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Apple Releases Snow Leopard Graphics Update
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Also, Apple cant very well tout improvements in Valve games on machines that dont even RUN those Valve games (officially, by the currently-stated sys reqs). We can hope, however, that Valve lowers the sys reqs a bit to allow some older NVidia Macs
Ill be eyeing that issue for sure, with my 7600GT iMac (white Core 2 Duo). Under Windows it can handle Portal and TF2 just fine. Now, maybe under OS X as well?
Wow! Is this a sign of more to come in the future? I have never seen such a heavily focused driver update with a gaming focus like this from Apple before, since I got into all this in late 2008. Maybe the Valve guy wasn't talking rubbish when he told Ars Technica that Apple was happy to work with them after all.
I have the late 2009 iMac with the GT 120 and I have to admit that the graphics are quite wonky (weird stuff with exposé and artifacts in Safari). I hope this actually lowers the amount of crashing that I get with aperture though... and if it sped it up a bit that would be nice too.
No 5 year old Mac is even capable of running Snow Leopard so there's no surprise that they are not getting this update.
Pre March 2009 refresh iMac here, graphics update was in my Software Update.
GPU: ATI Radeon 2400.
GPU: ATI Radeon 2400.
Yes, I get it now here too, on my October 2008 MacBook Pro 15".
nVidia GeForce 9400M + nVidia GeForce 9600M GT
nVidia GeForce 9400M + nVidia GeForce 9600M GT
Also, Apple cant very well tout improvements in Valve games on machines that dont even RUN those Valve games (officially, by the currently-stated sys reqs). We can hope, however, that Valve lowers the sys reqs a bit to allow some older NVidia Macs
No.
Also, Apple cant very well tout improvements in Valve games on machines that dont even RUN those Valve games (officially, by the currently-stated sys reqs). We can hope, however, that Valve lowers the sys reqs a bit to allow some older NVidia Macs
Hopefully in time both the graphics drivers and the Source game engine will be tuned to perform better under Mac OS X. It's great that this process has already been started, but it'll probably be quite a while until we see performance comparable to that of Windows.
I must say that I'm very impressed by Valve (and Apple), though. They've done a pretty good job from day one with the release of Steam and Source games in OS X.
The update contains updated OpenGL and OpenCL frameworks, which nearly all Mac OS X applications use.
Also, Apple cant very well tout improvements in Valve games on machines that dont even RUN those Valve games (officially, by the currently-stated sys reqs). We can hope, however, that Valve lowers the sys reqs a bit to allow some older NVidia Macs
I believe that the 7600GT is a lot faster than some supported cards, like the 2400XT and x1600. The reason is that the 7600GT doesn't support some of the OpenGL functions that Valve has used in the engine.
As per Apple's support document, for all of you confused as to why you are getting the update:
Thus it does not matter what GPU you have, if you have 10.6.4 installed, you get the update. They must have fixed (or at least improved) the graphics issues introduced in 10.6.4.
Thus it does not matter what GPU you have, if you have 10.6.4 installed, you get the update. They must have fixed (or at least improved) the graphics issues introduced in 10.6.4.
No to what? That Valve won’t lower the sys reqs to include 7-series NVidia cards? How can you be certain of that?
Or do you mean that you tested the current version of some Valve games on 7-series and had no luck?
My i5 17" would randomly freeze too and I linked it to the auto graphics switching. Basically, with it off my unit would appear not to freeze anymore. However, I did take it back and they put a new system board in there. I did a system profile before I sent it in. The only difference I see on the GT card is that my previous system board had ROM 5941 and this new or replaced one is ROM 5940. So far with auto switching on I haven't had a lock up.
I noticed nothing different on the system profile after I did the graphics update today. I would think that something would change there to show the new version, but maybe not.
I have no expectation that the needed extensions will be added to the GeForce 7 driver, now, or ever.
If you find otherwise after the update - we'd be happy to hear about it, but it would come as some surprise.