# What games could my iBook handle running?



## Chazam (May 18, 2004)

I've just played the return to castle wolfenstien demo and i'm amazed at how it run's!
I'd never have thought that a humble laptop would be able to play a game almost as good as on my old PC! (I had a Athlon XP 2100+ ATi R9700 PRO, 768MB Ram)
The only problem was the lack of ram in my system (Only 256MB) which caused a bit of disc thrashing. I'm hoping that upgrading the memory with a 512 Dimm (I think my iBook can only accept 1 dimm) will help this matter. The Radeon 9200 handles the gfx well and doesn't look too shabby!
My iBook's specs are:
800MHZ G4
ATi R9200 (32MB)
256MB Ram
What else could it play? Any recommended demo downloads?


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## benp (May 18, 2004)

I just bought the same computer but I only have 128MB of RAM and Halo actually runs pretty well even with such a low amount of ram.


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## Chazam (May 18, 2004)

benp said:
			
		

> I just bought the same computer but I only have 128MB of RAM and Halo actually runs pretty well even with such a low amount of ram.


You've played Halo on your iBook! 
I may have to give it a go too.


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## enathan1085 (May 19, 2004)

I do a fair amount of gaming on my powerbook and my dad's iBook.  Return to Castle Wolfenstein is an amazing game.  I also play Warcraft III, Descent 3, and Starcraft (old but still good).  Ghost Recon is another FPS which runs well as well as Diablo 1 and 2.  those are just a couple of the ones i play.  i haven't tried halo.  unreal 2003 and 2004 run pretty well too.  those are just a couple of the ones i play.


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## Chazam (May 19, 2004)

enathan1085 said:
			
		

> I do a fair amount of gaming on my powerbook and my dad's iBook.  Return to Castle Wolfenstein is an amazing game.  I also play Warcraft III, Descent 3, and Starcraft (old but still good).  Ghost Recon is another FPS which runs well as well as Diablo 1 and 2.  those are just a couple of the ones i play.  i haven't tried halo.  unreal 2003 and 2004 run pretty well too.  those are just a couple of the ones i play.


Thanks! time to scour eBay to snag some cheap mac games!


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## mdnky (May 19, 2004)

Anyone try the America's Army game?  It's been running alright on the G3 iBook, even though the min. specs are for a g4 (1ghz range).  Not the best game in the world, but you can't complain about the price.  <G>


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## Chazam (May 19, 2004)

mdnky said:
			
		

> Anyone try the America's Army game?  It's been running alright on the G3 iBook, even though the min. specs are for a g4 (1ghz range).  Not the best game in the world, but you can't complain about the price.  <G>


I've tried it on the PC. I'll have to download it again for my iBook when i go over my brothers and plug into his cable modem!


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## Giaguara (May 21, 2004)

(google or versiontracker links for downloads, or try http://www.apple.com/games/)

Deimos Rising (it probably came with the iBook?), Active Lancer, Shrek 2, Snood, most MacMame games (retro games),  ... XGates, (Finding) Nemo's Underwater World, ... those run on low RAM fine. But your overall Mac experience will be smoother once you'll add the 512 MB RAM.


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## Chazam (May 21, 2004)

i've been playing with mac mame! very cool. 
I've also downladed the Generator, Genisis/Mega-Drive emulator and that is perfect. Our iBook is becoming my favorite toy at the moment.


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## Ifrit (May 21, 2004)

Well, Chazam, I wouldn't call your laptop "humble", I've an ibook G3 700MHz with 16MB vram and most "3D games" won't run decently on it. 
Return to castle Wolfenstein among other Q3 engine games work fine (if I lower some graphic settings). The 16MB vram is the limiting factor, I guess, rather than the processing power.
You have the 32 MB most games in OSX require.


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## Chazam (May 21, 2004)

Ifrit said:
			
		

> Well, Chazam, I wouldn't call your laptop "humble", I've an ibook G3 700MHz with 16MB vram and most "3D games" won't run decently on it.
> Return to castle Wolfenstein among other Q3 engine games work fine (if I lower some graphic settings). The 16MB vram is the limiting factor, I guess, rather than the processing power.
> You have the 32 MB most games in OSX require.


You must remember that i'm a converted PC user and to have games like this running on what seems like such a low spec machine has amazed me. I'm from the world where 128MB of vram and 2ghz+ processors are the norm. what this iBook has shown me is that when a platform is made well and optimised enough that all these high powered machines are going to waste.


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## dlloyd (May 21, 2004)

Ah, but someday you must try a 2GHz+ Mac with 128 VRAM


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## Chazam (May 21, 2004)

dlloyd said:
			
		

> Ah, but someday you must try a 2GHz+ Mac with 128 VRAM


I can only hope so!  Those things must be beasts!


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## Ifrit (May 22, 2004)

> You must remember that i'm a converted PC user and to have games like this running on what seems like such a low spec machine has amazed me. I'm from the world where 128MB of vram and 2ghz+ processors are the norm. what this iBook has shown me is that when a platform is made well and optimised enough that all these high powered machines are going to waste



Hm, I still have a PC as main system. There are applications I can't live without, for examble Dscaler (creates wunderfull deinterlanced pictures out of analog video sources, I use it to connect my video game systems to)

Something which I absolutly don't like is the "bumping up of CPU frequency" which happend over the last couple of years and the increased power consumption.
Latly I discovered that my video card (Radeon 9700 non pro) was draining to much power out of my system, which means if I had the same power cable connected to my second HD (and after heavy 3D gaming), the second HD wouldn't get enough power and switch itself off. The result is a system crash. It took me a while to figure that out. Now I have to get an even stronger PSU to support all my devices. And it isn't looking very promising for the X86 systems, If you are looking for the latest and greates including the latest GPU technology (Geforce 6 or whatever) you'll need at least 450 - 500W PSU. I am thinking about building my own power plant or switching to Mac platform entirely. This is getting a bit silly.  /rant end

