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

[fmaxwell]

- You said the registry cleaners were dubious, so I don't see what you had to do to "deal" with them: just don't install any of them.

Similar in concept to "if the chemotherapy for your cancer is making you nauseous, just stop taking it." People install registry cleaners because the system performance is degraded due to problems in the registry.

- "flaky" third-party chip manufacturer? Because Intel, AMD, or NVIDIA (the chipset manufacturers in the vast majority of motherboards, which provide software RAID) are flaky, third-party manufacturers.

Yes. Remember NVIDIA releasing video drivers that detected and cheated on benchmarks? That sounds pretty flaky to me. And what happens when you update your copy of Windows and your third-party RAID drivers break? Or you update your motherboard and suddenly your RAID isn't readable?

Oh, and I'd suggest you not go with RAID 0, especially as a Time Machine drive. If one drive in the array goes, you lose the data on both... RAID 5 ftw.

RAID 5 is not an option unless one goes for a RAID card. There is no software RAID 5. I can afford to lose my Time Machine backup and I can afford to lose my primary drive. Just not both at once.

 

[pondosinatra]

I'm sure if this happened on the iPhone it'd get fixed right away...

 

[NickK1066]

Not played a Steam game, or any game, since this has occurred.

 

[fmaxwell]

So you have owned a mac for the last two years, and you are comparing an evolved OS against against some of the crap that M$ produced in the eighties.

Why are you lying? I did no such thing. Show me any place where I compared OS X to a Microsoft OS from the 1980s.

When I switched to OS X, Microsoft Windows was Vista, and that's what I compared it to and why I switched. The fact that they still have not done away with the registry, come up with a decent backup that rivals Time Machine, come up with a decent virtual desktop manager that rivals Spaces, or come up with a decent command shell (to cite a few examples), is just validation that I made the right decision.

First of all, taking windows 7 there are some 2000 graphics cards that are compatible with the OS...Given you need a Motherboard, RAM, CPU, PSU, GPU, HD and a Optical Drive to get up and running the combinations become staggering! I give windows 7 kudos for being as stable as it is.

That's like giving some guy kudos for running fast in high heels. WTF was he wearing high heels for in the first place? I don't want a choice of 2000 video cards.

Apple on the other hand, control the hardware and software, along with the drivers, I give them little slack for a fark up that degrades gaming performance on 1/2 their systems.

Except that it doesn't. Even Valve's own web site has just a handful of posts from people who think that the update might have slowed down their gaming, and even those posters aren't reporting identical symptoms. A search for news on Google reveals like five or six English language news stories on this supposedly horrific-beyond-comprehension problem. Does that tell you anything about how widespread and/or serious the problem is?

After some 50+ bloody get a mac ads you can imagine why people have an image of why it should just work.

My Mac Pro with an NVIDIA 8800GT graphics card works fine, as does my MacBook, both of which have been updated.

Now at to it being a minor bug. Are you serious about being a developer in the IT industry?

No, I develop software that is used to test and operate satellites. We have more important things to do than worry about whether some kid's game occasionally drops frames.

Seems you have no concept of bug severity. This affects about 1/2 of the Apple systems, one of the Biggest companies in the gaming industry can come out and acknowledged the issue.

Does it cause data loss? Does it result in hardware failures? Does it cause OS crashes? Does it cause application crashes? Does it cause loss of network connectivity? Does it require unplanned reboots? Does it affect more than 1% of users? Are the applications that it affects business-critical?

No to all of the above. It's not critical.

Lets have a bet, I predict that this is a severity 1 critical bug for Apple and we will see a new patch shortly. If you are right, and it a minor bug then this will be corrected in 10.6.5

Where the fsck do you come up with these rules about how to categorize something as a major or minor bug? Apple issues multiple updates between major release cycles, often fixing insignificantly small problems. If this was so major, Apple would have pulled the 10.6.4 update down.

10.6.4 resolved an issue that caused the keyboard or trackpad to become unresponsive, so I guess the keyboard or trackpad becoming unresponsive is a "minor bug" because it was addressed in 10.6.4, rather than in a patch. You live in a strange world.

 

[fmaxwell]

It's easier to forgive Microsoft since they support such a huge variety of hardware and hardware configurations. It's a pretty big embarrasment when Apple manage to cock it up even on their own very limited range of hardware.

