MacBook Air graphics performance

I am considering a MacBook Air for my wife as a birthday gift. She has very limited needs: web browsing, word processing, email, etc. However, she is a certified Sims addict. I have searched the web over the past 3 days seeking information on how well the Air performs with The Sims, but found nothing. Can anyone share their experience with the MacBook AIR and The SIMS or similar graphics-intensive game/application? I would appreciate any insights on this topic. Thanks!

Check this out:
http://www.wilshipley.com/blog/2008/02/macbook-air-rambling-first-impressions.ht ml
According to Mr. Shipley, the Air can handle casual gaming...if you're not blocking it's ventilation. The fans will run like crazy, I'm sure. I've got one and I'm not a gamer, so I can't tell you 100%, but if I'm watching an H.264 video (or Flash video on the web) and the ventilation isn't completely open, graphics start to suffer. And I don't mean suffer in the way you get the occasional problem, but in the way that the screen gets choppy when you scroll through a web page or you go, as Wil Shipley says, into slideshow mode. With some videos, after twenty minutes, it gets stuck. It's kind of sad. But if the heat is able to dissipate you're in good shape.
There are a number of, in my opinion, serious engineering flaws with the Air. For some reason I still decided to keep it. I'm not sure I quite understand why but there's something about it that's just hard to give up...
Anyway, if your wife is willing to play games on a desk or take the additional steps to keep the ventilation unblocked (I put the Air on its sleeve and let the vents hang over the edge of it) then it should work fine. I would expect 23-24fps, though. That's probably fine for a casual gamer.

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10.6.7 Combo Update Slows MacBook Air 3D Performance

Several weeks ago I noticed a dramatic slowdown in the graphics performance of my late 2010 MAcBook Air, and after weeks of futile searching, and falsely diagnosing the problem as SSD degradation, I came across the article below on MacWorld:
http://www.macworld.com/article/158494/2011/04/1067updatemba.html
There, the authors described the same problem I was having, and attributed the dramatic graphics slowdown to a problem with drivers installed by the OS 10.6.7 update. I've done my own testing and found that the bad driver problem is specific to the 10.6.7 Combo Update.
I was able to completely restore graphics performance on my MAcBook Air to waht it should be (ie Portal 2 runs great) by following the steps described by commenter shawnyeager (Thanks Shawn!) in the MacWorld article, which I'm copying here for the benefit of others:
Boot off the MAcBook Air USB media, do an in-place install of 10.6.5 (it's non-destructive) and then download individual (non-combo) updaters for 10.6.6, 10.6.7 and 10.6.7 Supplemental. After applying them, Portal 2 is will run beautifully on a late 2010 MacBook Air with native resolution and 'Medium' to 'High' settings on all graphics options. The difference is dramatic.
Cheers!

It's hard to compare the current Macbook air and MacBook Pro models, I'm lucky to have both and both are superb laptops .. but for different reasons.
The current MacBook Air models are head and shoulders above the previous MacBook Air models. Thanks to the SSD and the cache Boot times and basic disk i/o times are blindingly fast .. noticeably faster than my 15'' Thunderbolt MacBook Pro with 7200rpm drive. Overall CPU and graphcis performance are pretty impressive too. you won't find a faster mroe powerful ultralight laptop.
That being said, the current MacBook Pro's are performance powerhouses whose CPU and graphics performance definitely outclass the MacBook Airs ... but with a bit slower IO, and of course a much heavier form factor.
So, both are great, but it's really a matter of which type of machine you prefer. If you to go for eh MacBook Pro, though I don't think the SSD upgrade with worth the price. the 7200rpm drive is plenty fast and much cheaper.

MacBook Air Gaming Performance

I plan on getting the MacBook Air with i7, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of SSD. My question is how well this machine can run games? Obviously it isnt a gaming machine, but how well will it run games like Counter Strike Global Offensive or Garry's Mod? How bout Minecraft? Or even something like Portal 2? Thanks for all answers!

