Is this Mac Book Pro good enough?

Hiya, I need to get a Mac for testing my framework, converting Oz and Holiday Bonus and for writing my new game and I looked at Mac Minis which is entry level but I fancy the portability of a Mac Book Pro. Looked at this model:

2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1440 x 900 pixels
1GB memory
120GB hard drive
6x double-layer SuperDrive
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics with 128MB SDRAM
Ships: Within 24 hours
Free Shipping
$1,999.00

I'm not really into widescreen laptops but there isn't any choice it seems. Basically is 1GB enough RAM (I may consider putting XP on it as the second OS) and is that graphics card good enough for running BMax Games? Also should I consider any of the upgrade options like the anti-glare screen or whatever? I should say that this price is already quite prohibitive. Thanks for any advice you can offer.

Naturally I'll be buying this in the UK so I've got to find a reliable and good value vendor. I can claim back VAT and write the laptop off against my profits thus save another 20% so that's cool. I'm a bit dubious of buying a Mac Book Pro off ebay, but I guess second hand would save a bit of money...

That's plenty fast enough to run bmax games. And you'll be into widescreen displays after using one for a while. You'll not be able to compile universal binaries though.

Cheers
Charlie

One thing to note is that OS X Leopard is going to be released soon by Apple (especially seeing as Vista was released here in the UK/US today) so you may want to consider waiting about a month or so and they might upgrade the hardware with the OS. Regardless MacBook Pro's are extremely nice laptops!

That Mac is ideal and is the very same one I use to develop my BlitzMax games on. You'll have no problems using it for BlitzMax - apart from producing universal binaries, but I can always lend a hand in that department.

Grey Alien:

That MacBook Pro is a beauty, although I would go for the 256 MB Video Memory version and probably would also put in 2 GB RAM (when you want to use Parallels and stuff like Aperture). And I would chose the "old" type of display, because I do not like the reflecting screens. But this probably is just a question of personal preferences.

If you buy a used one from eBay and it has an Apple Protection Plan, make sure that the original buyer writes to Apple to transfer the Protectin Plan to you -- it is NOT transferred to the new owner "automagically".

jrankie:

It's BlitzMax that is causing problems here, GCC itself can target both PowerPC and Intel processors and does not care on which host environment it runs. So in general one can create Universal Binaries even when only having access to one of the two platforms. If I am not mistaken, in XCode UBs are the default these days.

That's interesting. Perhaps next update blitzmax will be able to spit out univeral binaries without the need for two machines.

Cheers
Charlie

I've got a 15" MacBook Pro. I upgraded the memory to 2GB and the HDD to 200GB. I've got XP installed under Boot Camp in a 32GB partition (maximum for FAT32 so I can access all my Windows files directly from OS X).

Like Winni I don't like the glossy screen either and so went for the matt anti-glare.

My processor is 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo (i.e. not Core 2 Duo) but I find it's still plenty fast enough to run games. But yeah, like Winni says, make sure you install max video memory. With hindsight, I'd probably have gone for the Core 2 Duo, but unfortunately it came out after I bought mine.

The only problem I've had is with that blasted DVD Region code, mine's permanently set to Region 1 (US) so I can't play any of my Region 4 DVDs.
But hopefully I can find a firmware crack somewhere on the net...

Care to go into more detail about this?

Been wanting to save up for a Mac (been lookin' at iBooks) for college since that's what my desired place will be using, but I'd like to be able to use it on the side for some BMax compiling when it comes to the day I purchase the thing (B3d suits me fine on this PC for tinkering with), but universal binaries is something I wanted to be able to create.

Is there a specific hardware setup or something you need to be able to make them?
(Seems all recent Macs are Intel now, haven't seen any PPC ones the last couple months)

..go for it..you'll love it..trust me..

The problem with BlitzMax Universal Binaries at the moment is that you will need both a PowerPC- and an Intel-based Mac to create them; you need to compile your code on both platforms and then later merge the two binaries to one UB. BlitzMax does not yet support UB-creation out of the box, so you have to use the compile-it-on-two-platforms-workaround to get there. There's a more detailed how-to somewhere in the Mac OS X forum.

Hmm very interesting especially this universal binaries stuff. Hope BMax supports it soon!

Thing is, upgrading the graphic card memory and main RAM really hikes up the price...

