OS X Total War: Warhammer on the 2017 iMacs?

[angrytoothbrush]

Pretty excited about this release and the pending Warhammer 2. Was wondering if anyone has fired this game up on the new 2017 iMac id be interested to hear how it runs and if possible some background on what specs you're running it with?

Spanks!

 

[angrytoothbrush]

I guess Ill be my own test subject in case anyone is curious but just doesnt know..

iMac 27" 2017 w/ 4.2GHz i7, Radeon 580, 16gb RAM, 2TB Fusion:

I ran it half resolution 2560x1440, on high - It was the recommend setting in game and on forums people discussed using this resolution for other games- I did not attempt to push it any higher. Beautiful unprecedented smooth results for a Mac, load times were a 60 sec max but just sitting there it seems like a little bit. Fan was quiet but ran occasionally. Cut scenes were incredible but sometimes not grainy but a little almost laggy or jagged in an minute indiscernible way. I understand that my model is pretty beefy compared to others, would still like comparisons!!

 

[star-affinity]

Is there a way to view the frames per second? Hopefully it never goes below 60 frames per second no matter the scene. 🙂

Absolutely interesting to hear how it performs, especially since I understand it's using the Metal API. Makes me wonder if it will get updated to support Metal 2 coming in High Sierra? Will the developers have to do adjustments or will the game benefit from running in High Sierra without any changes (I guess not).

 

[angrytoothbrush]

Is there a way to view the frames per second? Hopefully it never goes below 60 frames per second no matter the scene. 🙂

Absolutely interesting to hear how it performs, especially since I understand it's using the Metal API. Makes me wonder if it will get updated to support Metal 2 coming in High Sierra? Will the developers have to do adjustments or will the game benefit from running in High Sierra without any changes (I guess not).

I didn't see the fps, but I will look again. My suspicion would be that they would port it at most, and build Warhammer 2 as Metal 2 native- but thats a solid question, would the devs need to heavily update the game to bring it to Metal 2 or would Metal 2 just drive it more efficiently I will do some homework.

 

[jeanlain]

New features of Metal 2 require games to be updated with new code, though High Sierra is supposed to come with "driver optimisations" that should benefit any Metal game.
I doubt the game will be updated to Metal 2. It's not in the developers habit to update games for new API features unless these games are constantly updated like WoW, Dota 2, etc. But Feral doesn't do such games.
I'd rather see Feral update OpenGL games that currently do not run very well on the Mac, like Mad Max and Shadow of Mordor.

 

[PJivan]

Does it run better on Metal or under Windows/Bootcamp?

F1 2016 runs basically better on Metal, it would be interesting to know how this intensive CPU game runs on Metal...

 

[PJivan]

I did that...so around 45fps on Mac and 52 on windoes with directx 12 beta support... I hope warhammer 2 will support metal 2

 

[jeanlain]

I did that...so around 45fps on Mac and 52 on windoes with directx 12 beta support... I hope warhammer 2 will support metal 2

What's your config? I see that DX12 offers a big boost on AMD, and does the opposite on nVidia with this game.
I also suspect that Metal works better on AMD cards.

 

[PJivan]

What's your config? I see that DX12 offers a big boost on AMD, and does the opposite on nVidia with this game.
I also suspect that Metal works better on AMD cards.

iMac i5 7600k 580 pro only 8GB of ram since additional ram is on the way, but I don't think I will see benefit for that....

game setting were 2560x1440 high but with the added 16x anisotropic and texture on ultra and depth of field enabled.
Very playable

 

[jeanlain]

Thanks. I should have the exact same Mac on my desk by the 16th. 🙂
Based on published benchmarks comparing APIs on the RX 480, the Metal version should be very close to the DX11 version, which is nice.

EDIT: can you tell if fps can exceed 60 on Metal with this benchmark (I mean, not on average, but at times)?
If it's capped at 60 fps (like in F1 2016), the difference with DX12 may partly be due to that. Metal is always V-Synced.

 

[andydckent]

Hi, I've got this running on the top spec 2017 iMac 27" with uprated processor and 24 GB RAM.

At 2560x1440 and ultra settings the test demo runs at about 38-40 fps.

 

[PJivan]

Can you tell if fps can exceed 60 on Metal with this benchmark (I mean, not on average, but at times)?
If it's capped at 60 fps (like in F1 2016), the difference with DX12 may partly be due to that. Metal is always V-Synced.

No it doesn't the framerate on the built in bench it's quite stable...

Windows dx 11 is still a little faster than metal and dx 12 noticeably faster in battles but sometimes the champain map start to lag and the only solution is to restart the game....

To be fair it's just a port...so I'm sure that more could have been done on mac side...and metal 2 should offer comparable improvement to Dx 12, the issue is the small gaming community on mac...more resources are spent to optimise games under windows so in this case I can say that over all windows is offering a slightly better experience but the game runs waaaaay better than the old Total War port so it's a step in the right direction, hoping for more with Warhammer 2

Civilization 6 it's a good example of bad non metal port... struggle at 22fps on mac at 2560x1440, play well above 30 on windows at 5k and almost everything maxed out except shadow and water pass.
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Hi, I've got this running on the top spec 2017 iMac 27" with uprated processor and 24 GB RAM.

At 2560x1440 and ultra settings the test demo runs at about 38-40 fps.

Try high setting...the difference is minimal in terms of quality but it will help since real case scenario can be more demanding than the actual demo...

 

[jeanlain]

From what I can tell, all Metal games run reasonably well compared to the Windows counterparts.
That wasn't the case for OpenGL games.

Once I get my iMac I'll do a few comparisons: Hitman and War thunder (I don't have other Metal games, but Dirt Rally should come soon. Maybe I'll get Deus EX).

 

[PJivan]

From what I can tell, all Metal games run reasonably well compared to the Windows counterparts.
That wasn't the case for OpenGL games.

Once I get my iMac I'll do a few comparisons: Hitman and War thunder (I don't have other Metal games, but Dirt Rally should come soon. Maybe I'll get Deus EX).

Well we used to blame the api...now it's not an api issue anymore....just a dev one..I hate so much to boot on windows just to play...I really hope to wipe that partition in the future!

 

[jeanlain]

Barefeats has benchmarked several Macs and hacks on this game.
http://barefeats.com/imac5K_metal.html

I'm disappointed by the difference between macOS and windows 7 (hence DX11) on the same machine. The difference can be as high as 60%. However, this comparison was made on nVidia cards only, which have beta drivers (1080Ti) or at least drivers that are not known for their good Metal performance.

I've compared hitman on my iMac and the Metal-DX11 difference is modest. I also tried War Thunder. The difference is quite large (windows is at least 50% faster), but the game appears to be limited by the GPU even at low resolution on macOS. The CPU is used at less than 50% (I made sure the framerate was below the 120 fps limit of Metal). Metal is supposed to reduce the work on the CPU, and appears to be working as is should. I'm not sure why the GPU generates fewer fps for the same load on macOS. Less efficient drivers, poorly translated shaders during the port to Metal...?
There are games where the macOS-windows performance reduces when it is limited by the GPU hardware (typically at high resolution), which makes sense to me as it doesn't really depend on the OS at this stage.
But there are games where the performance difference increases at high resolution, which I cannot explain.

 

[PJivan]

what an awful way to benchmark...was it so hard to just benchmark a current machine like imac 5k 580 with windows dx 12/11 and on metal?

nvidia don't even play well with metal....thanks for the effort but bad approach...