On paper, I should be able to run the game no problem so Im assuming its a driver issue, and I can't download the new driver.

@sexytoad: Not impossible that he didn't by a machine with that spec. Not saying the guys an idiot but people read one thing on a specs page and think it apply to all

Not saying it, just implying it very heavily.

A 750M is about 33% of the GPU power that's recommended for BF4 (a 660 GTX). Get your resolution down around 720p, medium settings, you should get ~30fps range.

Its possible windows is only using the integrated intel chip and not the geforce card - what is listed under display adapters in Device Manager?

You bought a windows game to play on a macbook pro...

Passmark Relative Performance - A 750M is going to struggle big time with BF4, as tourgen said you're going to have to drop settings. Hardware not found error is an odd one, try running something like 3DMark and comparing to other people with Pro's to make sure things are all running ship-shape.

A windows game, no, a cutting edge game, for a Mac laptop. That thing does not approach the recommended requirements. Did you really pay $2600 for that silly thing?

play Team Fortress 2 instead.

lolmac

...Sorry. Yeah I got nothing.

The high end 15'' Mac Book Pro Retina is a pretty powerful machine, but its not built for gaming. The CPU is fairly powerful, but the 750M is not a gaming grade GPU. It could handle lighter games like Portal 2 or League of Legends well, but Battlefield 4's specs ask a lot out of a computer.

As someone who works IT support for students. Fuck macs.

Yeah, a 750M (note the M), on paper, does not come close to the recommended spec. Not sure where you're getting that. BF4 is pretty much the latest and greatest, graphically. Common sense says don't expect that to run super well on any laptop, much less on one not gaming-focused.

But hey, Origin has a game return policy now, so maybe try that.

I do believe the guy did just say:

Yeah... like others have said, BF4 on any laptop wouldn't run great especially a Mac.

I can run BF3 just fine on my 2012 MacBook Pro with the Intel HD 4000. I'd assume BF4 would be no different. Maybe tweak the settings a bit

Jesus Christ. You could have bought a stationary with two Titans at that price. Apple-Not even OnceFor gaming

Are you sure it's using the 750m to run the game and not the Intel integrated graphics? NVidia tries to switch them on the fly when loading games but it doesn't always work.

The BF4 Beta did run just fine on the previous generation Macbook Pro Retina (Nvidia 650m). If you have the new Retina with the 750m and it doesn't run smoothly it is probably software related. Apparently BF4 runs better on Win8 than Win7*, so upgrading Windows might help a bit. Otherwise I'm afraid you need to wait out Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple and/or Dice to fix the problem with new drivers, patches and so on.

*) http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/forum/threadview/2955064762797785749/

@holycrapitsadam: Most laptops with graphics cards have an integrated chip they use when not doing anything strenuous. Try making sure it's running off of the 750m and not an integrated chip.

Sorry if you've done this already, I haven't read the whole thread.

Yeah that sounds like it could be the problem. You should also try downloading GeForce Experience if you haven't already. It'll automatically manage the right drivers for you.

Edit: It might tell you if you're running integrated non Nvidia graphics or not too.

@themangalist: man, that's a bummer. Sorry to hear that. Hopefully you have luck on the drivers.

Is their a config utility you can use to disable the integrated intel gfx?

This reinforces my belief that gaming on a laptop is foolish.

It's a Macbook Pro, not a laptop. There are decent gaming Laptops out there, the Macbook Pro is not one of them. For the same money you can get gaming laptops with beefy high-end GPU's, of course they won't have a shiny Apple on them, but they will run games just fine.

okay, so, the 750m, is pretty much the same as a desktop 650, thought it has slightly lowered clocks, so it wont melt inside the space of a laptop.

I tried to find proper BF4 benchmarks with those cards, the closest i could get was one that included a desktop 650 ti.
As you can see, the 650 ti is almost twice as powerful as the 750m.

Battlefield 4 Benchmarked: Graphics & CPU Performance

Note that they are testing singleplayer, not the havoc that is 64 player multiplayer.
In the same situation they are testing, you should be able to get about half the framerate that the 650 ti gets with the same settings, thats an ideal situation though, that requires the rest of your computer to be as powerful as their testrig.

Can't expect much with the equivalent of a graphics card that cost about 110 bucks in 2012 under the hood.

If you want to play games on a laptop, you should at least buy a gaming laptop, with windows on it from the start, that thing would be meant to game on, and will have hardware to allow that.
The hardware manufacturer made it for you to play games on.

Apple cant set up product skews that include powerful graphics cards, assuming people will buy them to run stuff like bootcamp, and then install windows, and then try to run crysis.

I just picked up a MacBook Pro Retina with 750m as well. I'm having the same experience of terrible performance in BF4 (non-beta). And yes I have the latest drivers, etc.

