[Perkel]

I dunno, hard to top this.

Shieeeeeeeeeeeet.

[Zeth]

Not the greatest gaming machine out there, but one of the nicest laptops ever made IMO.

[Lord Error]

It really takes side-by-side to notice. I walked into a the Apple store when these were announced thinking it was the shit and walked out disappointed. Because the UI is scaled the real benefit is less aliasing which on 1080p screens is already fairly minimal. I can say that I wouldn't buy an iPad or Mac Book for the screen despite being the type of person to drop $1300 on WQXGA monitor.

I use it in parallel with some Dell monitors at work, and it's a pretty big difference. It's maybe one of those things that you get used to because it's good, and then appreciate more when you go back to something else.

[cRIPticon]

I sunk your battleship :'(

Phantom battleship. Not even close son!

[TheExodu5]

I imagine having a retina display may reduce scaling artifacts. On a normal 100dpi monitor (or less?) you can see the individual pixels, so scaling non-native resolutions does look blurry. On a display where you can't distinguish pixels, scaling to non-native resolutions may look less blurry... sorta like a CRT monitor in theory.

I hadn't really considered that. I would be interested in demoing it in person to see how well it scales.

[Somnid]

I use it in parallel with some Dell monitors at work, and it's a pretty big difference. It's maybe one of those things that you get used to because it's good, and then appreciate more when you go back to something else.

I think you could make a case for that. It's like running a 120Hz monitor, it'd be easier to tell side-by-side or after extensively using one for a while and switching back but harder without some context. I don't think your average consumer is buying iPad 3s for the screen, and certainly not a retina Mac Book. But the advertising message is powerful much like HD before it.

[elementalsin]

GAF never disappoints.

Its been killing me for weeks... WTF is this from guys?!?!

[awilliams213]

I have the 2.3 model with 16 gb so far on bootcamp I played about an hour of Binary Domain at 1920 x 1200. It runs on the high setting occasional flickering does occur. Still it’s amazing that something so thin can do handle that.

[Lord Error]

Its been killing me for weeks... WTF is this from guys?!?!

Citizen Kane. It's often used in a wrong context though, because his applause in the movie wasn't sincere, he just kind of had to do it, so that others would follow.

[gatti-man]

i think my phone could handle these games.

this made me lol.

[Switters]

Its been killing me for weeks... WTF is this from guys?!?!

Citizen Kane.

[elementalsin]

Citizen Kane. It's often used in a wrong context though, because his applause in the movie wasn't sincere, he just kind of had to do it, so that others would follow.

Citizen Kane.

i KNEW i'd seen that before. I'm actually ashamed to admit I forgot from where now :(

Thanks guys!

[bj00rn_]

Well, I've bought most of the Macbook Pro models over the last few years, and not one of them have been suitable for gaming because they get so damn hot and loud that they're in practise unusable. One those models where it's possible I've disabled the graphics card just to be able to have them in my lap.. I also have a fully spec'd Dell business laptop with a i7 and a SSD from work which is quite a bit better for gaming than our MBPs.

[Gowans]

I think it just baffled my brain a little

that this:


can come out of something so thin and light.

I'm old.

[Black_Stride]

I think the display resolutions that blow away the competition sell it better than the name.

Go ask the average consumer how many pixels per inch at what distance make a screen a retina display.

I bet you even need to google that right now.

The term is selling more devices than the actually performance, im not hating on the devices or the performance, but we have to admit it......when they coined the term retina display they hit a gold mine.

There are a number of devices that may be called retina, but because apple has apparently trademarket the term some consimers will never even look at those devices.
(please dont make me do a google search for retina level displays)

sorry, 27fps.

This thread delivers, fucking brilliant

[Vandiger]

You better have a notebook cooler/stand, after 30min of gaming these laptops get unbearably hot probably lessen the life of the macbook as well.

[Barkley's Justice]

Heads aint ready:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=467580

[Anticitizen One]

Retina macs are the future of computing

[Drinky Crow]

i have an 11" sager that has as much graphics horsepower as the rmbp, plus double the ram and runs significantly cooler. jesus christ, mactards have low standards.

