POST here - links to any Game Benchmarks on the new iMac

[ChancyJohn]

Theres a lot of confusion over the the graphics card issue....Is it just marginally better, or is it even worse than the old iteration 7600GT ...there are forum posts of people asking if this is better than the 1600 XT Scary ... Even confusion over if it's a PRO or an XT

I'd like to find some rough FPS counts has anyone done em yet?? I see one post on Doom 3 looks reasonable enough .. anything else???

 

[ChancyJohn]

Unreal Tournament test from macworld

This one doesn't sound too good...

http://www.macworld.com/2007/08/firstlooks/imacbenchmarks/index.php

"The only test where the older machine came out on top was in our Unreal Tournament test, in which it managed to display a couple of extra frames per second. As games are largely dependent on the graphics card, it appears that the older Nvidia GeForce 7300GT held its own, despite having half the amount of video RAM as the new ATI offering."

 

[ChancyJohn]

The Doom 3 and Far Cry from PC World

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,135777-c,macs/article.html

"On our Doom 3 tests, the iMac pumped out 92 frames per second at 1280 by 1024 resolution, and 47 fps second at the same resolution with antialiasing enabled. On our Far Cry tests, the iMac churned out 86 fps at 1280 by 1024 resolution, and 41 fps with antialiasing enabled. Those results are average."

 

[iLionel]

There is a driver issue for the 2000 series cards regarding Anti Aliasing... Also these cards havn't even been out that long, give it a few months and some better driver's and the 2600's will be outperforming the 7600GT by quite a bit.

 

[SBeardsl]

Theres a lot of confusion over the the graphics card issue....Is it just marginally better, or is it even worse than the old iteration 7600GT ...there are forum posts of people asking if this is better than the 1600 XT Scary ... Even confusion over if it's a PRO or an XT

I'd like to find some rough FPS counts has anyone done em yet?? I see one post on Doom 3 looks reasonable enough .. anything else???

Most of the action on this is in the 2600XT? thread.

The benchmarks we have are mostly for a year or more old games and some windows benchmarks show ATI's 2600 family not showing much improvement with older games but significant improvement over older cards on newer games. So, 'average but playable' results on older games is not a guaranteed kiss of death for newer ones. We just have to keep waiting for better benchmarks.

Keep and eye onhttp://barefeats.com/ around the middle of next week. They know what they are doing and have a 24" on order.

 

[ChancyJohn]

Half Life 2 Lost Coast from forum member Haoshiro

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/341251/

 

[ChancyJohn]

Quake 4 from CNET

http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/apple-imac-20-inch/4505-3118_7-32564364.html

"Despite its new ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro graphics chip, the iMac still isn't very well suited to playing 3D games. On our Quake 4 test, at a forgiving 1,024x768 resolution, the iMac turned in an only marginally acceptable 39 frames per second. We were surprised by that, since Quake 4 sits on the tail end of what we consider current 3D games. "

 

[shipdestroyer]

Do you think CNet benchmarked Quake 4 in OS X vs. the Windows version? I wouldn't put it past them.

 

[audison]

I don't know a lot about how to read these results, but I found this review that compares the 2600 pro/xt with cards used previously with earlier iMacs...

http://www.trustedreviews.com/graph...ATI-Radeon-HD-2600-XT-2600-Pro-and-2400-XT/p1

 

[AlexisV]

"Despite its new ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro graphics chip, the iMac still isn't very well suited to playing 3D games. On our Quake 4 test, at a forgiving 1,024x768 resolution, the iMac turned in an only marginally acceptable 39 frames per second. We were surprised by that, since Quake 4 sits on the tail end of what we consider current 3D games.

And what frame rate would you get in Windows? Substantially more I suspect...

 

[cah87]

I just installed Windows XP with Counter-Strike Source i ran the Video Stress Test on Widescreen 16:10 res 1680x1050 on all other recommended settings and got a score of 100.27 FPS. That is pretty freaking good considering my 7800gtxoc only gets around 137 on a good day.

Specs
20"
2.4ghz core 2 duo
ATI 2600 HD 256mb
2GB Ram
320GB Hard Drive

 

[ChancyJohn]

I just installed Windows XP with Counter-Strike Source i ran the Video Stress Test on Widescreen 16:10 res 1680x1050 on all other recommended settings and got a score of 100.27 FPS. That is pretty freaking good considering my 7800gtxoc only gets around 137 on a good day.

Specs
20"
2.4ghz core 2 duo
ATI 2600 HD 256mb
2GB Ram
320GB Hard Drive

Good to hear that...reassuring...
Thanx..

 

[ChancyJohn]

from Barefeats

This is not though

http://www.barefeats.com/imacal.html

 

[ChancyJohn]

Barefeats update with more games Halo UB Doom 3 Quake 4 and Prey

looks really bad gaming under OS X ... not much of a great welcome for game dev to start creating games for the MAC platform.

http://barefeats.com/imacal.html


Hoping for better news under Windows ... Hope it's a Driver issue and it runs @least close to the 7600GT in windows...

 

[JimmyDreams]

Ok..bear with me on this for just a sec....

I'm not a tech-specs guy, but is it just POSSIBLE that all the flack over GPU's etc. is partially driven by A) advertisers/companies and B) todays 'I WANT SOMETHING NEW RIGHT NOW' attitudes?

