Thread

iBook + Video Gaming + Photo/Website Editing

· Software · 5 posts · May 8, 2005 — May 10, 2005 View original thread ↗

#1 Sun, 8 May 2005 - 23:04

Hey guys,

I'll be buying a 14.1" iBook with a combo drive tommorow and it'll have upgraded RAM to 256 on-board and 256 external, total of 512 RAM.

I was just wondering if the ATI 9200 Card with only 32MB of video/graphics RAM would be good enough for the eye candy and looks of Mac OS X Tiger. Also, will the graphics card be able to handle intense gaming such as Halo? I'll be planning on doing Halo Multiplayer and not much singleplayer, so give me your thoughts on the quality of the gaming.

Also, will Splinter Cell:Chaos Theory be compatible with the graphics card? I was wondering if it was since the game rejects most of them.

I'll be getting my iBook for mostly Photoshop, Flash, and FrontPage since I'll be doing website designing and editing. Will 32MB of VRAM and 512MB of CPU RAM be enough?

Please answer as soon as possible since I'm eager on getting my iBook!

P.S. - Is there a new iBook coming out soon? It's killing me to find out that a new one will come out and I'll miss the margin!

#2 Sun, 8 May 2005 - 23:46

As far as gaming, I'm not sure if the iBook's graphics will give you the best quality. I've read around the PowerBook forums that even PB have a hard time with games such as Halo and/or World of Warcraft. Although I've never personally tested it out with gaming on my PowerBook (as well the iBook I owned a month ago), it is highly unlikely that you will get the performance result you're looking for.

As far as Photoshop and other applications, 512mb may be enough, but you'll be cutting it close if you plan to run multiple programs at once. I say this because even working on a 12" iBook w/ 1.2ghz and 768mb ram, I would notice my activity monitor saying I've used about 75% of my ram running Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator at once. If you can, at least slap on a 512mb ram to bring yourself to 768mb. That may give you an extra breathing room for your applications.

#3 Sun, 8 May 2005 - 23:48

thanks, how much RAM do you recommend?

#4 Sun, 8 May 2005 - 23:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by mnm2004bft

thanks, how much RAM do you recommend?

Add on at least 512mb to bring yourself to 768mb. You'll be much happier now, and in the future. It's about $50 on newegg.com

If you can afford a 1gb ram, It's about $100-130 and you will notice a huge improvement in performance and speed with that.

I'm running on a PowerBook with 1gb, and going from 512 to 1gb definitely made a huge improvement.

#5 Tue, 10 May 2005 - 16:19

Yup i wonder how that would work with gaming i might have to get a ibook because i don't know if i can afford a powerbook in June i do hope they do upgrade Video ram on ibooks.. I know i will be getting at least752 ram