[njean777]

Yeah the MBPr is a great machine, put BF3 on it the other night and get 60fps on medium with 1600x1050. I never put it to high so I don't know if the performance stays that well. It can run all modern games easily as long as you scale at least down to 1080p. Although the few games it can run in 2880x1800 look really good. SC2 at 2880x1800 looks so much better then any monitor I have ever seen. I cannot stand to look at normal monitors anymore.

[Necromanti]

My point was at 2880 x 1800 on high settings. I'm impressed.

Really? Because I've seen it only managing about ~20 FPS in Diablo III at higher settings. Not saying that it's not a nice screen and computer, though.

[odd_morsel]

I'm looking to replace a very old 2007 MBP with a retina MBP but think I'll wait until the next revision for a beefier video card. Would like to be able to fully enjoy Borderlands 2.

You better have a notebook cooler/stand, after 30min of gaming these laptops get unbearably hot probably lessen the life of the macbook as well.

I've put my MBP through thousands of hours of gaming and it still runs like the day I bought it, diminished battery life notwithstanding. I've always used a cooling pad which definitely helps to soak up some of that heat, but these guys can take quite a beating.

[butter_stick]

I think it just baffled my brain a little that this: can come out of something so thin and light. I'm old.

Pretty sure even an iPad could do it.

[odd_morsel]

Pretty sure even an iPad could do it.

Yeah for sure. Not much of an improvement on a Game Boy Avance IMO.

[Tomat]

Yeah for sure. Not much of an improvement on a Game Boy Avance IMO.

That's being a bit generous don't you think?

[BamYouHaveAids]

I'm looking to replace a very old 2007 MBP with a retina MBP but think I'll wait until the next revision for a beefier video card. Would like to be able to fully enjoy Borderlands 2. I've put my MBP through thousands of hours of gaming and it still runs like the day I bought it, diminished battery life notwithstanding. I've always used a cooling pad which definitely helps to soak up some of that heat, but these guys can take quite a beating.

If gaming is your concern why get a Macbook? Also thinking the next iteration will be beefy enough to run Borderlands on at high at full resolution at 60fps is lol.

[SapientWolf]

They are both IPS but MBPR is proably worse at color reproduction (although just looking at it, everything looks really vibrant and great) but MBPR has far higher pixel density. Higher res at much smaller screen size, which makes text and UI elements look incredible. Try it and you'll see, games still looks fantastic in 1600x and 1920x on it. You can get ~30FPS even in native res in BF3 if you play it on Med or Med/High, and the IQ looks just ridiculous then.

There's no way that thing is doing 30fps @ 2880 x 1800 on BF3 at Med/High. 650m benches show it doing 30fps on Med at 1360x768.

[enzo_gt]

Doesn't sound very impressive for the price you pay, even for the all-around package. But I suppose it is a precedent for Mac gaming as a whole since support is on the rise.

[Valnen]

nothing beats subjective analysis of technical proficiency. go go empiricism! if your desktop is powered by something worse than a 4850, it might be time to head to the nearest flea market/dump to pick up an upgrade.

My computer has a 4850 =(.

[Ingueferroque]

i have an 11" sager that has as much graphics horsepower as the rmbp, plus double the ram and runs significantly cooler. jesus christ, mactards have low standards.

It has 32GB of RAM?

Anyway, is the NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB, 16GB Ram, 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7 really such a bad configuration? Eh.

[Pranay_]

Not good for gaming but it's quite a nice laptop.

[Ingueferroque]

Not good for gaming but it's quite a nice laptop.

Yeah, it pays the bills and is a joy to work with. As far as gaming, it matches my tastes.. so it's good for me.

I would actually love to buy a purely for gaming PC tower that I can hook to my external screen, but (located in NYC) have no clue where I should go for that. I can't assemble it myself (I think, no experience) and still want something at least slightly tuned/specialized.

What would be the budget of a decent gaming PC nowadays?

