Doom3 Mac benchmarks...

[saturnotaku]

Since OS X is Linux-based and ATI sucks at writing drivers for Linux, well, you can do the math. That said, ATI is supposedly doing the same thing for Linux that it does for Windows (monthly driver updates) so it remains to be seen just how much the drivers will improve, if at all. By extension, if they can improve their Linux support, hopefully Macs won't lag too far behind.

[BrianG]

Originally Posted by Dot50Cal

Well I guess im the only one who noticed the "superiority complex" by the news poster. It really makes nvnews look bad imo. Its well known that mac's just cant compete with PC's but why do you feel the need to add dickhead comments like "hang with the big boys now" "#of fps playable!?".

The Apple can't challenge the "big boys of gaming", ie an Athlon64 teamed with an X800XT or 6800Ultra/GT. Also, the article said 29fps was playable. I challenged that comment, by placing it in quotes alleging that it was not playable. Do you not think that some Apple users were hoping for better gaming performance?

I guess to some that the attempt at humor at the expense of the Mac Doom3 scores was a risk and could possibly be misconstrued as "dickhead comments", but "superiority complex"? Nah, just trying to entertain a little.

Try not to take this too seriously, especially when the sarcasm is targetted at a computer computer that is notorious for taking themselves too seriously.

Thanks for your feedback.

[oldsk00l]

Originally Posted by saturnotaku

Since OS X is Linux-based and ATI sucks at writing drivers for Linux, well, you can do the math. That said, ATI is supposedly doing the same thing for Linux that it does for Windows (monthly driver updates) so it remains to be seen just how much the drivers will improve, if at all. By extension, if they can improve their Linux support, hopefully Macs won't lag too far behind.

Well, you're partially right. It's FreeBSD based, however it's a Unix.

I stand by the fact that they used ATI hw to benchmark this, and it's laughable that they didn't even investigate nVidia hw performance. I am HIGHLY suspect of macworld's findings.

Drivers people! This is ATI hw we're basing this off of, not "the Mac platform"

[BrianG]

Originally Posted by oldsk00l

Well, you're partially right. It's FreeBSD based, however it's a Unix.

I stand by the fact that they used ATI hw to benchmark this, and it's laughable that they didn't even investigate nVidia hw performance. I am HIGHLY suspect of macworld's findings.

Drivers people! This is ATI hw we're basing this off of, not "the Mac platform"

Mac bundles the ATI card for testing. Shame on them, right? Still the low-res socres are really awful and the scores scale according to the resolution showing that it is not just one bottleneck (IMHO).

Said it before, I'll say it again, Apple needs to catch up in gaming performance. How many times do you see, "I have an Mac for everything but gaming." They give people an excuse to keep the evil empire in their customers' homes.

[saturnotaku]

What I would want to see is how their laptops handle gaming. I've seen the 12-inch Powerbooks have a GF FX 5200 and the 15- and 17-inch ones use the Mobility 9700. Would be nice to get a comparison, though I wouldn't be surprised if the former mopped the floor with the latter.

[Trinitron]

This makes Apple's "World Fastest Personal Computer" claim quite relative. Total ripoff!

Maybe they didn't know that you can play games on your PC.

No wonder they don't have foot in the mainstream market.

[oldsk00l]

Originally Posted by BrianG

Mac bundles the ATI card for testing. Shame on them, right? Still the low-res socres are really awful and the scores scale according to the resolution showing that it is not just one bottleneck (IMHO).

Said it before, I'll say it again, Apple needs to catch up in gaming performance. How many times do you see, "I have an Mac for everything but gaming." They give people an excuse to keep the evil empire in their customers' homes.

That's due probably to more than Apple's desire for "performance". Apple is probably in a contract agreement with ATI. Also, you make a good point in the scores scaling with resolution. This, to me, says it's not a CPU limitation if the awful scores simply get more awful with resolution.

I don't think that macworld's claim of "Doom..well just sucks on Mac" is vindicated until they take the time to benchmark nVidia hardware.

[ArchAngel432]

Doom 3 itself with a frame counter, it often stayed in ranges much higher than these numbers suggest, and the game itself is throttled to 60 frames per second -- regardless of how fast the demo runs, 60 FPS is as fast as you'd ever see the actual game go.

Am I the only one that notice they forgot to turn off v-sync?

How poor......

[JGene]

I've been reading several Mac forums about these benchmarks and I've seen more than a few people point out that general OpenGL performance on the Mac platform leaves much to be desired. Granted ATi isn't the best choice for Doom 3, but benchmarking at 640x480 should still yield very high FPS. Nonetheless when OSX 10.4 "Tiger" ships the performance is supposed to improve a bit but not by a wide margin.

I would guess that Doom 3's performance will slowly improve over the next year but I don't think it will match the same level on PCs without a strong backing from Apple. Many people (including myself) would like to see Apple push hard for the gaming market but right now they are content with the niche status. That said the very least Apple could do is revise their lineup for desktops and laptops that ship with no less than 128MB graphics memory. That would go a long way towards improving gaming performance and make it known to developers that Macintosh is serious about enticing the gaming community.

[ArchAngel432]

I've been reading several Mac forums about these benchmarks and I've seen more than a few people point out that general OpenGL performance on the Mac platform leaves much to be desired. Granted ATi isn't the best choice for Doom 3, but benchmarking at 640x480 should still yield very high FPS. Nonetheless when OSX 10.4 "Tiger" ships the performance is supposed to improve a bit but not by a wide margin.

This has nothing to do with the extra low scores.

They forgot to turn off v-sync.

MacWorld screwed the pooch.

[Nitz Walsh]

Originally Posted by ArchAngel432

Am I the only one that notice they forgot to turn off v-sync?

How poor......

They did?

ll tests were performed at "High Quality" video settings with all Advanced Options turned on (High Quality Special Effects, Enable Shadows, Enable Specular, Enable Bump Maps) except for Vertical Sync.

[nutcrackr]

Macs will never be a viable alternate to PC gaming for me, not all games good or bad are released for the mac system and if they are they are usually 6 to 12 months behind the PC version. With the added effect that now I need to spend 2k on a system that would perform similar to a PC system worth 1k why would I bother with Mac as a gaming system? I guess you could argue that you can say the same for the console v PC market but PCs have more features and advantages over their console friends than the Mac/PC comparison.