I ask because if a particular game isn't jerky, can display a full-screen image and allows most of the details to be turned to a reasonable level.....well....can you tell me that you KNOW you can see the difference between 50fps and 75fps??? I know it's a 50% increase...but can you SEE the difference?

I guess what I'm getting at is are we getting into a lather over details that really aren't worth it? It just seems to me that maybe some of us have lost the bigger picture.

I dunno....

Sorry for the rant!

JimmyD

 

[ChancyJohn]

Ok..bear with me on this for just a sec....

I'm not a tech-specs guy, but is it just POSSIBLE that all the flack over GPU's etc. is partially driven by A) advertisers/companies and B) todays 'I WANT SOMETHING NEW RIGHT NOW' attitudes?

I ask because if a particular game isn't jerky, can display a full-screen image and allows most of the details to be turned to a reasonable level.....well....can you tell me that you KNOW you can see the difference between 50fps and 75fps???

I guess what I'm getting at is are we getting into a lather over details that really aren't worth it? It just seems to me that maybe some of us have lost the bigger picture.

I dunno....

Sorry for the rant!

JimmyD

I would be more than happy with 50 FPS even on medium settings...Just want to make sure things aren't unplayable for games to be released in the next 2 odd years even @ medium-low settings...

 

[Eric Lewis]

what about sims2?

 

[ChancyJohn]

a 75 FPS on Todays games could be 50 FPS on a Game a year odd down the line
a 50 FPS now could be a laggy 20-25 Frames then

The iMac is not exactly dirt cheap it's reasonable for users to expect some reasonable amount of future proofing

 

[shakastange]

Ok..bear with me on this for just a sec....

I'm not a tech-specs guy, but is it just POSSIBLE that all the flack over GPU's etc. is partially driven by A) advertisers/companies and B) todays 'I WANT SOMETHING NEW RIGHT NOW' attitudes?

I ask because if a particular game isn't jerky, can display a full-screen image and allows most of the details to be turned to a reasonable level.....well....can you tell me that you KNOW you can see the difference between 50fps and 75fps??? I know it's a 50% increase...but can you SEE the difference?

I guess what I'm getting at is are we getting into a lather over details that really aren't worth it? It just seems to me that maybe some of us have lost the bigger picture.

I dunno....

Sorry for the rant!

JimmyD

Its driven by gamers who want performance greater than an older product. The human race tends to advance and not regress.

Most people who complain are not expecting (myself included) aren't expecting X2950 type gaming on the iMac. But Bootcamp opened up a whole new world for gamers and Mac users. We only want to play current games at acceptable framerates. Futhermore, looking to future releases and the despair grows even greater. Games one year from now may run just barely. Considering the iMac's gfx card cannot be upgraded, and $1199 is a fair chunk for a PC, one expect the machine to be able to run games from 3 years down the line at least.

I do agree with you, a game running at 60FPS is super. But that isn't the case with the iMac with any decent set of effects turned on. Games look relatively bad without AA and other fancy stuff.

 

[AlexisV]

DOOM 3 BENCHMARKS

Under Windows XP Pro SP2 on a 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo 20" iMac. Windows reports the card as a 2600XT.

All on high quality.

1024 x 768 92.8FPS
1280 x 1024 64.7FPS
1600 x 1280 50.7FPS

All just using Bootcamp 1.4 drivers.

As a comparison, my old Pentium4 HT 3.0Ghz with 512Mb GeForce 6800 card managed 87FPS at 1024 x 768 in Doom3.


Note that the new drivers for the '2600 series' released yesterday do not work in Windows. It says there is no supported hardware on board and will not install the drivers.

 

[BlackMax]

Note that the new drivers for the '2600 series' released yesterday do not work in Windows. It says there is no supported hardware on board and will not install the drivers.

Hmmm... So the iMac 2600 Pro (or 2600 XT) uses special proprietary drivers? If this is the case then you'll only be able to update iMac video drivers through Apple.

 

[Eric Lewis]

any

test sims 2?

 

[AlexisV]

Hmmm... So the iMac 2600 Pro (or 2600 XT) uses special proprietary drivers? If this is the case then you'll only be able to update iMac video drivers through Apple.

There is a Boot Camp > WinXP section in the driver downloads, but it only lists 'late/early 2006 iMac'

 

[ChancyJohn]

BF2 from a forum user LoganT

LoganT posts in another thread...

"I have the new 24" 2.4 GHZ iMac and was running BF2 in Boot Camp. I was running at 1920x1200 resolution with everything on low and getting 70 to 100 FPS. But that's just me, you could theoretically run it at 1024x768 with everything on medium and high and get the same results. I like running it in the native resolution though."

 

[ChancyJohn]

3DMark06 Score from PC Magazine

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2170378,00.asp

"And the iMac's ATI Radeon HS 2600 Pro graphics helped it gain a very good score of 3,784 on 3DMark06. It's not a blazing 3D performer, but it holds it own against gaming-oriented midprice systems such as the Velocity Micro Campus Edition 2007 (5,112) and CyberPower Gamer Ultra 8500SE (4,428). You can play casual games easily and 3D games with some of the eye candy turned off. "