[CambriaRising]

Yeah, it pays the bills and is a joy to work with. As far as gaming, it matches my tastes.. so it's good for me. I would actually love to buy a purely for gaming PC tower that I can hook to my external screen, but (located in NYC) have no clue where I should go for that. I can't assemble it myself (I think, no experience) and still want something at least slightly tuned/specialized. What would be the budget of a decent gaming PC nowadays?

You have come to the right place.

[njean777]

There's no way that thing is doing 30fps @ 2880 x 1800 on BF3 at Med/High. 650m benches show it doing 30fps on Med at 1360x768.

That benchmark is wrong, really wrong. I played a full game with 60fps with everything on medium at 1600x1050. I believe the 650m in the retina is overclocked. Could be wrong though.

[I Stalk Alone]

Playing at high resolutions can come at a very large costs when it comes to current generation games especially the AAA kind.

This old monitor I use for example (which is a DECADE old) that I use is 2304*1440@80hz and has a viewable screen Diagonal of 22.5 inches (57.15cm)

Display size: 19.08" × 11.92" (48.46cm × 30.29cm) = 120.75 PPI, 0.2103mm dot pitch, 14582 PPI² which is not really

For old games and 2D games or indie games playing at that resolution is fine with my current GPU (although I just swapped the old 4890 with a HD7770 for $20 and I am not sure how to get all the resolutions I had with the old card as of yet) but with more demanding games I have to put it down to 1920*1200 or even 1680*1050 (this resolution isn't working for me today for some reason hope it is not the new card) because my CPU is weak I cannot really bother with getting a more powerful card because of the bottlenecks so I will have to make do with this for the next two years. However Even in two years for me to be able to run current gen games at 2304*1440@80hz I will need one beefy card. For example. if I wanted to play Skyrim at max settings at that resolutions and get 80fps to match my monitors refresh rate for smooth gameplay I would need a GTX680 or a HD7970GE. Next gen games in a couple of years will definitely be asking maybe the two or three times the pwer of that to get the games running in a couple of years time. Those cards will probably be around $500

An apple display monitor that is say 2800*1800@60Hz at say 22.5 inches is around 10% more pixels compared to my current display at 80Hz. To run Skyrim at the monitors native resolution at max settings, it will need around GTX680 with an overclock of around 10% . This screen size will still cover the 145ppi enough to make it a retina display. I would say that from this calculation that it is still very expensive to run but not unheard of for a gamer but that is just looking at current games like Skyrim. Maybe there is a market for this monitor now.

However Looking at Apple Displays that would start at 27 inches and hopefully more than 60Hz. A 3280*2048 resolution at 120hz which takes it to around 145ppi which is just retina level at a minimum 40cms distance. This mythical monitor is about 3x more pixels at 120hz than my current monitor at 80hz which means I will need 3x GTX 680's to run Skyrim at native resolution on the highest settings. I would say that these monitors are probably a good two years away before it can be run on a single GPU and play current games.

[CambriaRising]

That benchmark is wrong, really wrong. I played a full game with 60fps with everything on medium at 1600x1050. I believe the 650m in the retina is overclocked. Could be wrong though.

You are wrong. Even Overclocked (If it is even possible with that gpu), you would not gain that kind of performance.

[ElyrionX]

Ignore the Apple haters.

Why? Are they being completely unreasonable? Are they being irrational in their comments in this thread?

[BamYouHaveAids]

That benchmark is wrong, really wrong. I played a full game with 60fps with everything on medium at 1600x1050. I believe the 650m in the retina is overclocked. Could be wrong though.

The 650m in the retina is actually weaker than most laptop 650m cards.

[Dictator93]

Quite the demanding games you list there. One hell of a games machine.

:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

[Lord Error]

i have an 11" sager that has as much graphics horsepower as the rmbp, plus double the ram and runs significantly cooler. jesus christ, mactards have low standards.

Sagers are pretty expensive too (also, big - that 11" is not much lighter than 15" mbpr). You have GGDR3 on that thing btw, so it will be worse.

There's no way that thing is doing 30fps @ 2880 x 1800 on BF3 at Med/High. 650m benches show it doing 30fps on Med at 1360x768.

