GTA V on Mac Pro

[dylanlive]

Hey Guys,

Looking to purchase GTA V. Curious for your opinions on if I'll be able to run the game optimally on bootcamp.

My Specs:

Mac Pro (Late 2013)
Processor: 3.5 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5
Memory: 32 GB 1866 MHz DDR3 ECC
Graphics: AMD FirePro D500 3072 MB

GTA V Recommended Specs:

OS: Windows 8.1 64 Bit, Windows 8 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit Service Pack 1
Processor: Intel Core i5 3470 @ 3.2GHz (4 CPUs) / AMD X8 FX-8350 @ 4GHz (8 CPUs)
Memory: 8GB
Video Card: NVIDIA GTX 660 2GB / AMD HD 7870 2GB
Sound Card: 100% DirectX 10 compatible
HDD Space: 65GB

 

[koyoot]

Depends on the resolution you want to play, however at 1080p it will be way over enough.

 

[Inutopia]

I'm not sure the D500 will max it out at 1080p, unless they crossfire in bootcamp? The processor is obviously fine though

 

[koyoot]

What is the reason why it would not be able to max it out?

7870 is a Pitacirn chip which is in D300 FirePro. D500 are more powerful, and there are two of them in Mac Pro.

I dont see a reason why it would not be able to top it out on 1080p, even 1440p should be able be stable on 60 FPS.

 

[IowaLynn]

Hey Guys,

Looking to purchase GTA V. Curious for your opinions on if I'll be able to run the game optimally on bootcamp.

My Specs:

GTA V Recommended Specs:

And you plan to run Windows 8.1+ natively, right? Apple makes installing older versions more difficult.

 

[Inutopia]

What is the reason why it would not be able to max it out?

7870 is a Pitacirn chip which is in D300 FirePro. D500 are more powerful, and there are two of them in Mac Pro.

I dont see a reason why it would not be able to top it out on 1080p, even 1440p should be able be stable on 60 FPS.

If GTA V is as bad a port as GTA IV then it'll need a whole lot more than that to max it out, even at 1080p.

Also, I'm not sure if you can utilise both in windows, maybe someone can chime in who knows if the nMP supports crossfire in Bootcamp?

What are the D500s equivalent to, a 270x maybe?

 

[dylanlive]

And you plan to run Windows 8.1+ natively, right? Apple makes installing older versions more difficult.

I'm running Windows 7 currently, but I probably could upgrade to windows 8.1 (I use upgrade loosely LOL)


koyoot & Inutopia, thanks for your feedback so far! I hate guessing off recommended specs.

 

[koyoot]

D500 is a GPU with 1536 GCN cores, and 384 Bit memory bus.

Its like Radeon HD7870XT. But with lower core clock and wider memory bus.

To be fair D500 is cut down Tahiti, so its D700 without a few(hundred) cores, and lower clocks.

Edit. There should be dedicated for Mac Pro gaming thread on this forum, to see what performance we can get out of this machine, and for general discussion.

 

[Mattstrete]

@koyoot: I agree, we should start a Mac Pro gaming thread.

I've previously posted about my experiences in overclocking the nMP in bootcamp.

I am very impressed by the thermal room the platform has. I'm consistently running the latest games at "max" settings at 1440p.

For example: Dying Light: I'm playing that at 1440p at over 60FPS at almost max settings (shadows and view distance slightly reduced). This is a "capped" framerate. Without the cap, I'm seeing frame rates near 100!!

Metro and Metro Last Light redux - similar results.

Dragon Age Inquisition: ultra settings at 1440p at a little below a consistent 60FPS (high tessellation levels seems to bring down the framerate a bit; 60FPS is easy with reduced tessellation).

And the great thing - this performance is all with v-sync enabled. I find it eliminates cross-fire related screen tearing.

I recommend using a frame-rate limiter, such as DXSTORY, in order to keep a consistent 60fps, in conjunction with v-sync.

