Tiger Woods PGA Tour and a Macbook with GMA 950

Well if you try and run the game and it says your graphics card is not compatible their is not much you can do. Most modern games will not work with onboard graphics. The exception is where you see Nvidia or ATI which are the only companies that make graphics cards that work. Intel makes cheap onboard graphics. They are perfect for low End laptops and work well with Video and surfing net.If you go to the Intel web site and look up support on the 950GMA they will have a link to games that work and don't work. I personally gave up on gaming on a PC or Mac because of the graphics issues and cost of upgrades so I bought a XBox360 and have never looked back. Its too expensive to try and buy a laptop to play games.

John pretty much hit the nail on the head. Though I don't know if I agree with the "Intel makes cheap cards" argument. World of Warcraft runs fantastic on my Macbook with low-to-medium graphic settings and a steady 25-30 FPS. Considering, the X3100 processor is not a dedicated card I think that's pretty darn impressive. Shared graphics processors have come a long way, but obviously there are scenarios where they still come up a little short.

I'd personally advise against trying to alter machine files, configurations or other areas to force a game to run or "trick" the game into thinking you have a hardware configuration which is compatible. I certainly feel you're frustration, I had a family member buy me C&C III for my MacBook and I immediately gave it back to them when I saw it.

Sorry about the cheap graphics remark. I think Intel makes very good graphic cards for what they intended to be used for. Its what's in my MacBook and my Dell.In fact a when Intel introduced the X3100 series they actually touted that it could run some games that otherwise would have been only for ATI or NVIDIA. But in the end it's still a crap shoot and a bunch of trial and error to get something to work. Many games simply will not include on their game requirements if it will run on a Intel chip.
I really should have said low costs cheap rather then cheap.Enjoy your MacBook for surfing the net and watching a video or downloading music. Buy a game console for gaming.

I understand what you were trying to say, John. I just prefer to avoid "negative" words as it gives the impression that can allow the creative juices of onlookers to make biased or presumptuous remarks. Really it comes down to understanding what you've got to work with, and what you require to enjoy the content.

A shared (or "virtual") graphics processor that splits process time with the system RAM and system CPU, will not outperform the more modern graphics cards that are available in Macs like the MacBook Pro, Mac Pro or iMac. It's just not how the technology works, it has nothing to do with the machine.

The X3100 is definitely a noticeable upgrade in terms of shaders and glow effects in many games, even games that ran on the 950. But as John stated, at the end of the day, if you want to get serious with gaming on computers then a dedicated graphic cards is rapidly approaching the point of "you must be this high to ride."

Tiger Woods PGA Tour '07 (and '08) are fantastic games, with absolutely amazing real-to-life animations in both the environment and on the players. Animations, shaders and effects that onboard processors like the GMA 950 and X3100 are not ideally designed to process without some extra hard work.

Unfortunately, to most people, many of my family members include, they consider a game like TW PGA Tour to be "casual" but as game developers continue to ride the line between realism/simulation, it's only going to be harder for the hardware manufacturers to make sure we all get to enjoy the fun at multiple price points.