First thing you'll need to do is get used to checking the game specs to see if the game supports Intel integrated graphics. If it does you can expect it will perform acceptably to well only at the lower graphic settings. The MBA isn't a gaming machine, especially for games that involve high definition 3D rendering. That said, I do play Diablo III and SimCity 4 & 5 on a computer that has slightly less powerful graphics than the current MBA. But there are games that I can't play on that machine at all because they require a discrete video card.

My friend have new Macbook Air with OSX Mavericks and I have Macbook Pro with OSX Mountain Lion, Can I create a bootable maverick in pendrive from macbook air and perform a clean installation/update on my macbook pro with osx mountain lion?

I have late 2012 edition Macbook Pro, I have a internet connection with does not run smoothly It gets disconnected and reconnects Thus I failed everytime when I update my OSX Mountain Lion to Mavericks in App Store. My friend just bought 2013 end Macbook Air whicch have OSX Mavericks pre installed.
I was hoping if I can create a OS X version in pendrive from his laptop and use that to install and thuss also update OS on my Mountain Lion.
Kindly explain me in detail how to perform this.
I have already taken back up of all files and I am ready to total clean my laptop.
And I want to update to Maverick so I can thus further update to upcoming OS X Yosemite.

The Mavericks on the Air is probably machine specific since it came pre-installed, so it wouldn't work on your computer. See if your friend will let you access the App Store, where you can sign in using your Apple ID and download the installer. You can use this free program to copy the installer and update your computer.
Bootable USB Flash Drive – Diskmaker X

New Macbook Air - graphics problem

New mid 2011 Macbook Air with Intel HD300 graphics card
Seems to be a problem with brushes in photo editing software. Brushes don't render correctly on screen at certain sizes.
Problems experienced in Aperture, Photoshop and Lightroom.
No problems at all with this software on my 2009 MBA or MBP runnining Lion10.7.1
Problem is just on this new Macbook Air
Any advice or solution much appreciated

Problem still there is 10.7.2. No work around. It makes using Photoshop on a MB Air very difficult. On the Photoshop.com forum (Adobe), they are blaming Apple the the graphics drivers, and disavowing any resposibility.

Macbook air graphics flicker

Hi
I have a brand new Macbook Air 13" i7. OSX 10.8.4
Graphics in finder windows sometimes flickers. Someimes this occurs in Safari also. Particularly when discplaying a PDF.
Anyone have a soluion?
Thanks,
Stee

Just the document in the safari window and the scrolling icons above the directory listing in a finder window.
I just found another Mountain Lion update and installed it and restarted.
The problem has mostly gone away. Scrolling through a pdf in safari is still not completely smooth, but the finder problem is completely fixed.
Thank you for your rapid response.
Steve

My Macbook Air is performing slow from past few days

My Mackbook Air is performing much slower than what it used to be.. What could be the possible reasons and solutions??
It takes so much time to load pages and to open open applications. Previously, I thought it is just the internet, but I have tried it at so many different places. It's still the same. Even the apps takes a lot more time to open up. I have tried repairing my disk, but there wasn't any problem with the disk.

OS X 10.7 Lion / 10.8. Mountain Lion
Start up in Safe Mode.
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH4373
Reset SMC.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Choose the method for:
"Resetting SMC on portables with a battery you should not remove on your own".
Increase Disk Space
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH10677?viewlocale=en_US

I dont know wether to pick a macbook air or a mac because i want to use it for gaming purposes?

I want to have a fast computer i can use for school to type papers but i also want it to be fast forgaming as well. Im stuck bewteen the macbook air and the mac desktop computer. Somone please Help.

Hi, it is dependant on what games it is you would be looking at playing, as to which would suit for those purposes.
The Latest MacBook Air (If you're looking at the basic model) has an Intel Core i7 Dual Core processor (1.7Ghz), whereas the latest basic iMac, has an Intel Dual Core i5 (2.7Ghz), so when you look at the processor speed and compare them, in theory the iMac would be "faster", when talking about processor speed.
The MacBook Air ships with an SSD, no matter what spec you order, which would increase speed, however they are quite small for the basic model.
The MacBook Air, ships with Intel HD 5000 Graphics, and the iMac ships with the nVidia GeForce GT640M 512MB GDDR Memory, and the iMac has many more "Configure to Order" options available, that would allow you to increase the performance of the computer should you want to.
I can't find the amount of VRAM on the MacBook Air Graphics Card, but based on processor performance, and expandability (RAM Upgrades / HDD Upgrades / Graphics Card Upgrades) I would for gaming recommend the iMac, however there is a large price difference between the two.
Obviously go and do a bit of comparing on the Apple Website, and read a couple of reviews before deciding, as they all cost quite a lot of money, and you want to make sure you get what you want for your money, so you're probably better reading reviews, as I own neither myself.
Thanks,
Ollie.

