Poor Performance on COD4?

[James Bond]

My dad owns a really beefy Mac Pro with the following:
8-core 3.0GHz
4GB 800MHz DDR2 RAM
8800GT

He has never really played any games on it, but he bought COD4 the other day since it had come out for Mac. After getting it loaded, he was having a tough time playing, so I went over to my parents place to check it out and help him get configured. Turns out that with settings on medium (1600x1200, 2xAA, normal detail), he was getting around 15-25 fps. It felt like I was playing on a laptop with a 30" screen.

Is there any way to run tests to see why his performance is so lacking so badly? I could get this done on a PC, but I really have no idea where to start on his Mac.

He doesn't currently have Boot Camp loaded, so I thought that this may be a good time to get it installed and see if there is a noticeable performance gain.

 

[Kaido]

I'd try loading Boot Camp, definitely. Mac ports of 3D games are rarely good in my experience. Some of the newer ones are getting better, but really for gaming just have him use Vista SP1 with DX10.

 

[secretanchitman]

< 30fps? is he running the latest osx drivers/updates?

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

I thought COD4 was still emulated in OS X.

 

[James Bond]

Originally posted by: secretanchitman
< 30fps? is he running the latest osx drivers/updates?

Yeah, the very newest everything.

 

[James Bond]

Originally posted by: Kaido
I'd try loading Boot Camp, definitely. Mac ports of 3D games are rarely good in my experience. Some of the newer ones are getting better, but really for gaming just have him use Vista SP1 with DX10.

So if he runs boot camp will there be any performance hit? How bad?

 

[Kmax82]

Nope.. no performance hit. It's a native install, so it runs just like if you installed it on a Dell, or home built system.

 

[James Bond]

Why the hell did he wait for COD4 to come out on Mac then?

I think I'll install BootCamp, Vista Ultimate, then get TF2 loaded and see what's up

Edit: That being said - what's the best way for me to troubleshoot his MAC OS install? Something is definitely not right.

 

[Kmax82]

You could try and download Onyx ( http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11582 ), and run some of the diagnostics tests there.. or you could see if there are hardware issues, and run the Apple Hardware Test from the System Restore discs that came with the computer.

 

[AnthroAndStargate]

I hate when people suggest Bootcamp. Its not emualted, they ported it using a DX9 to Open GL layer.. its a native app.

It runs a little worse however but atleast he bough it and supported mac gaming. its annoying to have to dual boot just for gaming

 

[Kmax82]

Originally posted by: AnthroAndStargate
I hate when people suggest Bootcamp. Its not emualted, they ported it using a DX9 to Open GL layer.. its a native app.

It runs a little worse however but atleast he bough it and supported mac gaming. its annoying to have to dual boot just for gaming

I agree it's annoying to dual boot, but what's more annoying is that game companies can't do a proper port.

 

[Jack Flash]

Originally posted by: Kmax82

Originally posted by: AnthroAndStargate
I hate when people suggest Bootcamp. Its not emualted, they ported it using a DX9 to Open GL layer.. its a native app.

It runs a little worse however but atleast he bough it and supported mac gaming. its annoying to have to dual boot just for gaming

I agree it's annoying to dual boot, but what's more annoying is that game companies can't do a proper port.

Aspyr is (unfortunately?) the best porting house for Mac games.

 

[KeypoX]

das boot

 

[Kmax82]

Originally posted by: Jack Flash

Originally posted by: Kmax82

Originally posted by: AnthroAndStargate
I hate when people suggest Bootcamp. Its not emualted, they ported it using a DX9 to Open GL layer.. its a native app.

It runs a little worse however but atleast he bough it and supported mac gaming. its annoying to have to dual boot just for gaming

I agree it's annoying to dual boot, but what's more annoying is that game companies can't do a proper port.

Aspyr is (unfortunately?) the best porting house for Mac games.

It shouldn't be left up to a third party game company to do a port. This should be handled by the main dev house, I think the quality of the titles would be much higher if that was the case.

I don't really play computer games any more, so it's a moot point for me. But it'd be nice to be able to have a couple good games on OS X to play when I get bored every once in a while.

 

[James Bond]

Originally posted by: Kmax82

Originally posted by: Jack Flash

Originally posted by: Kmax82

Originally posted by: AnthroAndStargate
I hate when people suggest Bootcamp. Its not emualted, they ported it using a DX9 to Open GL layer.. its a native app.

It runs a little worse however but atleast he bough it and supported mac gaming. its annoying to have to dual boot just for gaming

I agree it's annoying to dual boot, but what's more annoying is that game companies can't do a proper port.

Aspyr is (unfortunately?) the best porting house for Mac games.

It shouldn't be left up to a third party game company to do a port. This should be handled by the main dev house, I think the quality of the titles would be much higher if that was the case.

I don't really play computer games any more, so it's a moot point for me. But it'd be nice to be able to have a couple good games on OS X to play when I get bored every once in a while.

I didn't realize that it was third parties doing the porting... That really is quite lame.

It will probably be annoying for him to have to dual boot, but honestly I think it will be a good learning experience. He uses Parallels, but doesn't really _use_ it.. Just knows how to open a couple apps.

 

[Jack Flash]

I think there is something wrong with his installation or system, though. My iMac with the underclocked (in OS X) Mobility 2600 XT manages no fewer than 30 fps at 1280x800 with no AA and low AF but all other details set as high as they go.

 

[James Bond]

Originally posted by: Jack Flash
I think there is something wrong with his installation or system, though. My iMac with the underclocked (in OS X) Mobility 2600 XT manages no fewer than 30 fps at 1280x800 with no AA and low AF but all other details set as high as they go.

I agree - something MUST be wrong. I'm installing Vista Ultimate tonight, and I have no doubt that it will run perfectly.

I'm so inexperienced with Mac's, though, that I don't know where or how to troubleshoot ;(

 

[AnthroAndStargate]

My MBP runs COD 4 fine in OS X so something is definitely wrong, Mac Pros should be able to run it all on high, even in OS X.