Apple, ATI, NVIDIA Actively Working on Improving Mac Gaming Performance

[deus_ex_machina]

Unlike the vast majority of people that buy Apple these days, I actually use my machine primarily for art and design related applications. Snow Leopard had more issues with CS4 than Leopard at the time of upgrade, and thus my decision was made. Please consider both spectrums of the Apple consumer base before you haphazardly stumble into the notion that status symbol seekers sum up the more important market share.

You've insinuated that those who buy Mac should be creative professionals, otherwise they're buying only for the brand. Rather elitist, don't you think?

If the creative professionals were always center stage, iLife wouldn't be as prolific. You don't have to be to appreciate OSX.

 

[rbarris]

2) Try to improve OpenGL. This happens very slowly since OpenGL is an open standard and many companies (including Microsoft) need to sign off on any changes.

The OpenGL specification has been updating on a roughly 6-month cycle for the last couple of years, and is currently close to the DX11 feature level if you examine GL 4.0 for example.

Microsoft does not participate in the OpenGL specification process, nor do they need to sign off on any API changes - as could be seen upon the release of 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 and 4.0 specification and drivers.

Improving an implementation of an existing API can be straightforward: measure, identify, tune, repeat.

 

[Bafflefish]

Again, up until couple of months ago, where GTX285 was the single fastest GPU offering from Nvidia, on PC's and on Mac's, we had GTX285, so we had the fastest GPU from Nvidia available for our machines.

If by a couple of months, you mean, over 10 months, then maybe... the HD5000 series launched in August of 2009, and that's not even counting the fact that the fastest card available (and actually still technically slightly faster until the release of the HD5970) was the GTX 295, which never saw a Mac release. The GTX 295 was actually released in late 2008, so in reality, there hasn't been true parity between the PC and Mac gaming markets since then.

But couple months ago Nvidia released the GTX400 series, which we don't have, so we are now lagging behind again. But I was actually surprised that for a long enough period macs actually had access to the fastest single core GPU Nvidia was offering.

As mentioned above, while the GTX 295 wasn't a single-core GPU, it was still the single fastest card nVidia sold until Fermi-based cards debuted. Most of your serious PC gamers don't care about the ideas behind "single GPU" and "multi-GPU" cards, they only care about the fastest single, non-SLI/Crossfire option available.

Which actually leads me into another bitter gripe about the Mac platform for gaming... no SLI or Crossfire...

I'd expect we'll get either GTX480 or HD5870 in the new Mac Pro, which should come soon, so we'll catch up again.

With the default specs or as a "you can purchase this in the store at marked up cost" option? Apple traditionally has never provided anything besides a low-powered discrete offering with the Mac Pros (and PowerMacs before it), so I wouldn't hold my breath as to anything too powerful being present. They didn't even offer the GTX 285 as a BTO option (you had to go digging into the store to find it...).

And the situation is better than, let's say, 8 years ago, when macs didn't have access to the newest offerings of Nvidia or ATI, ever.

Um, that's not really true. For awhile there, you'd see the top-model Radeons and to a less-frequent extent the upper/top-model GeForce cards making their way to the PowerMacs.

I remember when some of the most important GPUs in history (the 9700/9800 series of Radeons, which caught nVidia off-guard with their seriously lackluster FX line) were available for use with the PowerMac. I remember the BIOS-flash tricks in order to use a PC-originated GPU in the PowerMac. Ah, those were the days...

 

[baryon]

Happy to hear this, because Steam for Mac performance is worse than Crossover Games emulation!

 

[Bafflefish]

The experience and feeling are both much much better on the OSX, performance is indeed a bit behind windows, it is noticeable but the difference is very small. I would say some 10% less.

Anandtech disagrees:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3726/quick-look-mac-os-x-portal-performance

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3726/quick-look-mac-os-x-portal-performance

Yes, Steam for Mac is early, and eventually it'll probably offer only a slight decrease in performance vs. Steam for Windows, but as of right now, I'm sorry, it's not looking too good (I tried it on my iMac, and then tried it via Bootcamp on the same iMac: Bootcamp would definitely be the way to go currently).