You seem to think that this is a major problem. It's not.

There's not widespread press about it, with around five or six news stories on Apple news web sites. There's nothing about it in Computer World. Nothing in Information Week. There are less than a dozen posts in a thread on Valve's own web site about it. The only people trying to make a big deal out of this are a bunch of trolls in Apple discussion forums.

Calling this a "pretty big embarrassment" for Apple is an absurd over-reaction. Seriously, what percentage of Apple users even run Valve games? 0.1%? 0.2%? This should be about as embarrassing for Apple as it would be for BMW if it was reported that some Lionel Richie CDs occasionally skip when played in BMW car stereos.

 

[MRU]

Calling this a "pretty big embarrassment" for Apple is an absurd over-reaction. [/B]

Actually what it is is a pretty big pain in the ass for some of us who forked out $$$ for the best graphics card a mac pro can handle.

Your paying top premium dollar, it's only fair to expect premium service.

An 'update' is generally thought to be for the betterment of your system and not to the detriment.

Sure it doesn't effect everyone, sure it will annoy other more than some, sure there will be those that over emphasis the significance. However behind all of those opinions lays the basic truth that they have released an update which is not beneficial to Nvidia Mac owners in comparison to 10.6.3. No matter where your viewpoint lies, thats a fundamental point.

Let's just hope they fix it sooner rather than later. 2-3 months until the next 10.6.5 would be too long imho. They hopefully will release a Nvidia driver update separately and correct their mistake.

 

[johnalan]

I have a Core i5 MBP with the 330M nvidia chip,

I'm also a techy kinda guy and a professional software dev so this isn't some subjective garble, my performance has HIT THE FLOOR since I applied 10.6.4, whilst I appreciate that the directX api is mature and Windows really has gaming nailed, I dont expect an update to have a negative effect on performance!

I would say a 40% drop in Frames per sec.

As others have pointed out, HOW can this get through beta testing with release notes asking testers to concentrate on graphics drivers??

This needs to be addressed immediately.
It's so amateur.

 

[parapup]

Spotlight is going to index your drive the minute you fire a new Mac up and go through all the "first boot" ****. I'm sorry to say, but you should have waited until Spotlight was done indexing before installing anything new. And it is your fault for ordering one with a slow 5400RPM drive; you know you can BTO with a 7200.

We have several pre i7 17" MBPs at work and they all work just fine running SL and VMware with only 4GB RAM. They all have 7200 drives in them also.

Your bitching when your post indicates that OS X was actually taking less RAM than Windows, so I'm not sure I believe you.

-mark

Yep - all my fault. Thanks for the insight. The bitching about it meaning OSX uses less RAM - brilliant logic! With that kind of gifted logic - who would believe anyone. Also great skill with ignoring the fact that its a memory / swapping issue after running 3 apps and Activity Monitor doesn't show CPU bottleneck but just huge memory usage (not by spotlight but by kernel_task and others). Greatest thing was that you ignored my later posts - I have owned dozens of Macs and am fairly certain Spotlight indexing doesn't cause swapping after you run 3 programs.

Thanks for trying though.

 

[star-affinity]

@fmaxwell

Since you seem to have quite some insight into the Windows world I would like to see your respons to parapup's questions.

Care to explain the problems you have had with any modern version of Windows? I would not open a dialog if you were just like the other non-techie crowd for whom it's all black and white - Windows sucks or OSX is a Toy. But since you mentioned technical merits I have to ask - like what?

(I just ditched OSX on 2 of my Macs for Windows 7 - one due to lack of TRIM support in 2010 and other due to excessive memory usage for my workload.)

I don't have deep knowledge of Windows (been a Mac guy since I was a kid in the late 80ies), but I feel Windows 7 is quite solid. It seems to me that overall things are a little more lightweight in Windows 7 compared to Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Applications start quicker, web pages load a little bit quicker and scroll smoother (scrolling is especially bad in Safari 5 on Mac OS X since Flash 10.1 if there's a Flash element on the page) and overall things seem to eat less memory.

Would be interesting to hear thoughts on this.

 

[bnumerick]

Actually what it is is a pretty big pain in the ass for some of us who forked out $$$ for the best graphics card a mac pro can handle.

Your paying top premium dollar, it's only fair to expect premium service.

