Extreme Performance Boosts Since Upgrading to Lion

[Eggbert]

Hi there, this is my first post on the site

First off I'm try impressed with Lion. It's the most stable original release OSX for a while, I usually wait for the kinks to be worked out of OSX before getting the latest one, but this time I bit the bullet and notice nothing that really gets in my way or needs to be fixed. I love the revamp of Mail and Spaces/Expose in the form of Mission control, plus gestures are really useful since I have a mighty mouse and trackpad.

Most impressively though, I have noticed great performance increases whilst gaming. Thus far I've tested Minecraft (Java) and Team Fortress 2 (Valve's Source Engine), and in Minecraft I have gone from 60FPS (maxed out, 2560 X 1440) to 250FPS! In TF2 there are no FPS displays in-game, but it is noticeably smoother. I can't believe that such giant leap in performance is just down to a more optimised OS or whatever. Maybe those particular engines just favour Lion's way of doing things... I really don't know. Maybe you guys can shed some light on the whole thing.

Cheers,
Adam

 

[CorMac22]

Yeah, from what i've heard from other users everything is faster, except from some they say that turning on and off is slower (maybe due to the versions) But since most of us Mac users don't turn of their Macs it doesn't really matter.

 

[rcanpolat]

Hi there, this is my first post on the site

First off I'm try impressed with Lion. It's the most stable original release OSX for a while, I usually wait for the kinks to be worked out of OSX before getting the latest one, but this time I bit the bullet and notice nothing that really gets in my way or needs to be fixed. I love the revamp of Mail and Spaces/Expose in the form of Mission control, plus gestures are really useful since I have a mighty mouse and trackpad.

Most impressively though, I have noticed great performance increases whilst gaming. Thus far I've tested Minecraft (Java) and Team Fortress 2 (Valve's Source Engine), and in Minecraft I have gone from 60FPS (maxed out, 2560 X 1440) to 250FPS! In TF2 there are no FPS displays in-game, but it is noticeably smoother. I can't believe that such giant leap in performance is just down to a more optimised OS or whatever. Maybe those particular engines just favour Lion's way of doing things... I really don't know. Maybe you guys can shed some light on the whole thing.

Cheers,
Adam

Im running an older Mac. Core 2 Duo, 4gigs of ran and an x3100 integrated graphics. I can certainly see issues with the x3100. There is a very slight lag and frame rate drop when OSX is doing transitions between full screen mode and regular mode. I also see a few artifacts show up for about a milisecond when I'm expanding / contracting the side menu in finder.

Anyway i'll give gaming a go when i finish setting up my new OS. I was able to run Battlefield 2142 on the lowest settings without any issues in Snow Leopard, once i bumped up the resolution it lost playable frame rate. I'll see how Lion handles it. I've got a feeling its going to be slightly better then Snow Leopard

 

[DanielCoffey]

in Minecraft I have gone from 60FPS (maxed out, 2560 X 1440) to 250FPS!

One thing you will want to do here is install the OptiFog/OptiMine mod (unless you have a mod that conflicts with it) and set the "Performance : Vsync" to limit your card to the display refresh. The reason for this is that on some Macs, sitting on the title or world select screens will cause the java engine to render up to 3500fps - yes, that's right, 3500fos. All the extra work on the card will cause heating problems despite all the frames being thrown away.

Once you have turned on vsync in the mod, start playing around with the settings as you should be able to push out the view distance and fog. On my Mac Pro with the 5870 card I have told OptiMine/OptiFog to set "Fancy" everything and "Far" everything and I still get 90-150fps before turning on vsync.

 

[Eggbert]

One thing you will want to do here is install the OptiFog/OptiMine mod (unless you have a mod that conflicts with it) and set the "Performance : Vsync" to limit your card to the display refresh. The reason for this is that on some Macs, sitting on the title or world select screens will cause the java engine to render up to 3500fps - yes, that's right, 3500fos. All the extra work on the card will cause heating problems despite all the frames being thrown away.

Once you have turned on vsync in the mod, start playing around with the settings as you should be able to push out the view distance and fog. On my Mac Pro with the 5870 card I have told OptiMine/OptiFog to set "Fancy" everything and "Far" everything and I still get 90-150fps before turning on vsync.

I already have everything maxed out; render distance is far, smooth lighting on, graphics: fancy and OpenGL off. I've never experienced that issue before, although I did try installing OptiMine a while back and it was a real bitch to install. I probably won't bother but cheers for the advice

To the guy who mentioned slowing down on startup, yes even with my 2011 iMac i7 it is slower than Snow Leopard. Logging in has some cosmetic issues - whereas before it used to load up individual desktop elements (dock, folders, desktop image etc.) now it just hangs on the login page, slowly transitions to a grey screen whilst it's loading everything and then jumps to life with a fully loaded desktop. Some might prefer this but I feel it looks messy. I don't mind too much though - cosmetic rough edges on an otherwise polished system.

 

[Lykos1986]

You can find a few apps with speed steroids (like Safari but includes so many bugs)! This is good but it comes with two negatives as well. The temps are slightly higher than before and the juice of the battery ends earlier…

The start up is something like 8 – 10 sec slower for me (compared with latest version of SL). The “going to sleep” time is also slower but I can’t feel any difference at the “waking up”