Macbook Air 13" 2011 vs Macbook Pro 13" for a uni student?

Hi all,
I am a university student studying Humanities and Psychology, so I write a LOT of essays. My other computer activities include watching movies, surfing the web, the occasional MMO (WoW and/or EVE Online) and listening to music.
I have a 1Tb external HDD connected to my wireless so hard drive space isn't an issue.
I am torn between the new MacBook Air 13" 256Gb, 4Gb RAM, and the 13" MacBook Pro 500Gb, 8Gb RAM.
The cost of either isn't an issue.
Let me know what your experiences are with either, and leave your opinion on which would be the best for me.
Thanks.

First off EatsRainbows, DO NOT get a new computer without a solidstate drive (SSD) it is the most important component of your computer (prorams open faster, saving is faster, transfering files is faster, everything happens fast). IMO the better screen, slightly better keyboard of the Air will be better for you. Also it wins in my hardcore comparision:
2011 13” MacBookAir vs. 2011 13” MacBook Pro
Both are the base models, the Pro has the optional128GB SSD to match the Air.
Cost:
MacBook Air - $1299
Macbook Pro - $1449
Winner = MacBook Air
Screen:
MacBook Air – 13.3” 16:10 1440x900
Macbook Pro - 13.3” 16:10 1280x800
Winner = MacBook Air
CPU Performance:
MacBook Air – i5-2557M
Macbook Pro – i5-2410M, Single Thread 5.5% faster,Multithread 13.5% faster
Winner = MacBook Pro
GPUPerformance:
MacBook Air – 384MB Intel HD 3000 (IntegratedGraphics)
Macbook Pro - 384MB Intel HD 3000 (IntegratedGraphics)
Winner = Tie
Size:
MacBook Air – 0.68 in thick max, 45.2 in^2
Macbook Pro – 0.95 in thick max, 108.5in^2
Winner = MacBook Air
Weight:
MacBook Air – 2.96 lbs
Macbook Pro – 4.5 lbs
Winner = MacBook Air
BatteryLife:
MacBook Air – 50WHr, 7 hours
Macbook Pro – 63.5WHr, 7 hours
Winner = Tie
Winner:
13.3”MacBook Air by A LOT
So you give up slight loss in single thread speed,for something that is much heavier, much larger, and has a worse screen. Basically you would be mad to pay more for aMacBook Pro.

Reinstalling OS X on my MacBook Air?

After deleting personal info on my MacBook Air, I performed the wipe (7 passes) on the HD. When friend is trying to set up laptop, it shows error saying OS X not purchased by this user. See something about "command option R" and talking about a jump drive. I don't have a jump drive. Is there a way I can create a OS X on a jump drive to use to install on laptop?

I just found my MacBook Air install disc (2 of them) dated 2008. Could I not use this in a Mac drive to wirelessly install to the Air? And make a backup of OS X?

Virtual memory macbook air

My macbook air is performing so badly...it is costantly saying the discs are full or almost full...i cannot keep one photo or file on it now....can i turn on virtual memory or something????
please help!

Freeing Up Space on The Hard Drive
1. See Lion/Mountain Lion's Storage Display.
2. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.
3. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
4. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
5. See Where did my Disk Space go?.
6. See The Storage Display.
You must Empty the Trash in order to recover the space they occupied on the hard drive.
You should consider replacing the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.
Try using OmniDiskSweeper 1.8 or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.
Virtual Memory requires the use of space on the HDD, so if you have no space then VM doesn't work and get the same error messages. VM supports RAM, not the hard drive.

