Why 2016 is such a terrible year for the Mac Apple may still care about the Mac, but this year it's been pretty hard to tell.

Using XP (ugh) the Macbook isnt that bad for a gamer. Not as good my PC but not so bad. So far I have put Max Payne 2, Sims 2, Sim City 3000, Fallout1/2, C&C Generals and HoMMII/III. The old school games (Fallouts, HoMM) run perfect, but they would on my old powerbook. Sims 2 runs at all specs at min, 1280x800, and all and all it runs pretty smoothly.

I think I had some apps runing in the background which hurt but it only studders when there are more than 4 sims in the screen at once. I know for a fact that Sims 2 is a very Processor hungry game so the lack of a good graphic card doesnt hurt it as much. Doesnt look great since all the textures are low but still very playable. Max Payne 2 (best.action.game.ever) runs pretty well. Settings are mixed, some low, some high, other s medium and I haven't tried more than 1024x768 yet. It ran smoothly on the default settings and loaded also as fast as my gaming rig I'm so stoked to have it because well.Max Payne rules/ I'd love to try Half-Life 2, as the macbook meets the minimum specs but I dont have any more HDD space to install it on!

The macbook seems to make a decent budget gaming system, just dont expect max settings on the heavy 3D games! Hey there, Thank you for the observations. In regard to The Sims 2, it sounds like you were running the PC version in XP?

I've very curious about it's performance on MacBooks, since my friend has The Sims 2 for her Mac and its perfomance has been extrememly disappointing, considering she has an 1.8GHz iMac G5. Even with everything set on minimum, it's quite slow unless you're using a simple house with very few characters. I always assumed it was the weak graphics the original iMac G5 shipped with (5200FX). On the other hand, you were thinking it might be more processor-driven. Anyway, she may be needing a new lappy, and the MacBooks are affordable, but I was bummed about their choice of Intel Graphics, since I know she's a Sims fiend, and really can't afford a MacBook Pro. Do you have any more details on The Sims 2 running on the MacBook? You mentioned it runs 'pretty smoothly overall' with things on minimum.

This sounds like it would be an upgrade, since it never really runs smoothly on her iMac, and becomes somewhat unplayable once the scene gets more complicated. Again, low settings are fine. She's more interested in the gameplay than in high-quality imagery.

I know the Intel graphics are probably no better than the NVIDIA 5200FX, but I also know PC versions of games tend to run better since they were written natively for ActiveX and all that. Any thoughts? Thanks, -Tone (who wishes Apple had an affordable MacBook with at least a Radeon 9600-class chipset). Using XP (ugh) the Macbook isnt that bad for a gamer. Not as good my PC but not so bad. So far I have put Max Payne 2, Sims 2, Sim City 3000, Fallout1/2, C&C Generals and HoMMII/III. The old school games (Fallouts, HoMM) run perfect, but they would on my old powerbook.

There are several possible file system formats you can use for a USB flash drive, and changing them in Disk Utility is as easy as selecting the number of partitions you want on the drive (usually just one), picking the format you want for the drive, and clicking 'Apply.' I'll discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the other three formats below. Disk Utility gives you five different choices for drive formats in OS X Lion. Note that this will erase all information on the drive, so make absolutely sure you've got copies of everything before moving forward. Unless you have extraordinary needs, you can safely ignore two of them: Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) and Free Space. Format usb for mac use.