I don't want to imply that x86 systems aren't worth buying, but in the future "they" have to offer more than bumped up MHz and more render piplines to squeeze data through.
Maybe the introduction of the new 64bit systems will offer lower clocked chips and less power consumption (but I doupt this, the introduction of BTX standart which allows better cooling suggests otherwise)


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## Chazam (May 22, 2004)

Ifrit said:
			
		

> Hm, I still have a PC as main system. There are applications I can't live without, for examble Dscaler (creates wunderfull deinterlanced pictures out of analog video sources, I use it to connect my video game systems to)
> 
> Something which I absolutly don't like is the "bumping up of CPU frequency" which happend over the last couple of years and the increased power consumption.
> Latly I discovered that my video card (Radeon 9700 non pro) was draining to much power out of my system, which means if I had the same power cable connected to my second HD (and after heavy 3D gaming), the second HD wouldn't get enough power and switch itself off. The result is a system crash. It took me a while to figure that out. Now I have to get an even stronger PSU to support all my devices. And it isn't looking very promising for the X86 systems, If you are looking for the latest and greates including the latest GPU technology (Geforce 6 or whatever) you'll need at least 450 - 500W PSU. I am thinking about building my own power plant or switching to Mac platform entirely. This is getting a bit silly.  /rant end


I don't want to imply that x86 systems aren't worth buying, but in the future "they" have to offer more than bumped up MHz and more render piplines to squeeze data through.
Maybe the introduction of the new 64bit systems will offer lower clocked chips and less power consumption (but I doupt this, the introduction of BTX When i first got my R9700 Pro i was running it in a system with a Intel P4 2GHz, 1CDRW, 1DVD-Rom, 2HDD's and i only had a 200W PSU!
 
God only knows how it ran!  
But you're right, pc's are getting more power consuming, louder due to fans and hotter. My old AMD system used to warm up my room in the winter!


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## Randman (May 22, 2004)

Others here can give you more exact numbers but I've found Macs, when compared to a PC, need about a 40% increase in mhz (or your 800 mhz iBook would compare to a 1.25 ghz pc, or so).
  The more ram you add, the better performance you'll get. Double what you have and you'll do just fine.
  As far as demos, get the new Mac Addict and it has a Demo of Unreal Tournament 2004. The specs are the highest I've seen but it runs smoothly on my iBook G4, iGhz, 640 of ram.
  It'll keep me going till Halo 2 makes it to the XBox.


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## Chazam (May 22, 2004)

Randman said:
			
		

> Others here can give you more exact numbers but I've found Macs, when compared to a PC, need about a 40% increase in mhz (or your 800 mhz iBook would compare to a 1.25 ghz pc, or so).
> The more ram you add, the better performance you'll get. Double what you have and you'll do just fine.
> As far as demos, get the new Mac Addict and it has a Demo of Unreal Tournament 2004. The specs are the highest I've seen but it runs smoothly on my iBook G4, iGhz, 640 of ram.
> It'll keep me going till Halo 2 makes it to the XBox.


I also downloaded Ut2004 from http://www.macgamefiles.com/
It ran very slow on my iBook. Probably due to the lack of ram in our laptop! 
I cant wait to upgrade it but i'm getting married in september and we want to get that all paid for until we buy anything else. We're not far off it tho!


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## Randman (May 22, 2004)

Check out the UT thread. Something about the sound in the demo having an error where it eats CPU. Disable the sound and performance improves. That said, UT '04 isn't for the light-hearted. Its minimum requirements are pretty steep.


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## Chazam (May 22, 2004)

Randman said:
			
		

> Check out the UT thread. Something about the sound in the demo having an error where it eats CPU. Disable the sound and performance improves. That said, UT '04 isn't for the light-hearted. Its minimum requirements are pretty steep.


Thanks, I will!


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## mdanda (Jun 24, 2004)

I have a new 12" Powerbook (768MB, 1.33Ghz) and Halo runs like crap. I finally gave up on it because the framerate is so bad. Part of the problems occurred when I "upgraded" Halo to v1.05 and MacOS to 10.3.4. These "upgrades" reduced performance of Halo to unplayable levels. 

I'm playing UT2004 now, and it performs better than Halo, but still pretty jerky. On both games I have all the video settings turned down to the minimum. Both these games have been disappointing due to their slow frame rates on my late-model Powerbook.


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## dracolich (Jun 30, 2004)

Here's a quick list of games I play(ed) with my iBook G3 800 R7500 32 MB with no problems at all:

[ranked by _coolness_]
- SW Jedi Knight II
- Medal Of Honor
- Heavy Metal - FAKK2
- Giants: Citizen Kabuto
- Aliens v Predator
- Diablo II
- Starcraft
- SW Battlegrounds
- ST: Elite Force
- 4x4 Evo 2


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## ex2bot (Jun 30, 2004)

No One Lives Forever 2 should work pretty well. You may have to adjust the graphics settings. 

Just be sure to get the patch!

Doug


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## Chazam (Jul 2, 2004)

Thanks for all the replies. I bought Sacrifice for my iBook the other day and it runs fantastic.
Sacrifice was one of my most played games on my PC.
giants will probably be the next purchase!


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## Surronded (Jul 6, 2004)

I have a iBook G4 933, and it runs a lot of games.
Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004
Quake 3
XIII
Total Immersion Racing
Neverwinter Nights
F1 Championship 2000
Starcraft (of course)
Rainbow Six
Tactical Ops
Urban Terror (Quake 3 mod (heavier))


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## Surronded (Jul 6, 2004)

Worms 3D
and Bikini Karate Babes xD


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