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Valve Warns of Gaming Performance Issues With NVIDIA Graphics Cards on Mac OS X 10.6.4

Ok, for starters I’m a Mac guy from the very beginning in 1984. Still, Apple is years behind windows based systems when it comes to games or practically anything else involving graphics.

It’s simply amazing that Apple who once led the pack on graphics, allowed itself to lag so far behind the industry. I was shocked when Steve mentioned that Adobe was lazy on bringing ‘flash’ and other graphic technologies over to the Mac while Apple hasn’t updated its 30-inch display in more than 3-years.

All this talk of a 27-inch model replacement continues to be on the back of the back burner. If Apple actually does decide to re-enter the graphics market, I’ll bet they will do so with a super glossy panel that many users' absolutely hate.
Regards,
 
The last ~ year has been pretty bad for the Apple & Nvidia combo. Btw… the secondary screen flickering on ’09 Mac Pro wasn’t fixed by 10.6.4 either. So still gotta keep 10.6.2 around :(.
 
baryon said:
Steam game performance sucked as much as it does now when Steam first came out for the Mac, so I didn't notice any performance drops since 10.6.4. I don't use my 9600 because it keeps crashing the system so I'm stuck with 9400, but it's playable. I don't have major issues I can run it at 30 fps with most things on High, except Anti-Aliasing which results in horrible lags.
Click to expand...

Is your macbook under applecare? The fact that the 9600 keeps crashing could point to a hardware problem.

I upgraded before Valve's warning and havent experienced any performance stability issues, hangups, etc. The most intensive game I am running on the mac side would be Half Life 2 though I guess...
 
Great. So 10.6.4 broke my flashed ATI 4780.
(Fair enough say's you - that's what you get for using a flashed card).....


So. €450 order with Apple for an official GTX285 to replace it.
And now we find out that 10.6.4 is fecking about with it too.


Talk about an utter disaster of an update.
 
slb said:
Strange. No problems on my machine. Not that it will stop the astroturfing trolls who hang out here from making smarmy remarks.
Click to expand...

Care to tells us what machine u have and what games you are playing. I hope u have a nvidia card and are playing a steam game.
 
So after months of being in beta, we finally reach 10.6.4. The fourth patch of a very mature OS and this is what we get?
Are software developers becoming more slack? Or is the complexity of their work slipping out of their control?
With all the advances having been made over the past decades, bug free code (or reasonably so) seems an increasingly more elusive priority/goal.
 
slackpacker said:
Since Apple has released - 10.6.4 comes up with an Error saying that My Graphics Driver is outdated - This is shown if you use an Nvidia CUDA card like GTX285..... Come on Apple/Nvidia.
Click to expand...

My 285 isn't asking to be updated after 10.6.4 :confused:

by the way, 3 words that I wish we could ban here: fanboy, troll and swarmy. So sick of them. :rolleyes:
 
Big time OpenGL problems

Since upgrading to 10.6.4, my Hackintosh's CineBench OpenGL score dropped from ~25 FPS to ~6 FPS. It uses an NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB PCIe video card. Six frames per second is around the speed that its Core i7 could do in software alone with no hardware acceleration. :mad:

-Aaron-
 
yea after installing the 10.6.4 update, my overall performance in Torchlight is much worse.

Before with 10.6.3 I would get a steady 30fps. Not great, but clearly playable.

Now with 10.6.4, my peak FPS is better, I seen it climb as high as 50-60fps (vsync disabled), but it also drops below 10fps many, many times while in the middle of play, causing very, very choppy play.

BARF.
 
gmcalpin said:
It might be a coincidence; it might not. But after updating to 10.6.4, I've had Half-Life 2 periodically drop in framerates for a few seconds at a time. It's really frustrating.
Click to expand...

I think that's the issue.

It is a shame that this sort of problem got through testing, especially since I assume that NV and Apple and third parties test.
 
Between you and me and the fence post, I haven't found any decent games to play using Steam anyway. Portal has always had issues for me re:using the right mouse button (doesn't have any effect where it should position a red portal) and not matter what I do I keep getting stuck in a round-about loop that doesn't seem to have any way to escape it.

