I figured this would be a great place to ask this question. Basically I'm thinking of purchasing the new Macbook Air 13 inch as my main gaming laptop.
Generally, when saying “making games” you need to focus your question a little more. Given you’re using Unity and Blender, which leads me to assume you’re doing 3d, no, the Mac Book Air would not be my top choice. It will work, but it is pretty underpowered for what you’re wanting to do.
I would upgrade to 8gb memory as well. I'm really not a huge gamer the only games I can see myself playing are WoW, Starcraft 2, Half Life 2, Counter-Strike Source, and TF2. Basically I'm wondering if this machine would be able to pull these games off without any issues? I would have the games installed on an external hard drive that is USB 3.0 compatible. I'm not looking for high-end graphics I just want a laptop to be able to handle these games on normal settings with no hiccups.
Please share your thoughts, thanks! Ive had a MBP 13in for 4 years and ive played wow it it the whole time. So yes you can (not sure the spec diff between mbp and air) assuming similar. But with that being said you ive had to play on absolute low settings at all times, im on high pop realm so i lag in the city, raiding is possible but not high end raiding. So if your looking for a gaming computer/laptop.
I would say hands down ideally build your own you can get a solid set up for under $700, and a great set up for more. I would stay away from laptops for gaming if possible. TL,DR You can play on a Mac, but to buy a mac for gaming is not the way to go. You will be 100% happier buying a pc, Good Luck (just built my own system and its amazing compared to my mac). I made a flowchart to help you make a decision. 1) Is mobility (ie. Having a laptop) really necessary?
If No, get a kickass desktop for the $1500 that you were going to spend on a macbook air anyway. If yes 2) Is aesthetics (brand/size) high on your priority list? If no, look around for other brands (I personally recommend HP/Lenovo) that has dedicated graphic card (1GB at least).
Note that laptop that meets 'gaming laptop' standard usually comes at least 15'+. If yes 3) Do you have more money than the amount you allocated for Macbook air? If no, go back to step 1) If yes Buy the most expensive Macbook pro.
I figured this would be a great place to ask this question. Basically I'm thinking of purchasing the new Macbook Air 13 inch as my main gaming laptop. I would upgrade to 8gb memory as well. I'm really not a huge gamer the only games I can see myself playing are WoW, Starcraft 2, Half Life 2, Counter-Strike Source, and TF2. Basically I'm wondering if this machine would be able to pull these games off without any issues? I would have the games installed on an external hard drive that is USB 3.0 compatible. I'm not looking for high-end graphics I just want a laptop to be able to handle these games on normal settings with no hiccups.
Please share your thoughts, thanks!Macs are bad for gaming in all aspects, between the hardware Apple often picks, to iOS issues, they're just bad. To top that off, most laptops are bad for gaming. There are a small handful of exceptions, but even with those exceptions, you could take the money spent on the laptop and get a twice as nice desktop.
So no, do not get a macbook if you want to use it to game. If you must get a mobile computer, get something worthwhile like an ASUS. I've got one - it's simply not suitable for the task. Warcraft is 'barely playable' just chatting and browsing the AH and it only gets worse from there.
They're a brilliant 'i'm going to class and need to take notes' computer, or 'I want to browse the web while sitting in my back yard' device - but they're not gaming computers. You can log in, and run around but even questing in cataclysm zones will tax the system unless you're prepared to suffer through absolutely minimal graphics settings (and/or sub-20 FPS 'drops').
It's strengths are it's diminutive size, excellent battery life, and low weight, it's not a gaming machine so you shouldn't expect it to be brilliant when forced to the task. In the same vein you don't expect a 8 kilogram dell 'gaming notebook' with a 2 hour battery life but excellent cpu/gpu/etc to be a nice travel companion. If your goal is 'A gaming computer that can be moved about occasionally' and not 'a portable computer that can maybe play some games' then I think you can do much better than a Macbook Air. I've raided on a Macbook pro - but even then I purchased the computer for other reasons - the fact that it could run semi-modern games was a nice side effect (and for warcraft you're still better installing and rebooting into Windows 7 than running it under OS X - which is how I run it on my iMac the rare occasion I want to log in on that machine). Calboy67 thanks for the flow chart! My main use for my MBA is for general day to day use.
But I love the mobility of it. I bring it with me all over the place and barely notice it in my bag. I used to have a windows desktop to play games on but gave it away because I really didn't have much time to play games.
WORST DECISION! Now I'm itching just to be able to play games every now and then. I really don't care about brand/style. But I haven't really seen any PC laptops that can compare. After reading all of these comments I think I should just build my own desktop and stick with my current MBA for general usage. Twistedream - do you mind me asking what kind of setup you have? If not I'll just look through MMO cause I know they post custom setups from time to time.
Thanks for all the feedback! Much appreciated!
Calboy67 thanks for the flow chart! My main use for my MBA is for general day to day use.
But I love the mobility of it. I bring it with me all over the place and barely notice it in my bag. I used to have a windows desktop to play games on but gave it away because I really didn't have much time to play games.
WORST DECISION! Now I'm itching just to be able to play games every now and then. I really don't care about brand/style. But I haven't really seen any PC laptops that can compare.
After reading all of these comments I think I should just build my own desktop and stick with my current MBA for general usage. Twistedream - do you mind me asking what kind of setup you have? If not I'll just look through MMO cause I know they post custom setups from time to time. Thanks for all the feedback! Much appreciated!You're welcome.
And you made a wise decision. Here's a link that you may find helpful Some of these items are really for ultra high end gaming which you probably don't need. But it's still good to understand what products are out there and learn some of the terminology.