Dolphin on Macbook Air

[CRTGAMER]

I understand but I am not asking it to run TitanFall, I want it to run the Dolphin emulator; an emulator for a machine built around a PowerPC 500mhz .

What is your opinion on the Intel Iris ? Is it bad too? I am planning to get a macbook pro next year and I expect it to at least play games on par with ps3/360 , but if it can't do that I think I will just not buy it. I will at least want games like Starcraft 2, Diablo III, and Dishonored in 720p .

For the same price point the PC will have more power then the Mac. In addition, a desktop will have more power versus a laptop at the same price. The Mac has the advantage of a tight Operating System that has minimal Spyware issues compared to Windows. PCs now have Windows 8 forcing "Cell Phone" Touch Screen style although it can be switched to a more conventional mouse friendly system.

If you end up owning that Mac Air, maybe keep it as a browser for worry free Spyware and invest in a PC Desktop for the gaming?

[samsonlonghair]

What is your opinion on the Intel Iris ? Is it bad too? I am planning to get a macbook pro next year and I expect it to at least play games on par with ps3/360 , but if it can't do that I think I will just not buy it. I will at least want games like Starcraft 2, Diablo III, and Dishonoured in 720p .

C'mon, RCBH928, you're trying to hammer a nail with a screwdriver. If your goal is to photoshop images and edit videos, then a Mac is the appropriate tool. That's not your goal, is it? If your goal is to play PC games, you need...(drum roll)... a PC. They're not called "Mac games," they're called "PC games," you dig?

It's like paying hundreds of thousands for a Lamborghini and then complaining it doesn't off-road well. Just isn't what it's made to do.

I find this a very apt analogy. Macs are beautiful, stylish, powerful machines, but they're not made for video gamers.

[CRTGAMER]

Apple has the market cornered for MP3 players and has a big bite of cell phones. Slick marketing by Apple when one wants to buy replacement head phones with only a white cord, the mystic that its related to an Apple. Crazy considering how inexpensive all the other MP3 Players cost.

[samsonlonghair]

Apple has the market cornered for MP3 players and has a big bite of cell phones. Slick marketing by Apple when one wants to buy replacement head phones with only a white cord, the mystic that its related to an Apple. Crazy considering how inexpensive all the other MP3 Players cost.

I have used a lot of mp3 players from SanDisk, iRiver, and Sony. They all play mp3s, but none of them function as well as an iPod. I can honestly say that if my goal is to play mp3s and nothing else, the iPod classic is the best device I have ever used for this purpose. They're sturdy, intuitive, and easy to use. I can find and play my favorite songs without even looking at my screen.

On the other hand, if I wanted a multimedia device to play videos and games, I would consider an android device with a larger screen.

[isiolia]

When you're talking about emulation though, you're not talking about running that old code. You're talking about simulating the original hardware, which can be extremely demanding, and then running the original program on top of it. This Ars article explains how an SNES emulator can tax a (mostly) modern machine.

Intel Iris Pro is a nice improvement of their previous integrated graphics, but it's still just integrated graphics. Anandtech tested it in a desktop setup (mobile CPU, just saying, power and heat were not as limited)...and it still fell short of an nvidia 650M, which is a mid range discrete part from 2012. Crammed into a thin/light laptop, it'll likely be clocked slower and/or throttled, resulting in worse performance.

I'd think that it should do alright for 720p on those games, but I wouldn't say it's especially suited for gaming.

IMO, it's a lot more practical to build a gaming desktop, and then see whatever gaming your laptop can manage as a bonus. Set out your wants/needs from your computer(s), and then find a solution that fits.

[marurun]

For the same price point the PC will have more power then the Mac.

This is not entirely true. At the lower end, yes, but largely because Apple doesn't do low-end machines, which means Apple's robustly configured entry-level hardware (in truth, mid-grade hardware) has to compete with low end PCs which are stripped down to be about power and not quality or features. This means you can get PCs with the same level of power for less, but if you try and buy the more fully-featured models with all the bells and whistles the Apples have, the PC models often end up being just as expensive if not more.

Once you move to the upper-middle and high-end tiers, Apple will often match or beat the competition on power or price. Apple's soon to be released Mac Pro is considered a bargain for the power delivered, for example, particularly because the custom video cards are comparatively cheap next to their standard form-factor PC counterparts.

This does not address, however, the fact that Mac ports of games are slow in coming and Apple's drivers are usually designed for pros instead of gamers. So yeah, the Mac is OK for games, but don't buy one for games. Buy a Mac for all the other stuff the Mac does well, and then find workarounds for games that don't work well or don't exist on the Mac, like using Boot Camp to boot to Windows.

[RCBH928]

@SamsonLongHair

I am very well aware that Macs are not built to game, and I am not expecting it to run the super resolutionsI hear about (4k) but don't you expect a $1k laptop will be able to run games like Bioshock?? Not only that, but games are usually made so that they would run fine on at least 2 year old hardware, so if I buy a mac in 2015 I should be ok with games released in 2017. The keyword here is OK, but that does not seem to be the case.

