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

[Mr_Ed]

Apple needs to finally step up to the plate here...

I'm an Apple fan and I love my Mac but I can't think of a single reason why graphics performance should still be so far below what Windows is capable of given the same hardware. I understand there are some optimizations provided by DirectX that would not be available through OpenGL but there must be room for improvement.

 

[enemyseven]

I've actually noticed a minimal (~10fps) increase since updating to 10.6.4.
My MBP is a 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo with 4GB ram and an GeForce 8600M GT w/ 512MB vram.

Has anyone with similar specs noticed anything like that? I'm curious to find out if I'm just lucky or if the particular areas I've been playing since the update are easier to render.

 

[fmaxwell]

well perhaps you should upgrade your PCs to XP, Vista or 7. You know, 95 and 98 aren't that good today!

I was running before I switched to a Mac less than two years ago. I have not regretted the switch for a moment. I don't miss the registry. I don't miss applications that write to the operating system directories. I don't miss DLLs that often step on one another as applications are installed with older and/or newer ones. I don't miss uninstall functions that leave countless files and registry entries. I don't miss explaining to someone in India why I should be allowed to run the copy of Windows I paid for after upgrading my motherboard, CPU, and RAM.

More positively, I like being able to switch to a new system, hook up an external Time Machine backup drive, and have all of my programs, files, and settings just migrate over. Being able to switch from a Mac Mini to a Mac Pro in a matter of a few unattended hours of restore was fantastic. Having a system for multiple virtual desktops that actually works well is great. Not having my system's boot process get slower and slower for no clear reason is excellent. Having an OS with a logical security policy designed in from the beginning (rather than pasted on later) is a good thing. I like having an OS scripting language that is actually powerful and a powerful command shell rather than some relic derived from MS-DOS.

You need to stop playing the role of Microsoft fanboy and just evaluate the OS on how well it works. I've used *MANY* operating systems (CP/M-80, TurboDOS, MS/PC-DOS, DR-DOS, GEM, BeOS, HDOS, Linux, QNX, Windows, OS X, Solaris, Free/Net/OpenBSD, etc.) and I don't have any interest in being some kind of cheerleader based on a need to reassure myself that I made the right decision.

 

[powers74]

Good job that

A) I got the ATI option

and

B) I don't play games on my Mac.

 

[iSpoody 1243]

instead of upgrading the driver they broke it.
omg!

 

[ksgant]

Jesus...get a grip people. The attitude here is "DAMN, they screwed this up...oh well, this is the death of gaming on the Mac now".

You guys do realize that it's something that's only a new driver away from being fixed. It's not the end of the world.

 

[bigcat318]

Been playing TF2 with the update and have not had any issues.

 

[kenman884]

I have the 9600m and I've experienced no problems due to the 10.6.4 update

 

[fmaxwell]

I guess you don't play games (do you, or are you just commenting on something you are personally uninformed about?).

Yes, I do play games.

When an OS update breaks graphics to the degree where some games are unplayable, that's a pretty major issue.

No, it's a major issue when the OS update causes you to lose valuable data, causes your system to crash while developing applications or business presentations, or causes important apps to cease functioning. Lagging on an online game is an annoyance, but it's just not up there with those things.

A problem is a problem, pointing that out isn't "drama queen"

Let's see how it was "pointed out" in the post to which I replied:

Oh my gad, i really thought osx could be good at gaming, but alas, this comes up. with a huge letdown and a big punch in the stomach for gaming on a mac.

That's being a drama queen!

while insisting a problem is irrelevant smacks of being an apologist.

It's not irrelevant, but it's just a minor problem on an OS update that just came out a few days ago. The entire thing may be fixed in a couple of weeks with a patch. Acting like it's a tragedy on the order of the BP oil spill is just, well, being a drama queen.

There's really no excuse for releasing an update with a problem like this, beta testing should have caught it.

So why didn't those thousands of beta testers catch it if the problem is so horrific and widespread? Why didn't we see anonymous comments on all of the Mac rumor sites about the horrible bugs in the upcoming OS X 10.6.4? Ever wonder why people are posting here that they are not seeing problems on their systems? Maybe it's just not that major, or widespread, of a problem. Even the Valve web site forums have just a few posts on the subject -- not the hundreds one would expect were the problem to be widespread and severe.

