Running on MacBook Pro: is NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M supported?

[MisaMii]

I would like to buy a MacBook Pro 15", since I'm so tired of my current laptop and Windows...
The MacBook Pro has an NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics card, and I was wondering if it will run the Sims 3 base game and following expansions and stuff packs:
- World Adventures (EP)
- Ambitions (EP)
- Late Night (EP)
- Generations (EP)
- Pets (EP)
- High-End Loft (SP)
- Fast Lane (SP)
- Outdoor Living (SP)

I didn't find the name of the graphics card on the TS3 System Requirements page... So I know it is well possible that this graphics card is not supported. But perhaps you own a MacBook Pro with this card in it, and perhaps you could tell me how the game runs..? :)

Also, if you have a MacBook Pro and play the Sims 3 on it, do you also have the Pets expansion installed? Because currently with the graphics card I have in my laptop, I can't create a single pet in the game... Or well I can create one, and it will show up just fine in-game, but in CAS they look like mutants. For cats and dogs I can only see something that is supposed to be their back legs and tail, the rest of the body appears above the screen range... Horses look as if they were pushed together in a tall and thin box, having their teeth positioned where the ears should be, legs reversed,... As I said, mutant pets. But only in CAS. Gameplay is just fine, other than that.
I know this is caused by my graphics card, it is noted as unsupported on the TS3 System Requirements page... So my laptop can't run the game anymore.

So, in short, will the MacBook Pro 15", with the NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics card, run the game and the expansions?

Thanks in advance!

[ajaxsirius]

Not 100% sure, but I would think so. The 650M GDDR5 (which is the one in the Macbook) is not weak. You should check with the vendor if you can return the macbook if you're not satisfied with it.

[whiterider]

The 650M is ok, but not great for TS3. It'll probably run the game passably, though as new EPs come out they will be too much for it. It obviously won't last as long as a regular 650 would, but that's always the case with laptop parts.

Is there a particular reason why you want a Mac? You could get a more powerful system for the same price if you go for another brand, and therefore Windows. Plus your CC hairs would work.

[MisaMii]

Well I just want to buy a MacBook because I've had many bad experiences with Windows. I got a laptop with Windows 7 for about 3 years now but whatever I do, something goes wrong. Either there's a problem with the drivers (once formatted the laptop, then installed drivers and along came a driver that was not meant for my system. Long story.) or some program's process is in conflict with another one, or I suddenly get bluescreens...

And while I know how to handle this, and if I would take my time to fix the problem, then my system would probably run fine again. But I don't want to do this, I don't want to be the one who has to fix something just because Windows didn't write a proper piece of code to handle a certain situation.
(They could have at least wrote some code that would notify us if a driver was outdated, instead of letting us search for the driver(s) ourselves. Things like that.)

Even my parents have problems with their laptop, and they are like the safest people when it comes to downloading things from the internet or installing programs, or anything that might seem dangerous in their eyes. They even hesitated on getting the Sims 3 installed on their laptop (runs so much faster on their laptop, but I'm not allowed to install it now because they formatted theirs and haven't taken a backup yet).

So, because of all the events I had with Windows, I just want to change to something completely different. Something that has nothing to do with Windows, something that can't even be installed on a regular PC if it's not an Apple product. A different OS. And if I need to run a program on it that works on Windows only, then I'm fine with a Virtual Machine.

You might think that I want to go for the easy way, since I'm not going for another computer with Windows running on it and say to myself that I'll give it another chance... But, really, I'm convinced. By Apple perhaps. I bought an iPhone earlier this year, and by all the mobile phones that I have ever had (and I've had many), this is by far the only one on which I have nothing negative to say (except for the price and battery life). So, seeing that I bought a product from Apple and realising how satisfied I am with it, I hope that a MacBook might as well be a good buy.


Sorry for the long reply, I'm not good at explaining something in short. xD

[whiterider]

Well, I still think you're nuts for wanting to pay twice the price just to get away from Windows' user unfriendliness, but you have the right to be nuts. ;)

What are the other specs of the model you're considering? What other graphics options are there, if any?

[MisaMii]

I'm considering a 15-inch 2,3 GHz MacBook Pro, with the following specs:
- 4 GB 1600-MHz DDR3 SDRAM (2 x 2 GB)
- 2.3GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz
- 128GB Solid State Drive
- Intel HD Graphics 4000
- NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 512MB of GDDR5 memory

No other options regarding the graphics. Except that I could take 1GB of GDDR5 memory instead of 512MB, but I'm not sure if that would make any change to the compatability with the game and the expansions I have.

There might be a benefit on a MacBook Pro as well, being the Bootcamp thingy. It would allow me to install Windows 7 on another partition. And I still have my Windows 7 installation DVD so, in case I can't run a program on the Mac OS X Lion, I can still boot in Windows 7 and use the program there.
Also, a MacBook Pro (or Air or Mac) doesn't work the same way with a registry like Windows does, with the preferences and such, it gives me the feeling that it's less messy. I've always found the Windows registry a mess, entries of uninstalled programs often remained in the registry. With OS X I should just drag and drop a program to the trash can and bam, the whole program and its preferences are uninstalled. No more left-overs.

I wouldn't buy the new MacBook Pro though, the one with the retina display. I've read that the battery is glued into the machine and that the RAM is soldered to the logic board, meaning that you can't upgrade the hardware without taking it to an Apple store.