The reset of the games look like Win 98 models. Yuck.
 
It's a shame that on the mac side, we don't have access to the many drivers versions that nvdia has for windows. There must be 2 or 3 a month of drivers and beta drivers to the point that just about everyone can find a great performer at any given time.
 
Deacon272 said:
not [sic] matter what I do I keep getting stuck in a round-about loop that doesn't seem to have any way to escape it.

The reset of the games look like Win 98 models. Yuck.
Click to expand...

Stop making two portals facing each other in a small confined space... That seems like a really easy problem to avoid.
 
Its been fine for me on a 8800 GS, killing floor runs smooth like always. Half life 2 is fine also.
 
Chill Down

This happens on the Mac about 1 vs 1000 on Windows. Yes, its a pain when it happens, but it gets fixed in usually about a week. Rule of thumb, never upgrade for 2 weeks after a major number change. I didn't follow that rule, and I am paying for it. Steam games frame rates are unplayable. LoTRo game lag is staggering. Safari crashes the first launch after every restart. Safari load times are horrible. Safari.... well as mentioned above. Get to know Firefox for a week or two.

Usually this is related to a rushed OS patch for new hardware, I'm not sure why they pushed this out before it's time. But they did, so find an old game that works and chill down for a week or two. It will all be over soon and just remember this is a monthly if not sooner occurrence on Win boxes - XP / 7. The good news is that it's getting worked on and definitely has Apple's attention.

Or simply use Time Machine on the Mac Mini server you've all purchased and roll back to before the update. Oh, you didn't do that ? Me either.
 
Erm? Excuse my language but the phrase 'A Bit ****ing late' springs to mind!!!!!! :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Just sort it out Valve, as it is Steam has been crashing on my BRAND NEW MB Pro anyway.
Actually Steam is the ONLY application that does crash.......
 
Digital Dude said:
It’s simply amazing that Apple who once led the pack on graphics, allowed itself to lag so far behind the industry.
Click to expand...
Apple never led the pack on graphics hardware. They've always been at the mercy of their GPU suppliers, which always prioritize their work for Windows, as makes perfect sense for them. NVIDIA and ATI always had limited resources in terms of engineering availability to work with Apple for drivers and implementation, same as with Linux.

They focus on Windows, which is where the games are and where the money is. There's no magical path for Linux distros or Apple to make up the difference on their own.
Apple hasn’t updated its 30-inch display in more than 3-years.
Click to expand...
If it ain't broke...

Monitors based on that same panel are still being sold by Dell and LG, too. The LG 27" is the first new panel in that size range for this type of product, and LG was having more than a few issues getting it right. It's not like there has been a steady stream of new panels on the market in this size and price range.
All this talk of a 27-inch model replacement continues to be on the back of the back burner. If Apple actually does decide to re-enter the graphics market, I’ll bet they will do so with a super glossy panel that many users' absolutely hate.
Click to expand...
What do monitors have to do with graphics driver problems?
 
Definitely no problems on my old ATI 2600 Pro HD card ;)

But seriously though, 10.6.4 has been as stable as the last iterations of SL for me, entirely solid, but this really sucks for those users with nvidia cards.

Personally, I wish that when they do a rehash of these drivers that they'd support/develop for legacy cards in the rewrite... like my own... :( But alas, we know this to not be true; they'll only have improved drivers for the latest and greatest cards.
 
matticus008 said:
Apple never led the pack on graphics hardware. They've always been at the mercy of their GPU suppliers, which always prioritize their work for Windows, as makes perfect sense for them. NVIDIA and ATI always had limited resources in terms of engineering availability to work with Apple for drivers and implementation, same as with Linux.

They focus on Windows, which is where the games are and where the money is. There's no magical path for Linux distros or Apple to make up the difference on their own.
Click to expand...

The Nvidia Geforce 3 was first on Mac, so was a few 3DFx cards.

And just to add my Geforce 9400m Macbook Pro 13inch got a noticeable boost to the lowest FPS range in HL2 with 10.6.4 though the top end FPS did not change at all and there is still occasional stuttering.
 
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