Graphic/ GPU Intensive Applications on Macbook Air?

Hey all
Im planning to get a MacBook for my GCSE's, and im leaning towards the air.
I will be running applications such as Adobe Photoshop CS5, After Effects CS5, Lightroom CS5, and Final Cut Express regularly, so would a 13" 1.86ghz MBA C2D Processor with 4gb of RAM be able to run these apps fast and efficiently with no lag? Or should I opt for the baseline MBP 13"? Im also looking for portability, as im going to be taking it into school
Thanks

The MacBook Air is an excellent notebook. I would recommend the maximum configuration that you can afford.
I have a 13 inch 2.13 GHz C2D, 4 GB RAM with 256 GB SSD and I can verify there is little difference in performance between it and and and i7 based MacBook Pro (with conventional hard drive). xBench score MBA this config = 183, base model = 120 and i7 MacBook Pro 172 (Processor and RAM based tests such as GeekBench are not particularly relevant when the major bottleneck for many applications is disk access time)
The relative difference in real world use between the i7 based Pro and 2.13 GHz MBA is around 15 % based on combined testing across a range of software and processes.
The combination of graphics card, SSD and processor is as important as the processor alone and overall makes a significant difference.
For an informed opinion I would suggest you read the review at Macworld and look at their comparison benchmarks.
Good luck with your decision, I am more than happy with mine

MacBook Air from prior MacBook Pro leads to poor performance?

Last week my laptop (MacBook Pro) was stolen. I decided to buy a MacBook Air and reinstall my applications and some of my data from the MBP to a new MBA. I love the size/weight of the MacBook Air and the battery life but I've been having a number of issues with performance. For example:
-I'm getting the "beachball" a lot more on the MBA than I did on the MBP. I took the computer into the Genius Bar today and they told me that "it might not be good to run more than 6-7 apps at the same time" on the MBA. With the MBP I never had a problem runs lots of apps simultaneously.
-I'm having a problem whenever I download images from the Web. My computer basically freezes for 5 seconds or so. That never happened on the MBP.
What I'm wondering is whether these things are common with the MBA because it isn't as high-powered as the MBP. I'm also wondering if a part of this is because I didn't install the MBA from scratch but rather from my previous MBP install (through Time Machine). I know fresh installs are better but am really dreading the thought of having to reinstall all apps, reconfigure preferences, etc.
Any thoughts?

Sorry to hear about the theft. The Airs are great machines for a few reasons but one in particular is that the NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics chip is a really top notch choice. Some benchmarks report that it is comparable or superior to the upgrade on the new Pros. The CPU is Core 2 Duo and at a lower GHZ it is designed for low temp, long battery life. Multi applications really depend on a combination of spare hard drive space and loads of RAM (although yes, you will see beach balls more than a Pro, but in theory it is more a cosmetic lag than sluggish machine). I've had two Macs, and I feel that any Mac can get sluggish if you don't do maintenance on them. Repair, verify, clear your cache, and so on. Don't forget certain times are heavy with background activity (indexing, etc). In the end if you need the snap of instant response, take it back and get a Pro, but you pay a price (heat and short battery life.) What size is your Air? How much RAM has it got and what size SSD? Another idea would be to get your exact old machine from the refurbished Apple page (at a discount)>
Message was edited by: NA Smith

Yosemite slowing down macbook air performance

Ever since upgrading to yosemite, my 2011 macbook air 11' has been very noticeably sluggish compared to how it was with mavericks. At first i thought it might be from some conflicts from the previous OS, so I did a completely fresh install with yosemite, but it's still dragging and sluggish, especially with any kind of graphics intensive process. I know the air isn't supposed to be a marvel at graphics performance, but I never had these performance issues with mavericks.
Is yosemite just too resource heavy for my macbook air? I wonder if I'd just be better off going back to mavericks. However, if there's some kind of settings I need to adjust, I'd be happy to experiment. I've already tried the 'reduce transparency' trick, but it didn't do much (not that I noticed anyways).