Now: the overclocking details. According to my research, the Radeon HD7870, which is the closest comparator with the D500, runs - in some base configurations - at 1000mhz core clock. So, I decided to overclock the D500s to 1000 mhz. Completely stable in everything but Dragon Age Inquisition (although that game has always had problems with Crossfire in Directx mode - Mantle seems to be more stable). So, I'm finding that a core clock of 950 - 975 with a memory clock of 1400 mhz is probably the sweet spot for every game I've tested.

GPU temps? High 80s. The only time I've seen higher temps was when I ran Dragon Age Inquisition at 75fps at 1080p (yes, at 75hz vertical refresh rate) - on ultra settings.

If anyone is interested I will repeat my comments about using MSI afterburner to achieve these clocks.

So, in answer to the OP's question: I have the same system as you, and I am really looking forward to GTAV - as long as the Crossfire compatibility is OK. And, another tip: try to run the 14.12 Omega drivers. It is easy enough to install them. Big performance boost over the official AMD bootcamp drivers. (Interesting observation: after installation the D500s are identified as "HD 7800 series" - which shows the relationship with the two chips).

Having said that, as Koyoot noted - the D500 has a wider memory bus than the HD7870XT, which probably helps with high-res performance. And the lower core clock might be explained by reference to Apple's desire to favour stability in these "workstation"-focused cards. However, given that they can easily, in my experience, be overclocked from 725mhz to 1000 mhz core clock, with very good stability and thermal performance, I would say that they are very robust designs, which is what one would expect when one is paying for "workstation-grade" GPUs.

 

[koyoot]

So, in answer to the OP's question: I have the same system as you, and I am really looking forward to GTAV - as long as the Crossfire compatibility is OK. And, another tip: try to run the 14.12 Omega drivers. It is easy enough to install them. Big performance boost over the official AMD bootcamp drivers. (Interesting observation: after installation the D500s are identified as "HD 7800 series" - which shows the relationship with the two chips).

Having said that, as Koyoot noted - the D500 has a wider memory bus than the HD7870XT, which probably helps with high-res performance. And the lower core clock might be explained by reference to Apple's desire to favour stability in these "workstation"-focused cards. However, given that they can easily, in my experience, be overclocked from 725mhz to 1000 mhz core clock, with very good stability and thermal performance, I would say that they are very robust designs, which is what one would expect when one is paying for "workstation-grade" GPUs.

No. D500 is a cut down Tahiti(7970). It has maybe 1536 GCN cores, but there is no such card with 384 bit memory bus in AMD's lineup. It has to be taken from 7970.

P.S. There is a possibility, that Apple got 7870XT chip and added just 128 bit memory bus to the card, however the Double precision performance of this card does not speak for it.

EDIT. About gaming on Mac Pro thread. We have two choices. Or we are changing the name of this thread, or we can make new one.

 

[dylanlive]

Great feedback. Thanks, everyone!

I'll edit my original post when I get my hands on the game with general performance, for any future users who stumble upon this thread while searching.

 

[AkuskaUK]

GTA V isn't going to be a console port like IV was...

 

[Inutopia]

GTA V isn't going to be a console port like IV was...

Source?

 

[Synchro3]

GTA V isn't going to be a console port like IV was...

Great.

GTA V is known to use 8 cores on PlayStation 4. The PlayStation has 8 cores, but they are 8 weak cores running at 1.6GHz

Recommended requirements for PC:
Core i5-3470 3.2GHz -> Geekbench Single-Core ~ 2900 and four cores/threads
GPU: NVIDIA GTX 660 2GB

cMP:
Xeon W3690 3.46 GHz -> Geekbench Single-Core ~ 2600 and six cores/12 threads
GPU: NVIDIA GTX 680 2GB


I guess the game will run acceptable on cMP, even with 1440p. The more threads (for more objects) the better. See also the difference between PS 3 and PS 4 bellow.

The graphics card seems not that important anymore. And the new generation games for PlayStation 4 are requiring multiple cores/threads, no more maximum single thread performance as older games.

Seems good for cMP longevity.