An 'update' is generally thought to be for the betterment of your system and not to the detriment.

Sure it doesn't effect everyone, sure it will annoy other more than some, sure there will be those that over emphasis the significance. However behind all of those opinions lays the basic truth that they have released an update which is not beneficial to Nvidia Mac owners in comparison to 10.6.3. No matter where your viewpoint lies, thats a fundamental point.

Let's just hope they fix it sooner rather than later. 2-3 months until the next 10.6.5 would be too long imho. They hopefully will release a Nvidia driver update separately and correct their mistake.

For the third time nVidia already has an updated driver on their site for people using the 285 GTX. Go download it. I've posted the link twice in this thread already.

 

[Shintocam]

So you have owned a mac for the last two years, and you are comparing an evolved OS against against some of the crap that M$ produced in the eighties. My Advice is get over it! I am sure that certain version of 95... oww the ME version come to mind have caused psychological damage to many IT users. So if you have used OS X in the last 2 years compare it to windows 7, not the crap that was produced in the past.

You mentioned that this is a minor bug....

First of all, taking windows 7 there are some 2000 graphics cards that are compatible with the OS

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/co...Cards & Components&subcategory=Graphics Cards

Given you need a Motherboard, RAM, CPU, PSU, GPU, HD and a Optical Drive to get up and running the combinations become staggering! I give windows 7 kudos for being as stable as it is.

Apple on the other hand, control the hardware and software, along with the drivers, I give them little slack for a fark up that degrades gaming performance on 1/2 their systems. After some 50+ bloody get a mac ads you can imagine why people have an image of why it should just work.

Now at to it being a minor bug. Are you serious about being a developer in the IT industry? Seems you have no concept of bug severity. This affects about 1/2 of the Apple systems, one of the Biggest companies in the gaming industry can come out and acknowledged the issue. And you think this is minor? This is embarrassing, Apple is now getting complaints from its users and treating this as a severity 1 bug. Lets have a bet, I predict that this is a severity 1 critical bug for Apple and we will see a new patch shortly. If you are right, and it a minor bug then this will be corrected in 10.6.5

I wish there was an emoticon that showed clapping - because I would use it right here.

 

[Shintocam]

Oh for God's sake!

It's a minor issue related to an OS update that just came out. Stop being such a drama queen.

<SNIP>

That's being a drama queen!

<SNIP>

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.

Oh, okay, then I was wrong. Windows is flawless because some random forum user has not had any problems with it. And no update, whether pushed down through the web or distributed on floppy or CD, has ever resulted in a decrease in performance, reliability, or resulted in a recommendation from any vendor that one wait for a patch before upgrading.

And that's how one makes sarcasm more clear.

This should be about as embarrassing for Apple as it would be for BMW if it was reported that some Lionel Richie CDs occasionally skip when played in BMW car stereos.

Sorry fmaxwell - I actually have no issue with you personally, but to accuse others of being a drama queen while using enlarged fonts, bold type and over the top sarcasm to make your points seems somewhat hypocritical.

 

[ReallyBigFeet]

I work on my MBP, I game on my Xbox360/PS3. So.....no big issue here for me I guess.

 

[AppleRules]

Then you lack experience. I've been a computer professional since 1980, working on Windows PCs since Windows/286 and have lost count of the number of horrific problems caused by Windows updates over the years, with some rendering many PCs unbootable.

Just one example



You do realize that the speed of an OS is not measured in frames per second, don't you? Most adults are much more concerned with stability, the overall usability of the GUI, startup and shutdown times, and the speed of disk-intensive applications.

I think you're full of crap Mr. Computer professional. WTF constitutes a computer professional anyways, I've never heard of that job title.

 

[star-affinity]

I work on my MBP, I game on my Xbox360/PS3. So.....no big issue here for me I guess.

There are several game types many would agree gives a better experience to play on a computer. First person shooters, role playing games and (realtime) strategy games are the major ones. Valve makes FPS games, so...

 

[star-affinity]

I think you're full of crap Mr. Computer professional. WTF constitutes a computer professional anyways, I've never heard of that job title.

While calling oneself ”computer professional” might sound a little over the edge saying that someone is ”full of crap” just because he used that expression is definitely ”over the edge, falling down the deep dark shaft” to me. :|

 

[PeterQVenkman]

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

I boot into Windows for games and get 10-30% increase in framerates. It's not the hardware.

