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Packbacker92

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 3, 2008
9
0
I just installed windows XP on my macbook. I then downloaded and installed the latest intel GMA 950 graphics driver. After the little program ran, the screen went crazy with colorful lines in it so I got scared and restarted. However, after I restarted, the graphics were fantastic in windows. I then restarted to 10.5.1 leopard and to my amazement, everything looked better in mac osx as well. The widgets came in smoother, the dock looked more reflective, the menu bar looked more transparent, and games ran much more smoothly. I also ran Xbench openGL test and the frame rate had gone up from 294 to 370. Do drivers in windows effect drivers in Mac OSX? If they do, I had no idea.
My specs on my macbook are Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz, 200GB HDD, and 2GB of RAM.
 

e12a

macrumors 68000
Oct 28, 2006
1,881
0
all in the "Graphical improvements" in OS X all in the head.

Better performance on the test probably due to a fresh restart.
 

Packbacker92

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 3, 2008
9
0
no they are not in the head. They are very noticeable. Also, when I ran Xbench before I had just restarted as well. I am smart enough to do that. Also, I tested several games including Spider-man 2 and Star Wars Jedi Academy, when I had played them before on leopard, I had to use lower settings. Now I set them to the highest possible settings and they run flawless. This is not in my head. Either Leopard suddenly started running faster on its own right after I installed the new driver or the driver had something to do with it.
 

ebel3003

macrumors 6502a
Jun 20, 2007
630
0
"The Google"
Drivers on the Mac and Windows platforms are completely different. They run at a software level creating an interface between hardware and the OS (therefor will not directly affect hardware), which is fundamentally the same on both systems, but because the operating systems are two completely different animals, down to the kernel, they simply won't work both ways.

Sorry if this comes off blunt, but: It is either in your head, or there is another reason behind the performance boost that Leopard has received on your machine.
 

Packbacker92

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 3, 2008
9
0
Listen, I'm not an idiot. I've been using macs since 1995. I am good with them. I use them for final cut studio editing as well as other things for my job. And this is not in my head. All I'm am saying is that when someone starts up their macbook and they can't play halo unless the setting are at the lowest quality. Then they switch over to windows, install, a driver that makes the whole macbook's screen go into a funk and freeze the computer, then restart back up to mac osx and the xbench frame rates have gone up by a 100 and they can play halo at medium quality with pixel shaders on, then obviously they did something right. And I did not do anything else to my macbook besides install that driver on windows. So if it is not that, which I'm not saying it is, then what is it? I was just asking a question if that could have anything to do, even the slightest chance it could have made the overall graphics run faster. I just think it is a little strange that all of the sudden my integrated graphics would run so much faster just after a simple restart when i have restarted numerous times without any effect.
 

Packbacker92

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 3, 2008
9
0
^^^
I don't rely on just xbench either. But the fact that I can play all my games (Spider-man 2, Halo, and Star Wars Jedi Academy) at higher settings then I have ever been able to right after doing that just struck me as odd. I guess it was something else I did too it, because I too was sure that windows drivers don't effect Mac at all. I just cant think of anything else I could have done. The strange thing is, when I first installed leopard, the graphics were noticeably slower on the little things that don't really matter. For example, dashboard would sometimes glitch in instead of fly smoothly in like tiger always did. It happened even when spotlight was done indexing so that was not it. I assumed Leopard just required a bit more of a powerful graphics chip then integrated 950. But now, everything is very smooth, smoother than tiger even, and the reflections of all the icons on the dock are very noticeably darker and richer in color. I don't know what caused the increase in performance, however, whatever it was, I am happy that it happened.
 

Packbacker92

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 3, 2008
9
0
yeah but i had played with 10.5.1 and had 10.5.1 installed for a while and no change.
 

aphexacid

macrumors 6502a
Jul 31, 2007
936
22
Chicago
No one called you an idiot, dont turn this ugly. YOU asked the question, so they gave you an answer. Without a doubt, there is NOTHING on the windows side that can affect, or influence the mac side. Xp cant even see the hfs partition without software, and the xp partition cant be written to without software. the files are totally different, macs use kexts and all that which windows hasnt a clue about, and vice versa.

Its great that you saw an improvement. But this theory has been squashed. So, you can either try to figure out another reason, or just be happy that its better.

Personally, i think it was just the fact that you restarted the mac. i've seen start up time and programs opening quicker after multiple restarts. i think it has something to do with prebinding or whatever macs do.
 
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