I see that Dolphin emulator was released in 2003, for sure any computer today can run laps around any computer from back then. If not, then what use was the Dolphin emulator in around
'03 -> '08 ? Most desktop computers were probably slower than 2014 laptops today.

@isiolia

Thanks for the articles. I just want to say I am not looking for a dedicated GAMING laptop. I am just expecting that if I see a game released in 2012-2013 and I like it should run on my laptop in acceptable form.

Civ 4 that was released in '05 has the status of "MIGHT RUN" on my 08 laptop, that means it does not meet minimum requirement. If the rule I said is true (games usually support at least 2 year old hardware), that means my '08 macbook has lower spec than a '03 computer.

http://help.gameagent.com/entries/22008 ... ults-mean-

Its disappointing, isn't it? Even worse if it keeps happening in 2014 .


I heard rumors that pc/laptops should see a spike in specs soon to minimize the gap between it and "next-gen" graphics (ps4/XboxOne?), so I do not know if I should wait on that.

[fastbilly1]

You do realize that for the first couple years Dolphin was pretty much a techdemo. It was not until 09 that it could run many games at full speed with sound, and that required a fairly beefy system for the time. Hell even today it requires a powerful system to run some games.

And yes I expect a 1k laptop to run Bioshock 1-3, if that is a Windows laptop. As said before, you are trying to use a screwdriver to do a hammers job.

[marurun]

The other problem, here, is that you are using a MacBook Air. The MacBook Air is intended to be the most portable, lightest laptop that you can do serious work with. That means the video card hardware is designed to sip power and work for the kinds of creative work folks do on laptops, ie 2D. The price you paid for that laptop was for the excellent balance of portability, power, and features. Unfortunately, that equation causes 3D to lose out, severely. I think you'll find the ultra-portable Windows laptops in the same price range would also probably suck at games.

Also, I've noticed a lot of Mac ports or professional games AND PC-origin emulators have higher system requirements due to Apple's APIs being geared more toward pros and productivity than games. That and the companies doing the porting just aren't working as close to the hardware as the original developers. Valve's Mac ports are excellent, by and large. Same for Blizzard's. No so much for 3rd party ports. Consider nabbing a copy of Windows and trying Boot Camp on your laptop. You might find Windows versions of games, including emulators like Dolphin, will run better on your MacBook Air in a native Windows environment.

I know it is an extra step, but you bought a tool designed with gaming as an afterthought at best. You're going to have to go with workarounds.

[isiolia]

I think the Air was a friend's machine. Pretty sure RCBH928 has a 2008 unibody Macbook, which he was comparing it to - and the performance discrepancy would be kind of odd, since the 9400M in that is inferior to HD4000 graphics.

Thanks for the articles. I just want to say I am not looking for a dedicated GAMING laptop. I am just expecting that if I see a game released in 2012-2013 and I like it should run on my laptop in acceptable form.

Civ 4 that was released in '05 has the status of "MIGHT RUN" on my 08 laptop, that means it does not meet minimum requirement. If the rule I said is true (games usually support at least 2 year old hardware), that means my '08 macbook has lower spec than a '03 computer.

http://help.gameagent.com/entries/22008 ... ults-mean-

Its disappointing, isn't it? Even worse if it keeps happening in 2014 .


I heard rumors that pc/laptops should see a spike in specs soon to minimize the gap between it and "next-gen" graphics (ps4/XboxOne?), so I do not know if I should wait on that.

It would be nice if you could make that assumption, but practically speaking, a good GPU is specialty hardware that not all computers will have, and games vary wildy in what they need.

The current Mac Civ IV system requirements specifically state that your 9400M is not supported - though, it's also an updated version of the system requirements (the original stated specs can be seen here.
As you can see from the comments there, the game cut off a lot of people's machines when brand new, since it originally didn't support integrated graphics at all (but did run on PowerPC machines).
Practically speaking, the machine meets the minimum specs given for the PC version, but as noted in that link's comments...those specs run like crap, and the Mac requirements could be seen as more realistic.

I'm not sure why there's a specific note for the GPU. I'd guess there are issues with Apple's driver in newer versions of OS X that they don't want to address, since I saw reviews of the expansion pack done on the same machine. It's not uncommon for Mac system requirements to be stated in order to categorically exclude models either, like "10.6 and above" = needs Intel CPU.


I doubt that there'll be a bump in system specs to "compete" with new consoles. More the opposite - that games built for the PS4 and Xbox One will be designed to take advantage of more powerful hardware, in turn setting a higher standard for what the PC versions require to run well.

Meanwhile the trend for PCs seems to be to push for smaller and smaller devices, many of which rely on integrated graphics to keep power requirements low. So I see the average capability there not going up as fast as the need for more robust hardware might.