 

[h9826790]

GTA V is known to use 8 cores on PlayStation 4. The PlayStation has 8 cores, but they are 8 weak cores running at 1.6GHz

A bit off topic, AFAIK, PS4 games can only use up to 6 cores, that's the system limitation. The 2 remaining cores are reserved for system use. So, it's actually 6 weak cores

 

[Synchro3]

A bit off topic, AFAIK, PS4 games can only use up to 6 cores, that's the system limitation. The 2 remaining cores are reserved for system use. So, it's actually 6 weak cores

Thanks for info, I didn't know this. This is even better for the Mac Pro.

6 real cores in the Mac Pro (@ 3.46 GHz) means 12 threads (~ 1.73 GHz). Means 12 weak PS 'cores'. Theoretically doubles the objects in GTA V.

 

[RoastingPig]

my gtx 980 12 core 3.46ghz are ready for some Trevor Shenanigans.

 

[Synchro3]

my gtx 980 12 core 3.46ghz are ready for some Trevor Shenanigans.

If the game stutters, disable 1 CPU: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1858749/

I quote JronMasteR: I have noticed similar things in certain games. With the 680 which I had before and also with the 780 I have now.
I was mostly suffering from frame drops, stuttering and hitching.
After trying all kinds of things, I discovered that if I disable 1 Cpu via msconfig the issue was gone. It seems that if the game uses cores from both cpu's, there is a latency issue. You could also use task assign to make sure that a game only uses one of the cpu's.

 

[AkuskaUK]

Source?

I wish i could find the source again, ill keep looking for you. But IIRC Rockstar said that the reason the PC version was delayed was because NOT porting it from the PS3/4 and Xbox 360/One was such a burden. "Supposedly" they remade the engine to work with the added textures and NPC's.

Again, ill try and find the source for you

 

[koyoot]

I know this is somewhat out of topic, but it in some way also toughes it.


Lets make gaming on Mac Pro thread.

Questions:
Which forum, gaming on OSX or here?

Typical general discussion about whole idea of gaming on Mac and Mac Pro. Benchmarks, and gaming peripherals working with Macs.

 

[Synchro3]

Just for info: GTA V runs smooth on Mac Pro with GTX 680 2 GB @ 1440p, on Windows 7 64 Bit, with newest Nvidia WHQL driver 350.12.

The Game is very well optimized for PC, one of the best ports in years.

It uses around 1400 MB Video RAM at 1440p (FXAA, no MSAA, was preconfigured by the game).

It uses all six cores of the Xeon W3690 @3.46 GHZ, but not more. Means no use of the possible 12 threads, or with dual tray Mac Pro's no use of both CPU's.

Further test with higher settings will follow. Also a good benchmark is integrated in the game, but you have to complete the Franklin mission first to be able to run the benchmark. And at the moment i'm a newbie on GTA V.

Just ordered a wired Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller to be able to drive a car in a efficient way, using the keyboard is an nightmare for driving…. LOL

 

[benjaprud]

I wouldn't have bought a Titan X if GTA was not around. Runs pretty well on MP 4.1 with W3690 on 4KTV. I get around 45fps average with every setting maxed out, except grass quality (very demanding on ultra in the countryside) and special effects both at very high and no MSAA. I tried to find the best compromise in the settings to have decent fluidity without too much tearing (with a 60Hz monitor it's a narrow place to fit into). Adaptive V-Sync offers no advantage over V-Sync and caps the framerate at 30fps most of the time so I had to do without. There is a command line option to cap the framerate but it didn't seem to have any effect.

I can improve a bit using overclocking but it makes the PCI fan really noisy (2250 RPM) and creates more tearing (which I don't like since I've been using V-Sync for a long time before switching to 4k) so I do without.

I also ordered a PS3 controller to replace my old Logitech Dual Action. I'll tell you if it works fine. The last time I checked the analog buttons were not supported and you had to connect through USB. It seems the drivers have improved since and should now offer Bluetooth connectivity and every analog button so I'll give it another try.

Since I have an SSD I don't bother much gaming on OSX as rebooting into windows is fast and nothing beats windows for computer gaming. I do appreciate a good quality mac port but they are rare. I'm also ok playing low demanding or slow paced games on OSX as long as they are stable and offer the same graphics quality than their windows counterpart.