Well, I can try again. and memorize the settings, I probably had most settings at Med, some on High, and I only played one level. I'm guessing that benchmark is using some more stressful scenes.

The 650m in the retina is actually weaker than most laptop 650m cards.

It's got 1GB, but it's GDDR5. Having 2GB is basically worthless with 650M, as you can't run games with everything on Ultra to utilize that ram anyway.

[Ingueferroque]

You have come to the right place.

Hmm it seems like so much work! And those custom-built companies (falcon-northwest etc.) look so scammy and shady.

I have hardly any time to game now, let alone put my own hardware together. Oh well.

PS. That Blacklight F2P game is pretty damn cool!

[Interficium]

I guess people saying shit like "OMG MY DELL LAPTOP KILLS THE RMBP!" then posting a link to some twenty-pound monstrosity is the kind of response a topic about making a laptop, any laptop, a gaming machine deserves.

[njean777]

You are wrong. Even Overclocked (If it is even possible with that gpu), you would not gain that kind of performance.

Oh really now? Just some quick pics, the frame rate never dropped below 30 (while playing, menus defaulted to 30 fps for some reason) from this 10 minutes of playing it stayed between 40-60 fps while actually playing. Also it was 1600x900 not 1050 my bad. So yes, that benchmark is quite wrong.







Sorry for the crappy iphone picks, but that is medium settings in the last pic.

[SapientWolf]

That benchmark is wrong, really wrong. I played a full game with 60fps with everything on medium at 1600x1050. I believe the 650m in the retina is overclocked. Could be wrong though.

More benches: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...M.71887.0.html

~30 on High, ~40 on Med

Still, my main point is that 30fps @ 2880 x 1800 in BF3 on high/med is not gonna happen with that hardware. Not without some drops well below 30. That's a resolution more suitable for a high end desktop card.

[njean777]

More benches: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...M.71887.0.html ~30 on High, ~40 on Med Still, my main point is that 30fps @ 2880 x 1800 in BF3 on high/med is not gonna happen with that hardware. Not without some drops well below 30. That's a resolution more suitable for a high end desktop card.

Oh yeah I agree, there is no way you can run bf3 at 2880x 1800 with a 650m. Some desktop graphics cards would struggle with that.

[Lord Error]

More benches: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...M.71887.0.html ~30 on High, ~40 on Med Still, my main point is that 30fps @ 2880 x 1800 in BF3 on high/med is not gonna happen with that hardware. Not without some drops well below 30. That's a resolution more suitable for a high end desktop card.

Those tests might be running some benchmark that's stressing the game more than a typical SP level will. Everyone talking about BF3 here, including me, seem to have only tried early SP levels, and my experience matches the FPS that njean777's screens show. I will definitely try playing the same early level in 2800x1800 again with FPS counter enabled and report back - just not tonight, it's too late. But whatever settings I had, I felt that if I had to play it like that, I could. It wasn't some complete slideshow.

[Interficium]

Oh yeah I agree, there is no way you can run bf3 at 2880x 1800 with a 650m. Some desktop graphics cards would struggle with that.

"Some"??

[BamYouHaveAids]

Those tests might be running some benchmark that's stressing the game more than a typical SP level will. Everyone talking about BF3 here, including me, seem to have only tried early SP levels, and my experience matches the FPS that njean777's screens show. I will definitely try playing the same early level in 2800x1800 again with FPS counter enabled and report back - just not tonight, it's too late. But whatever settings I had, I felt that if I had to play it like that, I could. It wasn't some complete slideshow.

Like you said you are testing an early level with low activity. I have a 660m and I doubt I could play a multiplayer match at Medium 1920 x 1080 and stay above 30 fps.

[Unknown Soldier]

The idea of Retina display on desktop and laptop computers is a sound one, but right now Windows in particular is absolutely not a resolution-independent UI. Scaling of Windows U-G-L-Y when it comes to the base UI, and many apps just don't understand scaling at all. The Steam client is an example of this, as it turns out. Mac OS X has the same problem, outside of a few Apple apps and the OS itself, most apps aren't Retina-aware either yet. Give a year or two for the OSes and apps to catch up and Retina will be more feasible. Coincidentally, in a year or two laptops will be much more powerful even with base IGP configurations and will be ready to handle Retina resolutions.