Gatekeeper is described here: OS X: About Gatekeeper - Apple Support. It is only one defense to protect you from inadvertently installing malware, and an effective defense does not rely upon only one method.
... I can use software that isn't officially "identified" by apple, even though it is trusted.
Apple's philosophy is such that a Mac user with Admin privileges always has control over what he or she installs. As I wrote Gatekeeper will serve to protect you against inadvertently installing malware, including the adware that is affecting your Mac. Adware does not get installed on its own - it requires your explicit permission, which you provided by supplying your Admin name and password. When that dialog appears, it should be expected, not a surprise, and its implications should be clearly understood. By providing your credentials OS X concludes you know what you're doing and the reason you're doing it. Determining the "trusted" aspect of software thereby falls to you.
In your case, by choosing the "anywhere" option you effectively circumvented this basic OS X security feature.
The problem with adware is that it relies upon deception to convince you that it's legitimate software offered for some beneficial purpose, when in fact all it will do is interfere with your normal activity and possibly crash your Mac.
Is there anything I can do to possibly identify which apps may be slowing my system down?
Yes, although you installed quite a number of them. For troubleshooting, read below the line that follows the end of this post.
An EtreCheck report generated on a Mac as it ships from Apple will show no entries under Kernel Extensions, Launch Agents, User Launch Agents, Safari Extensions, 3rd Party Preference Panes, etc. Everything that appears under those headings is there because you installed them. As I wrote it's a user's responsibility to understand the specific benefits they are intended to convey, the effects they will have, and the means of uninstalling them should they result in unacceptable performance - which was your original complaint.
It's also possible that the slowdowns are not caused by software, but given the extent to which your system has been modified, hardware failure is less likely than incompatible or poorly implemented software.
... anything that isn't officially "identified" by apple is adware?
Although OS X incorporates specific prohibitions against installing common malware, they can hardly attempt to classify specific user-installed modifications as adware. The only certain way to do that would be to prevent user-installed system modifications altogether, in the same manner as they do with iOS (iPads and iPhones).
Adware's appearance changes approximately every day. Their pathetic developers are desperate to change its appearance in an effort to continue their deceptive tactics, and a simple change of a file name precludes a reliable automated means of intercepting it. That's the reason it's incumbent upon Mac users to educate themselves about its appearance so that they are not so easily gulled into installing some junk. Gatekeeper merely helps you understand that's what you'd be doing.
Back up your Mac if you have not already done so. To learn how to to that read Mac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac - Apple Support.
If your Mac is momentarily unresponsive, consider the following.
Launch the Console app - it is in your Utilities folder. You can find it by selecting Utilities from the Finder's Go menu.
If the log list column on the left is not already displayed, show the log list by selecting Show Log List from Console's View menu. Select Show Toolbar if it is not already shown.
Locate system.log in the list and select it. Many date and time-stamped entries will appear, hundreds of them, and you must find the entries relevant to your Mac's problem.
To do that click the Clear Display button in the Toolbar. All previously displayed log entries will be disappear.
Next: Perform whatever actions cause the Mac to exhibit the slow behavior. If the problem is caused by errors logged by the system, the Console window will show them being recorded in system.log.
One or more of them, along with their time stamps, may reveal the reason for the problem you describe.
Copy and paste those log entries in a reply. If hundreds of the same repetitive messages appear, please edit them before posting. There should be no need for more than a few log entries.
Most of the entries will be cryptic but will contain information you might consider personal such as your Mac's name. If you do not want that information to appear, delete or obscure it when posting your reply. Leave enough information so that the entries can be deciphered.

Why is Open GL performance so poor on MacBook Air?

I was just comparing the performance of the MacBook Air compared to a MacBook Core Duo 2 GHz. MacBook Air has the newer and slightly faster graphic chipset (GM950 vs X3100), yet the MacBook air Open GL performance is terrible (221 for older MB vs 16.5 for MBA!). MBA even has more graphic memory.
Anyone have any idea why this is?

After a little research it actually looks like the new integrated graphics should have much better GL performance, but apparently the drivers are just not there yet.
Here is hoping to a release soon!

MacBook Air graphics performance

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