how would the Macbook Air be for gaming?

[ric0chet06]

Be easy on me, I have no clue about macs and putting windows on them. Is it even possible? I saw that the Air had 2 gb ram, core 2 duo, and other halfway decent stuff, but could it be possible to play like bf2 on it? Just wondering because that is the sickest laptop I've ever seen!

 

[onlyCOpunk]

You'll first need to find a way to get Windows installed since it has no optical drive. But the X1300 can "play" HL2 I believe, notice I used quotation marks.

 

[Tempered81]

yeah you can install windows on them. my gf has windows on her macbook pro. for the air you have to use the wireless optical drive of another mac or pc. it uses the pc's optical drive to install software wirelessly onto the macbook air

 

[IlllI]

i would say pretty crappy. first it doesnt have any kind of way to install media, other than usb or wireless. or you'll have to spend $100 to buy the external dvd. also, this thing is made for max battery life. in other words, it uses a low power cpu, and a slow (i think 4200rpm) hard drive. also, theres no mention of what kind of gpu it has, but taking into consideration that its built for long battery life, but its probably just basic integrated.

 

[TheStu]

It has a 1.6 or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo with a full 800MHz FSB which is nice, so it may be low power, but it isn't low speed. 2GB RAM, to reduce swapping to the slow hard drive.

The x3100 is not exactly a gaming champ though... I have no idea how it fares actually. My basic understanding is that it is about twice as good as the gma950 in my MacBook. So I would expect the air to play HL2 on medium (at best) settings, guild wars at medium, and most other games from that time.

Honestly, if you are looking for small and game happy, at that screen size there is really only the XPS1330.

 

[IlllI]

going from 1.6 to 1.8 will cost $300. this laptop isnt meant to be a gaming machine period. it was designed for other purposes

 

[mooncancook]

The Sony and Dell 13.3" notebooks have the geForce Go 8400, which I assume to be similar to X1300 in performance, and they run windows natively. They are not as thin, light, and sexy of course. I would love this notebook for traveling (though I still prefer my Sony TZ), and I would run Transport Tycoon OpenTTD on it.

 

[Oil]

Originally posted by: mooncancook
The Sony and Dell 13.3" notebooks have the geForce Go 8400, which I assume to be similar to X1300 in performance, and they run windows natively. They are not as thin, light, and sexy of course. I would love this notebook for traveling (though I still prefer my Sony TZ), and I would run Transport Tycoon OpenTTD on it.

8400M is MUCH better than the Intel x3100

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: clandren
this laptop isnt meant to be a gaming machine period. it was designed for other purposes

And that is to be a status symbol.

 

[onlyCOpunk]

the x1300 is comparable to a GF 6200 I believe, but I could be wrong.

 

[alimoalem]

Originally posted by: clandren
i would say pretty crappy. in other words, it uses a low power cpu, and a slow (i think 4200rpm) hard drive. also, theres no mention of what kind of gpu it has, but taking into consideration that its built for long battery life, but its probably just basic integrated.

link to comparison of MB Air to other MB's

the HDD is 4200rpm (of course u could drop a g and get solid state )
the GPU is the X3100

 

[gorcorps]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: clandren
this laptop isnt meant to be a gaming machine period. it was designed for other purposes

And that is to be Steve Job's bitch

fixed

 

[Commodus]

It's an ultraportable -- the short answer is that it's simply not a machine for gaming other than old titles or 2D content. The X3100 is perfectly capable of HD video and for running Mac OS X Leopard's niftier effects very smoothly, but it's not a performance chipset by any means.

 

[gamepad]

Short answer: no
Long answer: no

 

[imported_Uber]

I've heard about some kinda gizmo called "Cider", (transgaming.com), that lets you run windows games in MacOS. I downloaded the Linux equivalent, Cedega, but have not yet gotten around to trying it. I'd suggest that, but I don't know for sure if it works or not.

UPDATE: ok, says here it has to be an Intel Mac. Other than that, it looks like it would work fine.

 

[mageslayer]

Mac + Games= :roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll:

 

[imported_Uber]

a tad excessive on the rolling-eyes smileys, don't you think?

 

[hans007]

the gma x3100 in the mobile chip is pretty slow. it sin the geforce 6200 range. thats maybe 8300gs (an 8400gs with half the shaders)