 

[Bokito]

As long as games don't sell as much for macs as they do for windows, gaming performance will never be equal. It's not up to Apple. Nvidia and ATI are spending tons of money for driver development for Windows. They don't do the same for OS X, rightfully so, because games don't sell much for OS X, so it's a waste to direct resources for OS X driver development.

Various game developers approached Apple in the last 10 years and asked for help on developing games for the Mac, Apple didn't offer most much more help than a Select or Premier ADC membership had rights to. If Apple got more in touch with the game industry, they probably had a much larger market share right now. Since gaming now moved to consoles for the major part, Apple is a bit late to try and get users with games on Mac OS X.

I don't know if Apple is actually holding back or anything, since Apple is helping Blizzard a lot about WOW, so why not help other people if they are developing native Open GL games.

See majorly above, Blizzard does get a little more help than others because they started with the initiative to start development for OS X. People asking Apple to help with development before they even started are out of question. EA had to do a lot before Apple was on board to give their games better support too. It wasn't that easy for EA to get there, and see where they are now, almost gone from the Mac platform.

 

[Bafflefish]

Again, when I purchased my GTX285 in October, it was the fastest nVidia GPU for PC's as well (single core).

There. Fixed it for ya. In terms of single GPU cards, the Radeon 5870 was faster than the GTX 285 by a good bit, so it isn't correct to state the 285 was still the fastest last October.

 

[Bafflefish]

See majorly above, Blizzard does get a little more help than others because they started with the initiative to start development for OS X. People asking Apple to help with development before they even started are out of question. EA had to do a lot before Apple was on board to give their games better support too. It wasn't that easy for EA to get there, and see where they are now, almost gone from the Mac platform.

Plus, just to point out, Blizzard really hasn't said much in regards to just how much "support" Apple is giving. At least from what I've read on the various BattleNet forums at times regarding OS X development, it often seems to be cases of "We're talking to Apple about getting performance up here" or "Apple is working us and others to try and get these features optimized", etc., but having worked in IT for quite some time, I can say that statements like that are often designed more to give re-assurance to customers that issues are being addressed, while the (usually) very slow process of back-and-forth communication to resolve issues occurs.

Given all that Apple works on, I'm assuming (possibly quite falsely) that optimizing OpenGL performance for a few games is a low-priority concern, and so it's probably more Blizzard, Valve, etc., trying to constantly push Apple to put work towards it. But like I said, that's just an uneducated assumption into Apple's support policies.

 

[joshjoshlol]

You've insinuated that those who buy Mac should be creative professionals, otherwise they're buying only for the brand. Rather elitist, don't you think?

If the creative professionals were always center stage, iLife wouldn't be as prolific. You don't have to be to appreciate OSX.

I'm insinuating that I have a valid reason (namely, my livelihood as a professional artist) to ensure that my system is up and running in an ideal condition without hiccups, and thus my display of bemusement and comments towards those who would assail my decision not to upgrade to SL as though I were a cheap skate. A layman whose work doesn't depend on strict operational conditions can afford to deal with their hobby computer not loading Steam games at their optimal levels for a few months. This is what I am insinuating. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[diogenis]

Anandtech disagrees:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3726/quick-look-mac-os-x-portal-performance

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3726/quick-look-mac-os-x-portal-performance

Yes, Steam for Mac is early, and eventually it'll probably offer only a slight decrease in performance vs. Steam for Windows, but as of right now, I'm sorry, it's not looking too good (I tried it on my iMac, and then tried it via Bootcamp on the same iMac: Bootcamp would definitely be the way to go currently).

I don't need Anandtech to tell me what I can experience myself, nor did I mention anything about playing portal on an i7 iMac.
And as for Windowz and M$ and steam/TF2, well I have and still getting enough crashes as it is by now, but the performance is close, very close. I suggest we give Valve and the rest of the industry time to digest this and soon we will know.

 

[LOLaMac]

Up until couple months ago, the fastest single core GPU, GTX285, was available for mac. I don't think macs are lagging way behind anymore. We lag like 6 months behind nowadays, which is a big improvement over the past.

But since OS X does not support SLI or crossfire yet, don't expect multicore GPU's soon.