 

[bnumerick]

Minor bug? If I had a nvidia card, and was over the moon that Steam was available on a mac, this is hardly a minor bug. Be a total pissa given the cost of a 275 or 285 on a mac pro! If I bought one of these cards after the steam announcement, i'd be pissed as. I hope they resolve is asap.

Microsoft does not write graphics drivers for windows. ATI and Nvidia do.

Like I said already nVidia has released a driver update already that fixed my issues. I'm guessing it'll work for other 285 owners too.

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

 

[Amdahl]

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.

No, it is not a monthly occurannce on Windows. Windows 2000 was released 10 years ago( and loses security updates next month), and that was the beginning of the end of Windows' chronic problems.

Microsoft only issues tested drivers that have gone through extensive testing and receive their WHQL(Windows Hardware Quality Labs) approval. Microsoft does extensive, wide, PUBLIC beta tests.

Apple does no public testing, distributes software to a limited number of developers, and throws it out the door when they have a sufficiently large pile, and then let their customers figure out what breaks. Apple only has to support their own configurations; Microsoft supports millions of configurations.

And it isn't changing until YOU, the Apple customer, tire of it.

I'm an Apple fan and I love my Mac but I can't think of a single reason why graphics performance should still be so far below what Windows is capable of given the same hardware. I understand there are some optimizations provided by DirectX that would not be available through OpenGL but there must be room for improvement.

Maybe they need to rewrite their drivers in HTML5?

 

[fmaxwell]

And it isn't changing until YOU, the Apple customer, tire of it.

Why would I tire of having a stable, reliable, responsive system?

Since switching to Macs a little under two years ago, I've had just about zero problems. I don't have a registry that mysteriously grows with incomprehensible, purposely obfuscated entries. I've not seen issues with my system boot times getting slower and slower. I've not had to deal with dubious third-party registry "cleaners" and defragmenters. I don't have to choose the least reprehensible backup software because the Mac ships with the best in the industry. When I wanted to run striped RAID and concatenated RAID (2 x 1TB WD Black striped as the system volume and 2 x 2TB green drives for the Time Machine backup drive), I didn't have to turn to some flaky third-party chip manufacturer for drivers -- it was built into OS X. When I moved from one Mac to another, I just attached my Time Machine external drive and the installation restored all of my files, applications, and settings -- with no need to reinstall anything. When I wanted to have a "rescue disk," I plugged in a USB WD Passport 160GB drive I had lying around, installed OS X to it, and it was bootable -- no hassles, problems, or need to search for legally questionable hacks.

I don't know what planet you compute on, but here on Earth, Macs are gaining in popularity because they are so much more stable and trouble-free than are Windows PCs.

 

[apolloa]

You should try some of the other Mac ports like Dragon Age: Origins. The game itself works, but add-ons (DLC) blow up the game... My suggestion is to Boot Camp for games at least until someone actually starts to actually care.

Nah, it's ok I just use my PS3 and iPhone. I'd be buggered with my gaming if I didn't have those. Don't want to bootcamp. But I do think someone needs to slap Steve round the face to wake him up to what we users want in relation to games. Not talking about amazing high end graphics.
It'll get sorted though no doubt.

 

[Amdahl]

Why would I tire of having a stable, reliable, responsive system? Since switching to Macs a little under two years ago, I've had just about zero problems. I don't have a registry that mysteriously grows with incomprehensible, purposely obfuscated entries. I've not seen issues with my system boot times getting slower and slower. I've not had to deal with dubious third-party registry "cleaners" and defragmenters.

I don't know what planet you compute on, but here on Earth, Macs are gaining in popularity because they are so much more stable and trouble-free than are Windows PCs.

If you're going to play the I'm-a-more-experienced-than-you-because-I-loves-Apple-and-you-don't-but-Ima-gonna-let-you-finish, then maybe you should make sure the member hasn't been on MR for three times as long as you have.

 

[fmaxwell]

If you're going to play the I'm-a-more-experienced-than-you-because-I-loves-Apple-and-you-don't-but-Ima-gonna-let-you-finish, then maybe you should make sure the member hasn't been on MR for three times as long as you have.