I'd blame nVidia, but doesn't Apple do the drivers on the mac side?

 

[fmaxwell]

Sorry fmaxwell - I actually have no issue with you personally, but to accuse others of being a drama queen while using enlarged fonts, bold type and over the top sarcasm to make your points seems somewhat hypocritical.

I just do that so people can recognize that my points have more value than ones not highlighted.

 

[BigJimmyC]

way to ***** the bed again, apple. thanks for caring about your old customer base.

 

[Black Macbook]

There's a new OS update to 10.6.4?

Personally, I don't see the need to always jump straight ahead and constantly update the OS immediately, every single time that a new version or minor update is released. 10.6.3 works fine on my machines for now, so I'm in no big rush.

I've been burned in the past when jumping into a new update without first waiting and confirming that it didn't break or ruin anything, so now I just let others be the guinea pigs. I learned my lesson a long, long time ago.

 

[JacaByte]

Huh, I'm not seeing any of these issues. If anything playing games through Steam has gotten stabler; TF2 used to crash on me all the time, and now it's rock solid.

 

[BigJimmyC]

There's a new OS update to 10.6.4?

Personally, I don't see the need to always jump straight ahead and constantly update the OS immediately, every single time that a new version or minor update is released. 10.6.3 works fine on my machines for now, so I'm in no big rush.

I've been burned in the past when jumping into a new update without first waiting and confirming that it didn't break or ruin anything, so now I just let others be the guinea pigs.

This.

Whatever happened to "It just works"?

 

[iBug2]

Just go download the new Nvidia driver update from Nvidia.

 

[fmaxwell]

Actually what it is is a pretty big pain in the ass for some of us who forked out $$$ for the best graphics card a mac pro can handle.
...
Let's just hope they fix it sooner rather than later. 2-3 months until the next 10.6.5 would be too long imho. They hopefully will release a Nvidia driver update separately and correct their mistake.

I'm not suggesting that this is a non-problem or that it's not annoying to some, and it sounds like you're a reasonable guy who is willing to give Apple a few weeks to research the problem and issue a fix. It's not like every update to Windows, Linux, OpenBSD, etc. has been without issues or performance degradations. Problems happen now and then when dealing with things as complex as modern computers and operating systems.

 

[fmaxwell]

@fmaxwell

Since you seem to have quite some insight into the Windows world I would like to see your respons to parapup's questions.

I can't speak to issues with Windows 7 beyond basic comments on the OS architecture. I dropped off in the Vista era.

The problems I have generally seen with modern versions of Windows are how well they "age." It isn't something that you see while playing with it in Best Buy. The problems crop up after you've evaluated a dozen or so shareware packages, many of which seem to leave droppings in the registry and in system directories. There are gigabytes of text on the web from people with Windows 2000/XP/Vista having problems with slow startups and shutdowns on systems that were previously much quicker. Registries get bloated and fragmented. Swap files get fragmented.

Another area that's a concern is the background tasks that constantly run in order to prevent you from stealing from Microsoft. These eat memory and CPU cycles all in order to police you, the customer.

Migration from one Windows system to another is nightmarish. Microsoft has purposely tried to keep you from doing what Time Machine enables: Painlessly moving all of your applications, settings, files, e-mail, and documents to a new computer. With a Time Machine drive, you just tell OS X installer to move everything and it works to the 99.99% level. I went from a Mac Mini to a Mac Pro and was astounded. On my Windows XP boxes, it would have been a matter of installing the OS, installing each app, configuring each app (preferences, default directories, default file types, file associations at the OS level, background colors, dictionary preferences, etc.). For some homesumer who never installs any applications, that's not so bad. For someone who has four or five columns of apps in their startup menu, it's horrible.

At the architecture level, Windows NT (the grandaddy of the current generation of Windows) tried to graft a security policy onto an unsecured OS (Windows 3.x/95) while minimizing application breakage. It was, and continues to be, a decision which has caused a lot of pain and suffering. The security policies are poorly understood by most users and many just find it easier to run as administrator all of the time.

Look, people hate me enough already, so I won't drone on longer here, but I did not choose to abandon Windows as a fashion statement or because it was "cool" to do so. I did so with a lot of trepidation and only after a lot of careful thought, study, and experimentation.