And how much do you have to pay to have a Mac with that GPU? Pretty much three grand.....three thousand dollars to have a Mac with a (not even state of the art) graphics card. I just built a PC, with superior components to the low end Mac Pro for 1100$ (including a 23" monitor). It's crazy. If Apple wants to get serious about gaming on the Mac, they have a lot to change.

It's amazing, and pleasantly surprising, to see Apple admit that Macs are pretty poor for gaming, and not just burying their head in the sand, continuing to promote Macs with low end cards as having "killer graphics." The truth is, though, that as long as Macs continue to have such anemic video hardware, all the "driver optimizations" in the world aren't going to mean jack. And yes, the 4850 available in the top end IMac (with only 512MB no less) is s**t, especially when trying to run games at native rez on that monster 27" screen.

I don't ever see major bumps in Mac components, though.....Macs are not gaming machines, and I don't think four or five valve games suddenly makes it one. E3 is going on right now, and when you take a loot at a site like www.evilavatar.com , and scroll through all the trailers and info on new games, how many of them do you think are for Mac? Yep, that's right. It's great to see Apple getting serious about fixing their broken OS (as far as graphics are concerned), but Macs are not for gaming, and I doubt Apple will ever do what's really necessary to make them viable, especially with the new new focus on iDevices. Macs are done, you can stick a fork in them.

 

[JackAxe]

I recall Apple working with ID Software to try to make Doom 3 run better on a Mac, as it performed much slower than the Window's side. They failed. I think the biggest problem is OS X itself. It's good for everything BUT 3D and gaming.

 

[hexagonheat]

Anandtech disagrees:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3726/quick-look-mac-os-x-portal-performance

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3726/quick-look-mac-os-x-portal-performance

Yes, Steam for Mac is early, and eventually it'll probably offer only a slight decrease in performance vs. Steam for Windows, but as of right now, I'm sorry, it's not looking too good (I tried it on my iMac, and then tried it via Bootcamp on the same iMac: Bootcamp would definitely be the way to go currently).

Wow that's TERRIBLE. I can buy a $1000 PC that outperforms a $3000 mac. Apple better get its act together or the only future gaming they'll be doing is at 800x600 resolution at minimum quality.

 

[palebluedot]

May Valve rule over us for a 1,000 years! Great news, GG Steam/Valve!

Now let's see if Apple and ATI/Nvidia will do the work that needs to be on their end to make Mac gaming a respectable alternative to Windows.

 

[z4n3]

Hopefully they don't leave us people who felt Snow Leopard wasn't worth the upgrade stranded without a firmware release...

This is not XP, let others enjoy innovation and new features if you decide not to upgrade it is your decision...

 

[Dr.Buzz]

similar statements were made by the SCII guys in their beta forums regarding 10.6.4:
http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=25172042436&sid=5000

You just broke my heart a little bit. I was really hoping something would iron out. I have faith things will work better like Wow did, but Wow also worked pretty smooth from day one. Forgive me, but bootcamp is probably the best answer until further notice for SC2, which I was in the Beta for. So sad the performance of my not so old 7,1 iMac. Very playable only at lowest settings.

 

[aliensporebomb]

Strangedogs...

(snip for brevity)

Um, that's not really true. For awhile there, you'd see the top-model Radeons and to a less-frequent extent the upper/top-model GeForce cards making their way to the PowerMacs.

I remember when some of the most important GPUs in history (the 9700/9800 series of Radeons, which caught nVidia off-guard with their seriously lackluster FX line) were available for use with the PowerMac. I remember the BIOS-flash tricks in order to use a PC-originated GPU in the PowerMac. Ah, those were the days...

Yep and after that the StrangeDogs folks (remember them?) kept flashing faster and more powerful cards. When Apple sold the Radeon X850XT as a BTO-only option someone with one dumped the ROM to a file and they found that some but not all PC X850XT cards would "just work" in said PowerMacs.

And I remember towards the end of the whole "Flashing PC Cards to work in PPC Macs" era I managed to snag a nVidia 7800GS which was even faster than the X850XT and well more powerful than the GeForce 6800GS. That card still is great and I still use it.

