New AT quick look: Portal Performance on OSX

[Acanthus]

New AT quick look: Portal Performance on OSX

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3726/quick-look-mac-os-x-portal-performance

Half the speed and IQ problems? That is abysmal for the biggest engine coming to the platform...

If this translates to all of orange box (which it likely will, same engine) that is bad news.

I can't figure out what would cause this kind of performance hit, unless the drivers are just awful.

 

[Lonyo]

Well one problem is they only tested an NV card, which means driver problems are a very real possibility.
Testing on ATI would give an indication as to whether it was driver or engine related.

 

[Acanthus]

Yeah, im hoping they will do a more in depth review with a few more Steam titles.

 

[Bill Brasky]

At this point, it seems like poor performance is better than nothing at all.

 

[SunnyD]

Oh me oh my, 2560x1600 with 4xMSAA and 16xAF at high quality settings... only 62.3FPS. What is one to do!

Seriously? Valve has had exactly how many years to optimize the Windows version of the engine? Compared to the... what, maybe 1 year to get the Mac version going?

Regarding the IQ differences, I barely see any difference whatsoever in those images. Can we find something even more trivial to bitch about please?

 

[pcslookout]

Oh me oh my, 2560x1600 with 4xMSAA and 16xAF at high quality settings... only 62.3FPS. What is one to do!

Seriously? Valve has had exactly how many years to optimize the Windows version of the engine? Compared to the... what, maybe 1 year to get the Mac version going?

Regarding the IQ differences, I barely see any difference whatsoever in those images. Can we find something even more trivial to bitch about please?

Wow I knew I disliked you but didn't know by how much until now.

 

[pcslookout]

Anyway good review by anandtech hopefully ibooks can become an alternative gaming notebook now!

 

[Acanthus]

Oh me oh my, 2560x1600 with 4xMSAA and 16xAF at high quality settings... only 62.3FPS. What is one to do!

Seriously? Valve has had exactly how many years to optimize the Windows version of the engine? Compared to the... what, maybe 1 year to get the Mac version going?

Regarding the IQ differences, I barely see any difference whatsoever in those images. Can we find something even more trivial to bitch about please?

62.3 is not the minimum fps.

 

[Attic]

I'd rather shoot myself in the face than try and get my game on on OSX. Wonder if their will be 360 controller support or 7.1 sound, or are we going to have to pay obnoxoius amounts of money for the privelage to play how we want to with things we take for granted on the PC platform.

 

[SunnyD]

Wow I knew I disliked you but didn't know by how much until now.

Thanks, because, you know, you're even more liked around here than I am. Oh, and I care.

62.3 is not the minimum fps.

No, no it's not. However the review didn't point out whether that was maximum or hopefully average. If it's the latter, I fail to see what the complaint is. If it's the former, well that all depends on what the average is.

 

[Ryan Smith]

Thanks, because, you know, you're even more liked around here than I am. Oh, and I care.


No, no it's not. However the review didn't point out whether that was maximum or hopefully average. If it's the latter, I fail to see what the complaint is. If it's the former, well that all depends on what the average is.

It's the average.

 

[Acanthus]

Thanks, because, you know, you're even more liked around here than I am. Oh, and I care.


No, no it's not. However the review didn't point out whether that was maximum or hopefully average. If it's the latter, I fail to see what the complaint is. If it's the former, well that all depends on what the average is.

Well my main point would be it is HALF of the average FPS (which is significant in and of itself) this could indicate dipping below 30fps as well which means it is not a "smooth as butter" experience for Mac users in an engine that came out in June 2004.

I want an in depth review to see minimum frames and a mix of both AMD and nVidia cards before i call foul on OSX though. This could be garbage nvidia drivers on a single engine with a problem.

 

[TheStu]

They also tested this on a hackintosh, and not an actual mac. Not sure how it will compare if they run it on a dualbooting iMac or something, but the drivers could be at fault in that regard.

All the same, it is still good that the games are coming to OS X, it may cause other devs to port to OS X.

 

[Fox5]

Non-windows drivers are never on par with the windows drivers.
We also don't know how much effort was put into the port, it's a lot easier to kill performance in opengl than direct3d.
The IQ loss could be from some performance enhancing tricks or missing features in the nvidia drivers and not valve's source.
Or valve may not have done a native port, but just a wine or cider port.

OSX drivers are even more niche than Linux or Windows OpenGL, generally OSX does deliver the worse opengl performance out of the 3 platforms, and I think apple assumes responsibility for the drivers. It could be apple's fault.

But hey, this is an important first step, even if it's not on par with PC yet. It'd be interesting to see the tests repeated with a radeon card, from benchmarks I've seen, the latest ati linux drivers are closer to their windows counterparts in performance than the nvidia drivers.

 

[Sylvanas]

First step, good enough- but compared to windows it's a let down. I notice the lighting is noticeably not as good on Mac in OpenGL then DX on Windows, and then the textures... Oh well, perhaps this will spur on more development for multi-platform games (see my other thread, Valve, Source and Linux imminent).

 

[MrK6]

So if a console game was ported to Windows and then to Mac, it'd run at negative FPS? Interesting review, and it's nice to see Valve trying new things. However, I can't help but wish that they would have spent that time developing HL2: Episode 3 instead. Anyway, in conclusion, f*** Macs .