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Stuttering graphics on new Penryn MBP

M

MarkW19

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 13, 2002
1,209
1
Surrey, UK
Well, I absolutely LOVE my new Penryn. Going to the 2.5 Penryn, from the 2.2 Merom, was a good decision. It is a good bit faster all round, and I'm particularly impressed with the graphics improvement - a 1080p movie is now 100% stutter-free, whereas on the Merom it wasn't (4GB, 7200rpm HD on both). Also, Mac OS animations are 100% fluid now, I've never seen this before on any Mac I've owned - I have all my data transferred across (75GB left on my 200GB HD), and dashboard is so smooth when it fades in/out, exposé, etc., I've always experienced even just slight stutter on other Macs.

Anyway, what I AM concerned about is games performance. I've directly tested Unreal Tournament 4 demo, (Mac version), on my Penryn and Merom (and even PowerMac G5 single 1.8!), and the Penryn slightly stutters constantly, at the same res and settings as the Merom, whereas the Merom is 100% smooth.

I find this really odd, and it's the same in other games as well. For instance Lego StarWars II (Mac) performs fluidly at full res/settings for about 4 seconds, then it stutters for a few seconds, then goes fluid again, etc. It doesn't seem to matter what's going on in the scene, it just does it.

Also, the "flurry" and "arabesque" screensavers stutter slightly as well. I just find it weird with exposé/dashboard etc. being perfect.

Can anyone help?
 
Ask at the Apple store/ring Applecare. Could be a driver issue in the sense that the new drivers are a bit buggy. In which case you would need to wait for 10.5.3 I guess?
 
nick9191 said:
Ask at the Apple store/ring Applecare. Could be a driver issue in the sense that the new drivers are a bit buggy. In which case you would need to wait for 10.5.3 I guess?
Click to expand...

Yeah but, it's the same graphics card as before (8600M GT), just with more VRAM (512vs128)...
 
ive seen posts about unreal tourny performance for awhile... i think older games like UT2004 are running on outdate drivers and hence aint optimised for current hardware. My penrynn however runs Teamfortress 2 and Call of duty on high settings (1280 reso) with 4AA and running anywhere from 35~60 fps during shootouts! so yeah the new mbp are perfectly capable of playing games
 
zgnoud said:
ive seen posts about unreal tourny performance for awhile... i think older games like UT2004 are running on outdate drivers and hence aint optimised for current hardware. My penrynn however runs Teamfortress 2 and Call of duty on high settings (1280 reso) with 4AA and running anywhere from 35~60 fps during shootouts! so yeah the new mbp are perfectly capable of playing games
Click to expand...

It's just odd that my Merom with much lower VRAM, played it 100% fluidly with no stuttering, and the same graphics card...I'll try another driver. Anyone any suggestions which to try (for OS X use)?
 
MarkW19 said:
Well, I absolutely LOVE my new Penryn. Going to the 2.5 Penryn, from the 2.2 Merom, was a good decision. It is a good bit faster all round, and I'm particularly impressed with the graphics improvement - a 1080p movie is now 100% stutter-free, whereas on the Merom it wasn't (4GB, 7200rpm HD on both). Also, Mac OS animations are 100% fluid now, I've never seen this before on any Mac I've owned - I have all my data transferred across (75GB left on my 200GB HD), and dashboard is so smooth when it fades in/out, exposé, etc., I've always experienced even just slight stutter on other Macs.

Anyway, what I AM concerned about is games performance. I've directly tested Unreal Tournament 4 demo, (Mac version), on my Penryn and Merom (and even PowerMac G5 single 1.8!), and the Penryn slightly stutters constantly, at the same res and settings as the Merom, whereas the Merom is 100% smooth.

I find this really odd, and it's the same in other games as well. For instance Lego StarWars II (Mac) performs fluidly at full res/settings for about 4 seconds, then it stutters for a few seconds, then goes fluid again, etc. It doesn't seem to matter what's going on in the scene, it just does it.

Also, the "flurry" and "arabesque" screensavers stutter slightly as well. I just find it weird with exposé/dashboard etc. being perfect.

Can anyone help?
Click to expand...

What resolution and settings are you running in UT2004 demo? I have the same model Penryn as you (except matte and standard HD), and I'll download the demo and see how it runs on mine.
 
sjb said:
What resolution and settings are you running in UT2004 demo? I have the same model Penryn as you (except matte and standard HD), and I'll download the demo and see how it runs on mine.
Click to expand...

That would be awesome, thanks.

It's run with the default settings (most things on, and normal/high), and at the highest res (1280 on my MBP, and 1900 on my 23" Cinema Display). Both played fully smooth on my Merom.

Let me know, thanks!
 
MarkW19 said:
That would be awesome, thanks.

It's run with the default settings (most things on, and normal/high), and at the highest res (1280 on my MBP, and 1900 on my 23" Cinema Display). Both played fully smooth on my Merom.

Let me know, thanks!
Click to expand...

So, I just downloaded the demo, cranked up the resolution, and went to 'instant action'. It worked just fine. I played for probably 5 minutes, and it only hesitated once on me. How often is yours doing it? I don't play games very often, so it's hard for me to say if something is wrong or not.

Maybe you have a program running that is causing a problem? Have you tried disabling your startup items?
 
sjb said:
So, I just downloaded the demo, cranked up the resolution, and went to 'instant action'. It worked just fine. I played for probably 5 minutes, and it only hesitated once on me. How often is yours doing it? I don't play games very often, so it's hard for me to say if something is wrong or not.

Maybe you have a program running that is causing a problem? Have you tried disabling your startup items?
Click to expand...

Thanks for helping me out.