You could not buy a 7800GS for a Mac since by the time it was released (one of the last beefy AGP 8x cards) Apple already scooted over to PCI express cards for the last generation of PPC macs and that seemed to scuttle that development effort especially when moving over to Intel.

I miss those days in a way, I know the strangedogs domain expired and someone else got a hold of it and started a cottage industry selling flashed cards which went against the spirit of free exchange of knowledge and there was a schism in that group.

I don't know if in the era of Intel Macs people were flashing better PCI express cards but in a way the PPC era folks had this kind of "can do, we'll MAKE IT WORK" attitude that I still admire.

Anyway, enough reminiscing.

 

[joshjoshlol]

This is not XP, let others enjoy innovation and new features if you decide not to upgrade it is your decision...

It's hard to decode what it is that you are saying. Are you under the impression that I wish ill will and no upgrades to those who went for SL? Because I don't.

Surely you don't think that SL is such a grand departure from 10.5 that fashioning a firmware upgrade for anything below the 10.6.3 mark would be Herculean in nature? I would imagine that it will come down mostly to hardware, and the line in the sand will be drawn most clearly with machine release dates and graphics card generations rather than minute differences between extremely similar operating systems (though knowing the nature of capitalism, any opportunity present is fine for arbitrary culling and dividing). Believe me when I say that the OS upgrade is $29 for a reason; Apple isn't about to start a charitable streak anytime soon, I can assure you. Where you say 'innovation' one could just as easily (and quite aptly) mutter 'stopgap.'

 

[deus_ex_machina]

I'm insinuating that I have a valid reason (namely, my livelihood as a professional artist) to ensure that my system is up and running in an ideal condition without hiccups, and thus my display of bemusement and comments towards those who would assail my decision not to upgrade to SL as though I were a cheap skate. A layman whose work doesn't depend on strict operational conditions can afford to deal with their hobby computer not loading Steam games at their optimal levels for a few months. This is what I am insinuating. Nothing more, nothing less.

Why hijack a thread about Steam and gaming performance to complain about instability with Adobe CS4 as a professional artist? CS4 performance belongs in another thread.

IMHO a Hackintosh is a hobby computer; getting Steam to run comparably well on both platforms is tantamount to their success (if you prefer verbosity )

 

[iBug2]

If by a couple of months, you mean, over 10 months, then maybe... the HD5000 series launched in August of 2009, and that's not even counting the fact that the fastest card available (and actually still technically slightly faster until the release of the HD5970) was the GTX 295, which never saw a Mac release. The GTX 295 was actually released in late 2008, so in reality, there hasn't been true parity between the PC and Mac gaming markets since then.


As mentioned above, while the GTX 295 wasn't a single-core GPU, it was still the single fastest card nVidia sold until Fermi-based cards debuted. Most of your serious PC gamers don't care about the ideas behind "single GPU" and "multi-GPU" cards, they only care about the fastest single, non-SLI/Crossfire option available.

Which actually leads me into another bitter gripe about the Mac platform for gaming... no SLI or Crossfire...


With the default specs or as a "you can purchase this in the store at marked up cost" option? Apple traditionally has never provided anything besides a low-powered discrete offering with the Mac Pros (and PowerMacs before it), so I wouldn't hold my breath as to anything too powerful being present. They didn't even offer the GTX 285 as a BTO option (you had to go digging into the store to find it...).


Um, that's not really true. For awhile there, you'd see the top-model Radeons and to a less-frequent extent the upper/top-model GeForce cards making their way to the PowerMacs.

I remember when some of the most important GPUs in history (the 9700/9800 series of Radeons, which caught nVidia off-guard with their seriously lackluster FX line) were available for use with the PowerMac. I remember the BIOS-flash tricks in order to use a PC-originated GPU in the PowerMac. Ah, those were the days...

When I purchased my Rage 128 (Which was released for the first time for powermacs), PC's got Radeon (Next Generation).

When I purchased my Radeon9800, again, PC's had the next generation already.

When I purchased X850XT, PC's had the 1800 series.

So no. I think you are remembering incorrectly.

And not having SLI/Crossfire hinders the possibility of having GTX295 like dualcore cards on macs. Since their drivers use the SLI technology even if they are not SLI in practice. So when the time comes when a mac can run a dualcore card, then a mac will be able to run SLI as well.

