Valve Claims Frame Rate Improvements of Up to 120% With Snow Leopard Graphics Update

[diamond.g]

No, thank you. I've spent more than enough time in my life installing, debugging, rolling back, etc. catalyst and nvidia drivers, trying to figure out why the newest driver made some games faster, some games slower, caused new artifacts or crashes, etc.

I'll gladly give up some fps for a little bit of stability.

Odd, I when I ran Windows, I never had a problem with WHQL-ed drivers. I know beta drivers could cause all sorts of flakiness though.

 

[bdr420]

"On older systems, we are generally already operating at the limits of the hardware, so it is not obvious that any significant performance improvements can be achieved in the future."

Really? Because I have an earlier Macbook Pro than any of the ones they mentioned. When I play Portal on OS X with it, it is really slow and choppy. When I play it on Windows on the exact same machine, I can run at 1680x1050 resolution with nearly maxed out settings and get smooth framerates.

Something tells me the problem here isn't the hardware.

Does anyone know if its the different technologies used in OpenGL vs DirectX?

 

[diamond.g]

Did you ever read the release notes? It like they hard code for specific games in the drivers. It's crazy

I always thought it was interesting. The whole application profiles thing is what allows Windows to have such a large advantage over Mac. They always seemed to have the drivers optimized for the most popular games...

 

[Tastic Bycrom]

"while also opening up its Steam game distribution platform to allow other developers to easily offer Mac versions of their titles."

And we're still waiting for that to happen. All we got are Valves' old titles and freakin 2-D puzzle games.

And you're being too anxious. Calm down. Breathe. Steam hasn't been available for Mac for even six months yet.

 

[0098386]

"On older systems, we are generally already operating at the limits of the hardware, so it is not obvious that any significant performance improvements can be achieved in the future."

Really? Because I have an earlier Macbook Pro than any of the ones they mentioned. When I play Portal on OS X with it, it is really slow and choppy. When I play it on Windows on the exact same machine, I can run at 1680x1050 resolution with nearly maxed out settings and get smooth framerates.

Something tells me the problem here isn't the hardware.

Same. Under OSX I (used to) get 10fps on TF2, under XP I get 50-60fps using the same settings, resolution and server. Both the lowest settings at 1280*800.

 

[Xeep]

I have an early 2009 iMac with a Geforce 120 and it made a huge improvement in Starcraft 2. Before I had to keep everything on low settings to stay above 30 fps most of the time. Now I can keep everything on medium and stay above 40 fps. High settings will take me to about 15-20 fps. The menus are a lot smoother too. The performance seems to be about on par with what I was getting while playing the beta in 10.6.3.

 

[Tastic Bycrom]

However, does this mean graphics performance is just bringing the Mac up to the same level as on Windows? Hopefully there will be benchmarks soon

Nope. It'll take Apple supporting OpenGL 3.0-3.2 shaders and a few more of these performance increases before I'd dare to compare to Windows as the same level

 

[Blondie :)]

This update did in fact make a flipping huge difference for me! Starcraft II is now so much smoother it's incredible! And I'm playing on even higher settings than I was before. Thank you Apple for getting your act together on this one

 

[Crimsonscyes]

I have an early 2009 iMac (3.06GHz C2D, 8800GS 512MB) and I noticed a MASSIVE improvement in Starcraft 2. Before, it was barely playable on the lowest graphics settings. Now I can set everything to "High" and it's perfectly smooth. Still can't do Ultra when loading from Mac OS X, which is unfortunate, because if I Boot Camp into Windows 7, I can play with everything on "Ultra".

I have a late 2009 iMac with an Nvidia Geforce 9400 card so I wonder why you're noticing an improvement and I'm not.

 

[shiseiryu1]

What about white c2d iMacs?!

I was really disappointed when Steam said it doesn't support the video card in my white iMac even though I have boot camp and it plays HL2 just fine. GRRR!!!

 

[Auchron]

I have a late 2009 iMac with an Nvidia Geforce 9400 card so I wonder why you're noticing an improvement and I'm not.

Because your machine is a 21.5 iMac using onboard video if I am not mistaken. Where as Anubis is using a dedicated video card with 512MB.

Difference is your video card shares system resources and his does not.

 

[cmaier]

Did you ever read the release notes? It like they hard code for specific games in the drivers. It's crazy

No "like" about it. They did have different profiles for different games.

Odd, I when I ran Windows, I never had a problem with WHQL-ed drivers. I know beta drivers could cause all sorts of flakiness though.

You really are going to dispute that even WHQL-ed drivers have caused people problems? WHQL drivers have even fried video cards! For example:

http://www.incgamers.com/news/21293/nvidia-19675-kills-video-cards
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Nvidia-196.75-drivers-over-heating,9802.html

Just because you never had any problems doesn't make it odd that many many other people have. The internet is full of such complaints:

http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t90321.html
http://www.techspot.com/news/35554-nvidia-releases-forceware-19038-whql-drivers-.html (see comments)
http://utforums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=651324&page=1
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/132919-33-newest-whql-geforce-driver-crashed-flat-demo

 

[reden]

Man, I have a 2009 MacPro, the improvements well over exceeded my expectations, insane, thanks a lot to those guys for this, well overdue.

 

[kingtj]

Because sometimes there isn't!