Mine hesitates basically constantly - it's never 100% smooth, whereas on the Merom, yeah it stuttered every few minutes maybe when there was a lot going on, but generally it was fluid. On my Penryn, it's just not fluid.

Definitely no other processes running, and I'm the only use logged in.

Grr...
 
MarkW19 said:
Thanks for helping me out.

Mine hesitates basically constantly - it's never 100% smooth, whereas on the Merom, yeah it stuttered every few minutes maybe when there was a lot going on, but generally it was fluid. On my Penryn, it's just not fluid.

Definitely no other processes running, and I'm the only use logged in.

Grr...
Click to expand...

Is there an option in UT 2004 that can show us the FPS? If so, we can compare ours if you want. I'll google, but if you know the answer, let me know.
 
I got the exact same problem on my iMac 3.06 with the Nvidia 8800GS card. What i googled was that the problem seems to be the vsync. I turned ON the "Sync every frame" and now it's running smooth. Hope that helps someone.
 
miccet said:
I got the exact same problem on my iMac 3.06 with the Nvidia 8800GS card. What i googled was that the problem seems to be the vsync. I turned ON the "Sync every frame" and now it's running smooth. Hope that helps someone.
Click to expand...

Hi, where is that option?

Thanks.
 
I uninstalled the game actually but it was under graphic options somewhere, maybe under advanced? The option itself it's called like i said, "Sync every frame".
 
MarkW19 said:
Well, I absolutely LOVE my new Penryn. Going to the 2.5 Penryn, from the 2.2 Merom, was a good decision. It is a good bit faster all round, and I'm particularly impressed with the graphics improvement - a 1080p movie is now 100% stutter-free, whereas on the Merom it wasn't (4GB, 7200rpm HD on both). Also, Mac OS animations are 100% fluid now, I've never seen this before on any Mac I've owned - I have all my data transferred across (75GB left on my 200GB HD), and dashboard is so smooth when it fades in/out, exposé, etc., I've always experienced even just slight stutter on other Macs.

Anyway, what I AM concerned about is games performance. I've directly tested Unreal Tournament 4 demo, (Mac version), on my Penryn and Merom (and even PowerMac G5 single 1.8!), and the Penryn slightly stutters constantly, at the same res and settings as the Merom, whereas the Merom is 100% smooth.

I find this really odd, and it's the same in other games as well. For instance Lego StarWars II (Mac) performs fluidly at full res/settings for about 4 seconds, then it stutters for a few seconds, then goes fluid again, etc. It doesn't seem to matter what's going on in the scene, it just does it.

Also, the "flurry" and "arabesque" screensavers stutter slightly as well. I just find it weird with exposé/dashboard etc. being perfect.

Can anyone help?
Click to expand...

make sure the game actually is universal

unreal tourny 2004 demo is ppc..
 
if you guys are gaming in OSX, thats your issue right there.

unreal 2004 demo is ppc only, not intel. Check activity monitor, it should say PPC.

I wouldnt game in OSX anyways, use windows for that. Windows is still good for something.
 
kgeier82 said:
if you guys are gaming in OSX, thats your issue right there.

unreal 2004 demo is ppc only, not intel. Check activity monitor, it should say PPC.

I wouldnt game in OSX anyways, use windows for that. Windows is still good for something.
Click to expand...

I understand what you're saying, yes the Unreal 2004 demo IS PPC only - but, I ran it on my previous MacBook Pro (entry level Merom, same 4GB RAM, 7200rpm HD, etc.), and it ran much better - I'd say 100% smooth, no complaints at all. Whereas on my Penryn 2.5, it stutters quite a bit. Same settings and everything.

But, the main problem for me is in Windows - all games I've tried, inc. COD4 and other older ones (we're not talking Crysis here) perform pretty bad, stuttering even on relatively low graphics settings, making most I've tried unplayable. I've seen people on here saying they're playing COD4 and even Crysis at certain settings on much slower machines than mine, and I've used the same settings, and still get stuttering. Pretty annoying...
 
My girlfriend got a Penryn a fortnight ago... works perfectly except when we installed C&C Generals (Universal Binary) it point blank refused to run properly. The graphics were shaky and stuttery, and half the game textures didn't load at all, the rest loading at the lowest graphics setting.

I thought going to the graphics pane might help but no. Apparently the only graphics configurations available for the 2.5 GHz machine with a 512MB graphics chip were *suspense* 800x600, every setting on low or at best medium; no shading, no shadows.

Is this a driver problem or possibly something to do with how the games were ported (Generals was ported to the Mac by Aspyr, same company that ported Sim City, The Sims as well as several other titles including virtually all the Star Wars games for the Mac)?

I'd like to know whats happening because I'm getting a MacBook Pro in a months time and I want to be able to play all my games!

Then again... I'll be installing XP on BootCamp anyway for some other games so might just sell my Mac copies and hope that the graphics engines work okay in XP...
 
MarkW19 said:
But, the main problem for me is in Windows - all games I've tried, inc. COD4 and other older ones (we're not talking Crysis here) perform pretty bad, stuttering even on relatively low graphics settings, making most I've tried unplayable. I've seen people on here saying they're playing COD4 and even Crysis at certain settings on much slower machines than mine, and I've used the same settings, and still get stuttering. Pretty annoying...
Click to expand...

Damn, sunk my battleship :(
 
MarkW19 said:
Good news (for you at least) is that it looks like it's just me! Search these forums, and YouTube, and you'll see many people with less powerful machines, running these games almost perfectly! ...
Click to expand...

Well thats a stroke of good luck (for me) but definitely not for you. :(

I wonder whats causing Rozz's MBP to refuse to play Generals then... :confused:
 
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