10.6.3 - Huge graphics performance update to OpenGL for the MBA???

I have been reading that several people are seeing much cooler temperatures on their Mac notebooks and they think it's due to better graphics drivers with the update to 10.6.3. I however thought about the huge performance hit in OpenGL going from Leopard to Snow Leopard (probably same thing). So I decided to check my OpenGL results after installing 10.6.3. However, I didn't check my xBench results before upgrading to 10.6.3. I went and found an old result which shows 67 points for "OpenGL Graphics Test." My new result for "OpenGL Graphics Test" is 111 points. When I check the xBench archives, people with rev "C" MBA's with 10.6.2 all show OpenGL Graphics Test scores in the 60s.

If this is correct, we could all have some big improvements that really show huge effects on the MBA. It should help everyone running Snow Leopard. It should lead to graphics performance gains and lower heat due to graphics demands.

Could someone else running 10.6.2 on a 2.13 GHz CPU MBA run an xBench test before the 10.6.3 upgrade? Then upgrade to 10.6.3 and run another xBench test. Then please report back here with your results for OpenGL Graphics Test... and hope this result is great for all of us. I believe this would be a big improvement for the original MBA too?

Knipperdolling said:

Yep, looks like you are right.
About 60 before, about 110 after upgrade (on 1.86 SSD).
Search "Knipperdolling" on Xbench for both complete benchmarks.

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This is really great news. I knew my numbers were probably correct, but I was just in shock of how big the differences finally are... worth the wait. This has been one of my big problems with Snow Leopard. We shouldn't have to go backwards with OpenGL (now fixed), and the MBA should have a 64-bit kernel whether it's "consumer" or not.

I wonder why this isn't being talked about all over the MBP forums? It is actually pretty big news. The temperature is a big difference which is what I have read over in the MBP forums, but the OpenGL performance gains must be the reason why. These results improve upon where OpenGL was with Leopard. It was a 20 to 25% drop with Snow Leopard until now.

tlinford said:

With 10.6.2 xBench reported open GL at 90.34

with 10.6.3 xBench reported open GL at 160.29


open GL is running much more efficiently now, if using open GL there will be a cooler CPU, as there will be less of a CPU hit!


excellent!

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So there's our difference between the 9400 throttled on the MBA and the 9400 running full out on the 13" MBP.

iDisk said:

Great find Scottsdale.

Looks like Snow Leopard <Version 10.6.3>, actually has a purpose on the Nvidia Graphic Airs.

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The original MBAs seem to show zero improvement when upgrading to 10.6.3. It shows just exactly how inferior the original MBA is with OpenGL scores from 17 to 20 on four machines. So the rev 2,1 is 5x to 6x greater than the original MBA when comparing OpenGL.

I found an original MBA with weird results when I was looking through the results. It appears to be a netbook registering as an MBA (hackintosh).

http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc2=434336

I had honestly feared when Snow Leopard was introduced that the OpenGL system was performing worse because Apple intentionally did something. My thought was Apple was showing us less performance from OpenGL so it wouldn't register as badly when Apple had to go back to Intel GMA IGP again. Apple wouldn't give us a 70-90% OpenGL boost on our "old"/Oct 2008 MBAs now, if it wanted to compare the next MBA to it unless it has a dedicated/alternative solution which will yet improve upon OpenGL in the MBA. This is really great news in my estimation.

With all of these great results 17 months after the Nvidia 9400m was released in the MBA, why would Apple want to go backwards to Intel GMA graphics again? It really shows us that Apple is still committed to giving us a superior graphics performance to what Intel can provide. I truly believe there is no reason to believe Apple would stick us with Intel's GMA IGP again. I definitely believe Apple has to provide us with a dedicated full-time graphics card solution or at least a hybrid solution that can utilize the Intel GMA IGP during times where graphics performance isn't needed.

In my opinion, I just don't see Intel's graphics as even being acceptable for the MBA. I wonder if Apple would even stick it to MB buyers? It seems just as with the 9400m, Apple will probably use one graphics solution across many Macs. Whether it be an Nvidia 310m or Optimus and 310m, or an ATI card or ATI plus hybrid solution, it's not going to just be Intel. This is good news in my opinion.

nph said:

So what does this mean in "real life" when it comes to improvement due to OpenGL? What will benefit from OpenGL improvements, games, flash...?

Thanks

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I will just link you to wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGL

In layman's terms, it is an API/driver that allows apps to send instructions to create 2/3D objects to the OpenGL compliant graphics card which then uses hardware acceleration to create the image and convert the model into pixels ready to be sent to the display. I would think this means that the CPU isn't required to do the work via software modeling, thus reducing CPU workload and enabling the GPU's natural hardware based capabilities to do the work. It should result in far superior graphics performance especially with 3D objects whether it be a modeling program or a video game. In addition, it should really cool down the CPU during these tasks as the GPU is doing the acceleration.

If anyone has a better explanation of OpenGL please correct me.

It seems like a really great thing. I was very concerned when I noticed xBench was reporting OpenGL performance had dropped by 25% when I "upgraded" to Snow Leopard. Now, we're better than we were Leopard and we also have OpenCL to take advantage of the GPU's capabilities. And we have Grand Central Dispatch to take advantage of multiple CPU cores.

Faster is better!