 

[netkas]

I wouldn't have bought a Titan X if GTA was not around. Runs pretty well on MP 4.1 with W3690 on 4KTV. I get around 45fps average with every setting maxed out, except grass quality (very demanding on ultra in the countryside) and special effects both at very high and no MSAA. I tried to find the best compromise in the settings to have decent fluidity without too much tearing (with a 60Hz monitor it's a narrow place to fit into). Adaptive V-Sync offers no advantage over V-Sync and caps the framerate at 30fps most of the time so I had to do without. There is a command line option to cap the framerate but it didn't seem to have any effect.

I can improve a bit using overclocking but it makes the PCI fan really noisy (2250 RPM) and creates more tearing (which I don't like since I've been using V-Sync for a long time before switching to 4k) so I do without.

I also ordered a PS3 controller to replace my old Logitech Dual Action. I'll tell you if it works fine. The last time I checked the analog buttons were not supported and you had to connect through USB. It seems the drivers have improved since and should now offer Bluetooth connectivity and every analog button so I'll give it another try.

Since I have an SSD I don't bother much gaming on OSX as rebooting into windows is fast and nothing beats windows for computer gaming. I do appreciate a good quality mac port but they are rare. I'm also ok playing low demanding or slow paced games on OSX as long as they are stable and offer the same graphics quality than their windows counterpart.

Set soft shadows quality to highest available level but not nvidia/amd options, last two are very demanding but not giving much if eye candy. Also reflection msaa could be disabled, useless, and reflection quality set to very high(one step lower than ultra). That saved around 7-10 fps for me in 4k on gtx980

 

[benjaprud]

Yes, that's the settings I use. I could achieve great smoothness with reflections at very high and extended view and shadows at 5/10 but I could really tell the difference on graphics quality so I put them back up. It was smoother but not enough to lock V-Sync at 60fps all the time and gave me a lot of tearing.

nVidia PCSS looks different and awesome but it's quite heavy and software shadows looks great anyway.

I received my PS3 controller and got it to work with Bluetooth. I'll tell you how as it was a real pain to get it working.

Forget about the MotionInJoy drivers which are crap. You have to use ScpServer which you can find here. Follow the install instructions in the link. You have to get the latest update to make it work with Bluetooth (install latest version, install the drivers then download the update and replace the files in your install directory with the files in the update).

If you use an unsupported Bluetooth receiver (which is highly likely if you use your mac's integrated BT), you have to follow the instructions here.

Once it's done launch ScpServer.exe, plug your controller via USB and it should connect and pair automatically. Once this is done you can use your controller as you would on a PS3. It's recognized as an XBox 360 controller and should work with most PC games.

The only drawback is that the driver restricts the BT receiver to the PS3 controller only, so those who use other BT devices might consider buying a Bluetooth dongle for use with the controller.

In GTA V the deadzone on the sticks is huge and slightly off-center which makes driving difficult compared to my Logitech which is way more precise. Unfortunately there is a deadzone setting for aiming and camera movements but not for driving. The analog throttle doesn't seem to have any effect although it works on the driver side.

 

[Synchro3]

I received the Xbox 360 controller (USB wired). It was plug and play. Windows recognized the controller and installed the drivers.

Franklin mission now completed, so i could do the benchmark (-> settings -> graphics, bellow you will see 'Benchmark')

The result can be found here: C:\users\username\documents\Rockstar Games\GTA V\Benchmarks

Config: Mac Pro Xeon W3690 @ 3.47GHz, 49152MB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680, 2088MB, Driver Version 350.12, 2560x1440, VSync OFF, Long Shadows On:

Frames Per Second (Higher is better) Min, Max, Avg
Pass 0, 8.068705, 94.721504, 53.843536
Pass 1, 24.689362, 127.093864, 50.047024
Pass 2, 34.474773, 130.866531, 49.231754
Pass 3, 35.799969, 126.422989, 55.772823
Pass 4, 23.242287, 131.385864, 55.386616