I started working in software development in a paid, full-time position in 1980. I have been continuously employed in the tech sector ever since (I currently develop hardware and software to test satellites). I started using the Internet when it was still the Arpanet.

So forgive me for not being impressed at how long you've been a member of a web site that came into existence 20 years after I entered the computer field.

 

[djjclark]

I just yesterday bought the highest end MacBook Pro 17" - Core i7 with frickin 4GB of RAM.

Came home, started it up, installed FireFox, Eclipse, Vim. Eclipse startup took long time. Realized that it must be the 5400RPM HDD. But ran FireFox and it all went downhill - random pauses, lots of disk churn. Time to visit Activity Monitor. Holy crap - it's already swapping - 124 Mb pageouts and similar amount of swap used! 979 Mb Wired memory! Double mad.

Was about to go and return it - I don't want a $2.5K machine which can't run a browser/IDE/Editor and terminal without swapping. But then it struck me may be I should put Win 7 x64 on it and see. Exact same workload - and no slowdowns whatsoever! 1.4Gb RAM used (plenty of which is cache) with Eclipse running with Firefox and gvim plus some command windows.

This is the second machine in my house going to Win 7 - first one slowed to crawl after filling up the Intel SSD probably due to lack of TRIM support.

Apple need to get serious about OS X - otherwise they are just going to lose out big time. (Not sure they care but if they still sell it they must care I suppose.)

Odds are spotlight was indexing the drive. As capable as you seem to imply, you should be able to investigate via the console and activity monitor what was going on.

 

[Bafflefish]

I don't know what planet you compute on, but here on Earth, Macs are gaining in popularity because they are so much more stable and trouble-free than are Windows PCs.

Mac hardware has steadily been gaining in popularity. OS X itself though has roughly the same level of marketshare representation that it's had for the last few years. It inches up slowly each year, but nothing of much consequences. That's partly though due to the fact that since the change over to Intel-based systems and the release of options such as Boot Camp, Parallels, Fusion, etc., more and more Mac users are keeping Windows around as a secondary option.

Infact, in the enterprise environment I work in, you could go to nearly every Mac user, and find them running Windows in some form of virtualization.

Overall, Microsoft isn't too scared (especially given all the praise and massive sales Windows 7 has seen).

 

[Bafflefish]

I started working in software development in a paid, full-time position in 1980. I have been continuously employed in the tech sector ever since (I currently develop hardware and software to test satellites). I started using the Internet when it was still the Arpanet.

So forgive me for not being impressed at how long you've been a member of a web site that came into existence 20 years after I entered the computer field.

No offense, but the argument itself is immature and ridiculous - trying to say that one's opinion "matters more" or is "more correct" solely due to experience neglects the fact that it's an opinion, and thus subjected to an individual's bias, experiences, etc.

While valid points can certainly come from it, generally I think it's best when most people take opinions with "a grain of salt", so to speak. And no offense, but many of your posts in this thread do come off as distinctly anti-Windows (which is your right).

In general though, I think most would agree that compared to Windows, Macs are simply an inferior gaming system.

 

[InfoSecmgr]

Strange. No problems on my machine. Not that it will stop the astroturfing trolls who hang out here from making smarmy remarks.

I was never very impressed with Steams performance on my 17 inch MBP (2010 model). However, I can say with confidence that the .4 update didn't break or change anything performance wise.

 

[henrikrox]

Yes, I do play games.



No, it's a major issue when the OS update causes you to lose valuable data, causes your system to crash while developing applications or business presentations, or causes important apps to cease functioning. Lagging on an online game is an annoyance, but it's just not up there with those things.



Let's see how it was "pointed out" in the post to which I replied:



That's being a drama queen!



It's not irrelevant, but it's just a minor problem on an OS update that just came out a few days ago. The entire thing may be fixed in a couple of weeks with a patch. Acting like it's a tragedy on the order of the BP oil spill is just, well, being a drama queen.



So why didn't those thousands of beta testers catch it if the problem is so horrific and widespread? Why didn't we see anonymous comments on all of the Mac rumor sites about the horrible bugs in the upcoming OS X 10.6.4? Ever wonder why people are posting here that they are not seeing problems on their systems? Maybe it's just not that major, or widespread, of a problem. Even the Valve web site forums have just a few posts on the subject -- not the hundreds one would expect were the problem to be widespread and severe.