 

[bobsbarricades]

glad to hear!

 

[iBug2]

And how much do you have to pay to have a Mac with that GPU? Pretty much three grand.....three thousand dollars to have a Mac with a (not even state of the art) graphics card. I just built a PC, with superior components to the low end Mac Pro for 1100$ (including a 23" monitor). It's crazy. If Apple wants to get serious about gaming on the Mac, they have a lot to change.

It's amazing, and pleasantly surprising, to see Apple admit that Macs are pretty poor for gaming, and not just burying their head in the sand, continuing to promote Macs with low end cards as having "killer graphics." The truth is, though, that as long as Macs continue to have such anemic video hardware, all the "driver optimizations" in the world aren't going to mean jack. And yes, the 4850 available in the top end IMac (with only 512MB no less) is s**t, especially when trying to run games at native rez on that monster 27" screen.

I don't ever see major bumps in Mac components, though.....Macs are not gaming machines, and I don't think four or five valve games suddenly makes it one. E3 is going on right now, and when you take a loot at a site like www.evilavatar.com , and scroll through all the trailers and info on new games, how many of them do you think are for Mac? Yep, that's right. It's great to see Apple getting serious about fixing their broken OS (as far as graphics are concerned), but Macs are not for gaming, and I doubt Apple will ever do what's really necessary to make them viable, especially with the new new focus on iDevices. Macs are done, you can stick a fork in them.

I never said macs are gaming machines either. If someone is serious about playing the newest cutting edge games, a 1200$ top of the line PC box is your friend.

But the 4850 in iMac is actually quite a powerful card if you use bootcamp. Even the 9600GT in my MBP is a great GPU under bootcamp. Ofc you cannot play the most cutting edge titles in highest quality, but again, that's not what macs are for.

 

[Beardy man]

My limited experience shows me that...

it's mainly the drivers (Apples responsibility)

Playing (?) x-plane on my MacPro, I get 120fps under bootcamp and about 35fps native Mac.

Same RAM, same GPU. Only difference is the drivers. When I questioned tech support to see what could be done about it, the answer was -"Get Apple to release improved drivers".

I've updated my software through "software Update" but have never seen "improved drivers" for my graphics card mentioned or noticed the performance gap closing.

NVidia seem to update their drivers fairly frequently (tech advise is always "make sure you have the latest driver release"). Macs? meh, not so much.

I'd be a lot happer not having to use bootcamp for gaming when the stuff should run natively on OSX, but 90% of the time I'm working (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator: CS4) so like I say, my experience is focused, but limited.

 

[joshjoshlol]

Why hijack a thread about Steam and gaming performance to complain about instability with Adobe CS4 as a professional artist? CS4 performance belongs in another thread.

IMHO a Hackintosh is a hobby computer; getting Steam to run comparably well on both platforms is tantamount to their success (if you prefer verbosity )

I didn't feel as though I am the one who 'hijacked' the thread; Cast your gaze at those who goaded a response out of me, stemming from a small desire to see 10.5 not forgotten in any updates, as per Apple's capricious nature. It should be noted though that improving graphic card performance has an effect beyond Steam and whatever else is currently 'hot news,' as GPU-intensive adobe applications will find just as much benefit from NVIDIA and ATI's attention towards OSX's driver situation.

 

[deus_ex_machina]

I didn't feel as though I am the one who 'hijacked' the thread; Cast your gaze at those who goaded a response out of me, stemming from a small desire to see 10.5 not forgotten in any updates, as per Apple's capricious nature. It should be noted though that improving graphic card performance has an effect beyond Steam and whatever else is currently 'hot news,' as GPU-intensive adobe applications will find just as much benefit from NVIDIA and ATI's attention towards OSX's driver situation.

Your blanket statement as the thread's first post was misleading, which incited all the responses. CS4 performance is off-topic, ergo hijacking.

You are correct; OpenGL does help in CS4 and CS5 - to a much lesser extent in the applications you're using, limited to smoother panning and zooming and the 3D objects (if you use them). You'd see better support in AE though.

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-opengl-optimization-adobe-photoshop-cs4-262802/view/