When I made the switch to Macs at home, it meant eliminating my old Windows boxes. I still want to play games though, and don't see why I should have to keep a Windows machine around just to do it?

For that matter, why should I pay Microsoft the $200 or so for a Windows 7 license, just so I can dual-boot into it on my Mac to play games the authors refused to port for OS X?

Thank you, valve. That said, why use a Mac to play games? There's a PC for that. =P

 

[Crimsonscyes]

Because your machine is a 21.5 iMac using onboard video if I am not mistaken. Where as Anubis is using a dedicated video card with 512MB.

Difference is your video card shares system resources and his does not.

Thanks for responding! So I guess the only way I'll be able to get Starcraft 2 running faster is by getting a new video card or something?

 

[Auchron]

I was really disappointed when Steam said it doesn't support the video card in my white iMac even though I have boot camp and it plays HL2 just fine. GRRR!!!

I do believe the reason that Valve / Steam is not supported on the iMac you have is not their fault.

This is to do with Apple's support for the hardware they are using and they way they are utilizing the hardware's resources. Apple, I hope, is realizing as they are growing they need to dedicate more resources to this area. Where as before they knew that the people that bought Macs accepted the fact that Macs did not play games.

We are in the uncomfortable growth area for graphic support in games. Unfortunately for every uncomfortable growth there are usually people left behind.

 

[Auchron]

Thanks for responding! So I guess the only way I'll be able to get Starcraft 2 running faster is by getting a new video card or something?

Unfortunately you can not upgrade your machine in a cost effective way. You would have to replace the logicboard then purchase a video card.

Both parts are proprietary parts and have to use Apple parts. This would be over the cost of buying a new machine when parts and labour are factored in. You would be better off selling this machine and then using that money to get a different Mac, one with a dedicated video card for games.

 

[ryansebiz]

Thanks for responding! So I guess the only way I'll be able to get Starcraft 2 running faster is by getting a new video card or something?

Same problem here. No improvent in StarCraft II on 2010 13" MBP.

Guess you do have to have a dedicated card for this update to improve graphics quality.

So disappointed by this update.

 

[goMac]

Oh jees, a few misconceptions here...
- NVidia and ATI do write the Mac drivers. Apple controls when they get released in most cases, however. But NVidia and ATI have been known to release drivers on their own website.
- Apple does not target specific games. The release notes used those games as examples, but the fixes will help with all software.
- The drivers have fixes for hardware beyond the listed hardware. The update made a huge difference on my 08 Mac pro.
- The update was mostly fixes to the NVidia drivers, so ATI users probably shouldn't expect a huge change.

 

[lamadude]

However, does this mean graphics performance is just bringing the Mac up to the same level as on Windows? Hopefully there will be benchmarks soon

Not even that, I would love for mac games to run "just" at the same level as their windows counterparts

 

[buckers]

"On older systems, we are generally already operating at the limits of the hardware, so it is not obvious that any significant performance improvements can be achieved in the future."

Really? Because I have an earlier Macbook Pro than any of the ones they mentioned. When I play Portal on OS X with it, it is really slow and choppy. When I play it on Windows on the exact same machine, I can run at 1680x1050 resolution with nearly maxed out settings and get smooth framerates.

Something tells me the problem here isn't the hardware.

Yeah I can get some games working under Windows 7 on my late 2007 MacBook (e.g. Civilisation 4) that are glitchy and slow under Snow Leopard on the same machine. I was a little surprised.

 

[guzhogi]

While this is good to see, it highlights an issue with drivers on apple machines. It would be wonderful if apple allowed nvidia and ati to support their cards directly.

I'd like to see ATI/nVidia work closely w/ Apple instead of drivers just being just one company's responsibility. I'm sure a lot of this is the kind of stuff where it's not just ATI/nVidia's fault or just Apple's fault. Some of it is because of bad drivers, some of it is how Mac OS X interfaces with the drivers & games.

 

[Nuvi]

If nvidia or ATI is in anyway competent in supporting drivers on Mac, Apple would not need to step up.

The whole reason why Apple is even doing driver for those hardware is because their support for Mac sucked.

Get your facts straight. Apple hasn't allowed ATI or nvidia to write drivers for OS X. Its all Apples fault and no one else can be blamed about it. The reason why Apple is updating the drivers is because ATI or nvidia are not allowed to release them. You honestly think we wouldn't have h.264 HW decoding on all the supported cards if was up to nividia and ATI to deliver the drivers.

 

[kc2kth]

Almost 30% increase here on 2007 mbp

My 2007 mpb (2.4 C2D) saw a jump in TF2 from a consistent 29-30 fps to a wider range of 37-43 fps, generally right around 38. The framerate "meter" does vary a LOT more with these drivers. Based on an hour or so playtime across three servers I commonly play on.

 

[Benjamins]

Get your facts straight. Apple hasn't allowed ATI or nvidia to write drivers for OS X. Its all Apples fault and no one else can be blamed about it. The reason why Apple is updating the drivers is because ATI or nvidia are not allowed to release them. You honestly think we wouldn't have h.264 HW decoding on all the supported cards if was up to nividia and ATI to deliver the drivers.

You must be pretty new to Mac and Apple.
If you go back 10 years, you will see why Apple is doing their own drivers.