Gaming On A MacBook Pro Under Windows XP : Apple's MacBook Pro Boots OS X & Win XP

Gaming On A MacBook Pro Under Windows XP

By Bill Lake, published on February 7, 2007
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: apples, macbook, pro

Contents

5. Gaming On A MacBook Pro Under Windows XP
6. Conclusions

5. Gaming On A MacBook Pro Under Windows XP

Using Windows XP on a MacBook Pro may be easy and even enjoyable, but what about playing Windows based games? My first test was a subjective one, installing F.E.A.R. and playing it in two player mode. This went without a hitch using just the auto configured settings of the game for graphics and such. Purists would say you have to test with a range of settings. However, when two long time gamers took on F.E.A.R. they not only found it quite playable on the XP based MacBook, but fun as well.

Next I did some game benchmarking. My first test was performed with Prey. I used the HardwareOC Prey benchmark version 1.1 to capture frame rates. Here are the results of my Prey Benchmark tests.

Prey Benchmarks

Resolution	1024x768				1280x768				1440x900
Shader Detail	High	High	High	High	High	High	High	High	High	High	High	High
Antialiasing	None	None	2x	2x	None	None	2x	2x	None	None	2x	2x
Anisotropic Filtering	None	2x	None	2x	None	2x	None	2x	None	2x	None	2x
Frames/Second	39.3	35.5	34.1	28.3	34.5	30.6	29.2	24.7	27.5	24.6	23.2	21.2

Gun Metal is another readily available benchmarking tool and provided some returns on frame rate that were slightly better than those with Prey. Here are the results.

Gun Metal Benchmarks

Validity	1024x768 screen resolution	1440x900 native screen resolution
Results valid?	Yes	Yes
Benchmark version	V1.20S	V1.20S
Statistics
Minimum frames per second	27.83 fps	19.94 fps
Average frames per second	37.35 fps	28.29 fps
Maximum frames per second	62.75 fps	56.77 fps
Benchmark duration	100.37 seconds	132.50 seconds
Total frames rendered	3749	3749
Computer information
Processor	Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T7400 @ 2.16 GHz
Processor speed	2195 Mhz
Operating System	Windows XP Service Pack 2
Graphics card	ATI Mobility Radeon X1600
Game settings
Screen resolution	1024 X 768	1440 X 900
Screen colors	True (32-bit)	True (32-bit)
Aspect ratio	Cinema	Cinema
Antialiasing	2x	2x
Terrain detail	High	High
Draw distance	High	High
Cloud shadows	On	On
Lens flare	On	On
Sun Glare	On	On

OK so gaming is not stellar for Prey, which challenges the hardware. But it is not bad for Gun Metal. Finally, I tried something a little more pedestrian on my MacBook running Windows XP, Call of Duty. While this game is older, it is still a lot of fun to play and will help pass the time while you are stuck somewhere. Using CODBench with the MAX configuration file yielded the following results.

Call of Duty Benchmarks

Resolution	640x480	800x600	1024x768	1152x864	856x480
Character Textures	Extra	Extra	Extra	Extra	Extra
General Textures	Extra	Extra	Extra	Extra	Extra
Texture Filter	Trilinear	Trilinear	Trilinear	Trilinear	Trilinear
Texture Quality	32-Bit Textures	32-Bit Textures	32-Bit Textures	32-Bit Textures	32-Bit Textures
Dynamic Lights	Everything	Everything	Everything	Everything	Everything
Model Detail	Maximum	Maximum	Maximum	Maximum	Maximum
Draw Blood	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ejecting Brass	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Wall Marks	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
World Dynamic Light Quality	Nicest	Nicest	Nicest	Nicest	Nicest
Average Frame Rate 3 runs each	131.23	129.20	119.47	111.23	128.37

Call of Duty is completely playable on this hardware at any setting. Keep this in mind when making a decision, while the Apple hardware performs well enough when you play these games, it does not excel at the more demanding games. So this leaves the distinct impression that while the Apple MacBook Pro will not keep up with the best gaming laptops, for its price it is competitive and offers something the others cannot in the same price range.

Before leaving this section, let me note that performance could improve as better XP drivers are built for the X1600 graphics processor in the MacBook. ATI and Nvidia both issue graphics processor updates on a very regular basis. I am certainly going to keep my eyes open for new drivers.