I'm pretty sure it is a driver issue, since:

1. I could run the BF4 beta on my old 2011 MacBook pro with a Radeon 6750m. I had to turn absolutely everything to lowest settings, and to get 60 FPS I'd had to drop resolution to the absolute worse, but hey it ran :). BF3 also was smooth, so long as everything was turned down at 1680x1050. Considering the 750m is ~2 generations newer then the 6750m, has double the RAM, the terrible FPS has gotta be a driver issue. Note the FPS is just as terrible in campaign as in multiplayer
2. As for whether the integrated GPU might be running, MacBooks when running Windows can't run the Integrated GPU, i.e. optimus is disabled. (It should be noted even if the intergrated GPU was running, the new Iris Pro 5200 in the 2013 MacBook Pro Retinas are pretty capable. Yes, Integrated GPUs used to suck, but the new 5200s are roughly on par with a 650m, and a 650m can easily run BF3 at 60 FPS)

As for people saying MacBook Pros suck as gaming laptops, I totally disagree. I've been (Windows) gaming on MacBooks for the last 5 years, and they've often been my main gaming machine. Mac (or Linux) is almost a requirement for web developers like me, and the gaming power of MacBooks, so long as you get the top of the range ones with discrete graphics, are more then enough. Sure you can't run all games at full settings, but many recent titles you can run at e.g. medium at 1680x1050, and that's totally fine for what the laptop is for, work + gaming.

Anyways, since I suspect its a driver issue, we'll just have to wait it out until the drivers (or maybe BF4) gets updated. Luckily I've got a gaming desktop in the meantime :).

~Mat

EDIT: It occurs to me a good way to check if it is indeed a driver issue is to see if other games run poorly. BF4 is the only game I've installed so far, so I'll install some others and check them. E.g. Sleeping Dogs runs fine on my old MacBook with 6750m, so it should run a lot better on the 750m.

This thread is hilarious :-P

Did you check your power settings and made sure that the laptop is running at high performance and not balanced or power saver?

Notebook Check now has tests for BF4 and the 750m can get ~65 FPS (albeit at a paltry 1024x768, see http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-750M.90245.0.html). At 1024x768 I'm getting like 2-4 FPS, so definitely sounds like some combination of MacBook and nVidia drivers.

Coming from a Mac fan: a MacBook Pro is an awful choice to play Battlefield, even the 15" retina with Nvidia card won't run it smoothly

I checked Sleeping Dogs. At 1600x1050 with settings at normal/high, I get pretty smooth FPS. So terrible FPS in BF4 while NotebookCheck.net reckons you can 30-60 (depending on your settings) sounds like maybe BF4 triggers some crappy driver combination on a macbook pro with 750m. Especially since I was able to run the BF4 beta on my 2.5 year old macbook at much much better FPS.

@holycrapitsadam:

i had the exact same problem with the exact same macbook. Found a solution on the internet, it totally worked out for me.

Just click on this link:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/23690326#23690326

The guy who posted this threat solved the problem hisself and theres a pdf file he posted with the solution. Just follow the steps, takes about 30 minutes and then it should work.

I am now able to play the game on 1920x1080 with medium graphics smoothly, haven't tested high graphics yet but should be possible with a bit less fps.

Dont listen to the others saying that the macbook pro retina with gt 750m isn't enough for BF4, there is absolutely no problem playing the game after you have done these steps.

Good luck =)

@clobchob: Awesome, worked for me! Now the FPS is now ~60 at 1600x900. Haven't tried higher settings yet.

Note: when I got to the part in the PDF instructions to copy and paste the text for the new drivers into the nvao.inf, I used notepad and there were some characters added, like a "!" after the first copied line. I just deleted them to make it look like the PDF file, and all worked fine.

@holycrapitsadam

Seems that apple got a fix out for nvidia cards. Give that a go.

http://www.macrumors.com/2013/11/07/apple-releases-fix-for-nvidia-graphics-issue-on-new-15-inch-retina-macbook-pro/

I just looked at the base price on that Macbook... holy fucking shit balls the machine I could build with that kind of money.

@korwin: can you also make it weigh less than 2 kg? no? nobody cares then

Go download the driver and manually install it so that it doesn't have to detect the hardware. That miiiiight work. You're playing with some dark magics!

dunno why you'd buy a macbook just to overheat the GPU on the regular and possibly fuck up the whole thing just to playing a game out for every system

That's right Macbooks are for the WEAK!

There are plenty of laptops (and more powerful ones at that) that are equally light and don't cost two and a half grand. I don't see the relevance of the weight anyway - are you really that obsessed with 'gaming' on the go?

@example1013 said:

No, not really. He said:

The specs on this laptop are far above the recommended settings for the game.

That means the specs of his MacBook are above what the game requires. Almost all of the first handful of posts are asking why he tried to play this game with basics specs when the poster specifically said he had enough grunt to do so.

@hkz: Was it really worth bumping when the op hasn't replied for 2 weeks?

What a marvellous first post.

You should probably work on your reading comprehension, because you obviously did not understand my post. You also should work on your timing, since you're about 2 weeks too late.

@holycrapitsadam: sorry bro but you can edit video all you want on that thing but it's not gonna run bf4 for you. speaking as someone who's tried to play games on several laptops with discrete graphics cards, i can say that lower end graphics cards (especially mobile versions of them) never fair well with a game that's really taxing even on modern desktop PC's. I have an AMD desktop with a quad core at 3.4 ghz, 12 GB DDR3, and 2 HD7770's in crossfire mode and i find myself running multiplayer on medium settings at 1080p just to keep the framerate up around 60fps.