Interesting to hear that the matt anti-glare is the favoured screen.

Thanks all.

hmm, would anyone consider getting a refurbished one from here:

http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/ukstore.woa/wo/StoreReentry.wo?family=Certified

Beside of the portability i would favor two minis because a) you can test your stuff on x86/ppc, b) they're not expensive, c) you can use your pc stuff with them (mouse, keyboards,...) and d) they are a better scenario for testing out your software as they are no high end machines but still fast enough. Or maybe a combination of a powerbook and a mini? If you are doing some general game devs things 1GB is enough in the OSX world.

Either go for iMac or take a MacBook but do not get a macbook pro unless you want to replace a P4 based egg frying tower with something more portable to fry your eggs while on train etc.

It has a serious surface heat problem which OSX dims down by underclocking the X1600 so if you install windows on it you will have serious problems.
Beside that: A such "want to be high end notebook" with max of 2.5h lifetime is a joke. Even if on max energy saving. I'm sorry to say that but even Dell and Alienware last longer ... and those use Desktop or desktop like chips, not mobiles.

MacBook thought does not have such problems and for BM it is more than enough (not for Max3D thought).
iMac naturally would be the best solution if you want mac, Power and not problems as mentioned above, but it isn't a notebook sadly :)

Hmm intersting. Really I was into the portablility (as well as testing BMax) as my partner has a laptop (PC-based) and it's very useful but she is working on it all the time now.

So is it really worth testing my games on Intel and PPC based Macs separately, shouldn't it just work on both once it's compiled on both? I mean what reason could there be for it to act differently if the OS is the same? Endian stuff? (Well this should be OK as I'm not reading Integers from filesa byte at a time...)

So I figured that an ordinary Mac Book might not have good enough graphics to run BMax games at a half decent level, or would it be OK for stuff like Holiday Bonus at full framerate (e.g. 60FPS), my partners laptop has a bog standard laptop gfx card and it just scrapes through...

Any info about bettery life on MacBook? It's a bummer the pro gets so hot and clocks down etc, I hate that. Min dyou I'll probably be using it plugged in most of the time so maybe it's less of an issue...

Well, for something i sell i definately would test it out before which means you need both systems. In theory it should not be a problem but there also are enough bugs in osx which show up either on the ppc or on the intel side.

An ordinary MacBook like a Mini has enough gfx power to run decent 2D games and simple 3D stuff.

For more gfx power so that you can run older 3d games (like HL2) from the pc side you need an iMac or a Mac Book Pro and if you want to have a system which can compete with more current 3d games (like Oblivion or NWN2) you need a Mac Pro as only there you can plug in a decent gfx card.

Compared to the PCs there isn't so much gfx power in the Apple world. You also should take this into account if you want to design games for OSX.

I'd clearly go for an iMac 17" - 1 GB RAM (maybe upgrade to 2 GB) - Radeon x1600! It's not portable but it doesn't suck up much space, is a beauty and has probably the best cost/performance ratio of all Apple computers. My GF has that one (with 2 GB RAM) and she can do everything with it: work (write some stuff for study, organize and edit the photos of her Canon EOS, do some fun with the iSight cam, make comics, edit movies, etc.), play games (Diablo 2, World of Warcraft and Unreal Tournament 2004 <- ok, that last one is mine ^^) and compile my BMX codes while I'm trying to sell my notebook to get an iMac, too ^^
The display is also much better than any notebook display I've seen yet.

hmm.

Tuamel: Yeah I really don't need the clutter though, I've got plenty of friends who can test a PPC version if I just get an Intel Mac. So a normal MacBook is cool for casual games, worth knowing but the screen seems a bit under par at 13", as it's widescreen that's probably tiny! Bigger appeals to me and my old eyes.

I'm not really planning on playing 3D games on it so I don't need tons of graphics power, I guess just wanted to know if a normal MacBook can cut the mustard for modern Casual games with all the fancy effects (as that's what I'll be coding).