Time in milliseconds(ms). (Lower is better). Min, Max, Avg
Pass 0, 10.557264, 123.935631, 18.572330
Pass 1, 7.868200, 40.503277, 19.981209
Pass 2, 7.641373, 29.006718, 20.312094
Pass 3, 7.909954, 27.932985, 17.929880
Pass 4, 7.611169, 43.025028, 18.054903

Frames under 16ms (for 60fps):
Pass 0: 30/499 frames (6.01%)
Pass 1: 5/470 frames (1.06%)
Pass 2: 3/462 frames (0.65%)
Pass 3: 37/524 frames (7.06%)
Pass 4: 731/6348 frames (11.52%)

Frames under 33ms (for 30fps):
Pass 0: 494/499 frames (99.00%)
Pass 1: 469/470 frames (99.79%)
Pass 2: 462/462 frames (100.00%)
Pass 3: 524/524 frames (100.00%)
Pass 4: 6343/6348 frames (99.92%)

Percentiles in ms for pass 0
50%, 18.00
75%, 19.00
80%, 20.00
85%, 20.00
90%, 21.00
91%, 21.00
92%, 21.00
93%, 21.00
94%, 22.00
95%, 22.00
96%, 22.00
97%, 23.00
98%, 25.00
99%, 32.00

Percentiles in ms for pass 1
50%, 20.00
75%, 20.00
80%, 20.00
85%, 21.00
90%, 21.00
91%, 21.00
92%, 21.00
93%, 21.00
94%, 21.00
95%, 22.00
96%, 22.00
97%, 22.00
98%, 22.00
99%, 24.00

Percentiles in ms for pass 2
50%, 20.00
75%, 21.00
80%, 21.00
85%, 21.00
90%, 22.00
91%, 22.00
92%, 22.00
93%, 22.00
94%, 22.00
95%, 23.00
96%, 23.00
97%, 23.00
98%, 24.00
99%, 24.00

Percentiles in ms for pass 3
50%, 17.00
75%, 18.00
80%, 19.00
85%, 19.00
90%, 19.00
91%, 19.00
92%, 20.00
93%, 20.00
94%, 20.00
95%, 21.00
96%, 21.00
97%, 21.00
98%, 22.00
99%, 22.00

Percentiles in ms for pass 4
50%, 17.00
75%, 19.00
80%, 19.00
85%, 20.00
90%, 21.00
91%, 22.00
92%, 22.00
93%, 22.00
94%, 22.00
95%, 22.00
96%, 23.00
97%, 23.00
98%, 23.00
99%, 24.00

=== SYSTEM ===
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601)
DX Feature Level: 11.0
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU W3690 @ 3.47GHz (12 CPUs), ~3.6GHz
49152MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680, 2088MB, Driver Version 350.12
Graphics Card Vendor Id 0x10de with Device ID 0x1180

=== SETTINGS ===
Display: 2560x1440 (FullScreen) @ 59Hz VSync OFF
Tessellation: 2
LodScale: 1.000000
PedLodBias: 0.200000
VehicleLodBias: 0.000000
ShadowQuality: 2
ReflectionQuality: 2
ReflectionMSAA: 0
SSAO: 2
AnisotropicFiltering: 16
MSAA: 0
MSAAFragments: 0
MSAAQuality: 0
TextureQuality: 0
ParticleQuality: 2
WaterQuality: 1
GrassQuality: 1
ShaderQuality: 2
Shadow_SoftShadows: 2
UltraShadows_Enabled: false
Shadow_ParticleShadows: true
Shadow_Distance: 1.000000
Shadow_LongShadows: true
Shadow_SplitZStart: 0.930000
Shadow_SplitZEnd: 0.890000
Shadow_aircraftExpWeight: 0.990000
Shadow_DisableScreenSizeCheck: false
Reflection_MipBlur: true
FXAA_Enabled: true
TXAA_Enabled: false
Lighting_FogVolumes: true
Shader_SSA: true
DX_Version: 2
CityDensity: 1.000000
PedVarietyMultiplier: 0.800000
VehicleVarietyMultiplier: 0.800000
PostFX: 2
DoF: true
HdStreamingInFlight: false
MaxLodScale: 0.100000
MotionBlurStrength: 0.000000