Seriously? Dude? I mean, seriously

You honestly dont think that gaming for mac gets a punch in a stomach when a well known developer goes out publicly and says "dont update your mac".

Then im questioning your head.

Im also wondering why people who have and open mind on windows based PCs and OS X based PCs are more mature here, where people who bash windows (like you), seems like the new sony defence force.

Again, dont be so obvious.

 

[parapup]

Odds are spotlight was indexing the drive. As capable as you seem to imply, you should be able to investigate via the console and activity monitor what was going on.

You know what - I have bought a dozen or so Macs in my life so far and never had such crappy out of box experience. And spotlight exists since ages in Internet time!

And I did check Activity Monitor - of course. What I found was that mds/mdworker were both nearly idle using not much memory. (This is not a CPU issue, rather a memory shortage one.) Anyway when I checked kernel_task was using around 281 Mb, Wired Mem around 800Mb - so there goes 1Gb. Take out a dozen other running processes with 20-25 Mb each and 300Mb more is gone. That leaves around 2.5Gb usable for other stuff. Start iTunes, Firefox and Eclipse and basically the machine is swapping already. Forget about running a 1Gb VMWare Windows 7 VM which literally kills the machine.

My point is that what I am running should be running pretty well within 4GB and it doesn't on SL. I am running the same workload on the same machine using Win7 and as a bonus I can run 1Gb VMWare VM under Workstation and still the machine is not slow / swapping - 2.68Gb used RAM. That puts SL in a very bad light right there.

And I am not alone - SL is a memory hog if google searches are any indication and it seems to be significantly worse off on the 17" i7 MBP. If anyone has a i7 MBP with 4GB RAM I would love to see some screenshots of Activity Monitor showing System Memory and process list sorted by Real Mem.

 

[fmaxwell]

No offense, but the argument itself is immature and ridiculous - trying to say that one's opinion "matters more" or is "more correct" solely due to experience neglects the fact that it's an opinion, and thus subjected to an individual's bias, experiences, etc.

Take that up with the person to whom I was replying. He brought up the years-of-experience issue, not me.

And no offense, but many of your posts in this thread do come off as distinctly anti-Windows (which is your right).

No offense taken. I am anti-Windows -- based on over two decades of using it professionally and as a hobbyist. I have spent far too many hours fixing Windows problems that should never have occurred. Prior to OS X and Intel-based Macs, I was anti-Mac. My affinities and dislikes are based on technical merit, not bias, loyalty, or any of that other crap that simply clouds rational judgment.

 

[fmaxwell]

You honestly dont think that gaming for mac gets a punch in a stomach when a well known developer goes out publicly and says "dont update your mac".

Except that they didn't say that. They wrote: "If you wish to avoid this, you should consider waiting to install the 10.6.4 update until Apple has had the opportunity to address this issue." You are acting like the problem was discovered six months ago and Apple has given up in defeat. In fact, it is a problem that very few people have reported even on Valve's own web site.

Im also wondering why people who have and open mind on windows based PCs and OS X based PCs are more mature here, where people who bash windows (like you), seems like the new sony defence force.

I've used Macs for less than two years. I used Windows PCs for over two decades prior to that. I have probably built more Windows PCs than you have used. And I have both Windows and Mac PCs in my home now. If having an "open mind" means trying to say nice things about a platform that I think is poorly implemented and bloated, then I guess I'll pass.

 

[gmcalpin]

Oh for God's sake, people. Does every thread need to turn into "you're being a whiner" "you're being a troll" "you're being rude" "you're being immature" "I've got a bigger iDick than you"?

It's off-topic, if absolutely nothing else. Some of us find it annoying to have to sift through dozens of those worthless posts just to see read what other people who HAVE something to say have to say.

 

[fmaxwell]

Oh for God's sake, people. Does every thread need to turn into "you're being a whiner" "you're being a troll" "you're being rude" "you're being immature" "I've got a bigger iDick than you"?

This forum is not like Digg or Slashdot where users can vote-down comments. So people either have to call out those who are making unfair comments or let the comments stand unanswered. I'd rather just see the ability to vote people "off the island" if they never have anything constructive to add.