I got a Macbook Pro and I've been very happy with it. Interesting to read Dreamora's post about underclocking the graphics card - the machine is very hot it has to be said, however I've been playing Oblivion, Dark Messiah and Railroads and they all look very nice. One thing - I'd use Boot Camp, not Parallels. For one thing, Parallels only gives you about 90% of the machine's power as it is running both OS's. But also I'm sure I read somewhere that Parallels does not give Windows full access to OpenGL or something. Although on the plus side, you can drag and drop between OSs with Parallels. I have to go via a USB stick or external HD which is a pain but liveable. Might be worth some extra research.

One thing though - the sound on my macbook pro is a bit crackly occasionally, in both OSs. I can't tell if it's because of boot camp or just inherent. A friend of mine with the same machine has exactly the same problem. It's not the end of the world, but it's something extra to research.

hmm, thanks. crackly sound hey?

@Gray
No clutter at all if you choose your hardware wisely.

I guess they are pretty small and if I get switch boxes etc...

Yep...the Minis are the best option if you wanna see it under a bang for the buck condition and sneaking into the osx world. The systems are fast enough for most of the work. They only lack on the gfx-side like the MacBook does.

o So for compiling, doing 2D work, not too complex 3D, sneaking into OSX and so on i would recommend buying a Mini.

o If you don't want to share one monitor with your pc or don't have a second screen i suggest buying an iMac or a MacBook/Pro (depending on your hardware needs). If portability isn't important i also would go for the iMac as it's better suited for development due to the better hardware, screensize, mouse, keyboard, ...

o Using a Mac for modern games there is only the Mac Pro. Playing Oblivion on a X1600 isn't so much fun unless you don't mind turning quality settings off, reduce resolution and so on.

Yeah I don't need to play modern games on the Mac (only modern shareware so like 2D games), I'll use the PC for modern games. Portability is a definite plus tho...

A friend of mine has the Rev A model of the MacBook Pro 15.4", and Dreamora --WAS-- right, the notebook had heating problems and even some other issues. However, the Book went to service and now everything is fine with it. It still gets warm, but it is no longer frying eggs. Not even when it's running XP. ;-)

So what can I say? My friend is HAPPY with his MacBook Pro, and he's had a bunch of PC notebooks before and would not trade the Mac in for anything, even though he's had the initial problems with it.

As for the battery life, I'd recommend the 17" Book, it runs longer and in general has more to offer than the 15.4" little brother.

But if you don't really need mobility, buy the new iMac 24" or the 20" with an additonal screen. If you want to test your software on PPC and Intel, follow the advice about the two Minis. The Minis are great machines (for what they were designed) and even together still cheaper than the notebook.

That's interesting, I had heard the battery life was shorter on the 17" because of having to run the larger screen...

So a newer MacBook Pro might have less overheating issues? Unless they tweak some power saving setting.

Grey,

I don't have a MacBook, but work with a design firm that uses Macs. They buy the refurbs from Apple. I highly recommend it. The prices are MUCH better and they still have full warranty.

The laptop in my sig is a 17" and I really like the extra res. I also have the glossy screen, the color is phenomenal on it. If the MacBook Pros were a bit cheaper and had a better video card, I would go for one and run bootcamp. But I can get some ridiculously good prices on Dell stuff. I got the laptop in my sig for $1500 shipped w/ taxes.

Why0Why: Thanks for the refurbs info. Seems I could save a bit especially if going for an older model. I like the sound of an anti-glare screen though as I migh use it in my living room or lit areas so glossy could be a nono maybe?

The only time I have found glossy is an issue is if I am using it outside(which is not very often.) I wish my 24" LCD at home had it.

I agree, my glossy MacBook works great, I haven't had an issue w/ the screen at all. I will say though that 13.3" is a bit on the small side. I sorta wish I got the 15.4"

I have a Macbook Pro 15.4", one of the first ones at 2GHz. It came with 1GB of RAM that I upgraded to 2GB myself and also the 256MB X1600. It does run quite hot underneath as standard, especially when you start a game, but the performance in games is certainly more than acceptable.

I run some app that sets the minimum fan speed up to about 3000RPM which is still very quiet and makes the temperature more warm than hot.

Battery life is pretty good in my opinion, around 3-4 hours, but obviously not doing anything like playing 3D games - coding or word processing is fine. It's not as good as some of the older PowerBook Macs though.

I use it every day, the laptop helps keep the missus from yelling at me for not sitting with her.

sounds great Craig, I think I'll be ordering one tomorrow. What's this app for fan speed btw?