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

[macintoshtoffy]

I read reading the following article:

http://store.steampowered.com/news/4211/

And noted this interesting nugget of information:

but we are anticipating even more speedups in this area if Apple implements the uniform_buffer_object extension and GLSL 1.3 in a future update

So I am wondering whether the focus of this update was to get the immediate improvements out the door which have minimal disruption and then maybe focus on those two features that'll push the performance up a notch. From what I understand when it comes to Apple they tend to write API's for them own purposes which while provides a good case scenario it does lead to problems when it comes to features required by third parties (writing a generic API without a real world scenario is very difficult). I wonder therefore that the allocation of resources to moving towards GLSL 1.3 and the uniform_buffer_object extension was difficult to justify given that no internal project required it.

With that being said, however, hopefully 10.7 will bring OpenGL 4.x given that OpenCL, OpenGL ES 2.0 are all bought together in the release - which will hopefully mean that games producers can have code that spans from the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch to the desktop which will cut down on development time etc.

Btw, has anyone given Civilization IV a go yet from Steam? I'm really keen about giving it a try but I wonder how well it runs on Mac OS X - oh, and is there any move soon to get Simcity 4 working and optimised for Intel Mac's?

 

[mcrazza]

I didn't notice a discernable difference playing Portal AT ALL after downloading the SL graphics update. Normally I run Portal in medium settings windowed @ 800*600 (a tiny bit sluggish) and low/medium settings full screen @ 1920*1200 native (a little sluggish). The update didn't change a thing for me. Playing Portal it the highest settings possible on my mac (see sig) still resulted in the same poor performance: chugging at a slow pace with no sound.

Does anyone with the same configuration as my mac (early 2008 24" 2.8Ghz imac) have the same performance playing Portal as I do?

 

[Marucins]

"improvements from 15% to 120%"

WTF!!?? Where, how, when??

 

[Winni]

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

And why should I use a PC for that when I have an Xbox 360 that does the job much better than any Mac or PC?

 

[Winni]

Linux for example has even worse drivers than OS X, because Linux gaming is even smaller than OS X.

That must then explain why nVidia's drivers perform so much better on Linux and even FreeBSD than they do on Windows...

 

[tomscott1988]

http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/geforce-macosx-19.5.8f03-driver-uk.html

for gtx285

This is general purpose drivers for GTX285 released in June, by Nvidia themselves.

This update made my gaming in osx less than satisfactory, with the update apple reverts to an older build of the driver, now i get better performance, fps, smooth and the cude window is telling me i need to update... no chance.

 

[iBug2]

That must then explain why nVidia's drivers perform so much better on Linux and even FreeBSD than they do on Windows...

explain "better". Linux drivers are mostly reverse engineered and lack tons of features even mac drivers do.

 

[MorphingDragon]

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

They do that on windows too.

That must then explain why nVidia's drivers perform so much better on Linux and even FreeBSD than they do on Windows...

Are you trying to get emotionally killed? It is literally a roll of the dice if you get working OpenGL support, not to mention if your drivers still work with the next Kernel or X11 update.

Hell, ATI still doesn't even support the latest version of X11 or even BSD.

 

[diamond.g]

I didn't notice a discernable difference playing Portal AT ALL after downloading the SL graphics update. Normally I run Portal in medium settings windowed @ 800*600 (a tiny bit sluggish) and low/medium settings full screen @ 1920*1200 native (a little sluggish). The update didn't change a thing for me. Playing Portal it the highest settings possible on my mac (see sig) still resulted in the same poor performance: chugging at a slow pace with no sound.

Does anyone with the same configuration as my mac (early 2008 24" 2.8Ghz imac) have the same performance playing Portal as I do?

You may need more RAM.

 

[macintoshtoffy]

explain "better". Linux drivers are mostly reverse engineered and lack tons of features even mac drivers do.

The nVidia drivers are straight from nVidia themselves - no hacking or reverse engineering.

 

[xizar]

entire library?

L4D?

 

[spillproof]

And now I can update 10.6.4! My late 2008 MBP might not see a big difference, but any bit helps. Plus, I want to use the new Flash player with graphics accelerator.

 

[PlipPlop]

And why should I use a PC for that when I have an Xbox 360 that does the job much better than any Mac or PC?

Lol you have obviously never had a decent gaming computer then.

 

[alent1234]

And why should I use a PC for that when I have an Xbox 360 that does the job much better than any Mac or PC?

strategy games

 

[Mikeadelic]

And why should I use a PC for that when I have an Xbox 360 that does the job much better than any Mac or PC?

You must have a pretty crap PC. 360 is a great system, but no way is it "much better" than a gaming PC.

 

[markgo2k]

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.

Many of the posters on this thread seem to think that this is some sort of Apple conspiracy. The facts are that:

1) Apple does NOT prevent ATI nVidia or anyone else from releasing their own drivers.

2) ATI and nVidia (not Apple) write the drivers, Apple just releases them.

2) ATI and nVidia actually prefer Apple pushing drivers for them.

I know this because I spent 30 mins talking to an nVidia engineer at WWDC. They love the fact that OS updates are so frequent that they can update their drivers as part of the OS point releases, rather than relying on individual users to update themselves. They'd prefer this model on Windows as well, but with years going by between SP updates it's unworkable.

Self-update results in a horrible mix of driver versions floating around out there (with game and other developers needing to code around the bugs or beg their users to update). It also requires the driver writers to spend a not-insignificant amount of money to host and support the updates, update installers, deal with angry users whose machine was hosed by an update, etc.

Personally, I'm happy with the current state of affairs. Sure, I wish that the performance was equivalent to Windows in all cases, but you're asking for driver performance optimizations to make games run better that weren't even released 6 months ago. That's asking for the impossible.

My expectation is that the performance delta will steadily narrow over the next year and become insignificant except to the frame-rate chasers.

 

[res1233]

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.

You're right, except Apple could reserve the right to test the driver on their machines and report back to ATI/Nvidia/Intel(lol) any problems found. That would probably be the best of both worlds.

 

[quaternio]

Thought I'd report that I've definitely seen an increase in performance on my 2010 Mac Mini.

 

[cmaier]

You're right, except Apple could reserve the right to test the driver on their machines and report back to ATI/Nvidia/Intel(lol) any problems found. That would probably be the best of both worlds.

Isn't that more or less how it actually ends up working in practice?

 

[Shivetya]

"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.

I will take a Commander Keen for Mac please

 

[mcrazza]

You may need more RAM.

I'm maxed out at 4GB. I need to update my sig too to reflect that. But yeah, 4GB RAM and Portal is a little sluggish to run.

 

[BillyBobBongo]

"improvements from 15% to 120%"

WTF!!?? Where, how, when??

Tell me about it, there is no such number as 120%.

So the improvements are from 15% to a fictious amount....interesting!

 

[tfredvik]

Tell me about it, there is no such number as 120%.

So the improvements are from 15% to a fictious amount....interesting!

Ah, so that's what I'm going to tell my daughter the next time she asks when the numbers stop: "My dear, there are now numbers greater than 119.". Thanks!

 

[Jodles]

I really don't understand why the late 2008 alubook isn't mentioned in these lists? What's so different between the late 2008 mb and the early 2009 mbp, besides from the name-change and the added fw and sdcard slot?

 

[diamond.g]

I'm maxed out at 4GB. I need to update my sig too to reflect that. But yeah, 4GB RAM and Portal is a little sluggish to run.

I assume you have the 2600, which should be fine to run Portal. You are getting stuttering? Is it possible to turn on Triple Buffering to see if that helps?