As for the RMBP, it's a pretty solid proof-of-concept product, unlike most Apple 1.0 products. For gaming though it's an astonishing waste of money, a Sager/Clevo laptop for the same price will slap the RMBP's shit silly in games. The RMBP uses a Geforce GT 650M with GDDR5, which is absolutely a mainstream laptop GPU. It's not meant as a hardcore gaming GPU, not even remotely close.

The RMBP heats up like CRAZY when doing 3D stuff like games and the keyboard is extremely unpleasant to touch when running a demanding game because it literally gets hot enough to scald your fingertips. Apple doesn't design their laptops for gamers and something as obvious as being able to touch the keyboard to control the game you are playing doesn't even factor into their design methodology. Furthermore, the RMBP lacks niceties like an optical drive and an Ethernet port, which gamers might find useful.

The RMBP has one hell of a screen and it's certainly thin and light, but it's as far away from 'one hell of a games machine' as you're going to get from a $3,000 laptop. For $3,000 the Sager/Clevo has a 17" 1080p screen, a Geforce GTX 680M GPU, an SSD and an HDD of any size you like, an Ethernet port, a Blu-ray drive, and it will demolish and humiliate the RMBP in anything remotely demanding like BF3, The Witcher 2, Crysis and Crysis 2, heavily modded Skyrim, Metro 2033, etc.

[GrizzNKev]

The idea of Retina display on desktop and laptop computers is a sound one, but right now Windows in particular is absolutely not a resolution-independent UI. Scaling of Windows U-G-L-Y when it comes to the base UI, and many apps just don't understand scaling at all. The Steam client is an example of this, as it turns out. Mac OS X has the same problem, outside of a few Apple apps and the OS itself, most apps aren't Retina-aware either yet. Give a year or two for the OSes and apps to catch up and Retina will be more feasible. Coincidentally, in a year or two laptops will be much more powerful even with base IGP configurations and will be ready to handle Retina resolutions. As for the RMBP, it's a pretty solid proof-of-concept product, unlike most Apple 1.0 products. For gaming though it's an astonishing waste of money, a Sager/Clevo laptop for the same price will slap the RMBP's shit silly in games. The RMBP uses a Geforce GT 650M with GDDR5, which is absolutely a mainstream laptop GPU. It's not meant as a hardcore gaming GPU, not even remotely close. The RMBP heats up like CRAZY when doing 3D stuff like games and the keyboard is extremely unpleasant to touch when running a demanding game because it literally gets hot enough to scald your fingertips. Apple doesn't design their laptops for gamers and something as obvious as being able to touch the keyboard to control the game you are playing doesn't even factor into their design methodology. Furthermore, the RMBP lacks niceties like an optical drive and an Ethernet port, which gamers might find useful. The RMBP has one hell of a screen and it's certainly thin and light, but it's as far away from 'one hell of a games machine' as you're going to get from a $3,000 laptop. For $3,000 the Sager/Clevo has a 17" 1080p screen, a Geforce GTX 680M GPU, an SSD and an HDD of any size you like, an Ethernet port, a Blu-ray drive, and it will demolish and humiliate the RMBP in anything remotely demanding like BF3, The Witcher 2, Crysis and Crysis 2, heavily modded Skyrim, Metro 2033, etc.

Did you know that I love you?

Oh really now? Just some quick pics, the frame rate never dropped below 30 (while playing, menus defaulted to 30 fps for some reason) from this 10 minutes of playing it stayed between 40-60 fps while actually playing. Also it was 1600x900 not 1050 my bad. So yes, that benchmark is quite wrong. Sorry for the crappy iphone picks, but that is medium settings in the last pic.

The tiny hallways on Operation Metro aren't exactly representative of BF3 as a whole. The shot with 60 you're standing in front of a wall inside the least graphically demanding location in the entire game. Try again, you're not fooling anyone.