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Freyqq

macrumors 601
Original poster
Dec 13, 2004
4,038
181
I played and compared the doom 3 demo of osx and vista on a new mbp low-end model stock.



SETTINGS - NO AA, ULTRA HIGH 1280x1024 on external 19' monitor. 15' display is off.

osx (universal)

fps ~ 10

vista

fps - 40-60

...is osx really that bad for gaming?
 
I played and compared the doom 3 demo of osx and vista on a new mbp low-end model stock.



SETTINGS - NO AA, ULTRA HIGH 1280x1024 on external 19' monitor. 15' display is off.

osx (universal)

fps ~ 10

vista

fps - 40-60

...is osx really that bad for gaming?

Yes and No. A majority of the games on the Mac are ports from The PC which were created for use with DirectX. Companies like Aspyr port games and have to convert most of the games to OpenGL. Plus other data. Games such as WoW normally have pretty good performance on the mac because they were built side by side with the PC version etc.

I think that's what it is anyway, I remember seeing something ages ago on here about it, do a search and ya may find something :)
 
Yes and No. A majority of the games on the Mac are ports from The PC which were created for use with DirectX. Companies like Aspyr port games and have to convert most of the games to OpenGL. Plus other data. Games such as WoW normally have pretty good performance on the mac because they were built side by side with the PC version etc.

I think that's what it is anyway, I remember seeing something ages ago on here about it, do a search and ya may find something :)

Actually I may be wrong but I believe Doom3 & Quake 4 are native written OpenGL games. I also think the other poster who mentioned drivers is most likely correct. Immature drivers for a new GPU like this that is designed to run DX10 and is technically a different design, can not compete with mature and stable drivers. I know the 8xx series Nvidia drivers have been taking alot of heat from the industry for not being mature enough prior to the launch. There is even threats of class actions again them for false advertising the product with made for vista stickers when the driver don yet support full 3d acceleration. I would not be surprised if when a more mature driver is released, we don't see tremendous performance improvements with these chips. Time will tell but my money is on the drivers being at fault here.
 
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